Cloud Painting

The day Ada and I ride up to The Lookout is transparently clear. The Lookout is a large hillside that faces and guards over the town of Southmeadow. It’s totally a make-out point, but Ada and I visit it because it’s the best place for cloud-watching and stargazing. The air is fresher and sweeter up here, and there’s a tempting sense of freedom that calls to Ada on the days when her mother is drowning in a boozy swirl.

My excuse for leaving is to accompany Ada, because the first time we came up here, she had shown up on my doorstep, soaked to the bone from a storm, and commanded, “You’re taking me away from here.” The Lookout was the place I took her, and it continues to be our escape whenever she feels her blood sing.

I park my parents’ old Volvo underneath a low-hanging tree, the only shady spot on The Lookout. When we stop a few feet from the edge of the hill, I drop to my butt and lie back, folding my arms beneath my head, but Ada lies perpendicular to me and rests her head on my belly, the weight of it warm and comforting.

There’s a patch of my stomach exposed from where my shirt has ridden up, and her hair, draped across it, tickles my skin. It’s nut-brown, short, and bobbed. I pull one arm out from under my head and card my fingers through from root to curly end. I can tell it’s been recently washed. It’s soft, softer than I thought it would be. Discretely, I pull a strand up towards my nose and take a tiny whiff. Cranberries.

The dull roar of an approaching plane brings our attention to the sky. We watch as it emits a stream of cloudy condensation.

Ada points towards the moving speck and traces its path with her finger. “Sometimes,” she says, “I like to imagine that I can paint the sky. The stars, the clouds, the sun. I hold up my finger and follow them like this, and it’s like my own creation. Makes me feel like I’m God, or something.”

She doesn’t look at me when she says this, concentrating on using her finger as a paintbrush. I move my hand from her hair, strands sifting through my fingers, and place it on top of hers. I cover her finger with my own, and the two of us trace over the plane’s flight path all the way across the sky, until it’s out of sight. When we can no longer see it, Ada intertwines her fingers in mine and kisses my knuckles. The quiet is comfortable, but after Ada’s confession (and that’s what it felt like, a confession, something secret she has been holding close to her heart), I feel like I need to share something personal of my own.

“So,” I start, “when I see planes, I think about all the people on it, about who they are, where they’re from. Sometimes, I even conjure up imaginary faces and backgrounds for them, and I just think about those many lives, all connected for one small, weightless moment. You know what I mean?”

I have her attention now, but I can’t read the expression in her eyes, and for some reason, that dries my mouth.

“Nolan?” she asks.

“Yes?”

“Have you been watching Lost again?”

It takes me a minute to realize that what she said wasn’t profound in any way, and I feel oddly relieved. “Hey, it’s not just because of Lost! I do think about that when I see planes. Sometimes. I do!” I emphasize when she shakes her head, hair drifting back and forth across my chest.

“Nolan, Nolan, Nolan,” she chants, but cuts off with a squeal when I lean down and blow a loud, wet raspberry into the crook of her neck. She tries to roll away, but I wrap her up in my arms and hold her tight to me. With her this close, the cranberry smell is so strong it almost makes me dizzy, and those curls are soft against my cheek.

Suddenly, I realize I don’t want to ever leave. I want to stay right here, with Ada, on The Lookout, forever.

“Come on,” she sighs. “Let me up.”

Begrudgingly, I loosen my grip and she stretches out, then rises to her feet. She bends over far enough to offer me a hand, and I’m overwhelmed with exhilaration, like I want to take it and launch off the ground and up, up, up into the air, catching up to that plane we drew in the sky. My veins are vibrating beneath my skin. It feels new. It feels good.

“Hey,” she asks as she pulls me up, smiling slightly. “Do you think when you’re creating stories for the people on the plane, there’s someone on the plane creating stories for all the people down here? Like, some stranger, thousands of feet above us, looking down and sketching out an imaginary life for you and me?”

She’s still smiling, but there’s an eagerness in her expression and a brightness in her eyes that tells me that whatever my answer is, it’s very important to her.

I’m still holding her hand, and I give it a small squeeze. “Yeah,” I say, smiling back at her, “I think there is.”

Written by: Allison Sobczak

Photograph by: Skyler Smith

Faith

Nessa prays in the woods, without faith, without any sense of proximity to God the Father. She grew up hearing that when we don’t have words to pray, the Holy Spirit would intercede on our behalf, but she feels nothing and cannot fabricate a spiritual sensation. Sealing her prayer with Jesus’ name feels like sending email straight to a spam folder. Nessa sighs, tilting back her head and studying the canopy above. She breathes in wilderness, closing her eyes as she imagines rooting down into the earth, becoming a tree, becoming old, being still.

