Potpourri

The cruel plane of sand baked in the midday sun. Stark and still, the desert was motionless. A man on horseback pointed a gun at a man standing nearby.

“The war-dead of Antietam are calling in your debt,” the man on horseback said, ” And the living wish to see a deserter hanged.”

The standing man replied ” What debt can I possibly owe the dead? Their spirits have flown, and no acknowledgement can be made of my payment. The living surely can have no quarrel, as they fared as fine without my presence as they would have with it. Please, let me go.”

“I have no interest in silver-tongued philosophising or legalese,” said the horsebacked man, “My employers have been assured I will capture your body, one way or another. You will either lie on the dirt, and I’ll tie you up, or I’ll pull this trigger and you’ll lie on the dirt quicker. Then I will not have to tie you up. The only difference to me is what renumeration I will receive.”

The desert was hot and still, and heat shimmers danced on the horizon.

“Those men from Antietam want to watch you kick and dance as you’re hanged. It’s a hundred more dollars for me if they get you alive,” said the horseback man.

The standing man looked down at the sunbleached sand and put his hands in his pockets. “Spare me the shame,” he said “And shoot me dead where I stand. I have twenty dollars in my pocket, and I have a cabin with a new saddle sitting on the table there. A mile due south of here. Take what you want, and spare me the shame.”

The cactus blooms and the pale sand waited.

“As you wish,” said the horseback man, slowly squeezing the trigger.

I’m reading a letter from my ex-wife. The back of the envelope, where the little triangle of paper seals it shut, has a stain of lipstick. She kissed the envelope there where she sealed it. I can see all the creases and contours of her lips there, bright red.

I’m reading the letter and it is in her hand, hand-written, the words ambling along in black ink, her handwriting is almost lyrical with the loops and exaggerations and a kind of whimsy that she always tried to have.

She says she’s doing well, and that they are trying for a baby. She glides her hand across the page and tells me they went to The Bahamas for their honeymoon. She wishes me well, and asserts that we’re amicable and friends. The loops on her cursive letters seem drunk. She then writes smaller, more secretively.

She hopes I’m okay. She thinks I’m an awesome guy for another woman. She says she hopes we can see each other again. Just drunker and drunker she goes, putting her lips on the envelope and then actually walking it out to the mailbox. What a regretful night.

I take a drink of coffee as I walk the letter to the garbage can in my kitchen, and try to think of new ways to live.

The Stylites were Christians who would build a tall pillar and sit on top of it until they died from exposure.

They would build a like 20 foot tall column and then just sit up there on top of it and scream stuff about Jesus and then not eat, except for the stray fly or seagull that they managed to snatch out of the air. It was a form of asceticism that was very public. They eschewed the very basic human needs in order to demonstrate Christian Ideals.

There are documented cases of these Christian zealots sitting up on these towers and never coming down, asking for people to understand the true meaning of their performance art. Removing themselves from the material world in a literal way. I’m not sure it’s the best way to martyr yourself. But it is a way to do it. Certainly you do no harm unto others, removed from the goings-on, up there. Free to think and watch and listen. Pooping over the edge, probably.

And I picture a detached, awake stylite laying on his back, emaciated but thankful, watching the clouds as they slowly change shape against a blue sky. And he’s laughing about how simple it all is. He’s laughing and he’s grateful up in his tower.