Thawed Propitiation

When I was alive I hated waiting and now I hate it even more. Every morning we line up, dozens of us, and the gatekeeper with a short blonde bob and a penchant for snapping her gum at the exact same time as clicking her pen looks us up and down. She never said anything directly to us, but we all felt the shame when the giant orb of swirling white and silver light eventually morphed into glowing either yellow or red. She stood next to the glowing vortex, at a podium in between two giant trees. Rolling green hills and a large expanse of bright blue water stretched as far as the eye could see. I wasn’t sure if I kept walking if I would get to the end eventually, or if I would end up back here. I suspected the latter.

“Next!” The gatekeeper shouted, glancing down at her list of names, when the glowing orb of light slowly turned yellow. A young fit man covered in tattoos was at the front of the line, and he began to shake with anger, fists clenched, but by this point had learned his outbursts were pointless. He sulked off to his cabin overseeing the lake, among hundreds of other cabins that looked exactly the same. I don’t understand why whoever ‘they’ are think that purgatory should be the same for everyone. The scenery just doesn’t do it for me.

When I was a little boy my mom tried as hard as she could to force me into boy scouts, football, soccer, anything to make me seem normal. But I wanted to play Barbie’s with the girls down the street. Or ice skate with them on the frozen pond in the winter. I got better than them eventually, until one day my mother came to pick me up early and caught me doing a flying spin while wearing my friend’s tutu. My stomach dropped when I finished the spin and finally noticed her car. She didn’t say a word to me about it, and she didn’t have to. I never went skating again.

Even when I was old enough to move out, become comfortable with myself, and get a stable job, I wouldn’t step foot on the ice. But my boyfriend James and I loved watching the winter Olympics together, and figure skating was still my favorite sport. Despite how fit and lean I have always been, James used to joke that he couldn’t imagine me doing any kind of vigorous physical activity. He would laugh as I pouted for attention, then pull me closer to him and kiss the top of my head. I wonder how he felt when they found my body.

I had only ever seen one person move into the green light. She was an older woman, who apparently used to cause problems for the others, but over time grew calm. The story goes that the first time the orb turned red during her turn at the podium she grabbed the gatekeeper’s book and started ripping it to pieces, screaming at the top of her lungs, insisting that she had been a disciple of God her whole life. When I saw her last, the image couldn’t possibly have been further from that. She was serene. She didn’t seem to care what color the orb turned. And when the glowing orb of light did turn green, she passed through without so much as a smile or wave, her long white flowing hair the last to disappear behind her body.

The line inched forward, as one person after another received either a yellow or red light. I always thought there was supposed to be a white light at the end of the tunnel. For me it was just darkness, until suddenly I woke up laying in a bed, as weightless as a cloud, blinded by the sun’s glittering rays bouncing off of the water through my window and directly into my eyes. Every time I woke up, for weeks, or maybe months, or maybe years (time doesn’t work the same here) I would call for James until seconds later I remembered. A visceral gut reaction before my brain caught up with reality. The sickening feeling of remembering what happened and that my life would never be the same. The same feeling I had all those drunken nights turned to mornings when I woke up ashamed and wishing whatever I had done hadn’t really happened. But this was worse. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t hide from it. This was permanent.

I never should have walked into that bar. James and I had fought over the fact that I had been hiding credit card debt. I was furious that he had snooped through my computer and he was upset that I had been lying. I pretended to be indignantly angry and slammed the door as I walked out of our high-rise apartment, but really I needed to get away from the pity I saw in his eyes. I hailed a cab and got dropped off at the first dive bar I saw that was far enough away from our place so that James wouldn’t find me. I immediately ordered and gulped down two dirty martinis until I felt relaxed enough that I could actually drink and think in peace. Eventually I got so drunk and realized that I had no money that I started hitting on men in the bar for more drinks. One of them obliged, and after hours of flirty laughs, and the bartenders turning the lights on and shouting that last call was over an hour ago, he asked me to come with him to the alley outside. He pulled out a flask from his jeans and winked at me. I didn’t want to, but I felt that I owed him, and I could use one more drink before I went home.

