Soul
Section XI
Help
“Tell me, do you believe in God, John?”
“Yes.”
“And do you believe in his son? That Jesus died for our sins?”
“I do.”
“God bless you, John. God bless you for doing his will.”
John checked his watch. This tiny Hispanic woman had latched onto him after he gave her a five. In his heart, he believed this God’s will, but he was beginning to think that she had a different idea of what that meant. Now he found himself putting ten dollars on her gas card.
As they walked out she said, “Don’t worry, the grocery store is close.”
He paused. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ve done all I can.”
“John . . . think of God, John.”
He couldn’t bear those eyes. Beneath her look of confusion, there was something else. Disappointment? Certainly. Anger? Possibly. But what frightened him most was the subtle disdain that glistened just beneath her gaze. She thought herself more holy, and perhaps she was. “I’m sorry,” John said, “I wish I could do more, but I just can’t.”
“John . . .” she trailed off.
For a moment there was silence. “I—I’ll pray for you,” he said guiltily, then slowly turned and walked away.
Worlds
They wanted to know how to create worlds. For generations, it had been simple: “Once upon a time,” had seemed sufficient. But the minds of humanity were ambitious and strained against any limitations. They reached further, trying always to create more and better. Almost like a disease, stories reproduced and multiplied faster than anyone could have imagined or predicted. With relentless vigor, humanity created, analyzed the results, and then created more.
Always there were more questions than answers. What made it possible? What held all the stories together? What made any of them different?
Humanity tried to break their stories down into ever smaller parts—into sentences, words, morphemes, phonemes—scrutinizing each in the hope that it would provide the key to creation. When this course of action proved to be futile, they tried more a radical approach. Out of either desperation or inspiration or both, they hurled the stories at each other, smashing them together and smashing them apart, hoping to understand how chaos could become order.
Perhaps it was a reward for their diligence. Perhaps it was an act of sheer will. Perhaps it was by faith. But for a brief moment in the turmoil, they observed Word.
Summer
Sean swallowed his bitterness in mouthfuls of black tea. “I mean, it’s not like Will and I were super close or anything. But we were buddies. Friends. I miss that.”
“I get that,” Becki said through slurps of iced latte. “Like you had a lot of the same interests but didn’t want to like pour out all your deep, dark secrets.”
“Like buddies,” Brandon added.
Sean just looked out the window. “I don’t know. I just miss being with him, you know?”
“Maybe this summer you’ll see him. You guys can be buddies again.”
“Yeah,” said Brandon, “summer’s good.”
“Summer’s great,” Becki continued. “No more classes. It’s too bad we can’t just keep hanging out all summer. I’ll miss you guys.”
Sean took another swallow of tea. “I don’t think I’m gonna miss anyone.”
“Oh, I know what you mean,” Becki said. “Like we’ve been around each other a lot. I think we need some time apart to realize how important we all are.”
“No. To be honest, I don’t like it here. I’m just looking forward to seeing Will.”
“What.” said Becki.
“What?” said Brandon.
Sean stood. “I’ve gotta go.” He threw away his tea on the way out.
Neck
Nasrollah dropped the pages and staggered backward across the room. For a moment, he didn’t breathe. The fallen sheets lay like a serpent that would nip his ankle if he got to close. With that in mind Nasrollah crept around the table, approaching the pages from behind so he could snatch them by the tail.
Seeing the sheets again was almost as shocking as the first time. The colors were more so vibrant that he was sure they’d consume themselves, like a shooting star or burning saltpeter. More impressive still were the forms themselves: a fluffy white cat, a crowd of people, a dinner party. Coming to a portrait, he paused. The woman had a proud face, but looked like she might weep. Bewildered, he wondered how life could be contained on sheets of parchment without even leaving a brush stroke. At that moment, Nasrollah realized he loved her.
Nasrollah shook himself fiercely, like he was coming in from the cold. He took up a brush from the table, dipped it in a nearby pot of red paint, and with zealous determination, slashed at the necks of every figure, so that the artist would never again attempt to supersede God.
