angel antithesis [red hood]

one|kiss of judas

The thought lingered in the recesses of my mind, swelling at the back of my throat like an unshed whisper.

I wanted to watch him.

It was a thought that settled into the corners of my consciousness, dark and comforting. I had never seen him—not really. And yet, I was glad in moments like these, moments when the harsh edges of reality blurred into to the strange space between dreaming and waking.

I lay beside the cold metal desk, its edge biting into my side. Above me, the vintage lights flickered, their glow buzzing softly with an electric hum that filled the empty room. It was almost comforting, like a steady lullaby of white noise, drowning out everything else. In this symphony, I could imagine anything, think of all the things I could do in theory, but never actually bring myself to do.

My world had fallen to waste outside the prisons of my mind. I had become a passive observer, a naturalistic onlooker to life. Detached. Watching as events unfolded without my influence. I could not control who would be the first to raise their hand in class or who would be the first to throw themselves off a building.

No, I had no control over the world within the walls of my thoughts. There, everything was chaotic, unpredictable and wild. But within the sanctuary of my mind, I could control every variable. There was a twisted kind of charm in it. A place where all the chaos made sense, where I could bend the world to my will, even if it was only in the quiet of my imagination. But even within this refuge, there were consequences. Sins whispered in the shadows, and I knew that even there, God could hear.

He listened through the dreams of white noise and the screams of those who threw themselves from rooftops. He could hear my pitiful fantasies. My hollow dreams.

I knew I should stop them. I should let them go, cleanse myself of these thoughts. But they had grown dear to me, like a secret I held close, a sliver of warmth in the cold. These dreams were all I had. I craved them. When I woke, I ached to close my eyes once more, to slip back into that place where he existed.

I never knew his name. But there was a J, burned across his cheek. A scarlet brand, vivid against pale skin. I had been seeing him for what felt like years.

J.

The letter fascinated me, haunted me. What could it stand for? What had compelled him to brand himself? Why had he chosen to bear such a scar, to brand himself with that symbol?

I wondered what my father would say if there was a burned J upon my own face. Would he care? Would he look at me with those same vacant eyes, the way he always did, or would the sight of that scar shock him into feeling something?

I traced the letter onto my arm, the tip of a red marker dragging across my skin in a careful curve. It was a fragile connection, but it was something. If I were ever to meet this boy, we would be bound by that scarlet J, as if fate had tied us together with a single letter.

J.

Maybe it was the start of his name. John. Jacob. Those were names from the Bible, weren't they? Maybe he was religious.

There was something about the idea that captivated me. Religion.

J.

Jesus?

It fits, in a strange, disjointed way. Perhaps he bore the mark as a kind of repentance, an offering to God. I could understand that. Repentance was familiar to me, the notion of suffering to cleanse oneself of sin. It made sense, even if nothing else did.

I pressed the marker down harder, feeling it drag against my wrist, the ink smudging, staining my skin. The marker was faulty; the ink spilled from the tip, running down my fingers in thin, crimson lines, seeping into the beige of my coat. The coat used to be white, I thought—clean and pure, like I had once been. I'd bought it for twenty-five dollars, an impulsive purchase. Twenty-five. Twenty-five days I had been here, trapped within these walls, disconnected from the world outside. Twenty-five days since I had felt warmth on my skin or the sting of wind against my face.