he threw on the dvd-player a film called First Reformed with Ethan Hawke story of a conflicted priest

he thought all priest by nature should be conflicted 

they come from a long ancient line of snake oil salesmen

he couldnt understand why they or the people they shepherded lived this life for the promise of the nextfor Heaven

thats a crock of shit

reverse-engineer human beings

where were they before

they were uncreated

when they died they were going to be uncreated again

baby Heaven 

               fat Chance

there was a beautiful shot of a clapboard church against a pristine snowfall it draped in quiet white glittering snow the trees the bushes ground covered in unmolested untrammeled snow

                                                                       ground and trees he saw as a boy in early morning winters as he delivered newspapers from his wagon he pulled it its wheels turned soundlessly or if they made a sound it was lost to the crunch of his footsteps

every so often hed stop and make a snow angel in the street

that tickled him tremendously

to lay in the street without worrying a car was going to run him over

he missed the snowmissed the snow covering the ground the icicles hanging artfully  pure  from guttersfrom tree limbsfrom evergreens

he missed the awesome quiet it held

unfortunately

in the next few moments

he remembered

                     he remembered why he left the Midwest the snow  the cold white Beauty

he found his friends bodyhis skull shattereddestroyed the shotgun fallen from his hands yet leaning up against him in the woods along the Mississippi Lake Pepin not a lake the Mississippi widened there   it only looked like a lake

he fell against a small tree

it held him upright

blood and gory fouled the beautiful white snow around him in an ugly halo

he left Minnesota that spring

went to California

where it didnt snowwhere he wouldnt see his best friend dead

1825,  Sunday,  21  7. 19

1245,  Thursday,  15  8. 19