Author Games: Ace of Spades

Finals: Aoife Callahan

"You're looking for St. Brendan's parish?"

A  few idiots of my acquaintance once told me that hell was a place where  God punished you for your evil. They told me with utter certainty that  He would strike down the wicked, tearing them from their places of might  and making them lower than the dust of the earth.

Even  after I had made off with their money (apparently their faith didn't  prohibit drunken gambling,) I laughed to myself for months at their  earnest faces, so desperate to convince me of a nightmare. Their money  had gone to whiskey and a cheap motel room that held me for a month  before I moved to the next town.

My mother  and brother would have disapproved. Perhaps that's what made me smile  the most at the feeling of purloined leather in my fingers.

I  had been tempted to visit the town again, just to see if the idiots  were gullible enough to part with more money. There was a good chance  they wouldn't remember my face, the details of our last encounter hidden  in the fog of alcohol. Nonetheless, I had concluded that another risk  wouldn't be sensible, not when there were so many other Americans with  more money than brains. I was nothing if not sensible.

"Indeed I am, dear. On the corner of Myrtle Street and Rosemary Lane. You know it?"The  cabbie grinned at me. His hair was dark and neatly cut, and his teeth  were very white; I had a strange urge to smile back at him.

"Know  it? Why, that's the place that held me mam's funeral two year's back.  Shouldn't be ten minutes." I nodded graciously, and he turned his focus  to the road, pulling away from the sidewalk with practiced ease.

He  had a bright Dublin accent. I gave into my urge to smile at the gentle  cadence of consonants after so many years in the United States. The sky  was overcast, but not yet raining; I had the sudden urge to lean my head  back against the filthy headrest of the cab and nap, despite the  precious envelope in my hands.

"Tell me, ma'am, why would you be going to that place on a day like this? Are you planning on meeting someone?"

I  considered saying "God," just to be facetious. Instead, I deflected the  question. "Time was, a woman could go to church without having her  motives questioned, dear. Has Dublin truly changed that much in less  than half a century?"

The cabbie frowned at  me in the mirror. "You're Irish? I wouldn't have guessed from your  accent. How long have you been abroad, if you don't mind me asking?"

I didn't reply for a moment, choosing to adjust my cardigan and order my emotions.

"Too long, it would seem."

It's  hard to notice changes within oneself, especially the slow ones. I had  needed a year and a half before I realized my accent sounded more like  the anchorwoman's than my mother's. I had cried at the epiphany, the  first time I had wept -since I ran through carpeted halls- in a long time.

I  told myself that shelling out a thousand dollars for a plane ticket  that very week didn't reek of desperation. Another lie. I told myself  more of those every day.

The cabbie was talking. I pretended I had been listening all along.

"—the  stained-glass windows were my favorite, you know. If you were there,  you'd remember that one of the Angel Gabriel appearing to the Holy  Mother. When me mam dragged me there, I couldn't bear sitting through  the sermons without just looking at that angel, at least once. Made the  whole experience bearable, and I'd say I wasn't the only one who felt  that way."

I grinned at his words. "You had trouble with the sermons as well?"

"It  depended on the priest, mostly," he replied with another grin.  "Flanagan liked the sound of his own voice, but Callahan was all right.  Terrible shame about him, really."

Innocent, sympathetic words in a neutral tone. Still, my heart froze even as warm words flowed from a practiced tongue.

"A shame? What's a shame, dear? Has something happened to him?"

The  cabbie shook his head, pulling to a stop at a red light. "More like he  happened to something, ma'am. You didn't hear about the embezzlement  scandal, a few years back? It was major news in the city for a while.  The news networks had a field day with the story: an inner-city man o'  the cloth stealing money from his own parish. The archbishop was  apoplectic."

The light changed. The cab began to move. I had forgotten how to breathe.

A  clarification: they were not idiots because they believed in hell.  Everyone believes in hell, even if they won't admit it to themselves.  However, hell is no pit of flames, where the proud are foiled and their  plans come to ruin. No God commands a demon that comes to feast on human  flesh forever. No, hell is a mountain.  Hell is scrambling eagerly up the slopes, desperate to reach to top for  the sake of empty pride. Hell is lying and stealing from your  companions, leaving them helpless in the night as you strive ever  higher, turning your face away from the corpses you leave behind. Hell  is surrendering to the desire to reach the summit and ignoring what you  have left behind on the slopes.

Hell is  reaching the summit and shouting with joy at the victory. As the echoes  of the cry fade away, it's realizing that the air is too thin and  bitingly cold. It's remembering that the valley is warm, rich with food  and water, even if the view seems poor. It's searching for a path down,  only to discover that the last of the rope went to your ascent, and that  the other climbers might have saved you if you hadn't shoved them down  on the quest for victory. It's knowing that no one besides yourself  condemned you to the peak, that you labored long to reach it and fought  like a rabid dog to be the only one there.

Hell is freezing alone for the sake of a view.

The cab pulled up to the church.

"No. I changed my mind. Take me somewhere else. A bar. Somewhere I can find a decent drink." And foolish drinkers.

The cabbie looked back at me. "Are you sure, ma'am? Is something wrong?"

I  looked at the envelope. A check, made out to the church, with all my  remaining winnings. A gift for the one person I had been sure was good.  Atonement.

I tore it in half and tucked it into my purse.

"Wrong? Oh no. Nothing's wrong at all."