Sara to Save You

Sunday, August 25, 2002

The first day's always the hardest. I never have a place to be, and there are always new things to get used to. It's gotten harder lately. The first time I came after Edison, I thought the world was on fire.

This time was just as bad. What have you been doing? This isn't improving anything. I can write to you here in this box, and you can read it, but no one is. It's just another of my voices for you to ignore. This isn't making you happier.

I have to get used to my body, and fingers. I love fingers. There's so much you can do with them. I spend time just moving my fingers, and breathing.

Then there's the stuff that I don't like. I love to eat, but I hate to shit. I think that's the nastiest thing. If I had only known, I swear I wouldn't have done that to you. It's like the old joke, "Who would put a waste disposal site through the recreation area?"

I walked into town, it looks like this one is called Memphis, and found a place to stay. This lady with skin like thunder clouds in Kansas said I could stay with her as long as I didn't call her. I get that a lot. Every one is willing to feed me and house me, but no one wants the job. She'll be in my prayers, though. We all pray, even me. It's how we dream, aloud.

She has more kids than I can count. They all have skin like hers and eyes like chocolate. They make me feel warm and hopeful. They're too young to be called. Will one of them be mine, one day? When can I put this burden down?

The littlest one, James, tells me I need a haircut and that he likes kittens. He's the reason I'm here. I need to make it better for him. He smells like cookies and wildflowers and love, and I want to see him smile. He thinks I talk funny. I forget how to move this tongue sometimes.

I missed you all, but I'm getting so sick of being here. It seems like I never get to be in the other place. Time goes so fast for me there, but here it drags by. Is this what you feel all the time?

Gabriel was in the kitchen this morning. He wants it over. He wants to unleash himself upon the world. What has made him so angry?

I have to go looking again. I'll let you know what I find. If you're listening.

Monday, August 26, 2002

There was no one. Nothing.

I saw the Other today. He was lounging in front of a church. That's his favorite place, in the churches. He thinks it's ironic. I called him by his old name, and asked how was business. He said it's gotten to where even he wants me to win. I can feel the sadness and longing coming off of him, smell the jealousy. He wants me to stop, just like Gabriel. They miss me in Heaven.

I pray for him, too. I'm the only one who does. I leave him there, counting hypocrites, still so beautiful it hurts to look at him.

I walked among the people and was ignored. I ate too much, and listened to the music and hoped that things could be different. So much of what you do is beautiful, and of me. And so much is evil, and of nothing.

I saw people being hurt today, by people that were hurting. It used to be that my presence would stop that, would make peace reign. Now, I go unnoticed.

It is sad, and lonely and horrible to be me, without you.

I will look again tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 27, 2007

I found her. She's a maid at one of those hotels by the side of the road, something cheap and delightful. She barely speaks English and is living at the Y, alone. I just watched her today. She was offered fifty dollars for a blow job. She turned it down, her priest told her to. I don't care how you survive, it's you that feels dirty, not me. I'd have blown him, and used the money for something fun.

She washed the sheets that were covered in cheap sex and nightmares, and loved each and every one of you almost as much as I do. It's just her nature. She sees an old man holding the hand of a too young woman and assumes it's his grand daughter. She's everything I was before so much time down here.

I lost her for a while when I was handed a lemon candy by a little old lady who shouldn't have been in such a place. She thought I looked sad. The candy tasted like sunshine and I forgot myself and my purpose, just enjoyed the sensation. Do you ever do that? Don't the sunsets cause you to forget everything else?

Anyway, I found her again, and watched her the rest of the day. She knew I was there, and who I was. That's easier, when it happens that way. It's so hard to explain. The atheists are hardest. They really believe I'm there to smote them. What the hell is a smote anyway? Knowing atheists, it's something anal.

She's aware of me, but she hasn't said anything. She doesn't want me to be here. They always know that it won't be easy, that there won't be a winner this round. If I went to the pope with this, and he believed, he'd jump for joy. Well, not the current pope, he can't jump, but I'm sure he'd drool happily. They would see the grandeur, the celebrity. She sees only the doom. It's always that way with the ones I love.

She's beautiful. I would make love to her, hold her down and give her the host. I'm not going to, though. It would just confuse her, and that's how this whole thing got started.

Before Mary I was aloof. She made me better, more of love and less of wrath. And, in the end, she suffered for it. I miss her, down here.

