Apocalypse of Jude

Slouched and smoking on Mae’s bed, Jude watches an agitated Mae tell him be gone by the time she comes back. She leaves. Drawing the smoke in, diffusing himself with the post-coitus air and exhaling it, Jude feels the rapacity of their sex churn inside him. He draws in and lets out, tapping the ash into the tray on the beside table next to him. His other hand splays itself on the hollow of his stomach. The red welts of bite marks pox his chest.

/was it yesterday that i was still a virgin/ /a man dead to the world/ /for the sake of the kingdom of heaven/ /in ardent expectation of christs love and return/ /what does that mean now/ /just a stupid romantic notion ive been holding onto/ /finally its out of the way/ /no little light left in me to shine caul/ /no more church dragging its claws of guilt into me/ /to carthage i have come/ /im alive to the world at last/ /like ive come up from the grave/

His self-affirmation brings him the catalyst needed to move himself. He tumbles his spent body off the bed. With the cigarette hanging in his mouth, he pulls on his crumpled pants from the bottom end of the bed, and then his shirt from the floor, which he buttons bottom to top. Passing through the kitchen, he opens the door out, but pauses on its lintel to stare down the nine white steps in shadow leading to the gravel and his beat-up Citroen.

/i only leave what was already dead/ /there is no sign that my vow meant anything anyway/

But as he locks the door behind him, the infusion of the quiet morning air with the meaninglessness of what he has so long held onto as a final hope for meaning sends his remaining spirit into a downward spiral.

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 80