When she was sixteen years old, an older woman at church sat next to her and said that she had a word from the Lord for Nessa.

“God only hears the prayers of the repentant,” the woman began, smug.

Nessa felt a sense of grief and hatred. Suddenly, there was an image of a baby in her mind.

“God wants you to know you weren’t alone when you had the miscarriage,” Nessa blurted out.

The older woman’s lips parted as she stared, knuckles turning white.

“God wants you to know he heard your cries, even though you hated him.”

The woman stood up and walked away.

Nessa always knew too much about people she didn’t know at all. Youth pastors and mentors would try to convince her that it was a gift, but she found it to be a burden. It seemed rude that God would tell her other people’s secrets like a teenage gossip. What good was her gift when all it did was make people uncomfortable?

Nessa opens her eyes and unzips her backpack, pulling out dozens of journals, flipping through one or two of them and scanning her handwriting. Over a decade of prayers are scattered across these pages, prayers for other people and prayers for herself. But the most heartbreaking secret that they kept was self-hatred, the number one lesson she learned growing up an evangelical. We are sinners. We don’t have an ounce of goodness in us because we chose our will over God’s will in the Garden of Eden. When Nessa would write, “Please, speak to me, Lord,” and receive no answer, she assumed it was because of her wretchedness. There must be some sin that keeps God from hearing her prayer. There must be something wrong with her.


“Your pride keeps you from repenting of your sins,” a woman told her once in bible study, her voice seething with the sweet undertones of jealousy. “Because you have a gift, you forget that you are a sinner like everyone else.”

She tosses the journals within a ring of stones on the forest floor, and covers them with pine needles. Nessa pulls a matchbook and mini bottle of vodka from her jacket pocket, spilling the liquor over the pile, then lighting a match. She places the flame in a space underneath, and smells the chemicals leach from the paper. The smoke is very black. Like her sins? Like her shortcomings? Like the void that Jesus had so much trouble filling?

“A prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown,” Jesus said to his disciples. In one story, he visits his home in Galilee, but everyone mocks him. He was just the son of a carpenter after all, with questionable parentage. Who was he to think he knew the secrets of the universe and the will of God? Who was he to strut around thinking he could heal the sick and raise the dead? And he couldn’t do much good there because no one believed in him. His own people did not believe in him.

But sometimes people will believe in you, then use you. Nessa remembers the meetings behind closed doors with men who should have given her guidance. Instead, she was the all too eager student devouring every word and directive. She let them kiss her, and tell her that their flesh was weak. She let them touch her, and tell her this is why women cannot lead. She let them shame her, and tell her that it was her fault. The victim is always the one to blame if she doesn’t cry out in time. She’s to blame even if no one ever teaches her what the red flags look like in the first place.

As her journals take to flame, she remembers the darker years when she shut people out. She remembers begging God to take away her gift, demanding that he speak to her, to show her why she never fit in. She remembers weeping, rocking back and forth in the corner of her closet on so many nights, feeling like Jesus, feeling like Joel and Elijah and all the prophets who had a message to tell, and no one to listen. She remembers disconnecting from the present, dissociating from her existence. She remembers asking for death, and eventually trying to take it for herself. In strips of red across her skin and fantasies behind her eyes as she looked in gun cases, Nessa danced around the act of suicide. Could she convince herself to do it? Could she seduce herself to cave in as she had unknowingly done to all those awful men with so many highlighted verses in their Bibles?

Then, one day, it was over. She stopped praying. She stopped reading her bible. She stopped looking for a church that would accept her. She stopped trying to fit in. When people ask her where she is going to church, she stops saying, “Nowhere right now,” and says, “Nowhere.” Nessa stopped listening to people who had a word from the Lord for her. But it wasn’t because she was angry. It was because she was tired of being in a relationship with something that made her feel like shit her whole life. Like the boyfriend you make up because everyone else has one; he won’t satisfy.

Nessa watches the pages curl in torment. She loses faith in God, and gains faith in herself.

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Blake Bronstad

Tell Satan Be Patient

Keaton D’Amato once asked me if I’d heard of Robert Johnson. Sure, I replied. Old blues man. That’s right, replied D’Amato. Went to the crossroads, sold his soul to the Devil so he could play the blues. Hmm, I said.

Years later I’m staring down the crossroads. I’ve come to sell my soul to the Devil so I can play my own type of blues, an endeavor that might prove useful thanks to my precarious position on God’s existence. There are however some hiccups in this logic, the old chicken or the egg question of the Godly folk. Can you have the Devil without God?

