Closed Captioning

During the witching hour last night, my electric blanket turned itself on and fried me to a crisp. Light from my flaming hair revealed the outline of God burning beside me which provided strange comfort. Over time, I’ve had various vague ideas about the best ways to die. I’d not thought of this one, but it seemed an acceptable alternative. Our charred bodies were soon unrecognizable. It was over.

The enormity of waking has overwhelmed me. I’m the walking dead, moving through my morning chanting please, please, please. I don’t know what I’m asking for, but I’m certain I’m supposed to ask. Being dead absolves the body. Being alive requires fortitude, vision, and help.

One of our chickens lost an eye to a predator, but she’s still laying eggs. The garden is buried in snow, flat and pristine except for the tall dry stalks of late blooming weeds. The exhaustion of autumn always gives these invaders an unfair advantage. Spring will bring renewed energy for the inevitable skirmishes, but there will be no definitive victor. The spoils of war are never what one might imagine.

Since the thousand-year flood two years ago, we monitor the river with new respect. God and I are working steadily on the basement with an eye to evacuation. We’ve moved our vulnerabilities to higher ground, aware of the futility but content to at least be doing something. Doing something. Doing something. I am the walking dead doing something.

God routinely disappears and only explains their whereabouts in languages I do not understand. Multiple translations scroll across the bottom of the screen. I’m forced to suspend my agenda and hold very still as I struggle to grasp the plot of the cosmic drama. I wish God spoke simple English. Then I could do two things at once.

Instead, I must contend with the tongues of angels and demons, the vernacular of eagles and earthworms, the dialects and dialogues of the infinite all rising on waves of unprecedented heat, wrapping the earth in a shroud of utterly brilliant sunsets. Or are they sunrises?

God wears the tattered ozone like a cape and lands gracefully beside me. I am still chanting please, please, please as I accept the bent elbow and march down the aisle toward the edge.

“I hear you,” my Escort whispers, leaning down. “But you might try a thank you now and then.”

The dark and troubled waters below offer no sustaining image, but I don’t need one. I am the walking dead, learning to navigate weightlessness. I am the walking dead, slowly, slowly, slowly letting go. Letting go. Letting it all go.