The Taste of Diamond Dust

My fingertips slid over the wrinkled, misspelled note as riding my back pocket. It felt like the skin of a sacrifice and that was right because we were on our way to meet our destiny. In a short time that paper had become old friend and constant tormentor.

It had arrived to rest accusingly upon my windshield. The message was simple. Some sociopath had liberated my most valuable possession. If I wanted to see the thing I cared most about again I was to meet this home grown terrorist at the baseball field of the local high school that evening and bring my glove. I had never played baseball and not owned a glove since I was about nine. So amongst my other chores in the hours between I picked one up from the local sporting goods store.

Memories flooded over me like a river of the damned. Memories of my quiet, well behaved boy. His silent smile as I handed him the newest video game that would occupy him for days or weeks. The shy way he cast down his eyes when I provided him with a new toy. The most recent a paintball gun which my wife insisted he, at seven, was too young for. The most common image was his angelic face in the glow of his computer. Often seen across the insurmountable distance of the dining room as he tapped away at his homework assignments while I watched the stock report.

What would I do if he never came home? I had already missed almost every chance I had to tell him I loved him. He knew it though. Right?

Soon I stood in shadows near the bleachers. The smells of fresh cut grass and impending rain filled my nose. I watched the monster who would do this. He had a scruffy beard and wore a padded green jacket. He wore something on his head, probably a baseball cap but my mind insisted was a turban.

The sun slid below the horizon, the field’s lights came on with the thwack buzz only heard in sports venues and televised nighttime beach landings. What I saw chilled me.

On the far side of the mound was my son. The militant lobbed the ball. My son caught it with tinkling laughter that echoed the falling shards of my broken heart. Matthew never expressed such unabashed joy at my gifts.

I stared at the glove and smiled through tears. I could spend some time with my son this way. Maybe the boy could even teach me to throw. I would do anything to hear that innocent laugh and know I was the cause.

My tear stained vision returned to the two of them. I had time to realize what a wonderful gift this unkempt, uneducated stranger had given me. Then the police swarmed the field and hauled him off to jail. I collected my son with a lightened heart, knowing that bastard was going away for a long time.

#shortstory #author #writer #socialcommentary