A prayer gone wrong

"Are you there, God? It's me..." Her words were followed by a cloud of smoke, created by the same cold that was causing her hands to shake in flurried movements as she cupped them together and blew into them. It was a brisk winter, and all the wood she had gathered for tonight's storm had sporadically vanished the moment she needed it. It was similar to everything in her home. All the things she had needed had disappeared, such as; the wooden spoon she used for pasta, the extra bedding sheets she used when her usual were in the wash, the stool she needed to reach the back-ends of her cupboards.

Every time she needed something, it was suddenly gone. It had all begun happening three weeks ago, and she'd done nothing but regret her decision since.

Pulling her hands apart, she placed them in her lap and began to cry. "I take it back. I take it all back."

Things had worsened. Her electricity had turned off weeks before payday, she kept falling down the last three steps of her stairs, and she almost cracked her head open on the pavement yesterday. Her children had similar experiences at school and at home. Kids picked on them in a way they never had before, they tripped and skinned their knees every other day.

"I understand now, I see it all. I never should have asked." She wanted, more than anything, for everything to go back to normal. Even if it meant that she would be losing all she had gained in the process.

She felt him before she saw him. His presence was like a cloud of darkness looming over her, waiting to strike, despite the fact that it used to be calming and kind. He no longer smelled the way he used to; of pine from the outdoors and smoke from the fires.

He smelt like food that had been left to rot, like an oil spill from the back of the car. Sometimes, his smell was similar to that of the carcass of a rodent.

Even their children cowered away from him, though he used to tuck them into bed at night. His demeanour had changed. He no longer seemed like the soft, cuddly bear the way they used to tease him to be. He was like a wolf, all snarl and bite and sharp claws at the ready. Words that spewed from his mouth were sharp, not kind, and the children had woken with bruises on their sides from the harsh way he would tuck them in. Her husband was gone, and all she'd gotten in return was a shell of who he used to be, shown only in the light hours of morning when the sun was kissing the tips of the mountains in the distance.

Then, it would be gone in the blink of an eye. And returned the man who slept with his back to her, who would flinch if an inch of her bare flesh even brushed his own.

He spoke from where he stood, his voice deep in a way she was regrettably beginning to become familiar with. "It's not that cold."

That was another strange thing, the way he never felt the temperature. Not if it was cold, and especially not if it was too hot. She was convinced she could stick a hot poker into his side and all he would do was simply blink at her and ask what was for dinner.

The wood creaked as he neared, as if he weighed tons instead of the frailness he had gained during the hospital. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, cold as if he were dead. His finger tips pressed harshly into her collarbone, and she knew that he hadn't meant to be rough - he never did - but she still flinched.

Drawing his fingers back, he chose not to speak on the action as he sat down next to her. The foot of space between them was visible to both, but like many things, they had chosen not to acknowledge it.

"Are the children asleep?"

"Yes." He replied. "Who were you speaking to?"

"What?"

"I heard you speaking."

Yet, he had been upstairs, and her tucked away in the living room with the door shut. But of course he heard her, he always seemed to know the things she did not want him to. "God."

A silence enveloped them that immediately set her in a state of unease. Usually, the moments of silence allowed her to feel peaceful, especially with him. Now, they felt cruel and calculated, and she could never figure out if he was silent because he was mad. It felt filled with tension, like she'd lit fire to the edge of a rope leading to a bomb that was still waiting to set off.

Shortly after, they left to go to their bedroom. The stairs felt hollow beneath her feet, as though they would break and swallow her whole. She was beginning to believe that she may prefer that end over whatever was coming for her.

They lay in bed side by side, but couldn't be further away from each other. She wanted to reach out, hold onto his hand, any part of him that would allow her to once again feel close to him. But she couldn't stand to see him inch away the way he usually did. It was like his whole body recoiled, his eyes scrunched up.

Sometimes, he even gagged.

She'd caught him in the bathroom before, hunched over the toilet seat after her finger had brushed his. He was hacking up a deep crimson liquid the colour of blood. There were clots in it that she'd first thought were food, but one time he had forgotten to flush.

She'd looked closer, turned on the flashlight of her phone so she could inspect it. Brown lumps of soil, moss, and twigs. As though he'd taken mouthfuls from their garden and regretted the consequences. It happened so consistently that he could never keep a meal down.

She closed her eyes tightly, whispering one last hushed sentence to God.

"I never should have asked for him to come back."

It all happened a month ago. He hadn't picked their kids up from school, wasn't answering any of her calls or messages. His car had spiralled out of control, and he'd flipped three times before landing. Broken ribs, sprained neck, and an injury to his spinal cord. He was in a coma, and they said it was unlikely he would survive.

And so she prayed nightly.

"I will give anything for him to come back." She had said one night, her hands shaking from the force in which she was clasping them.

She knew now, though, that nature liked everything in balance. That she had pleaded for a life, and now she owed one. She saw it in her youngest child's eyes every day. The dimming light, the sudden blackening bags. The way he had nosebleeds every time he sneezed too hard, how he caught a common cold as if it were life-threatening.

The repercussions of what she had done were hers to deal with, and she wanted nothing but to take it all back.

He would kill them one day, she was sure of it. When he'd returned to them something had been set off-kilter inside of him that could not be fixed. And if he weren't the one to kill them, something else would. What she'd done was too formidable to not face consequence.

Maybe, God wasn't answering because He had stopped listening to her a long time ago. She had stolen a life that belonged to Him, after all.

There was this feeling, a swarm in the back of her mind. One of dark mass that was filled with the same decaying matter that the scent of her husband carried.

One that told her that when she had prayed to God that night, He was not the one who had answered.