Three Days of Darkness

Prose Sample

Sarah turned seven last November, and she’s been growing quickly. Always energetic with excitement, even when she should feel fear like my son, John, who hated the dark. Her sight troubles began after the delivery; our second born, and the first with health issues. The doctors worried about her unopened eyes, and what caused her limp muscular tone. When they pinched her foot, she barely flinched; a deep breath with no scream, and only a faint grimace. My wife feared for our second, and baptized her at the hospital the next day, much sooner than John. Father Alek, the hospital priest, came in our room to confer Baptism. He took a thin layer of his saliva, then applied it to our baby's closed eyes and ears while saying Ephpheta, or be thou opened. Paula and I sobbed joyfully. Sarah's ice blue irises peeked through her red, flushed eyelids for the first time, and belted a healthy shrill. Fr. Alek smiled at us while my arms wrapped tightly around Paula holding Sarah in the hospital bed. He said Sarah would grow up to be a special girl, while he packed his belongings. Before he left, Fr. Alek handed a small envelope to me. I spilled the contents out onto the bed, and spread them apart: a brown scapular, and a purple scapular with some papers. Smiling one last time with a reassured nod, Father left quietly, and I opened the trifold pamphlet, while Paula fed Sarah. The note contained summarized points: The State of the World, Apocalyptic Seers, and The Utility of Scapulars. Both of the scapulars he gave us were Marian; the brown will bring the wearer out of purgatory on the first Saturday after death, and the purple allows believers to see during the forewarned days of darkness.

“Useless kettle,” I shouted, and kicked dad's old fishing bucket, passed the broken boiler, and into the stacked lobster traps of the pitch-black basement. “Work! Work! Please!”

The old brass knob on the wooden basement door squeaked as it opened at the top of the stairs. “Daddy, Daddy! All the lights are still gone!” moaned my daughter.

“I know, sweet girl, go to your mother, I'll be up shortly,” my voice echoed up the narrow, coal miner company-house stairwell.

In the dead of winter, early in the morning, every light burned out, and every clock turned off while we slept. The T.V., the radios, the phones, all dead. The cold, damp air sucked the warmth out of our home because the boiler croaked. Fresh gas squeezed through the small hole of the pilot light, and I smelled the stream of unfired chemicals diffuse, the room thickened with my failed attempts. Sarah’s small stride struck like little hammers on the floorboards above me, through the dark kitchen, and into the living room where Paula prayed in the blanket fort.

“Open up, mommy,” her faint voice descended through cracks between the warped hardwood floors as she ran to Paula, slightly louder than the crepitations in my knees as I stood up. My stiff contractor’s hands stretched out for a wall, and searched for a firm guide, “Oh, what I would give to have Sarah's sight right now, the little tumbleweed doesn't need a single lumen.”

The dense, calloused skin on my right hand glided up the drywall like sandpaper. Slowly, I followed the patterns of chipped paint and nail holes on the drywall, up the uneven staircase with a near vertical incline. Mom's favourite brass door knobs, that she loved so much, stung like a cold flame as I edged into the atramentous first floor. My memory and shins triangulated my position as I bumped into furniture towards my family’s low voices.

“Daddy!” my children exclaimed and opened the blankets, as the basement door swung closed behind me.

My damp outstretched arms waited for their embrace, “Come here, warm daddy up with a hug!” Sarah made it first, then John. “Okay, take me to Mom now,” I kissed their heads and squeezed them together.

Paula stayed inside the blanket fort, and fixed the layer of pillows on the cold hardwood that insulated us from the fridged floor. She stayed quiet as the linen and pillows brushed together, still silent, concentrated in prayer. The children split open the blankets that resembled a French door, and dragged me into the cozy fort. We moved around for a moment, settled into our spots, and then my wife broke the silence as I sat beside her.

“Do you think this is it?” her head lowered on my shoulder, her fingers wrapped mine and warmed my hands.

“What do you mean?”

“The prophecy from Anna Marie, Conchita, and St. Pio, about our chastisement: The Days of Darkness prophecy,” she huffed under her breath. “The Pope flew to Moscow last month, just like Conchita foretold, and Europe is now erupting in revolutions, in violent conflict. She published the 8-day warning of the chastisement last week.”

My mind froze with test anxiety, and her disappointment burned a small hole through my heart. I didn’t participate with Paula’s strong faith; she knows every recent prophecy. Dozens of old and newly published Marian apparition books, printed paper articles on Fatima, Garabandal, and Medjugorje. They all stood crooked with sticky-note ears that poked out of the pages in our rapidly developing library nook. Her verbose summaries, citations, and worries buzzed through my ears at the table, across the years past breakfasts, and suppers.

