Lance Olsen - Calendar of Regrets

How, when you were six, perched in an uncomfortable aluminum-backed chair next to your mother's in another tent at another church retreat, you suddenly felt the waterfall of voltage ripple down over you, the voice not so much whisper as merely begin to exist along your spinal cord, felt yourself without warning learning things language could never teach you as chance became a superstition?

After evening prayers, I caught up with Iphi, escorted her back to her tent across camp. Somewhere along the path, in a blast of darkness that turned me invisible, in a cloud of sweet piney fragrance, I asked: Would you maybe like to go to a movie sometime?

My din hanging in the shadow air.

I'd like that , she responded after I waited so long I thought she hadn't heard, or had already said no, and seven months and seven days ago we married.

Seven months and seven days ago we learned what it meant to become the Lord's lightning.

How is it possible to cherish anyone more than this?

Knowing too much leaves you knowing nothing. I learned this in eighth grade. All those straight lines. All those sandpaper definitions. The teacher who walked as if both of her knees had been soldered in place laughing at me in front of the classroom when I raised my hand and pointed out that evolution is just one theory, that there are plenty of others.

You stop those thoughts of hers right now, you hear me? my mother said when I told her that evening over dinner. You stop them cold. Let them things into your head, and I don't know what .

I tried, but I couldn't.

I tried and tried.

Because words are designed to confuse. They don't ever tell you this, but you figure it out. Because all you have to do is listen.

Go ahead.

You can hear the devil's lisp in every sentence a human speaks.

By tenth grade I couldn't take any more. The voice that isn't a voice visited me in my sleep, arriving as a huge black bird with broken wings flapping in the grass below my window, and, when I awoke, the idea of high school had become something you only remember, like the Old Spice, like the blood scent of your father, the grit of his unshaven cheek against your forehead as he carried you to bed after you fell asleep on the living room couch, the way the cab of his pickup was stained with cigarette smoke and the television in our motel room picked up just three channels — and even those in a hail of static.

My mother knocked on my bedroom door.

You all right, hon? she asked. Breakfast's ready. You got to get a move on or you're gonna be late.

I'm not going, I said.

What?

I'm not going anymore.

A slow silence hanging in the hallway.

My mother saying:

Well, praise the Lord. It's about time, babe. It's about time.

You ready? I asked Iphi.

I was sitting on the unmade bed.

She nodded.

I rose, moved to the window. When I pulled back the drapes, the crisp blueness was so concentrated I winced.

The red brick Victorian station with its slate roof.

The modern glass overhang that reminded me of the greenhouse in Kew Gardens we visited yesterday for a chilly picnic. One of the flowers there was tall as a small tree, green on the outside and a dark burgundy bread loaf on the inside. It rarely bloomed, but when it did it stank of rotting meat for twelve hours straight to attract the flesh flies that pollinated it.

Then it folded back into itself to wait years before unfolding again.

I remember a dream, Iphi said, standing there.

A dream? I said.

I didn't think I had any, but I did. You were gliding next to me. We were both gliding. We were going very fast, very high, but it was warm and sunny and magnificent. We held our arms outstretched like wings. Everything looked small and featureless below. Like this rug. The landscape looked like this rug. That's what reminded me. The perspective was totally off. I was thinking: I've never been so fortunate .

Zipping our suitcases shut, fastening their locks, carrying them to the closet and stacking them inside.

Taking down our long baggy black coats, shrugging mine on, helping Iphi with hers, stepping over to the door, opening it, standing back.

Iphi hesitating.

Iphi hesitating.

Iphi stepping through into the rest of her life.

We rented a small white farmhouse with black trim on two acres of barren land on the outskirts of town. We didn't like our neighbors. We didn't like their trash-strewn lawns and rusty cars propped on cinderblocks and pot smoke drifting through our windows, the way their dirty children ran in dirty packs, whooping and cursing, knocking over our woodpile repeatedly, making faces at us from a distance as we walked down to check the mailbox. We didn't speak to them. We didn't look in their direction. Our brothers and sisters from church were the only company we needed to keep.

Their kindness, their thoughtfulness, their comfort, their tidiness. When the weather started turning colder, a skunk burrowed into a broken bale of hay in the shed. Iphi told me she was scared to fetch the lawn chairs and grill we stored there. She asked me to take care of things. I asked her how. She told me she didn't want to know how. She just wanted her lawn chairs and grill back.

Who can explain how it feels buying a shotgun, fingering the crenellated yellow plastic shells for the first time, sitting on your bed reading the directions over and over until you're sure you have them right?

How awake you feel crossing the yard the next morning, frost dusting clots of dead grass?

How careful you are opening the wood-slat door, slipping inside?

How seeing the shiny black flank nestled in the straw, unmoving, arrives as a palm pressed against your chest?

It didn't have time to shift to see what was happening around it.

The thunder struck out that fast.

The thunder kept striking.

Then fur and blood and bone were spattered across the walls, through the hay, on my boots, and I was standing in the middle of the aftershock.

This , I remember thinking, shaken, proud, high-pitched whine in my ears, is how vengeance works .

This is exactly how it works .

It was cold outside, but not nearly as cold as Minnesota at this time of year. The pollution smelled tinny like bad water and made the back of my throat burn. We walked north half a block. The black cab was waiting just like they said it would be.

The driver didn't acknowledge us as we climbed in back. He had the broad hunkered shoulders of a wrestler and was bald except for a thin band of long whiteblond hair skirting his head. His radio was tuned to a classic Christian rock station. Sanctus Real was singing about how much everyone will eat and drink when they finally reach the Promised Land.

We turned left at the first corner, then right into a series of narrow winding streets. I lost my sense of direction, settled, watched buildings slide by. I reached for Iphi's hand. It was moist.

None of that, the driver said matter-of-factly over his shoulder.

I caught a glimpse of his eyes in the rearview mirror. They were the color of staples, only glassy.

I let go.

The fraying neighborhood rolling past.

The streets deserted under the rare blue sky.

Each window a black square, a black rectangle.

I thought about how in Mark it says: And when Jesus was alone, those present along with the Twelve questioned him about the parables. He answered them: “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that they may look and see, but not perceive, and hear and listen, but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.”

I thought about how in Job it says: God covers his hands with lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. Its crashing tells about Him .