We went to the back and he passed me the flask. I took a huge gulp and made a joke that my boyfriend would be smelling vodka coming out of my pores for weeks after this. I wanted to make sure he knew I was taken. I was a bit of a flirt, but I wasn’t a cheat. When I passed the flask back to him, he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t drink from it. I started to feel kind of sick, and a little dizzy. I needed to go home. I began to mumble an excuse to leave and was shocked when he rammed my face up against the dirty brick so hard that my two front teeth cut through my lip and blood pooled in my mouth. I tried to turn around but couldn’t, his muscular arm pushing my face against the wall and the other grabbing both of my arms behind me. I heard more voices. “You got him?” Another voice said, excitement and curiosity mixed with a dark violent coldness that I had never heard before. “Yup,” the man holding me said proudly, calling me slurs and laughing with what I realized now were multiple men behind me. I couldn’t move my head and I couldn’t see any of them. A tear trickled down my face as my heart raced. I never should have left the apartment. James. I whispered his name as they goaded me and began having their turns with me.

I remember that it was painful, and that I was afraid, but I was outside of my body, watching. I couldn’t understand why it was happening, and I didn’t really feel any of it. When the knife slid into my back, it felt like my skin was butter. I felt the movement of the blade back and forth, back and forth, and could feel the warm liquid flowing down my side, but it didn’t seem real. The last thing I remember is collapsing in my own blood, willing myself to keep my eyes open, as boots shuffled and a zipper was pulled up, and the laughter of the men faded away at the same time as I did.

The line shuffled forward. I’ve replayed that night so many times in my mind that at this point, it’s not what bothers me. I know that I didn’t deserve that. What bothers me was all of the opportunities that I had not pursued. All of the love that I had withheld. The times when I wanted to pull James close, inhale his sweet musky scent, and kiss his face instead of storming out in a fit of false anger. I wish I said I love you more. I hope he knows that I did love him.

What bothers me is all of the hours I put into my accounting job, just waiting every day to get out and get a martini for happy hour. Living 99% of my life for a paycheck to spend 1% of it the way I wanted. Not visiting my mother when she got sick. Not saying sorry to those who I had wronged and not pursuing my dreams because it was too scary. I regret that I didn’t let myself go back and skate on that frozen pond with my friends, that the shame of being gay stripped me of my ability to enjoy being young. I knew that I wasn’t one of the lucky ones. I was a freak. I’d been told that my whole life, and eventually I believed it.

And now my life was gone, and I was yet again waiting, stuck between time and space, not knowing where or who I was, waiting for a glowing orb to tell me my future. If I could go back, I would. I would make so many different decisions, including the first time I picked up a glass of vodka and chugged it to forget the day my mother told me she would never be proud of me. I would have danced and sung and figure skated and made love to James the way I wished I could, the way I had the possibility to, but never let myself.

The gatekeeper cracked her gum and smacked her pen against the side of the podium, bringing me back to purgatory. She didn’t look at me, but it was my turn. I don’t even remember getting to the front of the line. The gatekeeper sighed as the silvery smooth wisps dove around one another, faster and faster, until the color began to glow yellow. “Next!” She shouted.

But I didn’t move. I stared at the glowing orb, the yellow light pulsing and swirling, something hidden on the other side. What was it? I hated waiting. I’d been waiting for the green light my entire life, to finally live the way I wanted. I’m not waiting for a green light to finally move on from here. I stepped forward and walked towards the swirling yellow vortex, the pain of the past lifting off of me like dew in the sunlight, ruminating thoughts blurring into nothingness, my body lifting and sinking all at once. The gatekeeper watched me walk into the yellow light, my flesh slowly disintegrating into atoms and my mind into peace. “Next!” she shouted. But this time she smiled.