Collision

The old priest smiled softly. The young woman sat in front of him had red streaks down her cheeks like her eyes had recently erupted. And they had. What was she to do? What would you do? It's not an uncommon story and maybe that was another nagging at her soul. What was the point in this? It didn't make her special. It just made her beaten. It didn't make her worthy. It just meant she was empty handed. The priest looked down at the bump which made her vulnerability stick out to about the same degree. "Who could do this?" She let another lava trickle run down her cheek. The toddler running up and down pews giggling. Our young woman's hands gripping her shabby dress so hard that her knuckles had turned the same pasty white as her attire. It was a hollow moment packed full of pain. How is it she, such a small woman can experience more pain that it seems in her capacity to bear? It wasn't fair. It didn't matter that at school she left with little to show. She had learned more than most of those got-it-together's in their more stamped and acknowledged little lives. They were still pursuing the pot of gold. This girl was beaten.

The question on everyone's mind is how? Words that are almost clichés circling the head and tip of the tongue. Sometimes escaping and lost in the void. Monster doesn't speak of half of it. Thirty miles away an almost good looking man who is stuffed like a turkey with charisma that works for three minutes of empty conversation and not much longer and a smile that is worn as a cheap necklace is driving away with the upgrade. Same brand, different model. Slicker, simpler and so damn sexy. It's Apple, it's consumption, it's houses, it's cars, it's Tesco, it's beds, fridges, it's who you know. It's evolution. Keep up or lose out. He was a winner. She was collateral.

And the priest. What scripture to quote? Which doctrine do we apply to this wound? Where's the instructions anyway? Bring back the happy people. Like a song that word "happy" floats around like a feather, aimless. Happy is a yuppie word. He'd heard that somewhere. Maybe that's what he should say. No. This isn't new, this isn't beyond. The priest isn't an innocent old naive. The tide of culture washes him up on shore like flotsam. Froth, a matter of time before all the bubbles burst. While the rest enjoy the pleasure of being the swell of wave. Circular and monotonous but it has its kick. Flotsam just floats. Revolution and rebellion, tyranny and uprising, the next big thing soon dispersed on the sand of existence which soon dispels any power that had once seemingly held threat.

Anyway, the priest has given up caring about waves and flotsam or sand. He's in the capital of a once "great" nation with one of six billion of God's most worthy creatures. In a world as old as time and yet maybe even more. This was oblivion and he was in it and so was she.