Five Finger Death Punch

Twenty-Four: Ice

Chris Kael cried for the first time in a long time.

He sat on his couch, cradling his pug dog against his chest, as the tears rolled down his cheeks and disappeared into his dreadlocked beard. He made pathetic sobbing sounds that were deep and sprung up from the heart like a leak as the dog squirmed in his arms. It whimpered with him and licked his mouth, and even as he moved his head multiple directions away from its tongue it continued to kiss him. He kissed it back on its wrinkly forehead and then rested his head on the back cushions of the couch.

His heart hurt so badly. He could felt a thick, jagged crack in it that was throbbing and pulsing, sending up signals to his brain to make him weep like a child. So he sat there, crying and crying as his pug dog whimpered and padded his chest with its paws. All he could think about was Ivan, drunk and angry, spitting on him – spitting his hatred at him. He had spit on him so many times in the past, but there had been a sort of passion in it, a passion that was characterized by the annoyance felt with a loved one. That time, however, drunk and angry, there was no vehemence. Ivan had spit ice at him and there was ice in his intensely blue eyes.

His heart was so cold. Freezing inside of his body, shivering behind his ribs, as artic water ran down his face and crusted in his beard. His pug dog tried to lick to ice away, melt it with its warm breath, but Chris was freezing and couldn’t stop crying. He felt like a child. A selfish child who had complained one too many times until his mother retired to her room. A child too small to be sure that she’d have to come out eventually and too ignorant to know if she really wanted to.