I. So in those days your motto became that of the old prophets: “When they persecute you in one city gather what you must and flee to the next.” And so went the years: issuing the call to depart, church bells clanging, even as your shops and houses were torched by gentile mobs. And the children wept. And the oxen trudged. And your priests cursed the gentiles. And the women remained silent.

And when you had fled the last of the cities beneath the black mountain you described a place beyond the known expanse, and ordered a flight into the depth of the unknown. And when your priests brought you maps you said, “This land resides beyond all maps.” And when they said, “How will we possibly find it?” you answered, “He will guide our way.”

And so this final time you gathered into wagons, the slow trudge and silent resignation. And when rations lowered your priests rode into the prairies with their rifles. And when a deer or rabbit or grouse strayed along the range, soon the spasm and plummet of the animal: bloody mouth opening and closing, the ebbing light of its eyes, your feasts on the fire-scorched remains, from which your son alone abstained. He alone became gaunt, subsisting on boiled weeds. And to your son, stooped over his gurgling pot, you whispered, “Who are you? From whose flesh do you actually originate?”

And the farther west you trudged the less familiar were the animals, and here the deer were bizarrely striped and here their heads were fashioned with horns spiraling and horns long and curling. And here packs of dogs scampered, or what your men called “near-dogs,” lingering on the hillsides, their arched backs and red gums. Here a land vast and strange, untamed by man and as if forgotten by God. And on the wind of the night came the snarling noise of dogs eviscerating some weaker beast, and how the children wept for this new and constant horror. These children you comforted, saying, “Be calm, for there is no beast of grander terror than that creature who guides our way.”

II. And those who had stood by you from the start became sentimental, remembering during these nights on the open range those early months, camped on your lawn while you composed your book. And now to them you preached, “In the darkness of our trials, never forget how He brought you to me, how He bade you linger, how He gave you strength against your hours of doubt.” And you said, “And this is what I remember in those hours when I am weighed down by our task, our suffering, our sorrows: I remember gazing at the tents of perhaps a hundred men I did not know. Men who desired only to share in the word and blessing of the life and world to come.” And you said, “And I knew then we would see our promises fulfilled.”

Now you passed the tracks of forgotten peoples: wandering tribes, the ancient men who prefigured your nation, those men cast from the original lands and grown into the people you called the natives. “The tracks of our fathers and mothers,” you said. And you called mounds of dirt and dead grass “the graves of great priests,” while elsewhere you gestured to rock formations smeared with black and red images, and you pointed to these pictographs, saying, “Had I my glasses I could translate these.” While elsewhere you saw the remnants of what you called an illustration of first fathers, wearing armor and plumes. And you continued past enormous rocks strewn along the barren land, “the last remnants of a great city.” And you said, “No human eye has looked upon these ruins in a thousand years.”

And when the wild dogs neared your camp you saw they were similar to foxes but speckled and stripped, their hair tufted and wild. They stalked the edges of the horizon, and some nights you believed they pawed at your tent, so you sent your wife to inspect. She found only the rustling of wind and weeds and dust. And in the night the firing of shots, the yelping of strange animals, and in the morning your priests found only blood trails and tufts of fur.

Deeper now into the western lands, and no further revelation came. Into the west, now, into the land of skulls and bones, the remnants of enormous animals, and the distant stampedes of these same beasts shook your tents apart. When later your priests found these vast woolly bison grazing, they shot them and shot them again until finally the creatures lay dying with distended tongues and wide milky eyes; soon the guts strewn and the skin rotting and the meat smoked over fires.

Deeper west, you found only bones.

And then the cracked-open landscapes, the dry weeds and creeping insects, the enormous birds, long necks and red misshapen heads, circling silently overhead.

And when you found the skull and rib bones of a vast and mysterious creature they seemed the bones of some monster predating all but the first father and mother of man. You knelt before ribs and tusks and skull, each greater than any man, and finally you called out: “Our Father’s imagination is without equal!”

III. And when your stores of meats—smoked and salted—went, now only mealy flour remained. Now prairie flowers and thistles were boiled and consumed, and then the earth upturned and the worms of the soil eaten where they wriggled. And then the water casks were dry.

Still you continued into these landscapes, devastated and scarred, where no man or animal could survive.

