Obsidian Night

That night was like obsidian. The slight water that precipitated from the night

skies made the environment reflect every minute source of light from the black

surfaces the night created. Jessica Richards was driving home from the plant about

125 miles from her house peering and squinting trying to make out the shapes of her

surroundings. Blinded by the light she cautiously watched a spot on the road close

to her car, careful not to lose sight of the thin, yellow, dashed line. She had just

hung up her dying phone from her conversation with John, her husband of 6 years.


She was pondering over what he said “I went hunting today….about 100 or so yards

in.” John loved hunting and typically was off on Sunday mornings, unlike herself.

“Did you shoot anything? Jessica had asked, trying to uphold the standards of small


talk. “Only a rattler; I was heading back to the house and one was coiled up on the

back porch. Becca was running out to me, so I hit it with my bag and got it with my

handgun.” She sometimes thought she was overprotective, but the thought of her

daughter growing up dressed in camouflage with a rifle and orange jacket on made

her stomach lurch. The thoughts that laden her mind didn’t bother her, however, as

much as it normally would. It was her ritual on Friday nights to drink a bit of alcohol

with her friends at the local bar, but today and this week for that matter had been a

heavy burden. The workload was enormous and she was dismissed more than 3

hours after her normal time to leave had expired, so she had done the unthinkable,

pulling from her secret stash at home that morning. “Look at you, drinking and

driving,” the insulting and downgrading voice derived from her years of struggling with

alcoholism had arose,”you have really let it go haven’t you?” The voice had become

minute considering she was already into town and had been drinking since before

she departed the lot of the petroleum plant. Her vision was in the early stages of

blur and intoxication. “You’ve driven drunk before, it’s no big deal.” The voices of

guilt and one voice that she could only identify as the demon on her right shoulder

had started to burden her mind. She realized the crime she was committing and

was all but unaware of what could happen. In the midst of the bickering of

archetypes in her consciousness she also realized she had made it. Her drive took

her across her hometown; her house lay on the opposing side of the road to the

plant. Relief set in, making her feel more comfortable and at ease. Chill had set in

her hands from nervousness, but now they warmed up from lack of. She started

pondering again. A dream of sorts had set in to her consciousness about her baby

girl, Rebecca, playing in their spacious backyard which happened to be the edge of

the woods that surrounded civilization in this all but rural area of Mid-South Texas.

Succumbing to this sub-conscious, her sight had actually become the dream of her

sub-conscious. Obliviousness and unconsciousness also made their way. The

alcohol she consumed added a great weight upon her eyelids and helplessly they

sank further down. Then another unthinkable event occurred. Something had

suddenly stopped her car , flinging her near limp body around the driver's seat. She

hadn’t seen it but she definitely felt the repercussions of whatever happened. After

returning to her senses, she pried the compressed door off her body, which

happened to fall onto the ground. Once standing a sharp unbearable pain shot up

her leg into her upper hip causing her to stumble somewhat, but catching herself.

She walked over to the thing that had caused this sudden cessation, which she

realized was another vehicle, and saw a woman in the car. Jessica peered in like

she had been while driving and saw falls of blood about the woman’s visage.

Jessica pried this door off also examining the blood-covered and apparently

unconscious woman before her. At this point Jessica knew what she was dealing

with, the clouds parted, and everything made sense. She had just hit a car with her

own, which happened to belong to a woman she recognized, who lived in her

neighborhood by the name of Amy Swanson. Jessica and Amy had exchanged

words for the first time about a week ago. Amy was in her front yard apparently

utilizing her green thumb on her gorgeous front yard when Jessica was walking,

trying to obtain some of the fresh, un-tainted air that happened to surround the

wooded areas of the earth, and had almost fallen as Jessica was passing.

Observing Amy catching herself, Jessica asked if everything was alright. Amy

replied a quaint, embarrassed “Yes” which sparked a conversation between the two.

This whole scenario played through Jessica’s head as she walked back to her own

car and contacted the paramedics and police. Jessica had realized what she had

done. The small tear in her fabric she allowed by drinking unwound into a sizeable

rip, a pierced wound, and an ever-present scar. Tears and an emotion only

describable as discord, dismay, and above all panic induced by terror, overcame

her, causing confusion. As much as she hated to admit it there was nothing she

could do now. The unthinkable had been committed and all she could do now was

pray and hope Amy’s condition included life.



“As much as I’d like to, I don’t think there’s any to give, she is dead you know,

that will not bring her back” said Mark in a tempest of fury and tears. Amy’s

husband, zealously talked of a nightmare of Jessica’s which had come into reality.

