The Longing: A Christmas Short Story

Imagine that you're waking up on the floor of a hospital hallway. It's completely dark and completely silent, except for the distant sounds of medical machines beeping. You have the distinct feeling that someone is after you.

You get up off the floor and pull out your cell phone to use as a light to navigate the darkness. You start going into all the rooms, looking for somebody, but you discover that the hospital is completely empty of people. Except for you and the person you suspect is after you.

You start running down the halls, desperately looking for an exit, but it seems like the halls are never ending. Finally, you find a door with an EXIT sign above it. You go through the door, but instead of finding yourself outside, you find yourself in the exact spot where you woke up in the hospital.

You try to stay calm. There has to be a way out of this. You're not sure that someone is after you, but you just have that feeling. You suddenly hear a beeping noise coming from your hand. It's your phone. Your battery is low. You only have a few more minutes before your light goes out and leaves you in the darkness.

You're ready to throw the phone against the wall in a fit of frustration when you hear the sound of someone moving twenty feet behind you. Instinctively, you know this can't be good. Your fight-or-flight reflexes take over and you're running through the hospital hallways again, hoping you don't run into a wall in the blackness.

You run for what seems like miles, and you finally feel that you might have gotten away, so you stop. You bend over, trying to catch your breath, listening for movement. Everything is silent once again. Your phone beeps again to tell you that it's almost time to say goodbye. You try to fight the panicky feeling rising up inside of you.

In the darkness, you're desperate for light, for something good in the midst of all the bad. Someone to rescue you. From what, you're not sure.

You shine your light all around you because you feel like you need to, and you stop because up ahead you see a person facing away from you, dressed in all black. The person is wearing a ski mask. They're not moving at all. This has to be who is after you. You know you should run, but you're sick of running. It hasn't gotten you anywhere.

You're suddenly overcome with this need to find out who this person is and why they're after you. So, silently and quickly you walk toward them and reach out to pull the mask off. As you're pulling it, the person turns around and you shine the light in their face. Actually, in your face, because it's you that you've just discovered is after you.

Suddenly you realize that the person after you is yourself, but specifically the person is the one thing that has always haunted you. More than just something you've ever done, but something you've always felt you've been missing that your soul desperately needs. It's the one thing that keeps you from being satisfied with life. It's the need for something to fill the hole inside of you. And now it's turned into a person with your face on it, and it's after you.

Suddenly the instinct to run kicks in again, and the person who is you begins chasing after you. The closer you get to yourself, the more you feel the burning longing inside for something you're not sure of, but you know is really good.

It's the one thing you need. It's the one thing that will stop you from being your own worst enemy. The one thing that will reconnect you to a love you're sure you've lost.

It has to be somewhere in this hospital. Because you can't get out of the hospital, and if it were on the outside, it couldn't help you. You could never reach it because the hospital won't let you out. But if it were on the inside, then there's hope. So you keep running, in complete darkness because your cell phone has finally died.

Every few steps you feel your own warm breath on the back of your neck from your pursuer. Your pursuer could just grab you, but it doesn't. It's taunting you. If only your one desperate Need could be inside the hospital for you to find. As that thought flows through your mind, a sudden burst of light appears up ahead. It's a spotlight, shining down on something on the floor.

What could it be?

You run toward it, and as you get closer, you hear a tiny voice crying. You know that sound. You've heard it before, but this time it's much different. You seem to know that it belongs to someone bigger than you've ever known.

You reach the spotlight. You look down. The spotlight is shining down on a tiny baby boy. The baby is wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in what looks like an animal feeding trough. You look behind you and your pursuer is gone. The longing inside has also disappeared because the one thing you desperately needed came into the hospital in the form of this tiny little baby.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14


Photo Credit: Greg Lawler on Flickr

Flash Fiction: Never Too Late

This is another flash fiction story I wrote.

Never Too Late
by Tom Farr

Wendy wanted to rush at the man standing over her son's bed, but the gun aimed at her face and the knife held to Billy's neck caused her to stand planted in the doorway. A villainous smile crossed the man's face.

"If you do anything to hurt him, I swear..."

