I Have Demons by Adam Christopher

Author:Adam, Christopher [Adam, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-77180-301-4
Publisher: Iguana Books
Published: 2018-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

***

Leclair was in bad shape. Solomon had found them adjacent rooms at a tired motel on the edge of town — the Lanark Solstice Inn. But he hadn’t had a chance to check out his room. No sooner had they arrived than Leclair grabbed one set of keys from Solomon’s hand, opened the door and shut himself in the bathroom.

“Is everything all right?” Father Solomon stood outside the door and heard the sound of water spraying from the shower, bouncing off the porcelain tub. No response.

“Mr. Leclair, are you all right?” Father Solomon slowly opened the door and saw Leclair, naked, sitting under the shower head in the bathtub, with hot water pouring on him. A thick cloud of steam enveloped the small bathroom; the white and turquoise tiles glistened.

“Pardon me, I didn’t mean to intrude...” Solomon looked away feeling awkward. He instinctively turned around, about to exit the bathroom as quickly as possible. Leclair made no eye contact; he continued to stare at the moist tiles across from him. Motionless.

“If I don’t take the pills, they say I’m not myself. If I do take the pills, I’m lost in a haze so deep that my brain feels like a milky mush.” Leclair rubbed all ten fingers over the top of his scalp, pushing his dark drenched hair away from his forehead. He tilted his head back, let the shower fill his mouth with water and then spat it out.

“It’s a lose-lose situation. I’m cursed.”

Solomon determined that Leclair’s decision to talk signalled that he was comfortable with him staying. When someone said they were cursed, Solomon often viewed the declaration as self-pity. He was notoriously impatient with people who wallowed in it. He found it too easy, and taking the easy way out, frivolous. But this was different. Leclair was tormented and had no road map to guide him out of his agony. Water had splashed across much of the bathroom floor and Solomon saw that Leclair’s clothes, which lay in a deflated pile next to the tub, were getting wet too. He picked up the pile, the socks on top completely soaked, opened the bathroom door and dropped them on the other side. Leclair’s eyes followed the pile as it was carried out, as the door opened and closed, without making eye contact with the priest. Solomon sat down on the floor in the space between the sink and tub, directly parallel to Leclair, and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes for an extended moment, inhaled and exhaled before speaking.

“Tell me about your neighbour, when she was still well...” Solomon determined that he didn’t need to look at Leclair directly. He stared ahead at the towel rack in front of him, and Leclair kept his eyes on the tiled wall, where drops of condensation grew and grew until they could hang on to the smooth, slippery surface no longer and trickled all the way down. The sound of the water spraying from the shower, with occasional stray droplets

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.