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I stand in the middle of a well-paved street, no cracks nor patches, its median strip strong, unfaded, stretches of rectangles bright on the blacktop swallowing the image of the sun. The street is new and old. In the process of being made, having already been forgotten.

Tall pines are lining the street, uniform and perfectly still. The thought crosses my mind, the thought that, if I were to stray from my destined spot, one touch would reveal the trees as styrofoam, cut and painted to fit description, Velcro needles attached to their limbs. Lines and lines of liar's trees no god would have created.

Who are you?

I think, I think beyond the measure of my purpose, that if there is one God, he disowned us with the pure and simple clarity that, while the world is in his image, we are not; his gift of asymmetry wasted on his children, all we see is chaos, all we do is break it trying to make sense of it. Rows of make-sense-trees. Lining a make-sense-street.

A feather floats past my eyes, down and down, wavering, uncertain which way to point when softly touching the stripe between my toes. Looking down I discover my feet, bare, imperfect texture of their soles steady against the tarmac's own, a negative of tiny stones, imprints and impressions; smart design, smell of rain in my nose.

Who are you to hide?

I bend, stretching my arm and hand, curious to touch the feather. A shift in posture, body aching, a statue come to life, product of a sculptor who, after years of having finished, decided to add bones and joints and muscles and an intimate sense of pain. On the back of my hand, a second feather comes to rest.

Cold. But no wind, no wind. It has excused itself from the performance, just as the raindrops have, but the clouds, I look up and the clouds converge from all corners of my sight; they merge and mingle, liquid granite the color of quartz and muscovite, smears of black weaving through the blanket's wild construction, carrying thunder.

Who are you to hide the sun?

My world grows dim; feathers uncountable floating in the sky, white as death or dipped in blood, dance of the dying swan, smelling sweet and smelling of rain. I miss the safety of the still life trees, the counterfeit calm that was the empty street, buried now underneath barrows of feathers and the absence of the sun. I think, very suddenly I think that I miss my shoes, and I wonder, allowing my eyes to roam, where they could have fallen.

Swirls, then, swirls dotting the granite blanket of this world's dome, thunder roaring, splitting, as the snakes convulse, and I see light, and for a second I think, I hope it is the sun returning, fighting back against its captor, golden lances piercing the cloud. And then the second is past and I see, I see streams of gold, steaming in the cool, easing down those rabbits holes, swirls like spoons and gold like honey; lazy and unhurried.

Who are you to hide the sun from me?

The street shifts beneath my feet, vertigo, and I pry my eyes from the sky, the honey, the feathers and the bones. The bones. Spit into the air, bouncing, hitting twice, thrice, breaking, sound of stones but hollow; bones of leg, of arm, of ribs, of skulls, of feet and fingers, any size and form, as the ground shatters, rips the street apart to meet the onslaught from above.

The smell of rain still in my nose, I am rooted to my spot, fearless witness as I watch the sea of honey gold expand. It burns and drowns and melts. It melts my trees and coats my street, filling in the holes and cracks. Ever closer draws the chaos of this undoing, ever closer as the world I know loses its shapes and contures, is transformed despite its will or ours.

Who are you to hide the sun from me and mine?

I know. As I look up to see a shimmering light above, smooth and beautiful and deadly in its purpose to destroy me, I know that, without me here, there would be no purpose, as there would be no one to think these words: who, sun, hide, safe, deadly, mine, purpose, and destruction. Without me, it is a matter of course, a sequence of events, actions. The stunning revelation that I am not here to see, nor to witness, nor to judge, I simply am.

Gilded and feathered, I feel no pain as I am devoured, eyes first, by a thing that I call heaven; no more, at least, than terrible and brief, and bittersweet, and I think, in those last moments I think that maybe we are not all we talk ourselves up to be. Maybe God doesn't know us at all, never looks our way, or rarely, quite pleased maybe, that with what he has given us we have done the best we could do. And I think maybe this isn't about us, maybe he just doesn't like how his angels turned out, and maybe that's why he's spilling them all over the ground.

I end.

The world ends.