And half-starved children chased loose woods and rolled empty water casks along the jagged earth, while men sat before their fires and openly wondered if they had been misled. And some wondered if the Almighty had ceased speaking to you, and others murmured perhaps you were a fraud after all. Now you summoned your avenging angels and soon the mouth of discontent quieted.

And then the shadow of the creature returned, and now again, the dread light of its eyes.

IV. Now a rider was sighted, blurred and distant along the bleached rocks. Women and children were sent into the tents while the priests armed themselves. And all agreed you possessed a “tremendous calm” as you said, “I will meet him.” So you rode to this fellow, his slouch hat and whiskered face. He handed you a weathered note proclaiming that the brothers had become as kings here in the western lands, preaching the truth of your word in the back of the general store they owned. “For some days now we have known of your approach,” read the note. “It will be good to see you again, brother.”

V. And while the brothers and their followers prepared welcoming banners and songs on fife and drum, the gentiles of this town readied their pistols. And the gentiles commented on your frenzied eyes, your wild shocks of hair, while from atop a crate you announced, “Be easy, brothers, for a new light is at hand.” And your hands flailed and spittle flew, and you gestured to the scattered houses and shops and saw mills and the dirt streets strewn with manure and mud, and you said, “See here, this land, our birthright. See here our land of milk and honey.” And you directed your priests to draw up plans for “a dozen, dozen more houses.” And you directed your priests to prepare for the “erection of a new temple.”

Now the gentiles smiled. “By whose right do you intend to do all this?” they asked. And you gestured to the black mountain in your old grand way, saying, “By His.” But the gentiles’ brows merely furrowed, and they looked around as if lost, claiming no knowledge of any such mountain or god as of you now spoke. Yet you saw it, and the brothers saw it, and all their followers saw it, and all of your pilgrims, weary and half-dead as they were, saw it. So to the gentiles, ignorant and forsaken, you laughed. “You see?” you called out. “We have been chosen, and you have been damned.”

VI. And it was said these western gentiles too did not burn offerings, but not out of commandment of God, but out of preciousness of livestock.

VII. And as your population swelled your people raised new houses and prepared the temple. Soon most of the shops of the town belonged to you, and the houses were yours in majority, and soon your priests wrote in journals: “The gentiles watch our growing prosperity and power with greed and an avaricious eye.” And as your coffers swelled so did the number of temples you commanded built, from one to five to twelve. While of the gentiles you said, “We have dealt with them before,” although your people had always lost these conflicts.

And you became gray and lined. You developed sags, a paunch. And the creature wandered with you always, whispering in your ear, lingering in the shadows, and dripping oil from your ceiling.

And you ruled as a king in this last city. Here you decreed no liquor, or gambling, or brothels, and if some devil opened a brothel you burned it down. And the ladies of these houses, in their lace and rouge, their eyelids heavy with blue, you established in the spare rooms of the houses of your priests, whom you bade watch over and protect these “wretched, unfortunate women,” and teach them “the skills and the handicrafts required of a daughter, or mother, or sister, or wife, in the eyes of the Almighty.”

And the girl you took in was said to be no more than sixteen, blond and blue eyed and rosy lipped. And when she trembled at your feet you told her some joke until she smiled upon you. Now you took her by the hand, saying, “You will come with us, my child.”

And while your wife spoke that night you listened to her not, so thick was the blood in your ears, your throat. You watched only the lines of her face, the gray hairs.

And there were those who said you went to this girl while your wife slept, and there you lay with her as a man does with a woman, and there were those who claimed you whispered the language of your endearment to her, traced the lines of her palms and cupped the swell of her breasts. Others said you dressed this girl in a white gown, and there married her by commandment of the Almighty. And there were those who said you confessed to them, “Some time ago He commanded me to commit myself to the sacred practice of plural marriage.” And there were those who said you claimed you could not bring yourself to carry out this commandment until you saw this girl before you, lost and lonesome, until you felt what you called “love” flowering within. And you knew then the wisdom of His commandments, the promise of your lives through eternity.

But when the women of your church accused you as an adulterer you denied the charge as “unfounded” and “perverse.” And there were those who called this “a dirty, nasty, filthy affair.” And there were those who claimed they would no longer build your temple, or work within the stores or mills or banks, or at any other task you commanded, until you sent this blond girl away.

