One single instant:

A door closed,

A blade grasped,

A drink poured,

A flame lit…



One single instant…

Four decisions…

Eight deaths…

XXXXXX

She was sitting on the bed with him.

He kissed her, told her he loved her. He told her that she wanted this. He would be with her forever, if she only did this one thing for him. She told herself that it was good, normal, the thing she really wanted.

She closed the door.

He stripped her. He stripped her of everything: her purity, her happiness, her humanity, her life. He stripped her of everything.

She was dirty, disgraced, used.

He had no more use for her.

He left.

He had lied and she had known it but she pushed it out of her mind in that instant when she closed that door. She should have left, she should have walked away. She stayed though… she closed that door.

Two months pass, she is pregnant. Her parents said she could. She went to the clinic.

They lied too. They said it was a way out. It was okay because the fetus isn’t alive.

She wasn’t actually hurting anyone.

She felt a shock in the core of her being the second they completed that murder.

She had killed her child.

She wandered through the next two weeks aimlessly.

She drank. She ate. She slept. She was running.

She couldn’t escape that dull ache her heart. There was no hiding from what she had done.

She sat in her room at 2:19 A.M.

The bottle teased her, mocked her, but seemed the best way to go.

What better way to end the pain than with pain pills?

She waited.

She closed her eyes.

One instant.

One decision.

The death of a girl and her child.

That door was laughing at her body.

XXXXXX

She was in her room, alone.

Darkness and a razor kept her company.

She remembered the screaming, the throwing, and the threats.

She grasped the blade.

It danced across her body, weaving little shapes and patterns that only she knew and understood.

What a friend this knife was! Each jab exited her. She felt energy fill her eyes and make her cry with each deeper cut. She remembered the others. They didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now. She was alone.

She looked at her wrists. They were so exposed, so weak, so defenseless. They cried out to her to destroy them, to put them out of their misery. No! It was the metal that spoke to her, told her to do it.

Metal is cold, unfeeling, and strong. She gave control to the weapon in that solitary moment when she picked it up. What happened next was inevitable.

One choice.

One moment.

One death.

That blade was laughing at her.

XXXXXX

The lights! The people! The beauty and excitement!

The glass…

The dark liquid seduced him. Its perfection, sparkle, its allure, he couldn’t’ resist.

He would have just one sip…

One glass…

Five glasses.

The night traveled on.

The guests began, quietly, to exit.

It was time to go home.

He staggered out of the building.

The alcohol lied to him.

He could go home now.

He didn’t have to wait for a ride.

It was just a quick ten-minute drive in a rural area.

It would all be okay!

***********

The boy sat in the back seat of the pickup.

It was his big night! He was turning ten years old!

His father and mother had promised him a day on the town.

They had frolicked about the city till 6:00 P.M.

Then his mom had told him something that made him involuntarily shout with joy: they’d be ending the night with a baseball game!

The game was great!

His team won, and there was even a grand slam home run!

They made their way back to the truck.

Once again he sat in the back of his dad’s pickup. He had fallen asleep. His father sighed.

His mom leaned against her husband.

He pulled out of the parking lot and began to slowly make their way out of the city.

Five minutes from home:

Headlights charged them…

A squeal of tires…

The sickening, deafening, crunch of shredding metal…

The deaths of four.

A happily married man and woman… a child, on the first day of his tenth year, cut down from a bright future…

And the man who poured the drink.

The bottle was pleased with its work.

XXXXXX



They were all friends there.

They couldn’t hurt him.

They couldn’t lie to him.

Everyone has done it at least once. It would be fun, harmless.

He flicked the lighter.

He lit that little flame.

Two months later…

It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

More…

More.

MORE!

Weed wouldn’t cut it anymore so he started crack.

His grades had dropped.

His girlfriend had left.

Even his stoner “pals” would have nothing to do with him.

Crack wouldn’t cut it so he started meth.

His life had fallen apart.

His parents kicked him out. He was living on the street in a slum. Still, he worked for his god.

It was a god that couldn’t satisfy anymore.

He had been lied to. It had lied. They all had lied.

It wasn’t about euphoria anymore, now he just needed it so as not to feel the pain of withdrawal.

His boss finally fired him.

He sat at home. Sick, feverish, out of his mind… his battle was lost.

He decided to try for one last thrill.

He took the rest of his supply at once.

More and more it poisoned his mind.

He was sobbing as his monster ate him.

It was the death of another.

That lighter mocked his corpse that day.


XXXXXX

In one instant:

Bad decisions...

Eight deaths...



It didn't have to be that way.



"See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers..."