Out of Space
fiction by Sam Thielman
In Leupp, which is close by, a pretty woman and a tall man with dark hair are walking out of a children’s film. She tells him she moved to New Mexico from the Florida panhandle after she’d had her juvenile record expunged and ended up working for a mining concern in Albuquerque, but now she’s here in Arizona for a few days to help a colleague with a new site. She picks an imaginary piece of lint off the shoulder of his jacket as he asks her a question. “It was just vandalism,” she says, and then giggles. “Plus some other stuff.” When he presses her for details she pretends to need to go to the bathroom, and when she comes back she says he has to take her to a scary movie next time. Her name is Penny.
It is two years later, in July. A blue church building stands by the side of the highway next to a one-armed saguaro; there are no telephone poles close by. A cell tower is visible in the distance. A man with a young face and white streaks in his dark hair is leaning on a cane by the door; he greets parishioners as they leave the chapel. He wears a long black robe and a bright, alert smile and is somehow even taller than he was walking out of the movie theater. He tells each old lady and young mother and drowsy father how happy he is that they came to fellowship with him. He radiates a kind of humility that seems at odds with the robe and the hair. On the podium, instead of a pulpit, there is a large easy chair upholstered in blue fabric, taken from the preacher’s own house and placed there after it became clear that he was no longer capable of standing for more than a few minutes at a time, even leaning on the pulpit. The pulpit itself now stands awkwardly to the side like a groom watching the door of the sanctuary for his bride. There will be a storm late this afternoon, or perhaps overnight.
Keep us breathing fire!
For $3/month you can read this whole post and get our weekdaily newsletter too!