Alpha and Omega
Rev 22:13 “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
In the beginning he hated it. What responsibility? What parent does this? Time for baseball lost to scrubbing spots out of carpets and cleaning stench piles off the floor. Pouring out kibble and cleaning up slobber and crumbs. “Bad enough, bad enough”, he thought. “But this!??” His mitt, what was left of it, in the can. Chewed, torn and slimey. Weeks. Weeks developing that pocket.
Perhaps he had reason to be miserable. His faults were so visible. And no one let him forget it. His mother could see his irresponsibility. His father could see his clumsiness. His sister could see his obnoxiousness. His grandmother could see his foolishness. His teacher could see lack of effort. In the land of the sighted he was cursed.
But the dog was blind. Blind as a statue. At night. Moonless. In the fog.
In the beginning he hated her. Moving in next door. Her parents putting up a fence. Blocking off half the backyard diamond. Her, outdoors. Laughing. Engaging. Bright. Gracious. Popular. Easily everything he wished to be. Yet constantly trying to talk to him. What the heck? Why would he want to talk to her?
She had a dog. And he didn’t.
In the beginning he hated them. Loud, chaotic, dirty. Running over his lawn. Breaking his window. Echoing his curses. Playing in the streets. Racing for bases. Heedless of traffic. Pretending it was baseball. Every morning he walked past her urn and glared at them out the window.
They had a team. And he had no one.
Time passes. Gentrification infects. It bleaches the league he began years ago. League parents meet in the church conference room to hide from the public eye. God’s ever dutiful service to bigotry. Now well funded. Clean and pure. He sits with them for the last time. The cancer rips and tears inside him. It offers him one month. Only. He stands amid tepid applause to receive his Certificate of Appreciation and kiss off. And he thinks, “With my luck this will be another God damned beginning.”
But, he had come to know beginnings.
Comments
kt6550
" Some bloodied and injured. " - "Some were bloodied and injured."
A good chapter. Good action. Keep going.
pirate60