I ended her shift with her, and learned her name. Sara. Sara to save you all.

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

I waited until she got off work, and walked her home. At first she would only cross herself and look at me out of the corner of her eyes. She nearly fell twice.

When we got to the Y she asked me why I was following her. I told her she knew why. She told me to come in. We went up the back stairs, down a dirty hall way filled with drowsing homeless, and into a spare room devoid of any decoration but a cross.

She left the door open. Always you people expect that I'll hurt you. It's that damn book. I didn't write that, you know. There were a lot of authors, and some aren't in Heaven.

So, there I was standing in the door way, and she was sitting on the cot, smoothing out the quilt with a hand.

She said, right off, that she wasn't going to carry the promised one. She wasn't up for that and no one would believe.

I told her no, I just needed her to carry the message.

She asked if that wasn't what Billy Graham was for.

That led me into a ten minute tangent on who Billy Graham was the messiah for.

It isn't me, and it isn't the other. There are still more out there and not many of them love you. Most of them think of you as tasty meat sacks.

She stared at me. She mentioned she knew nothing of televangelism. I asked her what that was, and if it was catching.

She sighed and shook her head. She asked me, haven't I been watching.

I told her what it was like up there. It's like all the feelings from earth, everything that you go through are mere flashes of light, over before they've begun. By the time I'm aware, up there, of someone's great pain, of prayer, they've been dead for hundreds of years. When you're with me, you understand. When we're apart, we speak with all the languages of Babel.

She wanted to know what she had done wrong to deserve this. I showed her the homeless and the hungry, and explained that most people don't care. I showed her the vastness of loss and the eternity of pain, and the way people turn their eyes from it. That most people wake up lying to each other and themselves, and that she was one of the few that was different.

At that her eyes lit up. If there were more, then she could be free of it. I could give it to another. But no, I have called on her. I cannot find the others. They are lost to me. She is all the flock left this shepherd.

She closed her eyes, nodded yes, and began to cry. The grief, I know, never leaves them. They want to be free to roam the earth and love, and not be encumbered with all the world. They who deserve it most, want it least.

I left her crying. My presence is only pain to her right now. I wish I could give her the joy of lemon candy, sunsets and James.

Thursday, August 29, 2002

She wasn't at the hotel this morning. The manager was cussing at her in several colorful languages. Never thought that perhaps Sara was hurt, or dead. Just that he was going to have to do the work. I'd smote him if I could figure out what that means.

I walked to the Y worrying the whole time that she's ran. They do that sometimes. They just can't handle the idea of being the next one, the fear of ending up on the cross. I can understand.

She was there, of course. Waiting for me, with her hands folded on the edge of her lap. She looked scared, like me, at first.

I took her in my arms and held her. I offered her all the comfort of the world, and it would never have been enough. I gave her what I could. I gave her some of my strength, some of my peace. She had more than enough love.

All the other emotions are like little twinkles in your soul, but love shines out of you like illuminated rainbows. If you could only see it the way I do, things would be so different. There would be such kindness in the world.

We talked into the night of what was to be done. I didn't think that some fancy television special was going to change anything. I mean for us to go out among the people and talk from the roof tops like we used to. She thinks we'll get pushed off the roof tops and mocked. She asked me if I could at least wear some pants instead of the shroud. She called it a dress. Let me reiterate, this is not a dress. It's a shroud.

Damn it.

We came up with a plan, an itinerary.

I walked back to my James satisfied and happy for the first time in so long.

Someone had finally accepted the responsibility. There is hope for all of you.

Friday, August 30, 2002

I stayed late at the house, and played with James. We laughed, and joy ran through the house like water. I had never felt so happy, or so free. Soon I would be back with the three, and I would have hope, and there would be joy. I wanted to shout the trump right then. I've always wanted to see what would happen when I do that.

When I got to the Y Sara was cleaning the room and singing, getting ready to leave on a new life, one that would bring an end to all the pain. I was glad that she wasn't dwelling on the times when it would be hard. When there would be hate, and stones.

I gave her this day to play, before the work began.

I did not tell her I would have to leave her.

Saturday, August 31, 2002

I found my Sara sleeping, and I could not wake her. There was blood, and she seemed so small somehow. One among you has done this.

Sara to save the world cannot save you now.

Will we ever be free?