Breathe

  BREATHE (2AM)

  CJ KROSS

  August 2012

  He sat on the edge of the bleachers and did his homework with due diligence. He sat in the gymnasium of his high school. Most of his peers practiced basketball. They lived in a state which valued basketball. They played basketball before the school year started though they did it under the guise of basketball camps. Every other state had soccer and volley ball try outs. This state was already beyond the conditioning phase of practice for a sport that did not start for another couple of months. Those who were not committed to the sport were dissuaded and did not try out because they wanted to have their whole summer. For those who tried out, basketball was everything in their world. He wore an ugly short sleeve collared twill blend shirt that zipped from the sternum up to his Adam’s apple but he only zipped it half way. He wore black pants, white socks and Nike basketball shoes which in any other setting would be a fashion no-no but at this particular school, with a particular dress code, this was fashionable allowed most of the time. His hair was cut short on top and buzzed on the sides. He used a lot of gel and kept it wet and kept a couple strands in the front stuck up in the front. He applied extra gel and weighed his cowlick down in the back. The air had a stale salty summer sweaty teenage boy smell because the gym lacked proper ventilation for such teenage boys who practiced basketball. A hint of sweaty gyms sock and stale cheese doodles was mixed into the air. It only seemed common place for anyone who frequents a high school basketball court during basketball season.

  He gave the impression that he cared about his homework. However, he was deep in his own thoughts with his chewed on pencil in his hand. The pencil was directed toward the paper, but gave the impression he did his homework. However, he doodled.

  “They are so hypocritical,” he thought. “If only they saw beyond the superficial things and they did not make me feel like I had to try so hard to become accepted by them. I’m not considered as good as them and for what? I’m a decent guy, and I look good… I have the same moral standards as they have… I’m a perfect gentleman. I hold the door for women and let them have my seat if there is none available to them. I work just as hard as everyone else does at what I do. Even in basketball, I’m pretty good… even though I only play on the junior varsity team. I pray to the same God they do and I am as studious as anybody is when it comes to the Bible. I know things when it comes to the Bible and I can recite them well. I just don’t get it.

  “C’mon Jeff. Do it right,” the coach said. He yelled everything and interrupted anyone who may be deep in thought or studying. “See the floor Jeff. Run the play through, look for the open man and see the floor. If a play doesn’t develop, kick the ball back to the top and run it again. Just like I’ve said before, practice doesn’t make perfect and it doesn’t make you better. Perfect practice makes perfect and if you don’t do it right, as the point guard, the rest of the team can’t do it right. Give me a suicide, Jeff, and if you don’t do it under sixty seconds the whole team runs a suicide.” He ended his lecture with a whistle blow as everyone watched Jeff run his suicide drill. “Heh,” he laughed out loud. He continued with his thoughts, “Perfect practice makes perfect. We’re all on the same playing field when it comes to perfection, because none of us is perfect. Yet, everyone looks at me as if I am different. They won’t accept me. I don’t know what to do. Will I ever have any true friends who understand me and accept me for who I am? I have a lot of acquaintances, some, whom I can count on more than others, but none who fulfils the criteria of a true friend. “Joanna always tells me that even if I don’t think that anyone is my friend that Jesus is my friend. Yes, Jesus is my friend. Jesus is my only friend. That makes me think of the Apostle Paul. Paul said in Philippians 1:21, ‘to live is Christ, but to die is gain, yet what I shall choose I do not know.’ It’s the way I feel. To live is Christ but to die is gain. Because I know if I die, I’ll be with Him. Since He is my only friend and Joanna says that I shouldn’t complain. Then why shouldn’t I be with Him? Surely, I wouldn’t complain then if I were in heaven, would I? Oh, I’m so lonely God, I need friends, but since these Christians are too good for me then I want to die. God I need to die, just take me now… take me from this world. God, Christians make me so angry. They have killed my spirit. In addition, they have killed my body. If it weren’t for them, I would have the will to live. I don’t even want to live because of them. They have killed my spirit thus killing me. ‘Thou shalt not kill it…’ it says that right in Exodus. Yet, they have killed me, God. You’re word clearly says to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. God, whatever I do it’s for You. It’s for their good anyway. “They can’t kill again if there life is taken. It’s just capital punishment. Yet, I can’t allow them to live a life and never have experienced true love. A love that I know that I can show them and a love that they need to know I can show them. I can show them true love! “See God, I have had my eye on Kara. She’s gorgeous and she’s nice. She’s the one for me, God. It’s too bad she doesn’t know it yet but I will tell her. Okay, I have loved before, but they did not work out. They wouldn’t feel the same kind of love that I felt for them so I had to end it since they couldn’t see my love pouring out for them. They couldn’t see that I really wanted the best for them. Then I realized that by ending it, that was a better option for everyone. “But, God, Kara is so different. She’s the one for sure. She’s working today. I’ll go see her at work. I’ll let her know how I feel and she’ll feel a love like she’s never known before. I know she will. She’s never felt the way she’s going to feel tonight. I just know it. Oh, but God, I can’t take another rejection. I know it will happen because I’m too good for her. She doesn’t deserve any of my love but I’m going to try to give it to her anyway. “God, she’s so incredibly beautiful. Her gray eyes and her glorious brown curled hair that accents her face of innocence. She’s the one for me. She has to be. I’ve had my eye on her. I have to see her at the mall today God. Oh, I just have to see her.

