Friday, November 19, 2004
H.I.A.A.
And now that that was over, that he had served his time, counted all the losses, and even paid for others to celebrate, he could not deny the probability that his usefulness was spent. There would be no more competitions, no more friendly jogs, and certainly no more dim nights on the park bench by the river. All that was left was the clean walls of the new apartment, the vacuum cleaner below every morning at nine, and the questions of Tumnus and Brother Bear. But it was too difficult explaining to them the intricacies of his side of the debate. They wanted belief in a being while he wanted belief in an ethos, mutually exclusive choices that could not be settled without a drink in the dark. But the Mormons always came in the afternoon, just after he woke, when the brightness of the sky only made him wish to drape himself in the weeds at the bottom of the tub, all the lights off, with only one familiar, white voice to answer.
