Nothing so unhappy

*

So now that the phone might be Father Sam calling, Elf answered it without so much fear.

*

At the end of his visit, the father washed her feet, an ancient ritual that made her feel squeamish and was supposed to. Then he went home by his long distance bus, good bye good bye, the sound of it pulling away so final she thought she'd never see him again. Never once had he come close to, well, insulting her person, even making a rude gesture, in other words touching her besides the feet. He was actually, of all things, chaste and self-controlled. She found herself mourning his departure. Yet also feeling buoyant because some of his atmosphere remained. She walked home in a muse from the gym where she worked. Every step buoyant like her thoughts. Touch toe to the ground. Winter sun was wrapping everything in a blue gas. The park the park the park. God is good. My secret love. One "daffy dill" already, well, not exactly open, true, but it was there. The yellow bud was there. The future was yellow.

Perhaps then I am a Christian, Elf thought. No I'm not a Christian, but maybe a wannabe. Is it impossible to be a wannabe? Impossible to stay there long. Backward or forward. You have to move, have to travel.

Across the way young ladies were jogging. Flat chests like mine. Then she saw a dog and the dog was abandoned. She first saw its abandonment then felt it. It ran through the park, it ran away from her so she couldn't check the collar, if there was one, then it ran in the path of a car but missed the car. Blue gas everywhere.

The thought of that creature in free fall. A very little dog, as though size had anything to do with this. The pain that gripped her heart was so sudden and ill founded that she didn't think she could bear it. She couldn't bear it. Definitely. Yet the evidence was that she could bear it because she in fact was. No alternative. There was nothing in the world so unhappy as happiness.

On the way to her room she passed that church again, the neighborhood church. She scouted it. Leaned her hand on the bush guarding the garden of orthodoxy, which she so much stood outside. Bent the bush an inch or 2. Looked in. Well, the place was closed. So she couldn't go in, didn't go in. Wasn't her fault, it was locked. As if not really wanting her.

It was locked, it was locked. Nothing so unhappy as happiness!

*