  “Hey, man… hey,” someone said. The words disrupted him from his lackadaisical state of mind.

  “Huh? Hey what’s up?” he asked, startled to real time.

  “Hey, you wanna go with us, we’re going to Dan’s house to get something to eat. Do you wanna go?” Jeff asked.

  “Naw, man, I’ve gotta go over to the mall to run an errand. But thanks for the offer, anyway.”

  “Why’d you wait so long if you weren’t going to do something with us? Man, you’re such a weirdo.”

  “Sorry, it just came up.” He stood up to his full, lanky height of 6 feet tall. He stood for a second, then stretched, and picked up his book bag. He put his homework away. He yawned and then headed toward the gymnasiums exit. It was very bright outside so he squinted as he walked towards his car, which was backed into its spot along the wooded lot that bordered the schools property.

  He unlocked the door, turned the engine on, and put the air conditioning on full blast. He turned his radio up loud. He exited the school parking lot. It was his favourite song. It described his emotions. How nobody knew him and nobody would know him. He knew that even if he could prove his love the way he knew it, Kara would only now learn about him and would not understand him. It’s not like she had a secret crush on him. He had the crush on her and she had no clue that he or his emotions existed. It might appear awkward to him and to Kara. If she found out he liked her, and turned him down it would humiliate him. She might know something about him or find out about him from her friends, whether true or imagined. And they would say things about him that would be all prejudice statements just because they thought they knew who he was. It was not that she knew him personally, but as far as he was concerned, in the end it did not matter how he felt about her anyway, so he figured he would go all the
way and reach for the stars. He wanted her to feel the way he felt about her from the beginning and especially since no one else gave him the chance, he had nothing to lose. His emotions raged inside him. He was sad for himself because of the current rejection from his peers. Yet, he was confident in himself as a person who was normal and had something to offer other people. And he knew if he was right in the way of his thought processes and he knew women should respect him more as a person then things would be much better.

  To the girls of his school, he followed them around. It was coincidental because the ratio of girls to boys at his school was 4-1. The odds were in his favour to be always around a girl, whether a cognitive choice or not.

  He never talked to any of the girls on the girls’ basketball team; he looked. He felt very shy around them despite his confidence but he was blind to his own shyness. He would say “hi” but he would not say anything else and blamed them because they were too stuck up.

  He put up a personal front of confidence. Inside he was insecure and hurt. He was angry and bitter towards people in his school. They looked down on him as less of a person than them. He didn’t exist to them and he became him bitter. That was his downfall and his weakness. His bitterness fuelled his low self esteem and he looked down on himself as a person, despite of his front of confidence.

  He raged and hurt. The hurt was understandable but the rage his mismanagement of how he dealt with the hurt. The hurt was in conflict with his confidence which made the hurt much stronger. His veins were made of glass and in his anger pulsated through his veins. The glass escaped his body. In his mind, the physical pain excruciated but better than the physical toll he allowed.

  In his hurt and in his rage, he drove to the mall followed through with what he set in his mind. He expressed his affection towards Kara and there was nothing else on his mind at this juncture and nothing would stop him until he had completed his personal mission.

  He did the will of God. He followed God’s will to the end. He was true Acolyte.

  This is the beginning of the story of his mission and the resounding impact it had for a long time for what was about to follow changed many lives far beyond his own.

  Chapter One

  Suburban Atlanta tucked in for the night. They watched Braves in bottom of the seventh inning. The fans prayed the thunderheads would hold off a little longer. Deep into Gwinnet County, people did not worry. Not like they did in DeKalb and Fulton County. Not like they did further south towards Macon.

  Kara Foster held no exceptions. Private school. Dad worked hard so mom was always home. Popular. Athletic. Pretty. She did not cut her hair. She did not use make up. She did not have to use lotions or moisturizers. She came out of the box beautiful. She had no worries in her life. She did not work hard for anything. Everything she asked for she received. All she worried about was breathing. She did not think about it. It came with no effort.

  Kara approached a bank of doors and glanced back. The mall was empty except the smell of movie theater butter and Taylor Swift’s voice sang about short skirts and tee shirts.

  Kara leaned her into the door of the first set, and pulled her bags through. She pushed harder through the second set because of a suction created from the outside. She pressed her way through the door and the last push of summer heat blasted her.

  Four guys came towards the doors and she let it go. “Movie theater still open?” one of them asked.

  “I do not know, I think so. Smells like it,” she said. She continued her march towards her car.

  Kara brushed her kinky brown hair behind her left ear, and bit her lower lip. She shuffled through the soft-lit parking lot. She spotted the family minivan all alone.

