His Ministers a Flame of Fire
by T.B. Jeremiah
Our Father, who art in Heaven, I don’t know what’s going on anymore.
***
Here is Ed Brady. He is trying to sleep on the settee that takes up one end of the first room of the pair he shares with Mama and Rory and Fing. They are all crowded into the bedroom; the settee is Ed’s statement of independence. He curls his spine into the sloped back and burrows his face into the crook of his sweaty elbow, trying vainly to apply more pressure to his eyes. He is having the visions again (three suns rise over a field where a dead pony and a small train dance slow waltzes). This is not so bad in itself—you get used to them—but with the visions (the man walks along a narrow boardwalk and the sharks snap at his feet) comes the headache, and right now a ball of throbbing pain is expanding and contracting gently in the space above and behind his eyes. He is making an effort to keep his jaw loose, because he has observed that when he gives in to the tooth-clenching instinct, the pain inc…
Our Father, who art in Heaven, I don’t know what’s going on anymore.
***
Here is Ed Brady. He is trying to sleep on the settee that takes up one end of the first room of the pair he shares with Mama and Rory and Fing. They are all crowded into the bedroom; the settee is Ed’s statement of independence. He curls his spine into the sloped back and burrows his face into the crook of his sweaty elbow, trying vainly to apply more pressure to his eyes. He is having the visions again (three suns rise over a field where a dead pony and a small train dance slow waltzes). This is not so bad in itself—you get used to them—but with the visions (the man walks along a narrow boardwalk and the sharks snap at his feet) comes the headache, and right now a ball of throbbing pain is expanding and contracting gently in the space above and behind his eyes. He is making an effort to keep his jaw loose, because he has observed that when he gives in to the tooth-clenching instinct, the pain inc…