Guilt drew salt water from my dry eyes, I’m horribly distant and removed from faith, unlike her. Unfortunately, John looks up to me the most, so he aligns his faith and attitude with mine, while Sarah inherited all of Paula’s qualities. I’m burned out, and don’t have time or energy for God, let alone prophecies. Over half my days are spent between work, and travel to support her wish to raise the children at home, like her mother. After our firstborn, I became increasingly tired, and burned the midnight oil into the morning hours. I looked drunk as I stumbled from exhaustion when I came in the door, before I fell into Paula’s arms. My coffee stained heart pounded against her chest as she held me each evening.

“I'm sorry, honey, I don't remember that one,” I said, and rested my ear on her soft, floral hair. “Can you remind me?”

“It's the one where God withdraws His Light, Hell is released, and it starts on a Thursday, which is today,” her shoulders rounded, her grip trembled, and constricted around my arm.

“Oh, I think I remember that one.”

“Let me finish, this is important,” she lifted her head off my shoulder with a harsh, hushed tone.

“Okay, okay,” I conceded with love and guilt, then brought her hot head back onto my cold shoulder.

The children relaxed into a deep sleep, lulled by Paula's soft voice, “I already covered the windows, pulled the blinds down and closed the curtains. We're supposed to see demons, hear knocking on the door, and familiar voices pleading for help, but we cannot open the doors. I don't know when, but we should feel earthquakes. Our little half-home might fall off the cliffside, onto the shore below. The sky will crack with thunder, and flash with lightning. No light will shine, no flame will flicker. The only inextinguishable light we will have is from that beeswax candle you bought me for Christmas two years ago.”

I let out a thoughtful hum, “Do you think the candle can light the boiler?”

“Pay attention. There are many warning signs to come before the Three Days chastisement, and they've all become common. Food prices are egregious; food factories, and businesses are shutting down or closing from fires. There’s rampant sexual immorality, the family unit is all but destroyed. Look at Scott and his family across the way if you want an example. People fear the government like they should fear God. The Church is eclipsed, and vanished. Plagues, death, famine, all of those sorts of things we’ve lived through. The scapular promises of preservation, and protection will come through. We will be spared. We will see. I just know it,” she squeezed my arm as she spoke faster, her warm voice began to boil.

“Honey, honey, it's fine, everything will be okay, we will wait it out until the Sun rises. Let's get some sleep, it's my day off anyway,” I assured, as her hot breath melted the ice on my shoulder.

My back twitched with pain as I laid crooked against our old wooden frame couch. The kids laid on our laps, and Paula's weight relaxed fully on my shoulder; my body contorted with turns and bends. The long curtains stole my attention, and I stared at the lower hemming, waiting to see a cast shadow by the morning sun. Ten minutes turned into an hour, and no light gave way to the darkness outside while I thought of Paula’s words.

In the distance, I heard a faint rumble and crash. “Must be a snow truck, there's no way thunder and lightning starts after all Paula just said,” I squinted my eyes, and took a deep breath.

Sarah became restless from the noises outside. John sat up, and took off his blanket.

“Dad, can you walk me to the bathroom?” he whispered, “I’m scared of the dark.”

I replied under my breath, “You're brave, just feel the wall like Dad does. I'll be right here if you get too scared.”

John slowly crawled on both hands and knees out of the linen fort, then swept his arm in front of him, to get his bearings like a fleshy radar. His hand thudded against the wall, and found the corner baseboard between the kitchen and living room. The floorboards creaked loudly under his heels while he crept softly through the kitchen, past the basement stairs, and towards the bathroom door.

“I made it,” he shouted with a whisper, and turned the lock behind him.

The earth rumbled violently across the Atlantic cliffside, and shook our window panes, “That's definitely not a snow plow, and certainly not thunder,” I thought while stroking Sarah’s hair with my free arm.

A loud thud came from the bathroom, and I flinched, “John! Are you okay?” the girls’ necks bent, and they jolted awake from their short nap.

“Yeah, I'm fine, just slipped!” John shouted, as the cheap plastic toilet seat creaked under his weight.

Paula stood up quickly, and stepped over us into a strong stride towards the sound of John climbing on the toilet again, “Get out of the window, right now, John!” she said sternly, and twisted the locked brass knob in either direction.

“I just want to see the plow go by, there's nothing else to do,” John replied, as the toilet seat creaked loudly, and Paula frantically twisted the brass door knob.

A second, louder thud came from the bathroom and Paula shouted in a crackled, distorted voice. “John! Open this door!”

I exclaimed over her words, “Paula, this isn't like you, you're scaring the children. What's wrong?” Sarah trembled in my lap.

“John isn't opening the door, follow my voice and come here, I need you to force it open,” she begged.

