“Hey, are you aware that we cut our teeth on climate change and invented belly fat as a little joke?” A Pouty Apparition startled me awake. I moaned. Petulant Voices chimed in, nodding. “We deserve a good laugh now and then, don’t we?”
I rolled out of bed and groped my way to the kitchen, fighting off the vertigo of a long life. People need sustenance before engaging in any meaningful way with a Peevish Universe.
Out the window, the ice-edged river flowed by while the coffee brewed. Petulant Voices started singing the national anthem. Dawn reversed itself as night rolled back in, and bombs bursting in air gave just enough light to locate the flag. A fierce Wind ripped it down and draped Old Glory across the backs of shivering calves being rounded up for slaughter. The Voices kept singing, “O’re the land of the free…”.
“Could you bring it down a notch?” I pleaded. This was not the kind of God any sane person would willingly deal with, but was there a choice?
“Of course and of course,” they declared. “There’s always a choice.”
An abrupt, unnerving calm settled as the Wind died down and the Voices faded into throngs of those silenced by extinction.
But it wasn’t over. “Don’t mind us,” they muttered. “We’ll just perch on this rock while you feed your face.”
I did not look up.
“We’ll just take a dip in the swimming hole while you guzzle beer.”
I rolled my eyes.
The Voices sighed in an elaborate show of patience. “We’ll just listen to a podcast while you get dressed.”
I shrugged, trying to keep my distance and hold myself together.
The Voices changed tactics and belted out a new song. A holiday favorite. “Do you hear what I hear?”
That did it. I gave up the pretense of sufficiency, looked into the dark eyes of death and bad choices, and said, “No. I do not hear what you hear. I do not see what you see. I do not know what you know. Would you mind leaving me alone now?”
“Not at all.” The Voices became the murmur of beating wings over untouched land, and finally, I could hear myself think.
“Come, let us reason together,” I said to what was left of myself.
“Oh, this ought to be good,” the Voices snickered. “Mind if we listen in?”
Short visits with an honest God 