Set to Burn Jasmine

Owens

I remember the day that he first showed up. The clock had its little arm on the eleven and the longer arm drifted past the five. I was late to church service, as usual, and in my rush, I ducked into the very back pew. I stared dully at the back of people’s heads…though, the chapel was always scantly occupied, and I never thought to look too hard. I pushed my legs out in front of me, stifling a yawn. I almost choked when I saw him. He was sitting just two pews in front of me, wearing a starched blue shirt. My eyes fixated on his unfamiliar dark-haired head for the rest of the sermon. Up until the closing hymn, I buzzed with strange excitement, eager for him toturn and let me see the rest of him.

Infact, I was watching him the way I should have been watching God.

§§§

The light is dim in the hallway. A green tint flows from the rusty exit light in the back. It sends strips of unholy light through his hair; I chase it with my fingers. We watch the light refract and ebb over each other’s skin.

§§§

My decision had been made. Now it was time to reconcile. I turned the handle to the door, stopping its revolution to press my forehead into the cool metal, painted red a long time ago and chipped away at, at a time closer to now. It must be done, I reasoned with myself, and I swung it open. It swung hard enough to smack the outside wall. I heard pieces of stucco fall to the sidewalk. As the evening dialed back into night, the church would be empty and so we chose this time to meet.

“Hey,” A soft voice murmured from inside. I let go of the door and closed it behind me, cutting off the raw February air.

Rather than flicking the light switch, I allowed my eyes to adjust to the dark and waited for his shape to develop like a polaroid photograph.

“Hey,” I replied. My lungs felt squeezed. It was a labor to talk. Even to him.

Especially to him.

“What did you want to talk about, Jodie?”

“You already know,” I said.

He heaved a heavy sigh and rose from the couch, making the cushions shift. He crossed the distance to the doorway where I stood.

“You’re leaving, then,”

“I am,” I replied tersely, jolting when he grabbed my arms with his clammy, cold hands. I could feel them even through the fabric of my sleeves. His fingers weren’t as strong as I remembered them to be before. He guided me towards him and rested his forehead against mine.

“I know you know that there’s something wrong,” he whispered. “But joining them isn’t the way to save the world,”

“Then what would you suggest?” I demanded. “I can’t hide and pray anymore!”

A look of bitter disgust washed across his face. There was debate behind his eyes; whether to leave me be or take me away somewhere.

“Have you not learned a thing in the sermons?” He asked finally. “Is it all going in one ear and out the other?”

I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against his. When I leaned away, I touched him lightly over his chest. My fingers grazed the pearly white buttons on his collared shirt. “How could I ever focus when there’s that?” His mouth contorted into a sneer. “And that’s the reason you’re going?”

“You know why,” I argued, though my voice was beginning to fall flat, wavering at the crest of my words.

“You’ve told me, but I still don’t understand,” he shook his head. There was a look of tragedy painted across his angular face. It bludgeoned my resolve.

“I have to go where I’m needed, Tim, people need me,”

“And what about me? I need you, more than those ‘people’,” his voice was pleading, on the verge of desperation. “You’re going end up dead, it’s dangerous,”

“I’ll be wasted if I stay,” I countered.I knew that my reasons were just, I knew this was necessary. Yet, with every word he said to me, I was becoming less sure of myself. More wistful of the life with him. Oh, how easy it would be to give in to him. My throat burned and a pulse in my stomach began to pound. “You’ve seen the violence, the shootings, the twisted idols that people worship, and you know that this is the risk anyone takes,”

“I keep hearing about what you think I know, and still, I feel like you’ve blind sighted me,” A wave of anger broiled through me. “This isn’t about you! This isn’t even about me anymore, it’s for the greater good!”

“God, can you hear yourself? You sound like some crazed revolutionist come on, ‘the greater good?’ What did those recruiters sell you? What have you sold to them? Your eternal soul?”

I opened my mouth to shout back at him; the hush of a sanctuary had long been perturbed, but the door behind us opened again, giving way to a familiar face. It was a woman from the church, an elder: Mrs. Conohay. She was dressed in a sharp red trench coat and a well-to-do white hat adorned with gaudy rhinestones. My eyes caught on them and stayed captivated by their silvery gleam. In addition to all this, she wore the sheepish expression one does when coming upon a confrontation such as this.

