3159. AND THEN I SAW NOTHING AT ALL

AND THEN I SAW
NOTHING AT ALL
I am so small - startled as well -
among all these tall and darkening
men; the ones with wishstones on
their brooms and carnage upon
each of their faces. 'We've lost
entire families to boom and bust,
to make and waste, the bombed
out billets of border and line.
It's all been maddeningly so.'
Saying that, once more he
threw his lit match onto his
pile of gasoline cuttings. 'If
you wish to continue believing
it's all been allegory and
apocrypha, go right ahead.
Your funeral, Bud!' The flames
shot wildly higher. 'The Damnation
Conflagration, I call it!'
-
There really was nothing to do.
I'd read all that stuff before - lists
and plagues and first-born slaughtered
boys - all gibberish to me as well. Frogs
and locusts and strange odors of Death
upon nightmares of dreams. Yes, I'd
been all there and done all that. Now
some crummy, waning Lordship wishes
to come right at me? I'd think better of
the chipmunk than the tree. 'No thanks!'
I said. 'I couldn't hear you the first time,
and when it finally came around, man, I
was really busy.' I noticed a hummingbird
buzzing the feeder. And then I saw
nothing at all.