And your first wife said, “If this is true I will sever your member while you sleep.” And you patted her knee: “How my sweet dove chirrups! Of course there is no truth to it!” And so you arranged for this girl to join a family in another settlement. And you patted the girl’s hand, and your wife embraced her as sisters embrace, while the girl cried out, “Oh, Papa, don’t send me away.” Coolly you saw her into the carriage. “You see,” you told your wife, “she meant nothing to me.” That night your priests pleaded of you, “My Prophet, don’t send our girls away too!” And there are those who said you confessed the truth had been revealed and registered in your book, but “I fear others must step forward first before the Great Revelation gains traction.” And you said, “My brothers, we must be strong against the winds of prejudice and fear.” And only then could they keep their girls, and further obtain what other ladies they had dreamed of having.

And many priests dreamed a “magnificent revelation,” telling their wives the Almighty had said through a “man alone may a woman obtain entrance to the black mountain.” And now out of the charity of their hearts many priests took second wives. And some took thirds. And some took the sisters of old wives, or cousins, or aunts, and one took a mother, and some took widows, and some took orphaned barn girls, or milkmaids, or stray prostitutes, or even gentile ladies long coveted by your men. And some traded their own newly flowering sisters for the barely budded daughters of other priests. No priest dared condemn you, although some held on to their lone wife and called this revelation “a travesty,” whispering amongst themselves of a “darkness rising” in their midst.

And some claimed they heard the creature’s hooves on their rooftops, while the flames of judgment rained down from its yawning breath.

VIII. Through the turmoil they continued building your temple. And while the men constructed, the women labored in their way: knitting, spinning, sewing, and preparing and carrying food on platters to the men. You watched the progress from a window a half-mile distant, copper spyglass unfurled, and when concluded you stood before your new temple, your final temple, and you cried out, “My brethren, the spirit of the Almighty is burning.” And to the black mountain you said, “And let Thy house be filled with a rushing mighty wind with Thy glory.” And the congregation shouted, “Hosanna to the Almighty!”

IX. And in those years all of faith and devotion prospered. And all grew fat. And in your presence the creature too became corpulent, belly rotund and glistening. It crouched and glowered in the corner of every room you attended, ever expanding, but never eating. And you lived now in the whitest house atop the hill. And your priests likewise lived in mansions, and they prospered in their shops and investments, in their marriages.

And when you saw a gentile on the street you would stop him and gesture to your mansion. “You see where I live?” you would say. And to the newspapers and politicians and university professors who mocked and derided your work you sent illustrations of your home, the gold dinnerware you ate off, the monies within your coffers, the live lions caged and circling in your “den.” And you said unto these gentiles, “You see now what I have become. You see how the Almighty favors me and how He despises you.”

And you had a library filled only with books of your composition. This room you attended often, running your fingers along the spines, the gold lettering of your name, and to yourself you whispered of your days within the barn, nurturing in the hay and gloom a greatness known only to you.

Now the gentiles “lamented” your prosperity, and their slick, pompous politicians sought to limit your powers, or control your authority, or tax you into submission. You commanded the coffers emptied, announcing, “I will not be persecuted any longer!” And now you emptied your coffers, ordering uniforms and rifles and swords. And you sent commissioned portraits of you and your assembled army to the gentile capital with a note suggesting none should dare intrude upon your sovereignty.

And the gentile president held this portrait for long minutes before he sighed, saying, “We may have to do something about this fellow.”

And no man dared confront you. And the women eyed your heft, your wise lines and gray hair, glorious.

Now you walked the streets with a bulldog trotting at your side. So you called this beast a “gentile eater,” gloating it would “rend flesh from the bone of any gentile man, woman, or child.” And you set it upon a gentile lad who snickered at your girth. So you exalted at his screams, the thrashing and hot spurt of his blood.

And now you paraded, at home and in the streets, in full uniform, with ostrich plume and shining sword, with muskets readied. And your congregation cheered and whistled and cried out, “Show ’em what for, Prophet!” And your soldiers boasted they would fire with “great malice” upon any who molested them. And your soldiers cried, “Beware, oh earth! How you fight against the saints of the Almighty and shed innocent blood.” And the gentile faces drained white.

Now you took daily audience with your angels, who reported on gentile doings—the mayor, the sheriff, the shopkeepers, the blacksmith, and all those who held power, and all those who held a prejudice against your kind.

