Sandcastles

__________

Last night we couldn't find Jimmy and it turned out he was sleeping on the front porch, curled in a fetal position with his Nat Shermans sitting there, like someone dropped off a body at the hospital.  He was fine--just drunk--and Rob leaned over Jimmy and told him to get up in his Fireman Voice, asked what he was doing.  "Sleeping," Jimmy said.  "Come on," said Rob, this isn't your bed."  "Not my bed?! What do you mean, it's not my bed?!" shrieked Jimmy.  Not really debating the bed-ness of the concrete pad, I think.  It seemed Drunk Jimmy was mostly just astonished by Rob's Fireman Voice, which admittedly was jarring between friends.  The whole time, I just stood there watching stupidly.

Last week, Rob's best friend's dad died snorkeling in the Caribbean.  Also last week, a former student of Jimmy's hanged himself in the woods behind the house.  I guess a girl had broken up with the student.  They don't know what killed Rob's friend's dad.

Today Kevin and I built a sandcastle while the Toddler and Jimmy's son, who is six, helped here and there and destroyed it here and there.  We spent about twenty minutes on the castle and its town, and an hour and a half on the moats and sea walls in front.  The tide was coming in.  A wave hit our series of moats and exploded into a splash higher than anything we'd built, but it didn't take down the castle.  That was hours ago now.  High tide has come since then and the castle and its moats are gone forever.

Last night after we found Jimmy he went up to the roof with Kevin to smoke and cry.  I had to put the Toddler to bed.  When I was done, I went through the kitchen to follow Jimmy upstairs.  "Kevin waved Rob and Larry off," Crystal told me.  "He's... You may not want to..."  "I'm not scared," I said.

Kevin was in a chair and Jimmy was crumpled in a sitting heap on the roof deck.  I crumpled up next to Jimmy and lit a cigarette and didn't do a thing, but my shoulder pushed up on his and my knee pressed against his and I didn't shrink from him.

After he eventually stopped crying he started asking why Death always wins.  "He always wins," he said.  "I'm tired of staring him in the face.  I'm tired of his stench," rolling out the S in stench and ending with a sonic punch, like his larynx reached out and slapped the air.  "I'm tired of his fucking face."  Silence.  Continuing, in a mournful tone, "That's why I drink, that's why I smoke," and then, "Why?!  Why does he always, always, always win?" --which ended in a shout.  "Because we're mortal," I wanted to say, and, "Death has been defeated," but I didn't say anything at all.  Jimmy went downstairs eventually, and he was going to set up a game or a movie, but he and Crystal just went to bed in the end instead.  Everybody else went down to see the night beach except me and Kevin, and we talked about work for a while in that bland way people have who care, but don't have anything to say.

Jimmy worries that our fledgling church will die.  I do not honestly care.  I worry about Jimmy.  And Rob.  And Kevin.  And Crystal.  And I set up moat after moat, digging, putting my back into it, silently carrying on in my stupid way, crumpling up next to people and lighting cigarettes.

Because I know the tide will come.

But I still build sandcastles.  And moats to help them live past one more wave.

______

A Necessary Coda:

Later Jimmy told me I'd said something at dinner that night, which reminded him of terrors from his childhood.  Neither of us could remember what.  He'd gone outside to pray; he'd fallen asleep; that's how we'd found him.

So it was me, perhaps, that first sent him out to that concrete fetal nap.  Well, I meant no harm, useless as that is.  Two days later we spent the day on the beach and he sat behind us the entire day well into his cups.  We picked everything up in the afternoon to take it back to the house, and afterward I went back for Jimmy.  He was still sitting there, in the same exact position he'd occupied the whole day that'd just slipped past, but in our absence he was sobbing behind his dark sunglasses, his back heaving.

There weren't words to say and I didn't touch him or announce myself.  I fed a cheese curl to a seagull and built a tiny wall of reeds plugged into the sand.  I stared out at the ocean and wondered if I could do anything at all to help; the sea taught me to wait.

In the end, walking slowly back to the house holding his folded chair, I told him I didn't have any words, I told him that kid had made his own mistake.  "But he was a good kid, Peter," Jimmy said.  "He was a good kid."  I said some other useless things, and I asked him to drink less tomorrow, which he did.  In the real end, I mean the really real one, I guess I know my moats won't matter.  For all I try, my efforts only seem to destroy here and there so much as they help here and there, like the Toddler and Jimmy's six-year-old.  It takes the calming of the tides to mend some wounds.

Still, it's what I have, and in my stupid way, it's what makes most sense to me.  Sometimes I think the only human things worth doing are the ones that wash away.





October 2016

Double Exposure

Sometimes I take pictures of my family in the evenings, sitting with their occupations: books, or toys, mother with child, child with trucks.  I take pictures to remind my future Self of a time when I was happy--when nothing was wrong, when the troubles that inevitably arise have not yet bared their fangs.


And yet, behind these pictures, I am also often sad.  The causes are small, but numerous: petty slights, personal struggles, lost opportunities, failed efforts, grieving friends.  My children grow, and I mourn the loss of each month while still rejoicing in the next.


Meanwhile, I maintain the pragmatic expectation that true troubles lie ahead.  We will be sick, or hungry, or there will be injury and fear, or there will be discord and conflict.  Life is a wheel that does not stay fixed in place.


When those days come, I will look back on these happy times and I will forget the small troubles that now loom so strangely large.  And in the light of this expectation, this analytic likelihood, I am warmly reminded of how small my current troubles truly are.  In context, a coin can be the size of the Sun; but it is not the size of the Sun.


Therefore, I take my pictures of these trouble-free days, these splendid times, this golden age--and in the view forced by this simple click, my troubles dim to gray.








Sep. 2016

Escape

We are distracted.
I fear, someday, we'll glance up
from our phones, from photos of
old friends, regrets, missed opportunities--
only to find there's no one left
who's ever challenged trouble.


There will be a discourse, we
will have memes about it, asking when
that last person died, who
(when Life inevitably dealt
a shattering blow)
put up her arms, hit back,
attacked: fierce with bloodlust, shrieking
for her rights, her freedom, her
way of life.


Because the rest of us chose
other paths. We felt the pain
and shrank back, back,
scuttling into the dark crevice
of our phones, our memories,
our games and stories, our
artwork and arrogance and
wine, our sex, our cigarettes,
back deep within the coolness
of a cave where Life could not reach.


We're often there already; only time
is left until we stay there fully:
totally escaped, where Life
can never touch us. But
then what: grief? or celebration?








Sep. 2016

What Happens at the End

By Peter Jackson
August 2016

    "What I can't believe," said Steve, "is just the brutal, mind-blowing immensity of it.  This religion has been around for what, two thousand plus years?  And a third of every generation--the world's population, every twenty years--you have, just, what, shooting up into the sky?"

    "Well," I demurred, sipping my beer.  "It may not be a full third, you know."

    "Fine, twenty percent.  Still, do the math.  Eight billion people.  Twenty percent.  Every twenty years.  That's one-point-six billion people every twenty years.  Or eighty million people every year."

    "Wait, wait.  What's this with the twenty years?"

    "Like a generation.  A literal generation.  It's every twenty years."

    "Yeah, but they don't die off all at once every twenty years."

    "No, but they have to go somewhere, right?  So I'm thinking from the end point, instead of the beginning.  All the people that die every twenty years."

    "You think the whole Earth's population dies off every twenty years?"

    "No, I guess not.  I guess you're right."

    "So--less than eighty million a year."

    "Less, sure.  Somewhat.  But how many generations do you have on Earth at one time?  Five?  Maybe six?  Let's say five.  So we divide our figure by five.  Sixteen million a  year."

    "That's more manageable, right?  I mean, the population of heaven can take sixteen million people a year.  Less than that for the first couple thousand years, too, you know.  We only hit eight billion in the last couple decades."

    "Okay, okay.  I concede that."  Steve paused.  "But every twenty years, Dan.  And this goes on for how long?  It's been two thousand years so far.  Two thousand times sixteen million, man.  What even is that?"

    "Thirty-two billion," I said quietly.

    "Yeah.  And they never die.  So the current population of heaven, assuming current statistics are about average, is thirty-two billion."

    We were both silent for a bit.  The late summer evening wafted gently toward us, carried through the dark trees.  A bank of clouds was gathering up in the night sky.  I got up to get us another couple of beers.  When I came back, Steve had crunched some more census numbers for heaven.

    "So on the one hand, maybe I'm being generous with twenty percent of all people going to heaven.  Let's say it's just five percent."

    "Five?  That's harsh."

    "Nah.  How many people actually believe in your quaint fairy tales these days anyway, Dan?  I mean, I'm fond of you, but Christianity is a Hegelian construct, an anachronism from the days of imperialism and industrialism.  We've outgrown it, as a species."

    I smiled.  "Hmm.  Well, I haven't."

    "Anyway.  So if we're only saddled with five percent of you weirdos, and the rest of my math is about the same, then heaven is only just now cresting eight billion people.  So basically it's got the same population as Earth."

    "Good to know."

    "Maybe.  I could stand to have fewer people here, personally."

    "But then again, you're a brute, Steve.  An uncouth heathen."

    "Yes, there is that.  You're trying to change the subject.  I have a huge 'but' to deliver."

    ("You can say that again," I muttered.  Steve continued unabated.)

    "So here's the thing.  Christianity promises the whole Earth will be consumed by a lake of fire.  Let's let that be true.  And, in fact, let's borrow physics and say it's going to happen because our good old sun just happens to get hot and expand.  Fortunately for us, we have a time scale on this, right?  We know this will happen in around three billion years.  But even before it happens, Earth will be totally uninhabitable, starting around one billion years from now."

    "Actually," I said, "I did not know any of that."

    "You're welcome," said Steve.

    "A billion years?"

    "Yes.  We have around a billion years left."

    "I'd better pack," I quipped.  "Anyway, let me guess.  More math."

    "Yes."

    "Another guess.  Heaven's population is in what, the trillions?"

    "Quadrillions.  Four quadrillion, to be precise.  And that's with just five percent Christians, and assuming Earth's population plateaus at only eight billion souls."

    "So it's a lower bound--"

    "Yes.  Upper bound on this is twenty quadrillion.  That's with twenty percent believers, and Earth's population averaging ten billion souls.  Which to be fair, is still conservative."

    I was quiet for a minute.  The bats were busy diving for bugs, in the dark spaces between the trees in the yard.  The sky had turned overcast and threatening, with stiff gusts of wind.  No rain yet, though.  Steve was poking at something on his phone.

    "That's a lot of people," I said quietly.

    After a pause, Steve exploded.  "That's what kills me, man.  How can you believe this?  How is that even possible?  Twenty quadrillion people?  No way.  Heaven is a sham.  You can't just have person after person show up to this party and never die.  You can't even imagine how many people you're talking about."

    "Yeah."

    "It's just a poorly-conceived invention, Dan.  There's no way around it."

    "Oh, I don't know about that.  Maybe there's something we don't understand."

    "What is there to misunderstand, though?  We did the math!"

    "Yeah."  I sipped my beer again.  A quadrillion is not really a sensible unit.  No human can really imagine a quadrillion of anything.

    Steve was still picking at his phone.  Finally he clicked it off and tossed it gently on the deck table with a sigh.  I was lighting a cigarette.

    "So that planet we were watching," he said.

    "Yeah, M76-Alpha-something-something."

    Steve laughed.  "Not even close.  But yeah.  Turns out those blips were nothing."

    "No life?"

    "No."  He lit his cigarette in turn.

    "Bummer."

    "Sorry to change topics, but I just don't get it, honestly.  I mean I've read the hypotheses about why we don't find life.  Maybe we're early, as living beings go.  Maybe it's more rare than we thought for life of our complexity to emerge.  Maybe life usually exists on another plane.  Maybe, maybe.  Whatever."  He paused, flicking an ash off the deck.  "In all that space, though--why haven't we found life?"

    "How many planets are out there?" I asked, with a smile in my eyes.  "More than a quadrillion?"

    "Oh, piss off," he laughed.

    A little while later, he had to go.  I saw him to the door.  "Drive safe," I said.  Moving around my living room, I started to pick up from the day.  Toys my kids had left in the couch were replaced on the shelves; wine glasses and dishes from dinner went to the kitchen.  Everything was straightened up in about half an hour.  I went outside for a last glimpse of the night before heading up to bed.

    I was sitting on the porch, pondering Steve's point, when the tree came down.  The wind had picked up and was pressing my trees this way and that, branches whipping into a frenzy.  Suddenly a big oak, leaning over the porch, snapped somewhere midway up.  A giant portion of the trunk came shooting down like a missile.  I remember briefly glancing up in curiosity and astonishment before everything went dark.

    When I came around, literally everything was different.

    I immediately gathered that I had died, or something even more unexpected had occurred.  My body felt younger and stronger.  My mind felt sharp and energetic.  The tired, frumpy dad of three was a bright thirtysomething with a good back and strong legs.  I briefly considered that I was naked, but it seemed irrelevant.

    I had awoken in a pod of some sort, upright, like I'd seen in science fiction movies after people were cryogenically frozen or placed in some kind of imaginary stasis cell.  The front was made completely of a curved glass, and I was apparently buckled gently against a soft, upright couch.  Although I was standing, I didn't seem to be exerting any effort to stand.  Even as I noticed all this, the glass casing unsealed with a hiss and slid back into the wall on my right.

    There had apparently been some kind of light on in the pod, because my eyes took a moment (but it seemed a very brief moment, I noticed) to adjust to the dim exterior of my pod.  I stepped out onto a narrow pathway in front of my pod.  Next to my pod and stretching off to the left and right as far as I could see was a wall of similar pods; on the other side of the path, a cavernous space yawned open.  Far across this opening, I saw another wall of pods stretching up above and below me as far as I could see.

    "Rather impressive, don't you think?" asked a voice.  I turned to see a woman approaching from several yards off.  She was beautiful, and also naked, although it seemed to me I couldn't remember why either thing ever mattered.

    "Yes," I agreed.

    "Welcome to heaven, Dan," she said, and immediately I somehow knew her name was Theresa, and that I had died, and that somehow, this was indeed heaven.

    "Thanks," I answered, confused; then: "Do I know you--"

    "No," she laughed.  "You'll get used to it.  You just...know things, now."

    "Oh."

    "I'm one of the saints assigned to shepherd this seed ship," she went on.  Her eyes were piercing and kind.  "You're an early arrival, but not the first."  She noticed my gaze returning to the wall of pods, row on row and column on column stretching back into the shadows, and she added, "And you're clearly not the last."

    "Sorry," I said, "but can you back up a bit?  I take it I've died?"

    "--And Christ redeemed you," she immediately said.  A wave of strange joy came over me at the name.

    "Okay."  The confusion in my eyes asked a hundred silent questions.

    "You died several hundred thousand years ago.  The oak tree killed you; freak accident.  Your wife remarried happily.  Your boys grew up well, and all three married happily.  You had four grandchildren."  She paused.  "Of course, you now have well over a hundred thousand descendents."

    I suppose I should have expected that, but I hadn't.  I audibly gasped, then laughed.  "So, I guess it's been a while."

    She smiled good naturedly.  "It's been a while."

    "How's Earth doing?"

    "Totally uninhabitable.  That's of course what set the seed ships into motion."

    "Oh? What do--"  And then, suddenly, in the same way I knew her name without hearing it, I suddenly also saw the seed ships blinking into existence.  A great cloud of them, each of them the size of a small moon, filled with new human bodies in these comfortable pods.  A new body, a new heaven, a new Earth.  I witnessed the translation, the salvation of Christ saving souls, setting them aside in a new dimension until the day of reckoning--the day of abandoning Earth--came on.

    Theresa was smiling.  "We are rapidly approaching our destination, which is a new Earth in a galaxy not altogether far away, in galactic terms, from our own old Milky Way."

    "What will we do when we get there?"

    "We'll worship and serve the Lord, Daniel."

    "Oh," I said, a little flustered.  That was unexpectedly...religious.  "Is He there?"

    "Not exactly.  Not all the time.  But we don't plan to stand around and sing.  Hallmark cards didn't get it right, Dan.  This isn't an eternal church service--it's an eternal life.  We'll garden, and we'll paint.  We'll build civilizations and cities and explore open land and plant crops.  We'll swim the oceans and find the gems of a new world.  We'll write symphonies and build masterpieces of architecture.  We'll make movies and watch plays and have histories and cultures and societies that thrive and fail."

    "That sounds pretty much like Earth, though.  Isn't that just--the same thing we did before?"

    "Yes."

    And then it struck me that this time we could do it all--differently.  Without sin.  Without death.  Without hate and malice.  As immortal beings, we could travel impossible distances between the stars; what is a thousand lightyears to an infinite being?  Each seed ship would leave in its wake a hundred budding Earths, and in the millions of years to come they would foster an intergalactic economy, a future swept out among the stars.

    "The universe will be full of us," I breathed.

    "Not quite, it turns out," she laughed.

    "No?"

    "Twenty quadrillion was actually an underestimate, but the universe is a very big place.  Even with several billion of us on each world--and some larger worlds holding trillions--there are more places to explore, more gardens to cultivate, more stars to watch and visit, than we will ever exhaust."

    "Huh," I said.  "I guess Steve was wrong."

    "No," she corrected me, "he was right all along.  It really is immense.  More so than you can possibly imagine."

Whores

________

a.
Her eyes a blue smear
Womanhood like an empty fireplace
Every stance a collapse,
Every gaze a mortal wound.

b.
I remember a smile I saw as a kid
Worn by a naked girl in a photograph:
Not happy, but terribly at peace--
Horror met by quiet, fierce strength.




July 2016