Fingertips Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
Specter sat in room 223 of the Seaside Springs Retirement
Home. Seaside Springs was “a wellness
environment that creates an assisted living and senior center paradise with the
best medical care available.” That was
just a long winded way to say it was a nursing home with sick and dying people.
Putting a pleasant spin on it was supposed to make it nicer place to stay, but
ask any fully cognizant long-term resident and they would tell you otherwise.
Specter had no relatives here at the Seaside Springs. He had many many friends. He visited often and was very well
liked. He listened to stories, played
games and seemed to have a genuine interest in the residents here. He was kind and polite and seductively
cordial. No one seemed to care that he
didn’t belong. If anyone wondered why he
chose to spend so much time here, they were quickly won over. People just liked him too much to ask the
question.
He had tried hospitals, but found them to be too unreliable. Too many people survived. Too many people had miraculous
recoveries. Not enough people were
willing to make bargains. The odds were
too great that they were going to be going home at some point. Say what you will about nursing homes, but
they are remarkably consistent. Those
that check in, never check out. A roach
motel could learn a thing or two from a nursing home.
Specter was a broker of bodies and souls. He made trades. He emptied you of your sin; you in turn gave
him the delectable treat of unadulterated heavenly bliss. There was nothing as delightful on this
planet as to taste the soul of another.
The lights began to flicker.
The air grew cold and a shadow was cast from a figure standing in the
door. Specter turned to face the
stranger. His fingertips were full of
flames. The palm of his hand possessed
all of God’s forgiveness and mercy and all of his wrath and fury at the same
time. To some it would be righteousness
or a blessing. To others it was hell or
brimstone. He would judge you through a
touch of the flesh and if you were found wanting you would burn.
The stranger glared at Specter, disgusted by what he saw.
“You eat their filth.”
“That sounds so… wrong. So
disgusting. I prefer to think of it as I
allow them a chance to confess their sins and create a clean slate.”
“If left to your own devises you would drain this earth.”
“That’s an entirely unfair representation of what it is that I
do. I cleanse their spirituality
and absolve it of--”
“You steal their humanity.”
“I make them an offer. I
remove their sin spirit. Yes, in the
process their potential for pain and suffering is also removed. And yes they do end up a little lighter from
the experience, metaphysically speaking.
But I take away the tragic; I fix the missteps and allow them a chance
to have a little bit of joy and happiness again.”
“Do not brand yourself a hero.”
“The Aztec legend—“
“You are no Aztec.”
“Christians believed—“
“You are no Christian.”
“Really? How can you tell?”
“You are a dealer of filth.
You are an agent of annihilation.”
They were silent for a moment.
Specter could tell he wasn’t going to be able to argue his point. It was a tough point to prove that having
your sin spirit removed was actually beneficial. And anyway, this stranger looked to be a man
that had no need of arguments or excuses.
He looked to be a man that had his mind made up and had his mission
already well in hand.
“I don’t suppose I can offer you a deal of some sort? A trade perhaps?”
When judgment comes a man melts and the Hell that waits
arrives. When a trade happens and a deal
is reached all someone does is push off that final judgment. But even delaying being touched and judged
and dissolved was well worth the loss of a lifetime collection of souls and sin
spirits. You could always start a new
collection. You couldn’t always have
your head not melted.
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