Ever now you took counsel from the creature—its rasped utterings and clacking hooves, the stink of brimstone issuing from your office. And now your office nearly filled with its obsidian bloat, so your desk had to be removed from the room, and you stood pressed against the wall. Ever now its red eyes flared as the creature whispered how you should blot from the earth all gentiles, and you should march on their capital, raze it to the ground, and you should run for president of the entire nation, stand as king so the Almighty could flower within the hearts of all. Ever now that yammering, ever now that droning sound, that sick noise, that voice in the pulse of blood, that language of all the terrible longings of the heart.

X. As you increased in power and ambition, so your family increased in number. Now you populated your home with women your wife referred to as “ladies in need.” And no matter how many you added you always knew their names for, no matter the girl, her name was always “Wife.” Your first wife called these ladies her “hundred sisters,” and they called her “our aged mother.” And these wives took turns bathing you and clothing you and feeding you and bedding you, while you boasted to your soldiers that your wives “gladly” coupled with you, and all at once, and in all positions, and through all hours, if you desired, but you were no longer young, and such delights would likely kill you.

And you told one girl, “I know what it means to be orphaned, but one hundred women will have to die before I am a widower.”

And the rooms of your mansion brimmed with wives, and some called you “Preacher,” and some called you “Husband,” and the youngest and newest of these called you “General” and with these you wore your plumes to bed. And it was said some days your first wife accepted these girls, and it was said some days she demanded they leave and she threw their clothing from the windows. And there were days she wept on the back porch. And there were days she yelled, “I will burn this house and all of your whores with it,” so you sent her revelations from the Almighty condemning her “childish outbursts” and demanded she remember her “place” as your “helpmeet.”

And to her final hour your first wife denied you took on wives so numerous, for you were never such a man as to “wound” her so terribly, and she was never such a woman as to allow such a “besmirching” of your love to occur.

And there were times when another wife woke covered in tar, or with her sheets on fire, or confronted by a coyote loosed in her chambers, or bald for in the night she was sheared clean. And some girls wept openly to you for the old wife’s “coldness” and “jealousy,” for you visited her chambers now only when your reading glasses were there or one of your nice shirts hung in the closet.

XI. And when the brothers married their sister to an aged farmer for the dowry of a hundred head of cattle, she went to the river, her pockets weighted with stones, her fingers slick with muck. She was seen in the moonlight by some onshore and then she was not seen. And soon her body found tangled in debris and pale and yet breathing. And you went to her side, and she was pale and shivering and otherwise much as she had ever been. And you began to say the name she had been born with before you realized this you had never known. And now you sent a dowry of four flour sacks filled with gold coins to her brothers and husband, claiming her as your own. And that first night she went to bed still outfitted in her widow’s dress, the collar tight to the top of her throat. And she said, “I did not ask for this. I asked for none of this.” And you replied, “You wear a black mark upon your throat, yes?” and when she nodded you said, “Well, let me see it.” And so she did.

XII. And the gentile population too swelled, and now rival papers railed against your “black heart,” your “wives” and “empirical ambitions,” and suggested you should be “put down.” So you had their gentile offices razed to the earth.

XIII. And on the day of the nation’s birth, as your people and gentiles alike gathered for children’s choirs and fife and drum music, now the brothers rose to the bandstand, brandishing their swords and passing a bottle of whisky between them. So now their fury was unbridled and they cried out, “My brothers, can you stand by and suffer such infernal devils! To rob men of their lives and rights. We have no more time for comment. Every man will make his own. Citizens, arise one and all: let it be made with powder and ball! Between us and them a war of extermination until the last of their blood is spilled or they will have to exterminate us. Our cheeks have been given to the smiters and our heads to those who have plucked off our hat. We have not only, when smitten on one cheek, turned the other, but we have done it again and again until we are wearied of being trampled on. But from this day and hour we will suffer it no more. And that mob that comes on us to disturb us shall be driven from the earth.” And now the brothers bellowed with wordless fury and thrust their swords to the heavens, while you leapt to your feet, clapping and crying out “Hosanna!” And the others of your church roared likewise, while the gentiles watched in silent horror.

XIV. To the priests who married most frequently you gave plush positions within your administration. And those who supported the eradication of the gentile dogs you called “brother,” promising them much “glory” in the life to come. And you told these men, “Your days upon the mountain will be spent in the company of your most comely wives, and you will live on mounds of jewels, and sleep on beds of gold, and all your pleasures and fantasies will be seen to.” And when the less avowed of these men asked, “What of the other wives?”—for some did love rather than resent, or despise, or avoid the aged, or the portly, or the homely flesh they had wed.—to these men you said, “I suppose they can be there also, if you wish.”