Look
The man probably smelled like piss and puke. It was impossible to be sure from across the street, behind glass, and surrounded by entrancing aromas of fresh coffee and pastries. Nevertheless, it was not difficult to imagine. The couple knew he’d been sitting there at least an hour, probably longer based on his little island created from old newspapers and broken down cardboard boxes. His clothing showed hints of its original hues, but had mostly settled into indistinct shades of brown and grey darkened in places by stains of what could have been anything from dirt to vomit to blood. Occasionally, he would lift his plastic cup to passersby, but most times he didn’t even bother.
“Mark!”
“Hm? What?” Mark replied without tearing his eyes away from the window.
“Have you forgotten that I’m even here?”
“Jen, look. There’s a dog now.”
A dog had indeed joined the man across the street, appearing almost out of nowhere to come and lay down beside him. The man clung to the dog as if it was his entire life.
“What is so engrossing?” she asked. “What could you possibly be staring at?”
“God,” he said. And a tear ran down his face.
Judgment
Yes it’s true; I died today. Only briefly, of course—the EMTs on the scene quickly revived me. But it was long enough for me to approach the gates of heaven and face my judgment.
Of course most will not believe me—they will say it is a hallucination or worse, they will say that it is all a fantasy, concocted out of delusion or from a malicious desire to manipulate the beliefs of others.
But I tell you that I saw eternity. And I saw it closed to me. The entire court of heaven was gathered, and I sat in the seat of the accused. The prosecutor, wearing my own face, read out the list of my offenses. My defense attorney declared that blood had washed out all my wrongs, and eternity waited with open arms. But the jury, a dozen of me, cried out, “Guilty!” The judge, also me, swung his gavel and shouted, “Guilty!”
It sounds ridiculous, I know.
I tell you that I saw eternity, reaching out a hand to me. It was just the two of us. And he kept reaching, reaching.
And I woke. And I wonder why those hands would ever hold mine.
Aboard
Red lights flashed with rainy halos. A train was stopped on the tracks, and we were the only car at the crossing.
“I hate this,” I said.
“Life is in the waiting,” you answered.
Aboard the train, people smiled, talked, milled about. They waved at us; we waved back. They beckoned. We got out of the car and dashed through the rain to climb aboard. The conductor greeted us by name. Amidst jubilation, the train started moving.
Outside the windows, we passed the same intersection over and over, saw our car parked there with ourselves sitting inside, waiting. Faster and faster we went—or perhaps the world was spinning around us—until, like a kinetoscope, the images blurred into one. We watched ourselves waiting, aging, sometimes looking cross, sometimes looking tender, until we hudd
led close together and you laid your head on mine.
The train stopped. Outside the window was our empty car, sitting in the rain. A voice rang out, “This station stop, waiting. Next, eternity.”
You moved immediately to the door, tugging me along. I hesitated. You stepped off the train, then turned back toward me.
“The train is preparing to depart. Please step away from the doors.”
Tone
She couldn’t get that ringing tone out of her ears. To make matters worse, the ticking of the turn signal resounded in her head the entire drive. The quiet rhythm she normally didn’t even notice was now impossible to ignore. It was a reminder.
When she pulled into the garage and turned off the car, she didn’t get out immediately, but sat and listened to the erratic clicking of the cooling engine. Somehow the inconsistent rhythm of the sounds was more soothing—that is until it started to slow down and to fade. In the ever greater periods of silence she would hear the ringing tone claw at her ears again until it was too much, and she had to enter the house.
But as soon as she came inside and set down her keys, she could hear it—the tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock of clock above the fireplace. It paralyzed her. The noise was like a hammer beating on an anvil—a great and horrible timer counting down the seconds until silence—counting down the heartbeats until death, and the soul-rending tone of the machine flat-lining, the tone that was burned into her brain the moment her mother died.
Thanksgiving
When my sister Linda stumbles into the living room at eleven o’clock yawning and asks, “What’s going on?” my dad answers, “How could you sleep through the parade?”
