Avery Bishop

The Journey Home

A verse from the Old Testament came to Avery from the book of Lamentations. Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the bitterness, surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. He looked out the door of the railcar. The sun was breaking through the morning clouds. The light of a new day was before him. He couldnt live in the past, but it was the past that made him what he was today; no longer the nave child, but a man hardened and bitter, very bitter he thought. He had left on his own, no one forced him to. He had chosen to do what he had done, and no one had blamed him. They deserved what they got, was the thinking. They were evil, God wanted him to do what he did. Avery could hear all the voices in his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold watch Ella had given him. He opened it and read the words on the inside. All My Love Forever. He sat there for a moment just looking at it and then he closed it and put it back in his pocket. Its all I have left, he thought. The wormwood and the bitterness