The Serpent King(69)

His mom tried to reach him through scripture, by reminding him of Jesus’s travails. It didn’t work. And she didn’t have the time to do much anyway.

Everything seemed muted and colorless. Every sound reached his ears as though through a thick wool blanket. He had no music in him. On the few occasions when he would sit to write, he ended up with a blank page in front of him. His fingers couldn’t form chords on his guitar strings. His voice left him. Lydia would show him the mounting likes and views of his videos in an effort to break through, but it never worked.

Food had no flavor. All he could taste was the pervasive and consuming despair, like soot on his tongue. He stopped going to appointments with the grief counselor.

He walked through his days like an apparition. The act of living felt wrong and harsh and uncomfortable. Nails on a chalkboard. A machine running without oil. Gears grinding and gnashing on each other, breaking teeth, disintegrating. Burning up. Wearing out.

He would get up and go to school with Lydia, their rides mostly quiet, with Lydia trying to get him to talk. He would count the minutes until school let out, unable to focus or concentrate. He would go to work and perform his tasks in a somnolent haze. Then he would return home and go to sleep as soon as humanly possible, so that he wouldn’t have to interact with his mother. She also knew she was losing him. He could see it on her face, and that was just one more thing that hurt. He knew she was praying for him and he didn’t want to become one more unanswered prayer.

And most of all, there was the crushing weight of destiny. The ossifying conviction that he was living out some ancient and preordained plan, encoded in his blood, built into the architecture of his name. Something horrible and inevitable.




One day at the end of March, he woke up and wondered if he’d ever be happy again. It was a sunny day at least. The world was verdant, in contrast to the desolation inside him.

He went to Bertram Park to watch a train. He had to wait a long time. Then he walked alone to the Column and climbed up it. He wore his favorite clothes. Ones Lydia had picked out for him.

He sat with his back resting on his handwritten list of the things that he once loved. He closed his eyes and felt the sun on his face as he watched the light patterns behind his eyelids and thought about whether he had anything left to lose—if he had any reason left to stay. No.

Would Lydia miss him the way he’d miss her? Probably not. Would she at least forgive him for breaking his promise? He hoped so.

He wondered if he’d see Travis again. He hoped so.

He wondered if his parents would miss him. Maybe his paycheck, but probably not him.

He wondered how things might have turned out differently for him if he’d had more faith, a different name, or been born to different circumstances. He didn’t know.

He wondered why it seemed like God had abandoned him. There was no answer to that question. Would God notice enough to be offended by what he was thinking about doing? He didn’t care.

He looked down at the river and remembered the day of his baptism there.




He’s eight years old and dressed in a white dress shirt and black dress slacks that are both too big for him. His father’s told him that he’s following in the footsteps of Jesus, who was baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. And Dill’s happy to be following Jesus, but even happier to have so pleased his father.

His father tells him that baptism symbolizes a death, burial, and rebirth as a disciple of Christ. That it will wash away his sins. And this sounds pretty good to Dill even though part of him realizes he hasn’t had very much time to sin.

The congregants line the banks and sing “Amazing Grace” as Dill wades unsteadily into the river, sinking into its mucky bottom as he tries to reach where his father stands, smiling. The river writhes around his calves, knees, thighs, and then waist. It feels alive, like a snake.

His father takes his hand and holds him while he immerses him completely in the muddy water and quickly pulls him back up, dripping. Dill wipes the water from his face and the sound of applause from the riverbank becomes sharper as the water drains from his ears. His father hugs him. Dill wades back, singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” in his high, clear voice.

He feels cleansed. Like the river’s flow has swept away his every burden and worry.




And as he gazed down, he longed for that feeling once more. He wondered if the turbid water gliding past could again carry away his burdens. Then he remembered the other time he had felt so free and clean. Standing on stage at the talent competition, looking into Lydia’s eyes.

He waited for the indigo gradient of the sky as the sun went down, until the first star of the evening.

Then he stood, gathered his courage, and decided to end this life and take his chances on the next.





The knocking on the door grew more insistent.

“Hang on,” Lydia called. “Just a second.”

Knocking.

“Chill already, jeez,” she called.

She got to the door and opened it, and her pulse quickened.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

Dill stood on the doorstep. Tears streaked his face. “I’m here because I made you a promise. I need to leave and go to college or I’m going to die. I can’t do it without your help.”

She fell on him and embraced him harder than she ever had. She almost broke her glasses against his cheekbone. Her own tears of joy fell on his neck.