“Jodie,” she paused, frowning. “Timothy,” she concluded. Beside me, Tim swallowed his anger and smiled politely. “Ma’am.”

After a too-long moment of us all staring at one another blankly, she recollected herself and pointed at the stairs leading to the sanctuary. By way of explanation she added, “I’m only here to say a quick prayer,”

I waited until her footsteps faded against the padded carpet of the upstairs. I turned back to Tim. “I’m sorry this has to end this way,”

“Not as sorry as I am,” he said in a single breath, turning his back to me. I left before I had a chance to say a prayer of my own; it was time for me to get out.

§§§

The tissue caught fire nicely. Until it turned to black ash. I repeated the sequence, pulling my hands back as the flames flickered with a smug hiss.

“What happens if I have to blow my nose?” A voice behind me asked. It was my partner, Mavis Beil, who was leaning hard in an old office chair.

“Snuffle it back up,” I suggested savagely.

I was in need of a distraction all day. It was merely convenient carelessness that the team before us left a box of matches in their wake, leaving me to discover the allure of fire.

“There’s something wrong with you,” Mavis muttered and spun her chair back around to face her laptop. I watched her for a moment, observing that the sunlight was no longer contouring her raven black hair. Night was soon to be upon us. We had been there since lunch, waiting to intercept a transmission from a terror group. The word was that they were planning to raid an archive building and it was our job to help stop them. The group called for the complete damnation of America so that it could rise again from the grave. Phoenix from the ash.

My hands itched for some kind of mindless occupation, but I felt that the matches were past overdone. To be honest, I was losing my mind. The quarters were close, they were dusty, and nothing was happening. Nothing happened all week. I sat at the table without moving, and as though my was restlessness contagious, Mavis shot up from her chair and announced that she was going to go check on our microphones.

“Let me go with you,” I begged. She clicked on her flashlight and shined it on her equipment belt, where her weapon was holstered. She patted a hand atop it. I could see her crooked grin in the castoff light.

“You need to keep your attention on comms,” she said. “It’s just gonna be me and my gun this time,” I rolled my eyes but didn’t push further. “Have fun,” I called as she stalked out the door. For several minutes the only thing in my mind was the awareness of silence. The kind of silence that resonates through your whole head, buzzing, because it’s never supposed to be that empty. I bit down hard on my bottom lip and hunched over. A chill danced through me, all the way to my furrowed brows against my steepled fingers. It was the ghost of a memory, an assailant running me down. A small voice told me I should be praying. I was on the verge when a bigger voice broke in from the monitor.

“ … moving in now.”

“Watch your six, we can’t do it for you once you’re inside,”

“Got it,”

I scrambled from my position and grabbed my walkie talkie.

“This is Agent Jodie Barnes, I have confirmation on their movement, this is going down now,”

My palms turned itchy with anticipation, but the walkie remained voiceless and crackly. “Beil?” I called through my earpiece. “Beil, you should be back by now,” I clicked the two way radio again but still no response. Every station I tuned into was the same way. I alternated between the radio and my earpiece until I couldn’t stand it any longer. The operation was slipping. The thought sent gooseflesh to the surface of my arms. Before I removed my gun from its holster, I sucked in a deep breath and forced my exhale to remain constant, slow. I needed focus. Once this was done, I checked the magazine of bullets and patted at the extras still in my belt.

The archives building was across the street and four buildings down from the apartment we’d been staked out in. I pulled the bolt from the door and entered the hall, gun first. The air was muggy, worse than in the room, and blanketed every surface. From the room to the hall, that silent static built up until it was nearly unbearable. Something warm and wet clamped around my ankle. I screamed and someone growled at me. A blinding ball of light flashed in my face; I shielded my eyes reflexively.

It was Mavis, propped against the flaky wall. There was a growing pool of dark substance surrounding her consuming her.

“Oh, my Go ,”

“They don’t know about you yet,” She rasped. “Get out of here,”

I dropped down beside her and used my hand to cradle her head. The flashlight withered in her grip and fell, illuminating the blood that painted the floor. Her dark blue eyes still gleamed with purpose, however. They stifled any argument I could make against her demands.

