untold

i hoped god was bulletproof.

because it looked as if someone had bad aim with the shotgun leaning against the door outside the cabin. the black sky was blown wide open with 100,000 buckshot holes that shot right through to the light of heaven. galaxies expanded above us like white gunpowder blown through a double barreled canon into the far corners of the universe.

the only other light in the world was unrolling across the lake like a pale white carpet from the flood light on the cabin deck. it drifted silently through the rising fog and scattered into the hemlock and oak trees on the far side of the lake.

i was lying flat on the dock in the darkness. the canoe sat silently in the fog among the shadows of the pale white light unrolling across the lake.

through it all i could hear them singing and laughing at the cabin. like a radio show from the 1940's, i listened and smiled, because i knew every face that belonged to every voice in the broadcast. and everyface was my friend. in the darkness under the hemlock trees across the lake 3 lights appeared in single file. i could hear prada and kiaya streak through the woods across the october forest floor past the three lights stumbling and laughing in the dark.

we watched them walk through the woods. laughter murmured through the fog and past the canoe floating silently and obiedianlty beside the dock. her heartbeat was gentle. it slowly beat against me, reminding me that she was real. we laid there silently as the laughter walked across the white carpet of light and fog unrolling across the lake and through the hemlock and oak trees.

i wasn't cold. i wasn't hungry. i wasn't tired. i wasn't anything. i put my arms her around her to feel her gentle heartbeat and the life in her skin, because thought maybe i was dead. but i wasn't afraid of the thought. and should i have had the luxury of having two lives to live in this lifetime, i would have ended one right then and there with her dark hair falling over me on the dock the hung out over the fog and the pale white light unrolling across the lake.

the three lights went out and bonwag's guitar began to play soflty from in the darkness under the hemlock trees across the lake. i could feel her smile. i saw the galaxies expanding. and i knew that god must be bulletproof. and suddenly, for the first time in my life, i didn't need to remember any of it. i didn't need to tell anyone else about it, because i could feel her gentle heartbeat. and i could feel her smiling, i knew she was watching the gunpowdered galaxies expanding above us. i knew she was listening to the guitar. i knew she saw saw everything.

and there was no one else anywhere in this galaxy that i needed to tell.

Posted by Todd Roeth at October 27, 2003 04:51 AM