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By S. Harry Zade
Browsing All posts tagged under »Religion and Spirituality«
At the Epiphany Cafe: Theresa
She was so thin that she scarcely disturbed the ground when she walked. She was not especially pretty, but had a habit of looking you full in the face, so that it affected your heart. She didn’t make it beat strong, but pulled it out of your chest a little, so that you felt more […]
Intersections: Chapter 44: Cornflakes
March 23, 2013
Driving through a fiery corner of Texas, up the frying pan of Oklahoma, and into the porterhouse slab of Kansas, Larry was in the part of the country that motivates people to buckle themselves into crammed flying tubes to avoid: flyover country. They say it’s boring and flat, but he’d been immunized. He’d eaten his […]
At the Epiphany Cafe: When God Made Coffee
March 18, 2013
Today was a big day at the Epiphany Cafe. The deal went through and I was the proud, but titular owner of a vital, thriving small business, having exchanged an anorexic 501(k) for a gluttonous business loan. I worked behind the counter, bumping asses with the Lisping Barista. Then, by making a dramatic error with […]
Intersections: Chapter 42: Light Beams
March 13, 2013
It was dark by the time Larry reached Baton Rouge. That’s when he observed the light beams, a phenomenon he’d not noticed since childhood. He couldn’t have even been school age when he sat in the back seat one night, returning home with his folks from Thanksgiving at his grandparents, or some such event. The […]
Intersections: Chapter 41: The Glove Department
March 6, 2013
Larry had to clean out the contents of his crunched-up car and transfer the items to the new one before he could be on his way. He never thought the glove compartment could contain so much: a driver’s manual that he never consulted, unreadable receipts, a water bottle half filled with ancient water, a book […]
Intersections: Chapter 40: The Deal
February 26, 2013
Larry had his Toyota towed from the corner of the fabulous and the mundane. Although the car was wrecked, he was reinvigorated, as he always was, by even a distant encounter with death. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he was glad to be alive. No matter how heavy and sodden […]
Intersections: Chapter 39: Tourist
February 23, 2013
Larry was no star struck, obsessed fanatic, but he had picked up a guidebook of the rich and famous of New Orleans. He went to see, but not to gawk. He went to see why people gawk. His encounter with Papa Legba, the African god of intercessions at intersections, made him crave junctions and conjunctions. He was drawn […]
Intersections: Chapter 38: The Hangover
February 20, 2013
In the morning, which came quickly, Larry woke with a hangover. It may have been two hangovers. There was the usual type of alcohol withdrawal: all headache and dryness, nausea and irritability. Then there was a spiritual hangover. He had had drunk too much high proof enlightenment, he wished he hadn’t, and yet, he wanted […]
Intersections: Chapter 37: Belief
February 10, 2013
It ought to be impossible to believe in gods. You can’t see them, you can’t shake their hands, look them in the eye, or hear what they say. If gods exist, they don’t do so in the ordinary way. Stories about them are highly implausible; snakes talk, waters part, the dead come to life. Faith […]
Intersections: Chapter 36: On the Ferry
February 3, 2013
Whatever happened next is open to interpretation. Here are the indisputable facts. Larry was thoroughly intoxicated. He had only drunk one Hurricane to Curt’s four, but it didn’t take much to get Larry drunk, he seldom practiced at it. He had also imbibed a liquid well known for producing hallucinatory effects. Absinthe had been unlocking […]
Intersections: Chapter 35: Where the Wild Things Are
January 27, 2013
Although the highway broadened, the traffic picked up as they closed on New Orleans. They passed by miles of chemical plants and refineries lining the Mississippi, pungent in the close, humid air. The heavy industry then gave way to shipyards and warehouses, housing developments and malls, exit signs and a spaghetti snarl of highways and […]
Intersections: Chapter 34: The Spillway
January 19, 2013
“Spirituality is to religion as water is to plumbing,” Larry’s father used to say all the time in his sermons. He would grip the pulpit and unknot his analogy, “You see, you don’t need plumbing to get water, just as you don’t need religion for spirituality; but it helps. Anyone who’s ever traveled in a […]
Intersections: Chapter 33: The Devil at the Crossroads
January 12, 2013
Samantha announced, “Arriving at destination, 900 Desoto Ave,” unaware of the supernatural significance of the location. This was the spot, legend had it and a garish sign proclaimed, where the Blues man, Robert Johnson, sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play guitar like no one’s business. Larry thought this […]
Intersections: Chapter 30: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
December 22, 2012
“We’ll get a Hurricane on Bourbon Street when we get to New Awe Lands,” said Curt, Larry’s new Creole friend. “Woo, baby, dere’s a drink dat’ll knock you down.” Larry still wanted to see the city the man spoke so highly of, but it didn’t take him long before he began to regret taking him […]
Intersections: Chapter 28: Asking Directions
December 6, 2012
“Arriving at 1655 River Road,” said Samantha, the GPS. Not wanting to miss it this time, Larry had asked her to alert him when they were getting close to the Missouri River Bridge he had selected for his suicide. He pulled over to examine the bridge. Flimsy guardrail through which to crash; a deep, treacherous […]
Intersections: Chapter 24: Balloons
November 7, 2012
Larry no sooner left Lincoln’s home, when history came alive. It arrived in the form of a feral red balloon some child had lost and was floating through the sky of Springfield, Illinois. The balloon, buffeted this way and that by invisible currents just as Larry was by his thoughts, brought to mind his ex-wife, […]
Intersections: Chapter 22: Speed
October 25, 2012
With the aid of the red highways and the blue highways and the yellow highways with the little stripes down the middle, it didn’t take long for Larry to get out of Cleveland and into the countryside of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The meandering roads of the east soon gave way to the chalk line […]
Intersections: Chapter 21: Joy
October 17, 2012
Some say that both art and travel make the ordinary seem strange so that we can see the ordinary all over again in a new way. In the routine of everyday life, at our everyday places, perceptions of reality become blunted and stale. Instead of living we shift into autopilot. Things that are strange, novel […]
Intersections: Chapter 17: Taking Leave
September 19, 2012
Of the three: Larry, his elderly father, and the nursing home’s death cat, only the cat got any sleep that night. The two humans stayed up till dawn, talking. The cat curled on the afghan on the old man’s lap, awakening at intervals to stretch, and yawn. Even though the cat never said a word, […]
May 8, 2013
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