Serafims
cruising after
the apocalypse
cruising after
the apocalypse
Seraphim, after the apocalypse, hide from God's beacon in the form of surveillance cameras buried along paths through the dense wilderness. With chainsaw hands they carve a trail toward the residence of their own heaven. They speak a drunken language distilled from a cocktail of the cheapest vodka and the cheapest lemonade, chased, for the less experienced, with an apple.
“God save us,” they say, their rough tongues entwining, afflicted by a pollen allergy. “I haven't felt anything like this in several thousand years.”
Instead of pauses between sentences, they fumigate their corpses with Lucky Strike cigarettes, driving away insects, repelling bacteria, and sealing shut the fear of posthumous silence.
Their calloused feet, attached to hairy legs covered in midge bites, sink into puddles, mud, and the refuse of spontaneous dumps filled with the antique luxuries of fallen civilizations. The angels are assembled from the discarded dowries of the great—those who consume everything to the last crumb and belch out conditions, utopias, the propaganda of nostalgic wars, stories about memories that cannot be felt in the body, and the traumas embedded in the pricing of human relationships.
At the crowns of their heads, exposed to premature aging and acid rain, sits the parasite of shame, born from an abuser’s habitual pointing to the wounds he himself inflicted.
In smoke-soaked whispers and with trembling hands, they strip off found jackets that keep both rain and air from reaching the skin, decorative camouflage T-shirts full of holes, and stained, multicolored jeans. They leave traces of themselves in the form of underwear hanging from broken branches, navigation markers for others.
With a pocketknife inscribed “To Dad,” never given as a gift, they cut away their wings so they may remain here forever—and so they can cross impassable places by laying down their enormous feathers as makeshift bridges.
Fainting from hunger, they eat their own flesh in order to know one another better, lacking the means to pay for a collective psychotherapy session. Still hungry, they try to reunite through the resinous scent of exchanged sweat and the sour taste of exchanged saliva; through dirty fingernails buried in greasy hair; through stepping on one another; through entering and receiving bodies where bodies permit; through blows and embraces in the dense contact of skin against skin, all to feel the rush of a racing heart.
It falls silent the moment it sees a clearing at the end of the path.
Coastal waves come into view.
A soothing voice can be heard:
“Aren't you cold?”
Memories burn in conversation like newspapers in a stove, gifting warmth to accidental connections. Branches and stones write history by imprinting themselves upon the skin, then vanish as swiftly as the life of a swatted mosquito.
The sun permits them to strip from one another the very last thing remaining—burnt fragments of flesh—so they may forget what that flesh has witnessed.
The fragile possibility of the illusion of happiness is granted to everyone; one only has to learn how to make the maneuver.
“God save us,” they say, their rough tongues entwining, afflicted by a pollen allergy. “I haven't felt anything like this in several thousand years.”
Instead of pauses between sentences, they fumigate their corpses with Lucky Strike cigarettes, driving away insects, repelling bacteria, and sealing shut the fear of posthumous silence.
Their calloused feet, attached to hairy legs covered in midge bites, sink into puddles, mud, and the refuse of spontaneous dumps filled with the antique luxuries of fallen civilizations. The angels are assembled from the discarded dowries of the great—those who consume everything to the last crumb and belch out conditions, utopias, the propaganda of nostalgic wars, stories about memories that cannot be felt in the body, and the traumas embedded in the pricing of human relationships.
At the crowns of their heads, exposed to premature aging and acid rain, sits the parasite of shame, born from an abuser’s habitual pointing to the wounds he himself inflicted.
In smoke-soaked whispers and with trembling hands, they strip off found jackets that keep both rain and air from reaching the skin, decorative camouflage T-shirts full of holes, and stained, multicolored jeans. They leave traces of themselves in the form of underwear hanging from broken branches, navigation markers for others.
With a pocketknife inscribed “To Dad,” never given as a gift, they cut away their wings so they may remain here forever—and so they can cross impassable places by laying down their enormous feathers as makeshift bridges.
Fainting from hunger, they eat their own flesh in order to know one another better, lacking the means to pay for a collective psychotherapy session. Still hungry, they try to reunite through the resinous scent of exchanged sweat and the sour taste of exchanged saliva; through dirty fingernails buried in greasy hair; through stepping on one another; through entering and receiving bodies where bodies permit; through blows and embraces in the dense contact of skin against skin, all to feel the rush of a racing heart.
It falls silent the moment it sees a clearing at the end of the path.
Coastal waves come into view.
A soothing voice can be heard:
“Aren't you cold?”
Memories burn in conversation like newspapers in a stove, gifting warmth to accidental connections. Branches and stones write history by imprinting themselves upon the skin, then vanish as swiftly as the life of a swatted mosquito.
The sun permits them to strip from one another the very last thing remaining—burnt fragments of flesh—so they may forget what that flesh has witnessed.
The fragile possibility of the illusion of happiness is granted to everyone; one only has to learn how to make the maneuver.
Seraphim, after the apocalypse, hide from God's beacon in the form of surveillance cameras buried along paths through the dense wilderness. With chainsaw hands they carve a trail toward the residence of their own heaven. They speak a drunken language distilled from a cocktail of the cheapest vodka and the cheapest lemonade, chased, for the less experienced, with an apple. “God save us,” they say, their rough tongues entwining, afflicted by a pollen allergy. “I haven't felt anything like this in several thousand years.” Instead of pauses between sentences, they fumigate their corpses with Lucky Strike cigarettes, driving away insects, repelling bacteria, and sealing shut the fear of posthumous silence. Their calloused feet, attached to hairy legs covered in midge bites, sink into puddles, mud, and the refuse of spontaneous dumps filled with the antique luxuries of fallen civilizations. The angels are assembled from the discarded dowries of the great—those who consume everything to the last crumb and belch out conditions, utopias, the propaganda of nostalgic wars, stories about memories that cannot be felt in the body, and the traumas embedded in the pricing of human relationships. At the crowns of their heads, exposed to premature aging and acid rain, sits the parasite of shame, born from an abuser’s habitual pointing to the wounds he himself inflicted. In smoke-soaked whispers and with trembling hands, they strip off found jackets that keep both rain and air from reaching the skin, decorative camouflage T-shirts full of holes, and stained, multicolored jeans. They leave traces of themselves in the form of underwear hanging from broken branches, navigation markers for others. With a pocketknife inscribed “To Dad,” never given as a gift, they cut away their wings so they may remain here forever—and so they can cross impassable places by laying down their enormous feathers as makeshift bridges. Fainting from hunger, they eat their own flesh in order to know one another better, lacking the means to pay for a collective psychotherapy session. Still hungry, they try to reunite through the resinous scent of exchanged sweat and the sour taste of exchanged saliva; through dirty fingernails buried in greasy hair; through stepping on one another; through entering and receiving bodies where bodies permit; through blows and embraces in the dense contact of skin against skin, all to feel the rush of a racing heart. It falls silent the moment it sees a clearing at the end of the path. Coastal waves come into view. A soothing voice can be heard: “Aren't you cold?” Memories burn in conversation like newspapers in a stove, gifting warmth to accidental connections. Branches and stones write history by imprinting themselves upon the skin, then vanish as swiftly as the life of a swatted mosquito. The sun permits them to strip from one another the very last thing remaining—burnt fragments of flesh—so they may forget what that flesh has witnessed. The fragile possibility of the illusion of happiness is granted to everyone; one only has to learn how to make the maneuver.