“Where did they go?” I asked, resigning to a dying woman.

“The one who stabbed me disappeared down the street archives direction, the other chased me into the building and he’s still here, Jodie, get out and get to the archives. They must have taken out the other surveillance teams because none of them are answering me,”

“I’ll call help,” I said. She hit me with sudden strength and snarled, “No. Time.” As if to prove her point, I heard heavy footfalls in the nearby stairwell. They grew louder and labored breaths accompanied them, wheezing in and out.

“Mavis…” I could feel the tears in my eyes. I could see them in hers too. Her face was caked in both blood and the grime that coated everything around us, like this place was taking her entirely. I knew that under it, she had freckles. Under it she had lines carved into her cheeks from equal parts frowning and smiling. Under it her skin was a rich brown, but pale now with mortality She swallowed faintly. Then she clicked off the light.

I wanted to move louder than the sounds of her screams. I wanted to move fast enough to beat the godawful static that came back. I moved through the flights of stairs until they became endless spirals, circling around and around and around, until I hit ground level, out the door.

The thick city atmosphere was grievous respite after being holed up for hours. Somehow, between the time it took for me to find Mavis and get out here, the traffic outsidepicked up and it was deafening. Cars screamed past me. Their speed whipped my hair over my eyes. It was another spiral I had to race through. A blue bus with yellow lettering on the siding jostled down the street. It stuttered onto the curb and broke through to me with its guttural scraping and I was running again.

The archives building was pitch black and utterly unalive against the glimmer of the city. I was running every bit as much as I was fleeing, and I didn’t even look when I plunged myself into the road. I didn’t even wince at the percussive anger from drivers double tapping their horns. When I reached the building, the front doors were hanging wideopen. I reached for my weapon, only to find an empty holster. I shut my eyes and forced a sob back down my throat. When I reopened them, I concluded that it must’ve dropped in the hallway where I… Go.

It was that voice again. Instead of being nondescript, this time it took on the cadence of my dead partner. I crossed the open threshold with a tense jaw. Right away, the sweet smell of gasoline assaulted my nose. I was relieved to find that I still had my flashlight and used it to see that the floors were slick with the accelerant, the walls as well. Above me, there was a soft commotion, and I killed the light. Everywhere I went, it seemed, it was hard to breathe and so I moved deliberately, making an effort to not exert myself. Vague silhouettes revealed themselves to me, allowing me to find the heavy metal door that led to the stairs. The gas was thin in the space beyond the door. I drank this air like there would be no more after this. This was when something smacked into my back and threw me to the floor. My head impacted last and most painfully. There wasn’t enough time for me to cry out. I blinked slowly. Everything felt as though I were submerged. I felt a hand slip below my stomach and haul me up. I was spun around, and a fist jammed into the soft part of my lower belly. My breath hissed out through my teeth and my body jerked backwards. My assailant held me in place, however, and I waited for the onslaught to begin. It never happened. They were taking me elsewhere, hooking their arms under my armpits and taking the stairs at an impressive, albeit labored, pace. I wondered mutely if this was what it was like to be dead weight.

We stopped our ascent, and I heard another door groan open. My ankles hitched on the raised panel of the doorframe. It was a man’s voice that cursed before shuffling my legs over it. My stomach lurched

“T-Tim?” I croaked. He stopped and rested me against a wall. I felt gasoline seep onto my back. I pressed into it, unable to move any other way. I could see him now. He looked different, but in all the ways that counted, he was the same. His black hair was shaved close to thescalp. It looked tobe a recent cut. He never let it unfurl past his ears, and his searching blue eyes were intense against mine. But he did just punch me and drag me up the stairs in a building bathed in gasoline, set to burn. In more ways that counted, I didn’t know him. “I thought you would have left the country by now,” I said. He’d told me this much back when he still took my calls, he wanted to travel Europe for a while.

“I have,” he responded swiftly and harshly. “And America left me and so did God and so did you.”

“You’re one of them,” I gasped, finally realizing. It made me cough so hard I felt my lungs rattle. Tim raised his thick eyebrows and bowed his head once in a curt nod. He looked so sinister, clad in all black, which his trim build filled nicely. He shifted his weight from his feet to his knees and came close to me.

