Shimmer

Have you ever had one of those days when you woke up

in a noir? When you woke up to see a tattooed hunter

stalking his prey? The shadows long, dense, and weird –

the light harsh-white like searchlights, and do you

remember the tattooed man, same as me? He stalked

straight through the light and the dark alike, dressed

all in black with his black parson’s hat, singing a

psalm, his steady tenor eerie in the stillness. His

quarry – the widow – still alluring despite her grief,

was not afraid, though she ought to be. She let him

catch up to her, and when he did she turned her eyes

up to his – he was so tall – and listened as he said

in that steady tenor, “No more shillyshallying around 

now, you hear? Spawn of the Devil’s own strumpet – 

you’re my shame, my crown of thorns.” As he raised his 

knife to slash through her throat the light shimmered

along the blade, and the widow averted her eyes.

 

Robin shook me awake then to tell me it was National

Rare Disease Day, which seemed appropriate. I sat up

in bed and watched the dust motes play in the light

while I waited for my cobwebs to clear thinking, even 

though they abide and endure, it’s an awful hard world 

for the littler things. Later that morning, a peculiar 

sense of how to be percolating inside my head, we walked 

down into the French Quarter looking for coffee, and a 

shimmering drag queen – dressed all in sequins, feathers, 

and white – passed by us in an alleyway complaining she 

was late for church. I don’t believe in God per se, but 

she looked just like an angel, so we followed, and the 

air shimmered around her like radiation or heat haze. 

She left a trail behind her of sequins and glitter that 

twinkled like diamonds laid in amongst the cobblestones. 

The morning sun – playing in those diamonds – spotted my 

vision, and I heard the angel in drag saying she was 

awakened that very morning by the peals of church bells.