— Fiction —

God Came Down from Heaven and Stopped the Bullets

Children, we won’t be going to Cancún this winter. But think of this, children: we should be dead! We should be riddled with bullets. We should be goners. We should be prone goners, children. Ghosts admiring our own exit wounds! We should not be of this world. But we live and breathe, little ones! Sing Hallelujah! No, we will not be going to Cancún; we’ll be knocking on doors and begging for avocado sandwiches. We’ll wallow in sorrow and dream of the Hotel Zone and the eels in the zoo. Unriddled by lead, we will ponder the enigma of miracles and the majesty of God changing Coke into Pepsi! God got involved, God came down from heaven and stopped the bullets!

You are not babies, children! You are men! You discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of mettle and brawn! You think you are children and, waaaah, we won’t be going to Cancún. This shit happens! Foreclosure! Infidelity! Plaque! Wrong, wrong, this shit doesn’t just happen. We should be sans pulse, face down, on the tile, having bled out. We should have entered the pool of organ donors. Yet you babies in your sea of bibs blubber and groan, drooling and drooping. All because we won’t be going to Cancún! I sip my cognac and gaze with wonder at the gun that is bigger than the biggest story of the year. No, my kiddies, we won’t be bargaining for opals in the Zócalo. We won’t be snorkeling the serene reef. Your bawling sounds like elks snoring! You should be singing Hallelujah! Oh, my sniffling offspring, God stepped in, the rarest of the rare transpired! God came down from heaven and stopped the bullets.

Bang, boom, they’re showing lasers every Friday night and we won’t be there. We won’t be strolling through the Plaza Las Américas, nibbling fried calamari, in Cancún, having left far behind us our malaise. We’ll never go out for a nice seafood dinner again, maybe. You’ll be hungry and lunch will not draw nigh. It’s a fact of life your ass is going to have to get realistic about. You are judging this the wrong way. Cancún is kaput, children, but we are here who should be prone and gone, neighbors leering at the bullet holes, bells tolling. Hey gang, my alabaster dolls, cease your howling. We are whole and hanging on. And there will be flutes playing and trombones and flowers and garlands of fresh herbs, maybe not tomorrow but someday. Hard times loom, but much is unknown: a sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie. It’s not about what, children. It’s about what we experienced. Sing Hallelujah, children! God’s fingers felt the touch of your richness, your purity and soft hugs. God could have gawked like a tourist, but no, I felt God’s touch! It was a close shave. Children! God descended from heaven and deflected the bullets.