The Curse of Being Eddie G. II

By Eddie G.

I awoke to find myself in the Cathedral of Shattered Emotions, not knowing how I had initially ended up there. Typical. I never had full grasp on where I was heading anyway, which made it all the more amusing whenever I would try to remember which tavern I was at the night before. The sunlight filtered through the stained glass of the Cathedral window, casting my face as the backdrop of a prismatic spray. I closed my eyes as I allowed the technicolour sunshine to warm my face. I knew full well I had a reputation for sleeping in church, but this must surely take the cake.

All around me I heard hushed whispers and distressed weeping. Not uncommon in church, if you ask me. No confession would be complete without a good amount of self-effacing. Still I kept my eyes closed; let them think that they're closed in reverential reflecting; let them realize that I'm holier than they are because I've got nothing to mourn about.

Nothing, save for myself.

I awoke to find myself in the Cathedral of Shattered Emotions, not knowing how I had initially ended up there. Typical. I figured to myself that it was probably noon. No longer was the sun glaring at my pathetic existence through the stained glassed; the masonry of the Cathedral ceiling saved me that discomfort. The whispering and weeping had ceased, not that it really mattered. I allowed my gaze to wander across the elaborate strip tiles of the ceiling, occasionally coming to rest on the odd gargoyle statues that glared nonchalently back at me.

"You awaken, child," one of them had said. "You were not supposed to."

"You should talk," I shot back.

"True, true," it had said. "Go back to sleep then, and so shall I."

I awoke to find myself in the Cathedral of Shattered Emotions, not knowing how I had initially ended up there. Typical. The sun was already about to set, and it filled my heart with trepidation. Perhaps it wasn't the dark that I feared, but rather the cold, irrefutable truth that lurked within. I raised myself up on my elbows. Pathetic. After so many hours of sleep and still so weak. The silk interior of my casket lured me return to where I was.

No. Not this time.

As I got out of the casket, I took slow deliberate steps across the Cathedral and stalked out of the great double doors. A crowd of mourners looked up at me, and screamed.

"Hark! The Necromancer has raised himself!" cried one of them. Chaos and pandemonium pervaded the very last fibre of each and every of their being.

I grabbed the one who had cried out by the collar and pulled him closer.

"Hypocrite!" I hissed, "didn't your Lord raise Himself after the Third Day?"

"Do not blaspheme my Lord, Necromancer! Only He has the power over life and death!"

"Fool!" I cried, tossing him aside like a sack of potatoes, "we all have the power over our own lives... and our own deaths. Now I choose to live, just like how I had chosen... to die."

The one who had cried out rose to his feet to catch up with the rest of the panicking crowd. Good riddance to them. I never liked the roses anyway. One by one, they disappeared into the horizon.

But she remained.

"Why do you do this to yourself, Edwin?"

I swept past her, my burial clothes trailing in my wake, a makeshift of the iridescent black cloaks that we Necromancers would wear.

"Answer me!" she cried, "Why do you do this to yourself?"

I turned briefly to face her.

"Because I want to."

I returned into the Cathedral of Shattered Emotions, walked up to the casket in which I once had lain, and closed it.

After a moment's worth of deliberation, I opened it again. I might need it again one day. Through it all, her voice rang clear and strong.

"Why do you do this to yourself?"

There was one thing left for me to do. I shuffled painfully to the confession box.

"Why do you do this to yourself?"

Closing the door behind me, hearing her voice being drowned out by the overwhelming silence, I knelt.

"Father, forgive me, for I have sinned."

"Repentance is the key to redemption, my son. How is it that you have sinned?"

I awoke to find myself in my own casket of a bed, in my own Cathedral of a room. And this time, gazing out of the stained glass of my tears, I knew how I ended up here.

"I still love her..."