  Her eyes darted to a lineup of old unused pay phoneless booths, and increased her pace. Beyond the undeveloped lot, came the faint sound of the 10 o’clock train. It ran late per usual.

  The August Atlanta air was thick with moisture. Kara noticed balls of perspiration formed on the small of her back, and from temple to temple across forehead.

  A cool breeze blew Kara’s curls from her face. The pit in her stomach, an accurate barometer, indicated a thunderstorm brewed. The sweet smell assailed her nostrils confirmed it. Pollen and dust burned her sinuses.

  Another westward gust chilled Kara. She glanced and the reflection of city lights off the cumulonimbus clouds. The clouds slid in and covered the starry sky. “Breathe.” She talked her way through her childhood fear.

  Her feet smoldered. The car seemed no closer.

  Kara retrieved her keys and pressed the blue button on the grey fob. The lights flashed once and the engine started and idled. A cool blast beckoned. She mashed the blue button the locks popped and the lights flashed. Nearer she pushed yet another button and it opened the sliding door on the driver side of the van so she could throw her gym bag and purse into the back of the van, hop into the front, and be on her way home.

  The door slid open, the radio blared. It filled the parking lot with the sound “Toes”. “Toes” faded into “Hey, White Liar”.

  “Finally”, she sighed. She lobbed her sports bag.

  The storm ensued, sucked wind inward towards it, and strengthened it. The wind gathered with it, dust, attached box elder leaves and paper bags, which resembled a postmodern tumble weed. The paper bag rambled through the empty mall parking lot. The bag made a few stops before its final place of rest underneath the rear, passenger side tire of the one vehicle that remained.

  The vehicle belonged to Kara Foster’s parents. Kara used it while her car remained in the shop.

  Kara’s diamond blue eyes were winced shut. The intensity of post virgin pain flashed like a bright light across her vision. Her supple flesh was torn and her body lay limp.

  “Breathe,” she whispered and she coached herself into survival.

  Scared and in pain, Kara grit her teeth and crumpled her eyes shut. The beat of the rain against the asphalt drowned Kara’s whimper. The leaves wrestled in the box elder trees and drowned her cries.

  He had redressed himself. Like a Mantoux test, it ended before it started.

  He released the shoulder harness, and let Kara’s weakened arms fall free. He let the strap go so he could adjust it. The Acolyte pulled the seat belt and wrapped it around Kara’s throat. He pulled it tight. He asphyxiated Kara.

  He pulled tight.

  She whispered a cack. Her eyes bugged out and her tongue revolted from her mouth.

  He stopped.

  She honked and her esophagus opened. She inhaled a raspy cough.

  He pulled tight again.

  Gulk. An involuntary tear spurted from her right eye. Her eyes burned red.

  Release.

  Gack. She barked like a retriever. Her head ached and spun.

  He toyed with her for a few minutes more. Please, kill me and release me from my agony.

  Like purgatory did not know if she would live or die. She prayed either one or the other would happen.

  He let go of the seatbelt and let Kara hang, and strangle herself under her own weight. Her mouth left open, a gaping hole.

  She cackled. Breathe, Kara, breathe.

  He gave her hope and lifted her head. He eased the strain so she could breathe again.

  He became bored and he toyed with her so he let go one last time so Kara could slip into eternity.

  Kara lifted her head and gasped but each breath would tighten the seat belt like a boa constrictor.

  Survival. The prominent thought in Kara’s head but her will for life could never be enough.

  Thunder struck and another flash of lightning followed. The rain did not relent and the floodgates opened.

  Kara’s neck hung on the seatbelt and her body lay in state. Kara wheezed. Her bare chest rose in and out in a desperate attempt for oxygen.

  Perched, the assailant watched like a vulture. He poked his finger at her naked body for a reaction but he did not get one.

  Lightning flashed again but there was little time between th
e flash and the crack of the thunder.

  Like the lightening, the Acolyte crashed to the ground.

  Confused, he looked back into the van. He stood and brushed the gravel from his pants and removed the pebbles implanted in his palms.

  His eyes adjusted. A shadowy lump of Kara splayed in the van. On the ground, next the van was mass of clothing. His eyes adjusted further. There was a person in the pile of clothes.

  “What?” he said. He had not calculated this. Should he stay and fight or run away? He had not finished his job. What if he was defeated? No time. No thoughts. His intruder ran towards him. He reacted and jabbed his fists. He made contact with flesh and clothe.

  The inseam of Kara’s body throbbed. She wheezed. Her vision tunneled.

  Kara pushed herself up, but the seatbelt constricted more. She pulled her knees close to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  She tilted her head and the rain sprayed in her eyes. She peered through her hair and noticed two people. One was her assailant but who was the other? Did she hallucinate?

  She lost them. Her vision dimmed. This was it.

  A few feet separated the two figures. It took awhile for both to regain composure. They heaved fists and they both fell on the ground again.

  Must survive, she thought.

  Gulk. She tried to breathe.

  She struggled for footing but she could not find traction. Her knees stung with the pain, which came from a hamburger grinder.