And gentile politicians and newspapers denounced your people, and the gentiles spat upon your priests and ransacked their stores, and ravaged their wagons and carriages, and stole their horses, and kissed and fondled and beat their wives, leaving the women bleeding in the streets.

And soon men on either side carried always knives and muskets and clubs. And now gentile mobs terrorized your homes with torches, burned your barns and fields. And militias surrounded your outer settlements, and when your people fled in wagon trains the soldiers fired upon them with muskets and hacked them with knives and burned their goods. They slaughtered the women and children, even the infants, and left them strewn without burial. Now carrion birds and wild dogs gorged on priests and wives and babes, while gentiles smoked cigars and laughed at the scene.

When the messenger came with the news of the slaughter he found you in your office, seated upon the creature’s lap, nude but for the soot you smoldered in and the black tar that dripped from the creature’s lips. And over your head the creature’s tongue did wag, and through your hair its breath did gust. “We will kill them all,” you said from within the creature’s fat obsidian folds.

XV. Now none could escape your angels’ fury, and many a gentile farm was burned to the ground, and many wives raped and beheaded, and their children beaten and beheaded, and the men themselves shot and beheaded. And their fields were burned. And their animals were slaughtered. These conquered beasts you served as the main courses at your victory banquets. Attired in full uniform, you drank much wine at these occasions, and toasted all your priests and all their dead, and all their wives and all of yours, and you waved your custom-built pistols, their high polish shining in the chandelier light. Now as the evenings waned you went from priest to priest, hugging them, telling them of your devotion. And after the last of these dinners you packed your clothing and a copy of your book into a trunk, and you called for the youngest of your wives to “ready the carriage.”

And when the militias had not yet marched upon your house, nor ravaged your possessions, nor taken hold of your wives, you fled on horseback with three of your priests, leaving the brothers and your son to watch over your flock. And now you and your priests camped on hillsides, eating beans cooked in tins and drinking water from flasks, cool and metallic. And you rode still farther. And there were those who said you rode to the gentile capital, and there were those who said you sought the governor, and still others said you were “fleeing to the coast,” where you intended to change your name and live out the rest of your days, anonymous and at peace, for you had forgotten the creature could track you from the mist of clouds.

And you could not know how your wives panicked, how they gathered in rooms, weeping and crying and holding one another, some as sisters in mourning, and some as something much more. And none allowed that they had been deserted. And none dared observe how the Almighty was silent in this hour.

XVI. And while you and your men camped a rider approached, waving a white flag. Still you commanded, “Shoot,” and soon he sprawled coughing blood. To his chest he clutched a letter from your first wife, condemning your “cowardice,” for “a shepherd’s place is by his flock.” And she insisted you return, otherwise “we will lose our way,” and “if you do not return and submit to the law we will surely be slaughtered.”

Now of the fellow nearest you asked, “What shall we do?”

“We must return and give ourselves up,” he answered in his simplicity.

“But we will be butchered!”

And the man pressed your hand between his, and in a tone calm he said, “Surely the Almighty will watch over us.”

XVII. And you prayed. And you called out, “He says nothing.” And you wept. And you felt ill. Now you lay in the shade of the elms, yellow and green grasses trembling, squirrels skittering, black lines of ducks in flight, their glorious long-off song. And now when you inhaled you knew the very air was alive and the entire world writhed beneath you. “Such is His name,” you said with a sigh to the men before you, “writ in the organism of His every invention.” And now your greater sigh, for it came as one condemned: “Aye, there is no escaping such as Him.”

So you returned and submitted to the governor’s will. And several small cannons and hundreds of rifles were given over by your people, but you told your followers to hide their pistols in the straw of their mattresses, or fixed within their chimneys. You told them, “The blood of vengeance will yet tar the earth,” and you promised the days of the gentiles “number in the few.”