These two had briefly conversed not too long after Amy had been pronounced dead

in the hospital. Jessica had been checked out and escaped with only minor wounds,

a bruised sternum, and trauma to her leg and hip which nothing could be done about

except disallowing mobility and letting her body heal itself. Jessica, at the shyest

attempt at an apology, attempted to speak to the man who’s other half she had

crushed between two pieces of metal. As relieved as she was that Mark wasn’t

shouting phrases such as” What have you done!?” and “Go away …you’ve done

enough here” as she tried to help the cleanup and Amy herself when Mark arrived.

After bitter words had been exchanged something inside of her told her that what

had happened that night she was drinking was something that the people and the

victims of this horrid scenario could never quite let go of, no matter how many times

she prayed. During the conversation something about Jessica sparked the fury that

the picture of his mutilated wife had enveloped. “Actually I take those words back,

there is no possible way I can even try to trust and forgive someone who ended the

life of the mother of my children.”


“Mark I know what I did was wrong but I didn’t mean to…” Jessica timidly stated.


“No, Jessica, I don’t want to hear of it. Just leave me and my family alone. I have to

go home and tell my children that their mother is dead. And what is this? You

smell of whiskey! How can you even expect me to even talk to you?!?!”


“Why will you not hear me out?” Jessica asked…


“Because nothing you say or do anymore can reverse what has been done…My

family and I just have to accept what you did and salvage the rest of my family…the

family you wrecked and destroyed...Bye Jessica!!”


As he stormed off, throngs of thoughts plagued her mind. The helplessness of the

situation had set in. She knew there was nothing she could do and thought if he

won’t accept the one thing she can do, an apology, than there is no use in

attempting anymore. She figured she would take Mark’s advice…and move on...




Part 2


“Who does she think she is?!” Mark talked to himself as he walked away from the

shivering and withered attempt at an apology that lay at Jessica’s feet.


“Mr. Swanson as much as I hate to be the one to tell you this: Amy didn’t make it.

She died mainly of internal bleeding and a large break in her cervical vertebrae,

damaging her spinal cord. If she was alive, however, she probably would not be able

to speak or walk again. ” The conversation that he had with Amy’s E.R. Doctor soon

after Amy’s apparent death rolled like a movie clip again and again through his mind.

“There’s always a silver lining…” Mark tried at an infant and dry joke after hours of

stress and torment, not quite knowing what he was talking about. The doctor

seemed to know that few of his words were being absorbed by Mark mainly because

he broke down after the words “make it.”


Realizing Mark’s plight he replied with the perfect killer to Mark’s attempt at humor,

reiterating the face that Amy was, in fact, dead “It actually happened to be peaceful.

The painkillers and anesthetics knocked her out and she flat lined while asleep.

Now you should go and get some sleep, I’ve already taken care of everything with

the coroner..” The doctor walked off short as if realizing the words “Knocked out”

might not set well with Mark. Mark decided to take the doctor’s advice and return to

his house; nothing more could be done.





Mark was driving home, happening to pass the scene of the car crash. Worry and a

series of “What if” questions sifted through his thoughts. He wondered how he and

his family were going to get by; how they were going to live. He wondered, also,

whether she is alive in any way. Mark had not ever thought of after-life until faced

with these thoughts. The thoughts grappled his gut and wrung it like a towel. He

took some medicine to calm his nerves considering tears and stress compressed

him to a quarter of his normal size and strength over only a few hours. As he lay

down to search for rest more thoughts entered his mind. He wondered if he handled

his conversation with Jessica appropriately. He also wondered why it had to be his

wife and not John’s. This thought of hatred and contempt and wish of death and his

own current situation upon another human made Mark quiver so he dismissed it.

More thoughts of remorse and sympathy came into his head. But his anger and

distress overwhelmed and even more powerful than that was his exhaustion. Soon

he fell asleep in a pool of tears and questions.





A few weeks had passed since Amy’s funeral during the following week. Mark had

attempted to go through normal everyday life beside the fact he himself had to watch

the kids all afternoon, among many other activities Amy normally did, all the while

reminding him of her every step of the way. Things were getting back on track but

they were not the same. They had been altered and Mark could see this. He knew

the kid’s did as well. He wished it would never have happened like any human

would with emotions and any magnitude of sensitivity.


After cooling down these few weeks Mark could see the sympathy he had for

Jessica and her willingness to help with Mark’s family and desire for even a sliver of

forgiveness. He decided to formally make things right with her mainly because he

knew it’s what his good-hearted wife would have wanted.