Wendy could feel the rage well up as the man laughed and made a pinprick cut with the knife into the flesh of Billy's neck.

Billy screamed, and Wendy began moving toward him when she felt a searing pain in her right thigh. A loud pop rang throughout the room. Wendy collapsed, staring at the dark gash where the bullet went in.

Billy was still screaming, writhing in the bed.

"Shut up, or I'll shoot her again!" the man said.

Billy stilled. "Mommy..."

"Mommy's okay, sweetie. Just listen to what the he says." To the man, "What do you want with us?"

The gun was leveled at her face again. "I want him to show up. He can end all of this by merely coming here. We'll leave together. And you and Billy will never see me again."

It can't be that simple, can it?

"Are you going to hurt him?"

"If he doesn't show up, Billy dies. Don't you think he'd be willing to make that sacrifice?"

The man threw her a cell phone. "Call him."

Wendy made the call. No response.

"He didn't answer."

The man frowned. "Bad news for you."

The man laid the two weapons down and reached into the inner pocket of his black jacket. Wendy saw a syringe in his hand.

"What are you going to do with that?"

Before he answered, the man jabbed the syringe's needle into Billy's leg and injected its contents into the boy.

"No!" Wendy lunged toward the man on her good leg, but she was met with a back-arm to her face. She fought the need to black out.

The man trained his gun back on her. "That was a very lethal virus. My own design. Billy has exactly one hour to live. More like fifty minutes, really, because in the last ten minutes his body will be ravaged beyond anything anyone could possibly survive."

Wendy felt her body shaking.

"Please..." she said with tears blurring her vision.

"There is an antidote." He reached back into his jacket and pulled out another syringe. "Get him here and Billy will be okay. If he doesn't show up, Billy dies."

Wendy grabbed the phone again. She waited as it rang.

Why isn't he answering? He always answers.

She finally got voicemail.

"Dad! You have to answer...please answer...Billy is going to die if you don't get to my house now...Nate is going to kill him...please Dad!"

She heard herself screaming the words, but it felt futile. She threw the phone on the ground.

"You can't do this, Nate. Please just give him the antidote."

"No! Either Dad shows up to save the day from his prodigal son or Billy dies."

Wendy sighed. "Will you just let me close to him?"

Nate stepped aside as Wendy came to Billy's side. She held his hand and watched his chest rise and fall. Unconscious had already set in. Nate kept the gun pointed at her.

Please, Dad. We need you.

Wendy looked at the clock on the wall next to the door. Thirty minutes had passed, and nothing from her father. Why was he ignoring her?

She grabbed the phone to call again.

"Hello?"

"Dad? Tell me you got my message."

A pause. "It's going to be hard to understand, baby, but I'm not going to make it."

Wendy froze. "What do you mean?"

"I know it's going to hurt, but I promise it's going to be okay."

How can it be okay if Billy dies?

The call disconnected.

Wendy felt her breathing quicken. "No...Why would he do this? Why wouldn't he come?"

"Either he doesn't care," Nate said, "or he's a coward and powerless to stop it. Either way, Billy dies."

"Please...I'll do anything."

A smile crossed Nate's face, and Wendy thought that maybe he would have mercy.

"I know you would," he said, "but the one person who could do something about it failed you."

Nate lifted the gun and brought the butt of it down on the back of Wendy's head. She crumpled to the floor as everything went to black.

When she woke up an hour later she found Billy's tortured body lying on the bed. Nate was gone. She began sobbing, begging Billy to wake up.

She heard the front door open and close. She grabbed the knife that Nate had left on Billy's bed and prepared to use it on whoever was in the house.

"Wendy?"

Dad?

Her father walked into the bedroom. "I'm here, baby."

Her father leaned down in front of her. She began to pound his chest with her fists.

"You're too late! Why didn't you show up? If you would've just came, Billy would still be alive! Why weren't you there for me?"

Wendy buried her face in her hands and begged God to let her die. Her father was too late, and now her son was dead.

She felt a hand on hers and heard a tiny voice,"Mommy, I'm okay."

Through blurry eyes she looked up to see Billy standing in front of her. Fully alive.

She looked up at her father. "How?"

He smiled. "Too late isn't always too late."