the Minister, Mister Gray, the Cuckold, the Nameless, the Inevitable, and the Beat

With the same quivering lips that will recite a passage from his Greek bible, and with a pound of the fist that has thumped many Sunday pulpits, with that same breath he will insist that he knows of a fellow that you are a fool not to use to purchase your next new vehicle as this fellow is guaranteed, Guaranteed I tell you, to save you thirty percent off sticker, at a minimum. And because I have seen him preach, heard him exhort, witnessed his eyes turn up towards Him, I am certain he believes the one as the other. Truly a sucker for a salesman.

It seems we have more in common than I had previously been willing to concede: baseball, tidy contracts, illusiveness, smooth bourbon, tweed. And you seem to be a solo operator although I  originally miscast you as little more than a minion. Know: I am thinking on you now and you will give it up. You have been in the shadows long enough.

How'd you like them apples?

I empty the cupboards, dump the perishable goods onto the floor, in pursuit of you. And we both know I hate a mess, particularly in the kitchen. And so your taunts cause me to continuously overstock, to purchase as if for a famine, to ignore the most basic edict of nature: kill the useless. And if I have a soul the decay of you stains like Cain, like the original stain, like the blood of Jesus on the face of Magdalene. Hah! it is true: nothing is changed.

Of course I will come. My illusion of control: the fearful scratching of fingers, the clawing skid marks of faulty brakes (or an acceleration that exceeds recommended speed for safe braking - yes, that). Will I grow past that? Evolve? Actualize? Are not all seasons promised? Is it not written that summer must follow spring, and then autumn, the glorious fall? Well it should be so written, you and I both know that.

You used to speak of Path. I will sip from one of those past conversations [Yes, I did save so many - poured into a canteen, the symbolism particularly fitting, I thought (well, yes, a flask would have been better, but too small and once the laughter had faded not nearly as practical) and remember to measure whether I move forward or away, the only reliable measure]. And now for you every day is a Big Day for Sailing?