He waited and procrastinated until a day that was fit with his schedule. Mark knew

he didn’t want to do it. The more he tried to do what he knew was right, the more

the familiar anger from the night of obsidian piled up. In an act of will power Mark


forced himself into his car to drive to Jessica’s house. He embarked on the journey

a couple blocks with no problems besides his own conflict between his anger and


compassion. He channeled his energy and focus into driving; making certain his

inner fury did not take the wheel. It was a Saturday, the only day off along with

numerous other things, Jessica and he had in common. He had arrived, his focus


only fractionally intact. Before exiting his car he beamed at the clock, which read

1:45. The anger made his hands grow cold and shake, while swallowing his pride

had many side-effects itself including nausea. Breaking his stubbornness had

caused him to feel sick and his will to turn away from this expedition had grown, but

Someone made him afraid of what he had become followed by a continuing

remembrance of his wife. In clarity, he realized his lack of character in belittling

Jessica. Mark, in a window of integrity, walked up the front porch and knocked on

the door. As if triggered from his loud bang on the door, a loud drawn out scream

came from the backside of the Richards’ house.





Mark sprinted as hard as he could to where the sound originated. He saw Jessica

stumbling out of the edge of the woods, where which she fell to the ground, possible

fainted. Mark ran over to her and tried to diagnose what had caused the scream.

The words from her mouth were incomprehensible apparently escaping only

because of her slip in and out of consciousness. He looked over her body to see

what could have been the cause of her dismay, when his eyes caught the likely

culprit. On the fleshy part of her calves and thighs there were multiple circles,

some large and bleeding, some smaller and already coagulated. All of the wounds,

however, had a partner at their side. Mark could only deduce that a great deal of

whatever creatures had struck her; and her submerged mind was caused by a lethal

cocktail of what smelled like strong vodka and Mark’s guess: rattlesnake venom.



Mark, in all the haste he could muster from the drudge his life had become lately,

drove Jessica, who had passed completely out by this point, to the hospital Amy


had been taken to. Jessica in his arms, Mark kicked open the doors of the E.R.


and told the investigating staff what had happened to her. A mob of hospital staff

dressed in scrubs rushed her off into a room, not allowing Mark to enter. He had

contacted John on his way to the hospital, so he sat and waited for John to arrive.


A few hours had passed. The nurse had allowed John to enter and speak with her

after they calmed her temperature and pushed her in to the best condition they

could at that time. He walked out slowly and with the evident remnants of

depression upon his face. He let out a long drawn out sigh with traces of his voice

still intact before speaking.


“Rattlers. She was drinking vodka apparently: she has been lately while Becca and

I aren’t around. My only guess is, as drunk as she was, she went walking in the

woods and fell in a nest. She has enough venom in her to kill her three times over.”


“Will she be alright?” Mark shyly asked.


“They can’t tell now. Her temperatures stopped going up but she’s still hot and

losing blood cells fast, or that’s what the nurse said.”


Mark let out a sigh much like John’s



“What were you doing there anyhow?” John asked confusingly.


“I had come to talk to Jessica. That night she hit Amy, she passed me and tried to

talk, but I exploded. I wanted to make things right. I heard her scream right after I

knocked on the front door.”


“Man that takes a lot of guts. I just wish you would’ve got there a few minutes

sooner.”


“Me too,” Mark said accordingly,”…Me too”


“Things have settled down in there if you want to go see her. You did save her life.”

John said with a small beam of hope peering through the blinds of weariness.


Mark walked into the room where Jessica was. He peered around and saw her lying

on a hospital bed with an army of machines attached to her all over. Mark walked

over and sat down. He felt his throat trying to regurgitate the words he wanted to

say to Jessica, but stopped it. A pass at the clock showed it at 7:03 P.M. He

waited as long as he could, but there was no holding back any longer. Trying to

keep it in, Mark started speaking to the unconscious girl.


“I am so sorry Jessica…..I never wanted it to be like this….I forgive you… I do….I

really do…..”


In tears now, Mark let even more incomplete phrases of emotion flow out.


“Don’t do this…Don’t pass on me Jessica…Rebecca needs you….John needs


you…and I need your family…I can’t do this on my own…I know things got bad fast


but I need you guys’ friendship….I need your help…It’s ok Jessica, it was just


Amy’s time.”


For a seemingly unending amount of time her spewed words of forgiveness at her,

his words drowning out the monotone. His eyes, in his emotional outburst, had not

noticed the heart monitor. The usual jagged line was a flat one and a loud ring

came from it. The time on the heart monitor read 7:05.


“I didn’t make it” Mark said. He realized Jessica had not heard one thing he said in

his storm of forgiving words. He realized that Jessica passed away with every

ounce of grief Mark had caused that night a few weeks ago. He also realized that

his words that night, and his attitude since then were no better than the poison that

coursed through her veins. He realized that he was not equal to a nest of

cold-blooded serpents.

















The Night of Obsidian
By


Devon Mobley