“Hideous misery was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld its awesome glory, and wept,” said the monk, laying his hand across the body of a woman in a wheelchair who had fallen asleep in the heat of the day, after the flood, with thoughts of love on her mind.
She had been trying to remember how she got to this place, and why her life arrived at this particular corner, alone in a strange crowd, in a wheelchair, with neither food or drink, friend or foe. The heat. She saw it coming down the street early in the morning with a grin just this side of sin, and a hat made of fire. He embraced her, and wiped her dry brow into a sweat.
The streets were packed full, as was the hall inside, and she sat pinned against the wall of the building unable to move at all. She lacked the strength, and even a titan could not clear a path through the crowds who surrounded her like a dark brown sea.
She thought back to a time when she could see love clearly. Do you know? Perhaps you saw her, them, in that diner, and she was fustering over his habit of spilling things, like his coffee across the table onto her pants. And he was scolding her because he did not want to spend another day looking for curtains that matched some indecipherable color and price point in his wife’s imagination. They went back and forth over these things while sitting in the diner tasting each other’s breakfast, with each saying, “I should have gotten what you have.”
Who can say that now for anyone? Who can say that for a life, for a city, for a nation? Who would say that here, once the levee gave way, flooding out the city? Oh run, run away, for there is nothing good to have here. Do I covet what you have when it is good only? Or ought I to want what you have, if all you have is pain to share? Many years ago the monk had met another of his kind who had lived nearly forever. That one said, “God promised to never destroy the world with flood.” So far so bad, as specifics were everything. The world was not a nation was not a city was not a life of a woman in a wheelchair wondering how her time had come to such an end.
Miriam tried to lift her arms to wipe her head, but could not. Her clothes were so damp and she had the urge to strip all off and run naked down the street. She lowered her eyes and thought of Christ giving up his ghost. Night reluctantly came, substituting the hand of fear for the promise of cool air.
She woke up the fourth morning to the sound of cursing. Two men were fighting over an object and about to come to blows. Observers would have you think that all are noble and struggling to make it through the difficulties. But no. Often as not, people are the same people they were before, only more so, free of the constraints that an organized world places upon a soul. “Get the F*** away from my television,” said the one to the other, in a land now without electricity.
Nausea came upon her, and her breath grew heavy and she knew this was as it would finally be. So she thought of the diner, and how she would love to relive that moment again. She wanted to be picking a Park’s sausage patty off the plate of someone who loved her while arguing over where to find the cheapest curtains with blue birds on them. He gave in, you know. She dragged him that day over half a city or two, with a couple of towns thrown in. When she had finally found what she was looking for, he looked up in his taciturn way and said, “Yep, I like them quite alright.” Then they went out to eat again, this time at the Chinese buffet where they argued over whether or not they would go to church in the morning. He wanted her to stay home and watch football with him. She did.
These were the thoughts she was thinking when her life submerged between the worlds, slumping her body over. People nearby pointed saying, “She’s dead, she’s dead,” but did little about it. What could they do? The floods had come and there was nothing to do now but wait.
By the time the monk reached her, flies had begun to take liberties with her body; they walked gingerly over the top of her head, mesmerized by the faint sweet smell in her hair. Soldiers were coming from the opposite direction on a caravan of vehicles, led by the mayor. He had a pressed red shirt, and the very same shirt he wore on television when denouncing the governor and the federal authorities for not doing anything for his city. “Someone has to take responsibility,” said the mayor of the city whose levee had broken, and who had thus far governed as though the city were built atop a festive mountain fortress.
The monk leaned over the woman and breathed into her ear. “It only works if you believe, now awaken dear one.” She opened her eyes and looked around at the world that was once again clearly her home, and tears clouded her vision.
“What’s wrong? This is our world,” said he.
“I know, and it is so sad. For me at least,” she responded.
With that, he took his hand and rolled it over the top of her head and down across her face. It was as though he had removed a portion of her scalp, and skull, and she could feel a rush of something pouring into her. Her decayed body then slumped and she gave up her soul. A small child watched this wide eyed, then told her mother, who told another, and another. A rumor spread through the streets that a British tourist in a turtleneck was killing old black people by pinching their noses shut. The national news reports jumped on the story, knowing the truth when they heard it.