I remembered reading Their manifesto. Their calls for complete damnation sounded so foolish to me, I laughed. I asked Mavis once if she’d ever anything quite as ridiculous. Now, as I smelled the fuel that clung to his skin, it was all so real. Tim was the embodiment of Hell and every alluring sin I had ever committed.

“I need to get you out of here,” he muttered. I had the suddenwish to go to bed and wake up from this dream in the morning. He grabbed my arm as to pull me up. I yanked my arm back. “Don’t take me anywhere,” I spat. “I’m shutting this down.” Tim’s voice was laced with warning as he said, “Jodie, don’t do this,”

“You’ve crossed the line.” I tried to match his tone. At this, his head fell slightly and as it slipped, I caught a glimpse of shame on his face. With a hand, he scrubbed his gaunt cheeks. He looked starved.

“The line was crossed a long time ago,” he said, raising his head. His eyes didn’t quite meet mine; they were focused on the wall behind me. The darkness of the hall reminded me of a past life. A life where we would have taken each other by the arms, by the lips and would have kept taking until there was nothing left to give. I knew what I had to do, but this was Tim. He reached back behind him, and I heard the familiar clank of metal as it brushed against his coat zipper. I knew immediately what it was.

“Let me take you in, Tim, please, I can save you, let me!” I pled. He twisted a cylindrical silencer into the barrel of the gun. He ordered for me to get up. There was no other choice for me but to listen. I stood and he pressed his open hand into my back, steering me through the corridor. “You know,” he began, “I stayed in the church for a while. I waited for you to come back. While I did, I paid tithe, I washed the feet of my brothers, I ate the bodyand theblood of Christ. But as much as I prayed for you, Jodie, I never got you back,”

“So, your next logical step was to join a death to America group.” I scoffed. His hand pressed me harder. “It wasn’t about America; it was about putting my faith in something stronger, something I could give to and receive just as much.” He explained.

“This group has given all that to you?” I asked quietly.

“That and more,” he agreed. The certainty he expressed was chilling. “But you have me again, now I’m back,” my voice cracked. I felt his hand ball into a fist against my spine. As fast as my achy body allowed for, enough to catchhim off guard,I spun toface him. My eyes tracked how his finger was balanced atop the thin trigger. “Tim, what’s the point of all this?” His finger twitched. I held my breath. “This building holds proof of the past, horrible things this country has done and all that it’s doing now. Once it’s gone, we can start again.”

We can start again.

My eyes welled up. I made a fist of my own and shoved it into his chest, right over his heart. “You used to love me.”

Tim squeezed his eyes shut, said nothing. We were close enough for me to feel his exhale dance across my cheeks. “Stop.” He said, but his words were small, the utterance of a boy, far less than a man.

“Let’s stop this, together,” I tried to reason with him. But his eyes popped open, and he continued to push me all the way to a large office walled in glass, granting a wide view of the unassuming city. He took us through the entryway and shut the door behind us. I could hear the low din of a computer monitor below the sturdy office desk. A heavy sense of finality calcified in my bones. My back stiffened because here, it would come to an end.

“Jodie, I’m so sorry.” Tim whispered.

§§§

I remember the interruption in the air when it parted for the bullet. The eerie hollow snick of his finger pulling against the trigger. I could smell thecordite dancingthrough the atmosphere, and I could smell how he used to smell in my memory. How he used to smell in my arms. As the air broke, I felt a crumpling feeling of collapse. I’m certain the building felt it too. It was akin to the tides that must have shifted for Moses’s staff.I was on one side of the water and Tim was on the other.

People tell me that my side is the righteous side. My private response to that remains that I don’t know. They tell me that I’m a hero, that I stopped an act of terror, an act of evil. I’ll shake your hand if you tell me that. I’ll smile placatingly, even, if it so pleases you.

I know it was Tim who killed Mavis. It was his fingerprints on the knife. But it was me who left her to die. I know it was Tim who set that building to burn, along with parts of history. I know it was me who stopped him, who pinched the wick he constructed. But it was me who left him a long time ago. I know it was Tim who turned the gun on himself. But who put that gun in his hands?