Lessons on Falling for the Risen

After she left, he read the rest of the chapter. It ended with a young man, the son of the book's patriarch, burning down a silo in the middle of a field. Even though he was finally able to remember the cast of characters & could disentangle the conflicting destinies that arced through the a span of what must've been centuries, he still had no idea what was going on. Whether the language had any command over the beings that killed, fucked & betrayed in that world crudely rendered. Those sprawling sentences he would have to stop in the middle of just to exhale only to forget where he was, what had taken place, who had been redeemed & who cast away & begin once more. He read the same few pages, saw the same silo burning several times on the parched hill before coming to some closure that could set him wandering. His chest weightless in the dwindling light, a few spectral hours, as he rolled near the river with beer in hand & played his guitar on the cold grass. Some Turkish kids ran over & he let them play it. One kid played & the rest laughed & whistled. He handed it over to another, a scrawny kid with a mouthful of twisted teeth, whose fingers danced like spiders over the strings. He sang what sounded like a lullaby for the damned & unraveled melodies unheard of as the rest fell into a trance. After the kid finished, he handed the guitar back & thanked him with a solemn smile.