And Uncle Phil shows up at the door looking ashamed and already a little drunk. He says “I think I ran over your mailbox. Couldn’t see it.”
And Aunt Summer says, “How could you miss that ugly thing?”
And when the smoke detector goes off, my mom rushes into the hazy kitchen where I’m coughing and trying to fan away smoke. She glares at me, and asks “What on earth happened? How could you burn mashed potatoes?”
And we can’t find my cousin Mary and her husband Jim because they’re arguing in the pantry, saying, “How could you sleep with another man?” and “How could you sleep with another woman?”
And there are sirens in the yard where the police are leading away Robby Jr. in handcuffs, while Aunt Phyllis hits Uncle Rob and shouts, “How could you call the cops on your own son, and today of all days?”
But my grandmother sits at the table speaking softly, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for this food.”
Morning
The bells were ringing at St. John’s across the street. Harsh. Metallic.
He stood in the window, squinting at the glaring morning sunlight. Cars had already begun filling the church parking lot, bringing women in purple dresses, girls in pink frills, boys tugging at their collars, and men in suits also tugging at their collars. They entered the old, brick building with gentle smiles and warm handshakes.
He heard his wife stir in the bed behind him. “Is it morning?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Sunday?”
“Easter,” he said. He looked back at his wife in the pile of sheets and wanted to cry. She almost seemed to be drowning in the heavy bedding wadded around her tiny form. Her skin was pale, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes heavy and mournful. She seemed almost to be a shadow against those white sheets instead of a person. The few small movements she made were ghostly. Wraithlike. Lifeless. Rather, the life had gone out of her. He remembered that awaiting them downstairs were all the bloody towels and rags they had used to clean up the miscarriage the night before.
“Can you close the blinds?” she asked. The light is just . . . too much.
Remembrance
The tray came to him next. He had always thought communion at a wedding was a nice touch, and he gingerly plucked one of the plastic thimbles of grape juice before passing the tray.
Juice—not wine, he reminded himself.
Outside these Protestant Eucharists, he had only ever drunk grape juice from sippy cups as a toddler. It had always been wine when he was growing up Catholic—when he was an altar boy and an older kid showed him how to get in the sacristy—when he was older himself and showed younger boys the same trick—when the janitor and Father Mulloy found them in a naked heap on the floor—when he wanted his wife too much or maybe too little and hit her the first time.
He wasn’t sure if he still believed in transubstantiation, but he knew it was more than grape juice, and it was more than wine. When he swallowed that tiny mouthful, his veins would run again with the nectar of sippy cups, chalices, and long-stemmed goblets. Like always, the reminder of his death would give him life.
“Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me,” the pastor read.
Amen.
End
Written in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, 14 December 2012
The cup of tea had cooled in her hands an hour ago, but she had never even taken a sip. In fact, she had barely moved all day. As she had for most of the last week, she spent the day in her armchair facing away from the window. She could not bear to look out at the day. The sun mocked her by shining today. Even with the blinds closed, a brutal light, somehow made harsher by the falling snow, broke through windows and shattered her fragile peace.
She heard a diesel engine roaring on the street outside. It was 3:51. The bus was right on time. It was the last Friday before Christmas, and laughing children were frolicking through the snow and into their houses for two weeks away from school.
But her son would not be coming through the door. The unwrapped presents in the corner of her closet would never be played with. The tree beside her would remain only half-decorated until it rotted where it stood.
They Mayans were wrong. The world was not ending that December 21st. Hers had ended a week before. Not with earthquakes or exploding bombs, but with a child’s cry.
Miracle
Everyone said it was a miracle. They tell me I’m blessed, ask what I’m going to do next; they tell me that now I can go anywhere.
Anywhere.
And of course, they ask me what he’s like. I tell them what they expect: that he was wonderful, that he was mysterious, that the fire of starlight is in his eyes. I don’t have the heart to admit that a part of me hates the ugly carpenter.
I have fallen four times, gotten lost twice, and once cut my heel so badly that I was almost lamed again.