Description
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I stand in the middle of a well-paved street, no cracks nor patches, its median strip strong, unfaded, stretches of rectangles bright on the blacktop swallowing the image of the sun. The street is new and old. In the process of being made, having already been forgotten.

Tall pines are lining the street, uniform and perfectly still. The thought crosses my mind, the thought that, if I were to stray from my destined spot, one touch would reveal the trees as styrofoam, cut and painted to fit description, Velcro needles attached to their limbs. Lines and lines of liar's trees no god would have created.

Who are you?

I think, I think beyond the measure of my purpose, that if there is one God, he disowned us with the pure and simple clarity that, while the world is in his image, we are not; his gift of asymmetry wasted on his children, all we see is chaos, all we do is break it trying to make sense of it. Rows of make-sense-trees. Lining a make-sense-street.

A feather floats past my eyes, down and down, wavering, uncertain which way to point when softly touching the stripe between my toes. Looking down I discover my feet, bare, imperfect texture of their soles steady against the tarmac's own, a negative of tiny stones, imprints and impressions; smart design, smell of rain in my nose.

Who are you to hide?

I bend, stretching my arm and hand, curious to touch the feather. A shift in posture, body aching, a statue come to life, product of a sculptor who, after years of having finished, decided to add bones and joints and muscles and an intimate sense of pain. On the back of my hand, a second feather comes to rest.

Cold. But no wind, no wind. It has excused itself from the performance, just as the raindrops have, but the clouds, I look up and the clouds converge from all corners of my sight; they merge and mingle, liquid granite the color of quartz and muscovite, smears of black weaving through the blanket's wild construction, carrying thunder.

Who are you to hide the sun?

My world grows dim; feathers uncountable floating in the sky, white as death or dipped in blood, dance of the dying swan, smelling sweet and smelling of rain. I miss the safety of the still life trees, the counterfeit calm that was the empty street, buried now underneath barrows of feathers and the absence of the sun. I think, very suddenly I think that I miss my shoes, and I wonder, allowing my eyes to roam, where they could have fallen.

Swirls, then, swirls dotting the granite blanket of this world's dome, thunder roaring, splitting, as the snakes convulse, and I see light, and for a second I think, I hope it is the sun returning, fighting back against its captor, golden lances piercing the cloud. And then the second is past and I see, I see streams of gold, steaming in the cool, easing down those rabbits holes, swirls like spoons and gold like honey; lazy and unhurried.

Who are you to hide the sun from me?

The street shifts beneath my feet, vertigo, and I pry my eyes from the sky, the honey, the feathers and the bones. The bones. Spit into the air, bouncing, hitting twice, thrice, breaking, sound of stones but hollow; bones of leg, of arm, of ribs, of skulls, of feet and fingers, any size and form, as the ground shatters, rips the street apart to meet the onslaught from above.

The smell of rain still in my nose, I am rooted to my spot, fearless witness as I watch the sea of honey gold expand. It burns and drowns and melts. It melts my trees and coats my street, filling in the holes and cracks. Ever closer draws the chaos of this undoing, ever closer as the world I know loses its shapes and contures, is transformed despite its will or ours.

Who are you to hide the sun from me and mine?

I know. As I look up to see a shimmering light above, smooth and beautiful and deadly in its purpose to destroy me, I know that, without me here, there would be no purpose, as there would be no one to think these words: who, sun, hide, safe, deadly, mine, purpose, and destruction. Without me, it is a matter of course, a sequence of events, actions. The stunning revelation that I am not here to see, nor to witness, nor to judge, I simply am.

Gilded and feathered, I feel no pain as I am devoured, eyes first, by a thing that I call heaven; no more, at least, than terrible and brief, and bittersweet, and I think, in those last moments I think that maybe we are not all we talk ourselves up to be. Maybe God doesn't know us at all, never looks our way, or rarely, quite pleased maybe, that with what he has given us we have done the best we could do. And I think maybe this isn't about us, maybe he just doesn't like how his angels turned out, and maybe that's why he's spilling them all over the ground.

I end.

The world ends.