“Okay, sweetheart, I'm coming,” I looked towards Sarah as she sniffled, and cried while I crawled out of the blanket fort. “Stay here.”

She tugged at the hem of my shirt, and said in a low whimper, “John's dead. He looked outside,” twiddling her brown scapular.

I turned my head from the blanket fort entrance towards her, “What? How do you know?”

“God told me to tell you that, Daddy,” she said, handing me John’s white blanket.

The brass door knob broke and rolled across the floor in a small circle. I left the fort, and grabbed the wall, following the sound down the hallway.

Paula’s shouts blasted over the brass knob, “I can’t see him, and he isn’t making any sound.”

“No!” Paula screamed through her hands, and sobbed while her knees hit the hardwood floors. “It's happening. It's real. Oh God, have mercy!”

Paula’s laboured breaths drew closer with each step, “He's just knocked out, that happened to me a bunch when I was young, playing on the mine carts down at the museum.”

My belt sheath snapped, and the pliers deployed to twist the hardware in the door handle hole. The internal mechanism clicked, and the door opened. Paula ripped back the door, and it slammed into the wall, my pliers planted in the old plaster. She pushed past me, and scooped the shoulders of our young boy into her arms.

“Give me that linen, he has no pulse,” Paula said, as I heard the clothes of John and Paula brush together in a tight embrace.

Grumbling, I said, “Paula, honey, he's just knocked out, and you're worked up. I’ll bring him to the ambulance base down the road. Maybe our neighbour, Dave, is working today.”

“No! Don’t go outside! You’ll die if you see God’s wrath too!” my wife screamed.

Over her shouting, someone knocked like a sledgehammer on our back door attached to the kitchen. It shook the glasses in the cupboards, and fear stole Paula’s words.

My neighbour’s voice penetrated through the door from outside, “It’s Dave, let me in! I need to borrow some candles!”

“What? Dave’s here? Maybe he has the day off too,” I questioned suspiciously, and stared towards the door.

“Don't answer that door, do not open that door!” Paula commanded from the bathroom, and rested John's head on the floor.

“Girls, come with mama, we're going to pray for John and the rest of our family,” she said over the loud knocks at the door, and walked into the living room.

I stood frozen in the hallway by John’s body. Paula’s knees dropped onto the hardwood before her shrine, the blessed medals that surrounded her beeswax candle rattled. The knocks at the door stopped, and my ears rung from a moment of complete silence as I heard Paula sharply inhale.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

It started again, only the knocking spread to every door and wall inside the house. The cupboards, dishes, and wall decorations shook violently, while some others fell. “Are these the earthquakes you spoke about?” I shouted to Paula over the defeaning sounds around us.

The old wooden hallway clock jumped off the wall, and landed on my head. I passed out, and faded into a fast sleep while the floorboards vibrated, spitting out the dirt between the cracks onto my face. In nothingness, I floated. Before me were two fathers laying on the ground, each with a wife, plus their son and daughter standing beside them. One father died on the floor, and I saw his spirit descend. His family disintegrated into ash, blown over his lifeless body, and the house collapsed. The second father rose from the floor, and I saw an ignited spirit inside his chest. His family embraced him, and their love strengthened his glowing spirit. The house filled with warmth, soft light, and the peace of springtime air flowing through a bouquet of flowers by an open window. My head throbbed, and pulsed with endless, rapid waves of pain braking against my brain. I could feel Him speaking as my vision faded once more.

Choose.

I woke up to Paula’s lone voice, the house quiet, and still. She pleaded for light in ancient Latin, “Dona lucem nobis.” The beeswax candle sparked into a bright flame, and spread to the adjacent candles on her shrine. They illuminated and warmed the entire house with a soft vanilla flicker.

A breath of warm air hit my face, “No way,” I said in shock, and covered John's pale body with a thin white linen bedsheet.

“Daddy, come pray with us, Mama is crying,” Sarah looked back at me with her ice blue eyes. “Maybe if we pray hard enough, John will come back.”

“Okay, honey, Daddy's coming,” I said, while I walked towards the living room, remembering the two children from the vision.

“Mama wants to pray, and we have to be quiet and do it, okay Daddy?” Sarah said, pulling at the hem of my shirt again.

“Yes, sweetheart, we will pray,” I said, while I knelt on the left side of my wife. I abandoned my doubt, and picked up my cross.

Paula grabbed my sleeve, coaxed me towards her, and finished softly, “…nunc, et in horae mortis nostrae. Amen.”

The sound of a waving flag from the bathroom broke the silence after Paula’s prayer, and footsteps grew closer with each passing breath. Beside me, wrapped in white linen, John knelt to pray with us.

“Do you believe now?” Paula asked, as she smiled upwards.

I wept, “Ave Maria, gratia plena…”