I lay aside my raintarnished spectacles. The old betangled spanish moss overhangs my consciousness, darkly framing the sidetable by my bed in its fixative camera obscura of terror, forcing into my view the fruitless cameo of the other books inscrutably piled against its insistent despair.

El jefe, says the judge.

My heart racing, I push my librocubicular bunkmates Faulkner and Fitzgerald and Irving and Wharton and Steinbeck and Salinger onto the floor in my dreadhaste to find the font of the wasting fear that o’er-drags the well known furrows of the imminent literary spectrum. They protest to me vociferously as they collapse into their truth with an adamantine viscera of classicism, but their voices are drowned by the blood godforsookness of the utter panorama of scarlet cielo that is unfolding to me on the horizon.

The prone silhouettes of the dead lay awash in their sanguine glory, ruined as the flowers of the field, ensconced in thralldom.

Whatever exists, triumphs the judge as he towers above my redemptionist field of vision, grinding his bespoke heel on the heedless eye of the downtrodden. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.

Even so, I said, and spat. Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come.

JV

Author: Jeremy Vogan

My name is Jeremy Vogan. I live in Staunton, VA with my wife and four kids. I love to write, and seek to honestly explore the intellectual and emotional implications of following Jesus as a deeply broken person in a twisted, cruel world that is full of veiled beauty and meaning. Writing is part of how I faithfully look for Jesus Christ to someday make all things new. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback! JV