The blind gypsy man that sent me here said, sure. He said, I don’t know much ‘bout God but me n’ the Devil is real close. He had a cackle laugh and wore a bracelet made of turtle bones. He who’d spent too much time in the Louisiana bayou, too much time with his handmade-dolls whom he called his kiddies, one too many fried gator tongues for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After I meet the Devil and make the soul-transaction, I plan on writing a short story about the gypsy man -- Wallace was his name.

So like some southern gothic Odysseus signpost, old blind Wallace pointed me west further into the swamp. Out there innit! He pointed and cackled and we both disappeared into the darkness going opposite directions.

As I sludged deeper I thought of my mother. She was dead but once she’d been grand, beautiful like purple clouds spitting lightning during a summer storm, a chill in the air, a breeze on your cheek. She was a believer and a good person, but she died too young. Ain’t nobody say it’d be like this she wheezed, her last words on a bed with bad springs, in a room with yellow water stains on the ceilings and harsh light. Oh well. So it goes.

The surrounding sounds had a life of their own, given my imagination. The wind played tricks with my mind and my senses went spinning in all sorts of misshapen directions, like my inherent fear was dealing with a nasty bout of vertigo. After some time in the dark, as the sky got light and the day’s engine choked to life, I turned a corner and saw three lovelies.

Three, my favorite number. Rolls off the tongue like honey. Better than a pair and stronger than a group. An equal balance with one in the middle, the trio was tied to a whipping post, wearing black scraps that once looked like clothes. Help! they cried, so I went and took my knife, bent low and released them. I gave them water and they were grateful. My name is Mary Lou, said the most beautiful. She had ringlets of blonde hair matted with blood red mud, and in the morning light the swamp was like a church of crimson, a mysterious mist of burgundy that I had not encountered before nor since. The remaining pair were lookers as well with red hair like fire that stood out even from the scarlet swamp. They were named Suzy Q, and Jenny Boo. Respectively.

It’s a fine mornin’ for a rescue, said Suzy Q. We appreciate you kindly. I asked them what had them all tied up and they looked to the ground like little girls, and rubbed their toes in the mud like they was ballet pointing, and finally Jenny Boo - speaking like Nabakov’s Lolita - said, It’s the Devil that done us like this. I told them that was awful unjust, however, I had dealings with the Devil and if they could point me in the right direction I would forever be on bended knee in great appreciation. Mister, asked Suzy, What kinda business you got with that ol’ rascal? I told them of my plan to barter my soul, and they all three shrugged and said in a ghostly chorus, Ain’t no weight in a soul misplaced. I got the shivers right down to my little toe when they pointed me west, but I thanked them kindly and went on my way. I could hear them giggling for miles after that like they had been carried by the wind.

The sun hung up in the sky like a lightbulb, and it musta’ been damn near noon when I came across the building with the peeling paint walls. I came upon a long hallway feeling fine until I heard a noise of rustlin’ at the far end like a creature coming out of the brush, like when me and Daddy went pig hunting, and at that moment the sky went dark and the sun got all eaten up by the hungry sky. It was dark and chilly and that rustlin’ kept getting louder and I was truly afraid.

That darkness seeped into me, and from it came a voice like a thousand crying angels and it said, I’ve been waiting for you, boy! I couldn’t see nothing, but I could feel a presence on the other end of the hall moving slow and sure towards me, creeping and crawling like a rabid dog. There was breathing through a stopped up nose like after Momma used to get the allergies real bad, and a smell most akin to sulphur leaking from the bowels of the world.

I’ve come to make a proposition! I shouted. I’ve got one good soul for a life of fine art! It was then I could see the beast’s eyes floating in the dark. Of what use to me is a good soul? asked the Devil. Well, I replied, I s’pose it’s one less to worry about when the deal goes down. I suppose it is, said the Devil keenly. And what do you want in return for this one good soul? he continued. I want to create great works of art, I said. Works that espouse the human condition. Works that inspire and transcend the cages of the form in which they are binded by. I want to be an artist of great reverence, a genius of Einsteinian proportions. Recognized, is what I want to be.

The devil laughed a shrill laugh and said, I can’t give you that boy. But what about the others that came to the crossroads? I asked. Myths that romanticize - a human condition, answered the Devil. Only so many ways to escape all that drudgery. I nearly began to cry, but the Devil spoke, Neither madness nor lust can get you what you want, though they might have brought you here. Stalwarts of your humanity that they might be, they do you no good in your mission here today. But if you please, the Devil continued, I will tell you the secret of creation.

