Higher Concerns

The god sat on a hill outside of the city, which was on fire as a direct result of the god passing through.  The hill wasn't on fire yet.  They sent me up to talk to him.

"So," I said casually, "handing out some justice, huh?"

He looked at me.  It hurt.

"Lot of... sinners down there?" I managed.

"You are fragments of nothing, wrapped in emptiness, spinning very fast," the god said.  "What you do with yourselves is not my concern."

"Well," I said, feeling blood trickle from my ears, "it's kind of a big deal to some of us."

Preservation of the Soul

The process takes years. I felt sin leaching out, drawn by the purity of the salt around me. I am bleached, the blemishes of soul and body pulled out and trapped, replaced with clarity and cubic perfection.

It was my thirteenth year in the barrels when I understood. It began at the fingers and toes. Dryness, cracking, splintering. Jagged crystalline pain. The salt reached further, through skin and muscle to bone, and beyond. Agony, white and pure. I have nothing more to give it, but still it thirsts.

Will I die when it reaches my heart?

What if I don’t?

Gift of the Sea

When the town was founded, the fish schooled thick enough to walk on. Stick a pole in the water, and it would stand up as if sunk in sand. We barely needed boats.

The fish were a gift, the traditions told us. We must be worthy of it.

We laughed at the idea. What would fish care about a little cheating, a little theft, a little blood spilled on land they never touched until they died, drowning in air?

Then the fish were gone. Nobody knew where.

We had no other industry.

We thought we knew sin. We were wrong.