Mirage(15)

“That’s not an answer. Depends on what?”

Joe leans forward and taps my temple. “Probably on where your head’s at to begin with.”

I don’t reply, because I’m thinking my head hasn’t been Sanity Street and I haven’t confided that to anyone but Joe. I’m already up shit creek. I don’t need to sink my raft by telling everyone that I’m seeing someone who isn’t there.

We’re all sitting around talking and clowning, trying to act normal but watching one another closely like there’s a booby prize for who will be the first to act tweaked. People are tossing around theories about who might have owned this RV. It’s a terrorist plot?—?millions of RVs stored all over America will roll out like a giant bus army and attack us. It was abandoned by a family whose kid was killed by a stranger when they went camping, so they just wanted to walk away from it and the awful memories it holds. Maybe it was owned by a stinking-rich family who just uses stuff, then discards it. Maybe they’ll never come get it, and we can raffle it off in a contest . . .

This is a strange phase where we’re posturing like we’re mellow and lighthearted, yet trying to ignore the zingy bolt of nervous anticipation that’s threading around our bodies. How long does this period go on? It’s hard to tell. The laws of time are rewritten, and I feel like maybe clocks don’t even apply to us right now.

My hand slides over the edge of the couch, and my fingers brush against the Bible I know is there. It’s heavy when I slip it free, like God’s words are weightier than mere mortals’. I suppose they must be. I let the crisp papers flit by, kicking up dust that wrinkles my nose, allowing the book to come to a place where it wants to be opened. It’s always been one of my favorite things to do, let fate decide where to place its finger on a page.



James 5:14–15: Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.





Well, that seems useless. I’m not sick. Unless my recent head hiccups can be called sick?. . .?I wonder what being “anointed with oil” entails. It sounds kind of sexy. Glancing up at Dom, I think I’d like to anoint him with some oil. My attention bounces back to the book.

Handwritten names are inscribed in precise script in the back of the Bible: Isaiah, John, Mary, Matthew. All biblical names, with birth dates and death dates next to them. The last name, Rachel, has a birth date just a couple of years before mine. She was only seventeen when she died. How sad. Why would they leave their family Bible in their abandoned RV? I quickly slip the Bible back in its place. This strange family’s history presses me down like a giant thumbprint.

A faint metallic taste coats my mouth, like I’ve stuck my tongue on the tip of a battery. I find myself wondering if the heart is our body’s battery. If so, what powers the heart? And then, what powers what powers the heart? Suddenly my own beating heart is the only thing I’m aware of. It thrums in the delicate round tips of every finger. It swells like a miniature version of our hill in the middle of my palm, then dissolves back into my lifeline. It surges under the vulnerable spots in my neck. It pulses in my crotch.

I am an enormous beating heart. I am a battery.

One guy starts dancing in the kitchen of the motor home, stomping around like some kind of shaman. I think he’s dancing to the beat of my body.

Or maybe . . . maybe he’s heard his song.

It occurs to me that my trip may have started in earnest when I realize I’ve been staring at Dom for what seems like days. His black hair is rippling currents in an ebony sea. I hear waves crash on the beach of his forehead. His eyes are swirling, foamy tide pools. I want to reach in and pluck secrets from little marbled shells. He catches me watching, stops panning the room with his camera, and smiles wide like he’s happy I can finally see the truth about him.

Avery sticks her fingers in the current of his black waves, mesmerized by my ocean. I slap her hand, and she wanders away, smiling.

Someone is playing a ukulele. I’m pleasantly shocked that I can taste the sound. I lean back and let the flavors of the music roll around on my tongue for a while. Major chords are sweet like butterscotch. Minor chords taste like flat gray rocks. We once had a pregnant neighbor who sucked on pieces of terra cotta. What was she hungering for?

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. The motor home is driving down a timeless road.

Time dilates like a giant pupil opening and closing the great eye of time watches our every move I don’t know if I’ve skipped ahead like my grandmother does or if I’m behind some of the other people who look static they pushed pause can we rewind I feel like there’s not enough air in here air soup I have to move to circulate the air swirl the colors of it with my fingers painting streaks of life thoughts coming in rhyme and it’s about time my soul unwinds beautiful threads of me unravel and I am the colorful scarf God wraps around her braids.

Stillness.

It’s like my brain is taking a deep breath, sucking me back into myself.

I think about how they say you can’t die in a dream or you’ll die for real. Clarity strikes like lightning: We never die. Never. I feel like the universe has whispered a secret. The secret. We are as eternal as the winds that flow like rivers. The winds may change shape, direction, momentum, but they always are. I am in on a huge secret. I want to run through this house on wheels and announce it to everyone: we literally cannot die. Oh my God. Nothing I do matters.