And so you and your three men were manacled and led through the streets. There you were heckled and spat upon, and in the turmoil you said loudly so all could hear, “O Father, where are Thee?” And the sheriff and five guards locked you four into a horse-drawn wagon, and you traveled two days into the unknown. In the evenings you were fed beans and bacon, and you told stories and joked with your captors although they would not answer questions about your fate. They sat up until the sky swelled pink, drinking whisky from a bottle they passed to you and your priests, and when one of your priests said, “The Almighty has forbidden—” your captors replied, “It’ll go easier this way.” Now you took the bottle, and how it burned and how you longed for more, even as your captors handed it to your men. Now the faithful followed your example. When you finished drinking, when you could not feel your face or your hands, your captors bade you close your eyes and set your brow against a rock. And when you hesitated they forced your brow to the moss. And now came the click of the pistol, and the muzzle, cool and heavy against your brow. So you did not murmur His name, nor did you confess the nature of your transgressions, but you repeated your first wife’s name in eternal cadence. And it was the name she was born with, the name you called her in the long-ago hours when you were scarcely yet a man. And when you thought you would perish from the earth the men simply laughed and fired their pistols into the air. How the terror seized you, made you small, and laughing still the captors mocked your stink, told you to “clean yourself up.” They led you to the wagon, carrying you for the weakness in your knees. And now the long silence of your journey, when none spoke, and none dared look into the others’ eyes.

XVIII. You and your fellows were brought to the debtor’s room of the jailhouse. Outside the gentiles gathered in mobs—their torchlights and taunts and cries. And some burned you in effigy, while others called out, “String him up!” And the crowd whooped and laughed and fired pistols into the air. And you pleaded with the sheriff to move you to safer quarters or to “increase our protection at least,” and the sheriff responded by sending away all but three of your guards. These remaining guards smiled and winked through the bars. And to the priests in your cell you asked, “Are you afraid to die?” and these men began to answer no until you said, “Do not lie in your final hour. The Almighty has raised us up to treasure life and there is no need to pretend otherwise.” Now these men admitted they feared death, and one said, “I feel like I’m going to get sick,” and another began weeping and you said, “I would weep too if I could,” and you said, “But fear wraps me too tightly,” and you said, “Brothers, I can scarcely breathe,” and you said, “O my brothers, I can scarcely speak these words,” and you said, “O brothers, I fear in death we become no more than a house to flies.”

XIX. And the guards would not bring you paper or pen, but they took dictation. And now you said, “This is to my wife,” and the guards laughed: “Which one?” And you winced. And you said, “To my first wife.” And you said the name she was born with. And you said, “My heart has ever been yours.” And you said, “These others, there were no others, beside me, through all our days,” and you said, “We have loved and birthed and suffered and buried much—” and you said, “I will miss you with all my heart through the hours of my waiting,” and you said, “But I shall know you again, in the world to come.” And this letter was sealed and the guards promised it was carried forth by a trusted messenger.

But your first wife later claimed she never received such a note.

XX. And one night you drifted to sleep, and when you woke you saw the creature, fat and brimstone stinking before you. It drooled tar, and now it seemed to pull your comrades apart, consumed them entire, heads and legs, torsos and bellies, drank the blood and slurped the guts. And when they were gone the insatiable beast alone remained. “Come,” the creature beckoned. “For I hunger again.”

Now again you awoke, and for such long minutes they could not stop your screaming.

XXI. And another night you dreamed your cell unlocked and the misty fingers of dawn drew you outdoors. So you walked the long roads and the forests, a hundred miles you walked, and you did not weary nor did your feet bleed. Finally you stood at the mountain’s base, and now you climbed three days and three nights. And at the peak there was neither light nor creature nor voice nor branches readied for an offering. There came only the winds, and the mists, and the screams of the carrion birds circling below.

XXII. Then the mob came for you with black-painted faces, guns, and torches, and they called your name in the sounds of jackals: “Jooooooooossssssseeeeeeeeeeepppppphhhhh.” And they slaughtered the men on guard. And they shot one of your priests and the others yelled for you to flee for safety. So you climbed into the window as they filled you with bullets. And you fell to the courtyard, shot to pulp, and your blood thickened in the dust. Now gentiles circled, screaming and cheering and hooting, their faces smoldering in the torchlights. When the militia colonel arrived he ordered his men to lift you against the wall. There you stood, broken necked, lifeless, your eyes fat black with dirt, your mouth slumped open. And they fired upon you to “remove any doubt,” not ceasing until you collapsed in a heap of blood.

And they buried you in the yard just deep enough for the dogs to scent you, the blond soil mounded and fresh and beckoning to the grave robbers.

You were thirty-eight when you died.