12-mar-2000

I am sunning myself on the hood of a white car, parked in the purple-tinted gravel driveway of the house at the end of an endless row of boxy victorian houses, all similar but subtly out of alignment from one another. There is a suggestion of a Cheshire Cat living in each house, grinning from the windows, but it is only a suggestion. The other side of the street is completely empty. There isn't even sidewalk between the pavement and a humped landscape of yellowed grass hills.

The world has ended, chronologically, about a million years ago, but a strip of modern day has been shoved far into the future like a sliver of warped glass. A few people mill about at the dead-end of the road, near the swirling time warp I'd emerged from a while ago. The atmosphere is one of impacted meditation. What few people are left are mulling over the philosophical implications of the recent and unexpected armageddon.

I am arguing with a Christian Fundamentalist, who is standing in the driveway with some other people, holding a book. He tells me that I am living a meaningless life because I am not following the tenets of the bible. He tells me that I am defying the will of God.

"Ye of little faith." I sneer at him. "Look! All the world around you is God's creation! I have faith in God's creation! You would have me deny this, and walk a narrow, blind path, until I die!"

I am yelling so loudly at the man that I have to take a full breath before I can say each word. "How can you think you are doing God's will?! How can you go agaist an entire world of your God's creation?! How can you?! Your faith is meaningless!"

I consider the argument won, and wake up with my voice still echoing in my skull.