Awake! he bellowed and fire pierced the darkness and seemed to engulf me. But I felt no heat. I felt no fire. And when I opened my eyes the Devil was gone, the sky was bright and blue making love with the sun, and the crossroads was an empty hallway with peeling paint.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Written by: Logan Theissen
Photograph by: Jennifer Stevens

Even Cows Dream of Darlings and Death

“Do cows dream?”

Yes, of course, and if this is the last question you ask of me, then at least it’s a good one. If this is the last question you ask of me, then I reckon I’ll elucidate. When you grow old like I’ve grown old I hope that you remember to answer the questions of the young. How are we supposed to learn if we cannot teach?

“Elucidate?”

Nevermind. For a smile I’ll tell you a story, a story of my darling, and how she made it to the sun.

“Tell me the story, please. The story of your darling.”

See us walking those dew-crusted prairies in the morning, before the sun comes up. In that darkness you feel it in the air, and you know that this is God’s country. It ain’t no man and it ain’t no being but Mother Nature and Her generosity, shining down like summertime heat in squirrely waves of grace so powerful they distort your vision. Say you walk out with me, out to the prairie, and we stand there while the sun comes up and you tell me that you love me. I know love. I might be dumb, but I know love.

My darling? She was more beautiful than the rest of us had any right to be. She was like the moment it stops raining on a summer afternoon. She was sultry and smiling and her warmth sunk into you, not around you, like a fire will dive past the skin and right into the marrow of your bones. She would inhabit those she loved like a specter and she was with me until the end.

“Like when sister dresses in Mama’s clothes?”

I suppose. But don’t interrupt, dear boy. The sun rose and set on her last day, and when it raised again it was not the same. It had changed and she was a part of it. I can close my eyes and she shines down on me now.

“How did she make it to the sun? Was there a ship?”

No, child, there was no ship. And what did I say about interrupting?

“Wellll….”

Now don’t look to the ground, young man, don’t hug to your teddy. Not even Teddy can help you now. One day when you’re older you’ll know what it means to look a thing in the eyes. To peer into that darkness like you’re looking down a well into their soul.

“Like Ol’ Sally’s well, out in the east pasture?”

No, that well is shallow.

“Member’ when sister fell down in Ol’ Sally’s well and Papa…”

Child, please. If you don’t want to hear about my darling, maybe you’ll hear of my other dreams? I suppose you can hear of the time I killed a man.

“…”

Well, well. I take it them saucer eyes mean I have your attention, young man.

It was during a storm, the likes of which I will not see again. Your Daddy and his brothers, they were caught in it, out there on the plain trying to keep us stitched together like a moving, breathing puzzle, shouting and cursing to the heavens above, lost in that darkness. You couldn’t see nothing. Couldn’t see the ground below your feet. You’d get adjusted to the dark and the sky would split open with light and scare it out of you, scare you running like mad. He was on a horse, I remember that. He was young, still had bangs, blonde bangs that swept low across his face, underneath the brim of his brown cowboy hat. The hat was catching rain like a basket, dripping off the sides and down into the eyes. Looked like a fountain overflowing. Then the light broke the sky and spooked me, spooked us all, and he went down off that horse at just the right time. I couldn’t stop.

“What happened then?”

Oh, dear boy, that is not a story I have the strength to tell anymore. Just know that I see his face, in my dreams. But not all faces in dreams are bad. In your life I hope you see beautiful, smiling faces and I hope some of them make it to your dreams, as my darling nightly makes it to mine.

“And what do I do when the nightmares come?”

Know that we all have nightmares, and breathe deep when you wake. Take your eyes to your hands and tell them to move. Then you will know you are dreaming no longer.

“You have nightmares, too?”

All living things have nightmares, and I am like all others. I have nightmares. I have dreamt of a cool night, lit by the moon and the stars, a night that I will see my breath as I run across the prairie, my home, but I will be caught by what’s chasing me as we are all caught by death in the end. And now my time has come and this is why I speak to you, this is why I answer your questions. Because tomorrow I will be the stars and tomorrow will be a great day of jubilation. I will run through the streets of heaven with my darling and things will be good. But know that I will miss you child, and the man that you will become.

“Where will you go?”

Don’t mine for them sorts now; you are too young to dig. Rest in the sun and dream while you sleep and know that I’ll be looking down on you.

“Me?”

Yes, you.

“And sister? And Mama? And Papa?”

If you wish. But it’s time for you to go now. Take Teddy. Take him with you.

“But where? Where are you going?”

To the stars, dear boy. See, my darling? Where the darkness meets the horizon? She waits.


Written by: Logan Theissen
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe