The Feet of God

58 - WORDS TO LIVE BY

So tired…so cold…my ears was about froze off.  I reached around in my seat to see if there was a hat or a helmet or something.  Behind the seat I found only an oily piece of cloth just about the right size to wrap around my head, and just thick enough to muffle the noise of the engine and help block the wind.

I dropped my chin to my chest.  My eyes closed….

Where am I?  Who are all these people?  Where are we going?

“We’re going to see her, you fool,” a grubby little man pushed past me.  “Come on.”

A dirty, ragged young female elbowed me, “She is the Queen of Spirits.”

“The Goddess,” another shabby bum rushed by.

I was exhausted, but they kept pushing me and pushing me, a huge crowd of filthy, tattered people surging forward on a dirt road.  The sky was dark with thick clouds roiling overhead.  Then a bright forest sprung up right next to the road with tall green trees and blooming fields stretching as far as I could see.  But there was no escape from all these people, no place to turn off the road and rest, no warm comfortable bed for me.

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Look!  She has come.  O, Queen of Life, Goddess of Love and Understanding.  We have come for you.”  And everyone ran up to where a woman appeared atop a nearby grassy mound.  They threw themselves down on the ground before her.

She smiled with a face so radiant and calm, with her long scarlet hair falling over her pale white shoulders, bosom protruding from the see-through gown that flowed in the lilting breeze, and she spread her arms in a welcoming gesture.

“Nice to see ya!  How ya’ll doin’?  Hey, nice crowd!”

The speech sounded strangely familiar, like maybe a waitress I’d known, or a dancer I’d once tipped heavily.

The Goddess shivered, “Is it freezing cold here, or what?  My nipples could etch diamonds.  Any of the rest of you guys cold?”

From the back of the crowd I raised my hand.

“Yeah?  You?  Come up here, get acquainted.”

I walked forward and the crowd melted away with each step I took.  The closer I came to this glowing Goddess the more beautiful she became, and the more beautiful everything around her became, and all the ugly people begun to fade away.

The Goddess was attended by pretty little girls dressed in similarly translucent gowns which seemed to lift and float in the gentle wind.  I felt a natural stirring.  The girls skipped and danced behind the Goddess, and they tossed pink petals into the air which blossomed into butterflies that flew into their hair and magically wove into crowns of flowers.  The girls seemed to be aware of my presence, though not paying too much notice, as they giggled and played.

Then I thought I recognized a small boy at the Goddess’ feet.  Billy?  Could it be Billy Peevy from back in Bakersfield?  It was the spitting image of Edna’s kid, naked as the day he was born, sprouting wings from his back, a bow and arrow at his side.  He laughed and rolled around, pulling at the bottom of the Goddess’ gown while peeking underneath and laughing some more.  It was Little Billy all right.

The Goddess kindly looked down on me, “You are here to learn your fate.”

“I don’t exactly subscribe to all that crap, Ma’am,” I replied politely.

Her smile bathed me.  “I’m not asking, asshole, I’m a Goddess.  I’m telling you.  You’re here to learn your destiny.”

I respectfully stepped back.  “Uh, sorry, I don’t want to screw up the story.”

She nodded her head, her thick hair brilliant in the heavenly light, and the prancing flower girls came over my way.  They begun to rub their hands all over me, and I could feel their massaging fingertips possessing some kind of mystic power, like an electrical current, causing shocks and shudders throughout my body.

“You have a destiny,” the voice of the Goddess caressed me like the hands of those young girls.  “You cannot turn away.  You must go where you must go, and you must do what you must do.”

I wasn’t sure what her sage advice was supposed to mean, but my questions was overwhelmed by the many tiny hands moving all over me.

The Goddess shouted out, “You know what you need to do, so do it!”  Her siren call rang in my ears like a broken car alarm, while the feminine touches….

*SMACK*

I was indecently jolted awake.  What the hell?  Something flapped and fluttered in my lap, and then it suddenly went still.  A fucking bird.

Shit.  Here I was, having this incredible amazing dream, and some goddamned stupid bird collides with my face.  The rag on my head came in handy for a couple’a purposes, the final one being the damn bird’s shroud as I wrapped its dead carcass and flung it overboard.

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