For although he gave, he stole from me as well. He stole my whole world. After thirty-eight years, I was content with the life I had, such as it was. There was my mat, and there was the pool, and as long as I tried to move from one to the other, it was enough. Now I’m a prisoner freed after long internment. I’m a newborn child. I don’t know how to live in this world.
“It’s a miracle,” they say. “You can walk!” But they don’t understand. The miracle was when I stood. Walking is a curse. It’s a beautiful, wonderful curse.
Tears
On the seventeenth of February, Cyril Petras was followed by the sign of the tear.
The woman working the toll booth sniffled and wiped her nose after taking his ticket. She was crying because she had given up on love the night before and was now regretting it.
The homeless man on the corner of Monroe and Seventh whimpered as he shook his cup of change. He was crying—not because he lost his job, his wife and his leg as his sign said—but because the tumor he didn’t know about was growing, and the pain never stopped.
The waitress at the cafe sneaked a Kleenex from her bra to wipe her eyes in the kitchen. She was crying because there was an ASPCA commercial on the TV above the counter, and she still missed her dog Rufus, who ran away when she was nine.
Cyril’s secretary was shaded his red, puffy eyes all day. He was cryin
g because someone had filled every drawer of his desk with tampons—again.
Cyril may have noticed these tears, but if he did, he didn’t mention it. Otherwise, things might have been different. But on the eighteenth of February, he was dead.
Call
She was holding the phone in her hand, looking at it when it began to vibrate. Startled, she nearly dropped the phone as she scrambled to answer. “Hello? Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
The voice was very soft. She didn’t recognize it. “What’s that? I’m not sure who this is.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just, tell me, what do you want?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Listen. I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about, so it’s no good repeating it. I think you have the wrong number.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you saying that?” she asked. “What are you sorry about? Who is this?
“I’m sorry.”
Some sincerity in that voice that summoned up deep memories. “Is—is this Jessica? Is it you, sweetheart?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Listen none of it matters anymore. Your father may still be cross, but we do want you to come home. Please come home. Jessica?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. This isn’t Jessica. Who are you? Did she put you up to this?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please,” she said. “Please. I want to talk to her. I want to see my baby.”
“I’m sorry.”
She paused, trembling. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m sorry.”
The dial tone roared through her ears.
Blood
I couldn’t believe the results on my screen: your name. It’s strange realizing that I don’t care why you did it. I guess love can drive us mad.
I was only nine when I came home from school and found my father with a bullet through his chest. The paramedics had to pry me away from his body, but it was too late to save him. His blood on my hands, in my veins, still calls to me like a vengeful ghost. They never found the killer.
I stare at the long rows of vials—my life’s work. Years of training, of answers, of justice. My love’s duty went drop by drop into each little glass bottle. And suddenly it all seems meaningless. You make me a traitor to myself. I have your blood from the scene of the crime—blood once pumped by the heart that beats in rhythm with mine. But how can I convict my love?
I will delete the records. I will open every vial and open up my veins. They’ll find my pale body here in the morning. They’ll find my blood in every sample.
I will be all victims.
I will be all transgressors.
Peace
He was as mysterious and as silent as the universe, only he was flesh and blood. Marcus curled his hand into a fist and struck the man in the face. The blow hurt his hand, but his victim’s grunt of pain made it that much more satisfying.
Marcus had never participated in the unofficial beatings some of the others enjoyed. Criminals, when faced with punishment, laid their weakness bare. It was pitiable.
This man was different. He held is head up high, but not with pride. With peace.
Marcus hated him for it.
Why should the guilty have peace when he did not? A couple others had already started the beating, so Marcus threw a punch as well. Why shouldn’t the condemned suffer since he had suffered? The pain in his hand was small—manageable. And he could easily hurl it back at the prisoner’s face. In striking this stranger, he struck his debts, his headaches, his wife’s miscarriage. He punched the face of his captain, of Caesar, of his father. He beat against all the pain and misery in his life until he was doubled over, out of breath.
Blood ran down the man’s swollen face. He remained silent.