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
