Long Time, No Time

    I don’t want to see it.

    Her face framed in the doorway like a mistake, through dimmed and dreaming eyes. You should see her now-bruised and bound, sick and wounded, erring. Her hair is different now. She is alive and well, honeyed and oiled, but looks abandoned. I reach out, react. Feel my throat break free. Out. Down.

    She says, “C’mon. One more kiss.”

    I don’t want to say it.

    She took and split, my ex of one brief period of grief. Forsaking friend and covenant. Why does she look abandoned? The way she leans, tilts one hip. She opens the door and moves closer with a mischievous smile, her most Cheshire. The ground is shaky. I notice her shoes-oiled and scuffed.

    She says, “Long time, babe.”

    She says, “long time, no time.”

    Outside her empty window, a basement staircase plunges into soil. A heart of shadow glooms in the doorway like tokens of light in a graveyard lot. The air folds. The porch lights flicker. The steps and sidewalk furrow. The driveway falls.

    I tumble into the collapse with her silhouette of sinking concrete, with damp earth and forgotten things. Flesh and body consumed.

    I don’t want to be led this way.

(Proverbs 2, 5)

Words to My Friend

    My friend, my soul, I was younger and older still, yet I would be true. I would be pure.

    I might have been strong but…

    Even if nothing goes wrong, my friend, you’ll suffer. One day or more of suffering. It is the way – sorrow and night with a sense of inferiority in all my actions and a sense of insecurity as the result of my words.

    So, I’m talking of my soul now, my friend, with private language, of my memory and all my goals and goods. Still with the doubts I do not know.

    Be strong and show no weakness.
    Speak less and be more positive.

    Trust me; I’m not here to supplant you. As if so poor a soul could restore a faith to jubilant psalm...

    I’m sure that I live feeling secure, happier still. A consecrated life. Confident, happy, healthy right?

    No, my friend, I am not.

    But take my offered, beating heart. God will move.

Questions for Review: Bodies

    How are the dead raised up?

    With a mighty whoosh, propelled by gases and burning at thousands of degrees. A violent wind filling the entire house. And fire like a flood, separating on the head of everyone, burning everything. Heart pounding within the throat. Blood splashed across the mirror. How is this possible? Historically? It is a mystery written in fire and in flame.

    And with what body do they come?

    Literally melting skin from their bodies like a horrific fireball. The lucky incorruptible survive – not subject to decomposition. Subject to char and to ash. Subject to cinder. A body of glory in black smoke. It is searching – not weakness. It is clawing in the dirt, flailing at broken windows, refusing to die.

    What is the ‘Spiritual Body’?

    Dormant for centuries, pent up, waiting for release. Like a plague. Razor-like shards of faces and torsos squeezed through the emergency exit. Bodies pulled from the iron furnace. Bodies under a shower of iron arrows.

    What are the four stages of the resurrection of these bodies?

    1) Men come back to their physical senses. What held them back? A bullet in their brains. 2) Petite women dragging themselves through an inferno, screaming through the smoke. Women armed with blowtorches. 3) Men of strength and security - a skeleton crew in the catacombs. Same agenda. Different crew. 4) Women breathing – barely. Coughing. Staggering. Screaming for policemen in the distance. Rushing toward from the fire in a spontaneous display of rage.

    Has the leak been sealed?

    Position his arms on the patibulum­ - the horizontal – and his legs on the stipes – the vertical. The largest of soldiers swung his mallet and drove a wrought-iron spike through his wrist.

    Has the leak been sealed? Answer me.

    The leak was sealed, but the seals have been broken.

    What two purposes will the tribulation period serve?

    Slam the prisoners against the wall. Pin them there with a fire hose spray. Turn off the spray. Watch them fall to the floor. God will change these vile bodies so they can enter locked rooms, vanish from sight and appear in the clouds. There is no guarantee except exhaustion.

    Who is the beast of prophecy?

    AntiChrist. False Prophet. Slight of build and two inches shorter than me. Just another spoiled American, complaining. The local cops kick in the door, en masse for the arrest. Watch for a wicked chemical flash like napalm on white skin, bubbling black like burnt asphalt. Then comes the end – though none of it makes sense without the handcuffs.

    What is a literal interpretation of prophecy?

    More smoke than an oil refinery. More shit than a proctologist.

A MAGA Manifesto

    The following was sent to our newsroom with a demand that it be published immediately – without redaction. We’ve chosen to publish it – with minor edits. Though the letter was received unsigned, we trust the reader will understand who they are. We publish it reluctantly, fully aware of the danger of giving such voices a platform – but aware, also, of the danger in ignoring those voices.

    Christ has no saints other than us. Believe it.

    We will have no further need for evidence, for facts, citations, or documents. We have the all-vulgarity we need. And the abuse, you absolute dumbass. Your own mother would have flushed you if she had half a thought. [Further vulgarities redacted].

    We have the administrative machinery to enforce our will. We will determine the order. We will determine the times and the seasons – and, with forged timecards and behavioral inconsistency, change them. Trust the unrepentant liar, convicted fraud, serial adulterer. He will show us the way through this liberal hoax.

    The physical deformity of your eyes, like a disease. You don’t even know. How can you hear? Deaf angels will not hear your prayers. The tongue of the Lord is loosed, and the infant of days will die. Your mainline apostate churches will be burned. A host of heaven destruction. An ashtray mountain. A severed ecclesiastical head. Call it a necessary rectification. And pray that we don’t come too soon.

    We will live long upon the land – this land. Our land. We will not die. We will not lose. Not in the midterm elections. Not in this present age. The AntiChrist will Christ against the Church. This is how you will know. Our glorified bodies – real and physical – not subject to death. Without doctors. Without scientists. Not beholden to laws. A special knowledge through quantum faith entanglement. Being able to vanish and appear at will, not limited by physical matter, defying gravity for upward movement, moving from earth to heaven with speed of thought.

    Follow the straight-line blessing of the Old Testament to true-patriot Americanism. The Muslim idolater, the soft, the fornicator, all the socialist institutions of higher learning are drunk with the blood of the martyrs. [Ethnic and abelist slurs redacted] But not for very much longer. We are coming for you. Believe it.

Holy Communion Action Trailer

Visual	Audio
INT. CHURCH – DAY A shirtless, glistening priest, wearing only his cleric collar, holds a loaf of bread. His muscles bulge as he tears the loaf in half.	V.O. The body!
CLOSEUP A golden chalice filled with deep-red wine sloshes, throwing wine onto the camera lens.	V.O. The blood!
BLACKOUT	V.O. This is Holy Communion!
MONTAGE OF ACTION SHOTS 1. Exploding tanker trucks. 2. A thurible swings, releasing incense like battlefield smoke. 3. Uniformed police officer pursues a man through a dirty alleyway. 4. Stained-glass window shatters.	V.O. And so, in remembrance of these, your mighty acts, in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving.
FADE TO BLACK	V.O. And now, with the confidence of children of God, let us pray.
EXT. DAY Slow-motion ravens fly across the sky. A child looks up in wonder.	CONGREGATION Our Father, who art in heaven (voices fade)
INT. CHURCH – DAY The bread and wine are displayed on the altar. The priest lifts the chalice. J.J. Abrams’ lens flares appear.	V.O. Go forth to die… no more!
TITLE CARD: “Holy Communion”	V.O. Coming this Sunday.