This is a sneak peek from my novel, The Highest Hell 2, released on July 10, 2024!
Louis stared out across the waves of the ocean’s water blackened by the suffocating twilight as he leaned on the railing of the balcony lost in his own thoughts. The healing process had been long and hard, but the lessons he took from the stitches and scars of his own heart made him a much stronger, wiser soldier in the battle of life.
Why do we think of life as a great fight and every day a battle? he pondered silently as the ocean’s saltiness whipped past him in a breeze. Life cannot be meant to be lived like a great war with territories to acquire and empires to overthrow, regimes to conquer. War is not pleasant and is full of death, he contemplated, and though the latter may be true of life as well, life, unlike war, is meant to be enjoyable.
Why do I feel this way? I feel tired, exhausted, as if all my life has been a war and every day a battle, but I live life. I travel. I surround myself with breath-taking scenery in some of the most exotic places. I feed my mind high-quality nourishment and never stop devouring knowledge. I make it through every day smoothly and with great ease. I enjoy my job, as ironic as that may be. Consistency, vigilance, planning, and thinking ahead have been the cornerstones of my mansion of success. So why… why do I feel like I’m drained of all my fight? Is it the constant inhaling of the pungent stench of death that I know I must reek of? It must seep from my pores as if I’ve steeped myself in its tea. Have I taken too many lives and been relieved of my own appreciation of life as a result? What’s wrong with me?
Though it was early-July, there was no summer sun beaming down on his shoulders for Louis to use as an excuse to pry himself from his thoughts to retreat into the shade. The remote private beach off the Florida coast was silent outside of the water’s slaps against the sandy shore. The luxury beach house was close enough to Key West to be considered part of civilization but secluded enough for Louis to feel alone with his thoughts, which was exactly what he knew he needed. He moved past the many losses he suffered. But now, he resolved, I must find myself again. With the many pieces of his life missing, Louis was forced to pick up the remaining crumbs of himself and rebuild his new self, his greater self, and he had to build himself to last.
It took Louis two years to make it to the secluded coastal getaway. They were two years of questioning his own decisions and hiding from his own truths, working to run from his conscience and not allowing himself to think to avoid his guilt. They were also two years of acceptance, admission, redemption, and deliverance. He confronted himself and forgave himself. It took him two years, but he learned to live and let go, forgive but never forget, take the lessons along with the blessings. Two years after losing sleep, blaming himself, and even shedding tears, Louis accepted Nariya was gone, forgave the people responsible for Terrance and Ebonii’s deaths, and moved forward with the friends and life of luxury he was left to enjoy.
As he stared into the night, his attention briefly consumed by two roseate spoonbills playfully twisting in the air in the distance, Louis consciously exhaled heavily into the unending openness.
It’s beautiful here, he admitted. I’ll have to come here again. I love it here, actually. I wonder how much this place would cost to buy. I’m buying it in the morning. As quickly as the thought came, so came another. What would I do with it, though? I’d hardly ever come here. When would I have time? It’d be much wiser and much less selfish to continue to visit when I like and leave the ownership with its current owners, he resolved. I wouldn’t be able to do this place justice.
He turned and entered the master bedroom, sliding the glass door closed behind himself, but as he glanced around the room, contemplating whether to find a movie to watch or call it a night, the overwhelming feeling something was missing washed over him and would not allow him to swim to shore. He scanned the large, modernly decorated room for something out of place, broken, or absent from its assigned location, but he found nothing wrong in the room, but everything wrong with himself.
“Though I may be tired, and I may be weary, Lord,” he whispered aloud as he plopped down on a leather ottoman at the foot of its matching chair, his head in his hands, his psyche desperately struggling to fight the cravings of his heart. “Though I may be tired and weary, Lord,” he repeated, “I’m not that tired or that weary. The heart wants what it wants, and it only seeks to find. I cannot deny who I truly am, though I may fight it and desperately try to evade it. I know my own heart and its ways, and I know its victory over what my mind knows is safe and smart for it is inevitable. I remain here, fighting to protect my own heart, but I surrender to Your will and the will of my spirit. I’ve heard the whispers, and I’ve awoken to the woes. I fear I’m still not ready for what You’re showing me You have in store for me. Lord, all I ask it that You make it obvious when You send her my way so there’s no mistaking that she is the one. That’s all I ask, Lord. I don’t want to treat my rib like I’ve treated these other women, Lord. What You have for me, she is for me, and I promise to treat her as the gift, the blessing she is meant to be to me.”
Louis rose to his feet and glanced around the room again before removing all his clothes in preparation for a shower. After turning on the water, he returned to the patio door and gazed into the darkness illuminated only by the sparkling reflection of the moon in the silken water.
Suddenly, the urge to jump into the crisp waters washed over Louis like an April rain. Unable to fight it, he rushed down the steps to the shallow shore alongside the house.
“I hear you, Lord!” he yelled into the darkness, startling the sleeping birds nearby and causing a group of them to fly off.
Just as quickly as he hurried down to the shore, Louis drifted into the waters until he was waist deep and then fell back with his arms spread wide, the water swallowing him before he floated to the surface again.
“Hallelujah. Amen,” he whispered as tears streamed down the sides of his face and added their saltiness to the ocean.
He floated as he stared into the endless sky and wondered at its magnificence, in awe of God’s creations. Something as large as the Earth, he thought, all the way down to the ant. So much patience for so many intricate details. Oh, Lord, how excellent.
When he returned to shore, he reentered the house, stood in the twilight in all his glory, and admired the difference of the world at midnight as it reminded him there was beauty even in darkness. Just as he prepared to turn away, a star shot across the sky.
“Confirmation. Thank you, Lord. Amen,” he uttered before turning away from the door and entering the shower.