Jennis, Richard

English

University of Richmond

The MessengerVolume 2015Issue 1 The Messenger, 2015 Article 22015I Know How it EndsRichard JennisFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/messengerPart of the Fiction CommonsThis Fiction is brought to you for free and open access by UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Messenger by anauthorized editor of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact scholarshiprepository@richmond.edu.Recommended CitationJennis, Richard (2015) "I Know How it Ends," The Messenger: Vol. 2015 : Iss. 1 , Article 2.Available at: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/messenger/vol2015/iss1/2I Know How It Ends // Richard Jennis In an organic diner in Portland we sit drinking sanitized coffee in a room full of salsa dancers. You say that coffee tastes better if we imagine we're the human vestigial of a ro-botic future, and I say that the entire technological race can be expunged by a virus some hacker created. Hackers are clever that way, like artists and dictators all they want is for their dream to spread. I crashed your car one summer morning when the birds were fluctuating like marionettes, crookedly northbound in the sweltering heat. The thermometer read 114 degrees Fahren-heit, but only a week before it was -33 . The whole weather forecast is fucked, and Matt Marshall, weather man channel 4, recently quit and named his Rottweiler his successor . I think the Rottweiler's doing a damn good job. Your car isn't, it's probably still on fire, blazing bright under an apocalyptic sun. What can I tell you about my life? I am doing well, I suppose, only I am suppressing that familiar longing to fly. I forget my wings were severed during Armageddon, when Lu-cifer finally got to fight Michael. While I was distracted watch-ing Gabriel summon his seraphs with his horn, the demons dewinged me with gargantuan scissors . Snip , snip . You're hu-man now. Welcome to earth. Don't fret, the humans have a ritual just like this, it hurts much more. But humans don't have wings. No. No they don't. I'm so lost without your road map smile . We used to go on adventures and then we weren't in Portland anymore. Now you're off scouring east Poland for traces of god; you hold witness to a sunset that bleaches the fields with all the wrong colors. I'm dreaming of a city where the woods part to make room for you like conquered seas. I want to be charged egre-gious sums for organic food, only to have it go bad overnight. I want to see feminist ·literature lining all the shelves of all the bookstores . I want to stare up at a bedazzled sky alongside 25 you and forget we're mortal. The moment you departed, the moon feasted on the sun . You left the day of the eclipse. 26 

I Know How it Ends

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I Know How it Ends

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