God

[Oprah, do you remember when you rescued the child from his life of raising sheep? when you snatched his overalls and ceased his convulsions on stage? you gave him a silver mouth mask. he is now a keypunch operator, also horny, happy, handsome, free]

Gorgeous are the chemists. The crystallized trees, the way they scrub the sky. The way the snowflakes stagger. (I smell ozone, almonds, then nothing. Fingers numb-out, turn blue. My lips grow thick.) But thanks for reattaching us to the earth. For setting all the pigs aflame. Gorgeous are the Neat, the Clean, the Artists who draw the protesters. The suck of satellites. Those who suck the satellites (example, me). What is your nature? Stupefied stones licking themselves. Open mouths of rivers. Gorgeous their words, like PINK ALERT or BEWARE THE LOVE OF STRANGE ONES. Madness now illegal. Dizziness and clutch, illegal. Seizing fragments of the Universe, illegal. Also please cease lifting your hands into bits of sky, any type of signaling. Gorgeous the Law. Downhill running, tumbling, very long leg rubbing; reading of footprints; cooking on quiet fires; rolling leaves into cylinders between thumb and finger; speculating breathlessly—all illegal. Hail the category! (I said do not lift your hand, and then you just went and…) Hail the Overall Function! Gorgeous were the clouds? We do not deny. But that was then, and this, as is clear, is now.

—God’s favorite song: the vaccination song.
—The status of God’s memory: flotsam, partly flotsam, inhaled completely, clear.
—God’s preferred weather: oh, cold rainfalls, a type of nubbled hail.
—What God doodles: coughing one hundred dollar bills.

God is forthcoming in issue 4.1 of NANO Fiction.

Sean Lovelace teaches creative writing at Ball State University. HOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE THEIR EGGS is his award-winning flash fiction collection by Rose Metal Press. His works have appeared in Crazyhorse, DIAGRAM, Quick Fiction, Sonora Review, Willow Springs, and so on. He blogs at http://seanlovelace.com. He likes to run, far.