would simply fall off the planet and keep falling and never hit ground again. I believed that what kept me from falling was only my own will, remade in every moment.
10
P OX AND PLAGUES. THE GREAT FLOOD. LANGUAGE TURNED only to babbling. Humanity erased over and over. The Bible is about our fight against god. And somehow weâre more powerful, simply because of our will, because weâre persistent. We refuse to be erased.
Itâs been a bitter fight. The great flood. Think of how many lost. Drowned like rats, no burials, no apologies, no reparations. God owes us. We have a long way to go to even the score. Imagine that wall of water coming over a hill, the sheep scattering, and you feel the cold breath of it, a thrill in that dry heat, the sudden change, and the sun is underwater, pale shafts of light reaching through the blue, and that can only be beautiful, the moments right before annihilation can never be anything less than the very best moments, held suspended. That wave breaking overhead and the sun shining through it and every pattern in the world visible in the light, revealed, and godâs punishment means nothing because you canât feel that youâve been bad, because you didnât start in the garden, you were only here on this hillside and then the wave came.
I had been to Sunday school since I could remember. My fatherâs one concession to religion. He didnât go to church himself, only sent me, his only son sent in his name, ha ha.
My grandfather never spoke about religion, nor did Tom. Really they never spoke about anything except hunting and fishing.
I slithered my way up that steep canyon slope, my belly in the dirt, and I refused to be left behind. I did not pause or rest, and I kept that rifle clenched in my fist and wouldnât let go. Taste of dirt, of all that has rotted and decayed and lain dormant, all that waits and then is released.
My father disappeared over the rim and no doubt kept going, and there was no sign or sound of Tom or my grandfather, though I was exposed on this slope and my grandfather had a clear view from his ridge. He could easily have sighted in with his scope and shot me as I climbed. I would fall backward just as I imagined.
An overhang of root and dirt at the top, so I crabbed to the side and crawled up rocks that slid beneath me, and finally I made the rim. I lay for a moment on the flat and rested, out of breath and my legs burning. But then I rose, because I knew no one would wait. Iâd have to be close enough behind to hear their path across that next hillside, back to the wallow.
Retracing our steps. Like ants marching along a path, atavistic reckoning that feels like discovery but is only recognition. I like that idea, because then my pulling of the trigger was the pull from some earlier generation, something only recognized, not originated. And thatâs how it felt. Like someone elseâs hand working inside mine.
That scrub hillside curved outward in a torment typical of our world, the end in sight and then not the end and then in sight again and then not the end and on and on, so that we just keep stumbling along, scraped and torn as we push through. The poison oak rising all along my skin another plague. Welts and bubbles I could feel on my face and neck and see on my wrists, the bubbles much lighter in color, almost white against the angry red, and holding some vile liquid invented where.
I wandered through live oak and scrub and sun, sweating and growing the welts, and I couldnât hear even my grandfather and his path of destruction but only my own footsteps, and so I had no way of knowing if I was on the right course, but because Iâm an ant, I ended up at exactly the right spot, coming down over that lip into the wallow right next to the truck. The men already in the cab, waiting, silent as stones, and I climbed aboard and we were off again. Simple as that.
We rose out of that bog into ponderosa pines where
10
P OX AND PLAGUES. THE GREAT FLOOD. LANGUAGE TURNED only to babbling. Humanity erased over and over. The Bible is about our fight against god. And somehow weâre more powerful, simply because of our will, because weâre persistent. We refuse to be erased.
Itâs been a bitter fight. The great flood. Think of how many lost. Drowned like rats, no burials, no apologies, no reparations. God owes us. We have a long way to go to even the score. Imagine that wall of water coming over a hill, the sheep scattering, and you feel the cold breath of it, a thrill in that dry heat, the sudden change, and the sun is underwater, pale shafts of light reaching through the blue, and that can only be beautiful, the moments right before annihilation can never be anything less than the very best moments, held suspended. That wave breaking overhead and the sun shining through it and every pattern in the world visible in the light, revealed, and godâs punishment means nothing because you canât feel that youâve been bad, because you didnât start in the garden, you were only here on this hillside and then the wave came.
I had been to Sunday school since I could remember. My fatherâs one concession to religion. He didnât go to church himself, only sent me, his only son sent in his name, ha ha.
My grandfather never spoke about religion, nor did Tom. Really they never spoke about anything except hunting and fishing.
I slithered my way up that steep canyon slope, my belly in the dirt, and I refused to be left behind. I did not pause or rest, and I kept that rifle clenched in my fist and wouldnât let go. Taste of dirt, of all that has rotted and decayed and lain dormant, all that waits and then is released.
My father disappeared over the rim and no doubt kept going, and there was no sign or sound of Tom or my grandfather, though I was exposed on this slope and my grandfather had a clear view from his ridge. He could easily have sighted in with his scope and shot me as I climbed. I would fall backward just as I imagined.
An overhang of root and dirt at the top, so I crabbed to the side and crawled up rocks that slid beneath me, and finally I made the rim. I lay for a moment on the flat and rested, out of breath and my legs burning. But then I rose, because I knew no one would wait. Iâd have to be close enough behind to hear their path across that next hillside, back to the wallow.
Retracing our steps. Like ants marching along a path, atavistic reckoning that feels like discovery but is only recognition. I like that idea, because then my pulling of the trigger was the pull from some earlier generation, something only recognized, not originated. And thatâs how it felt. Like someone elseâs hand working inside mine.
That scrub hillside curved outward in a torment typical of our world, the end in sight and then not the end and then in sight again and then not the end and on and on, so that we just keep stumbling along, scraped and torn as we push through. The poison oak rising all along my skin another plague. Welts and bubbles I could feel on my face and neck and see on my wrists, the bubbles much lighter in color, almost white against the angry red, and holding some vile liquid invented where.
I wandered through live oak and scrub and sun, sweating and growing the welts, and I couldnât hear even my grandfather and his path of destruction but only my own footsteps, and so I had no way of knowing if I was on the right course, but because Iâm an ant, I ended up at exactly the right spot, coming down over that lip into the wallow right next to the truck. The men already in the cab, waiting, silent as stones, and I climbed aboard and we were off again. Simple as that.
We rose out of that bog into ponderosa pines where
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