Illustration by Akemi Shinohara

Mary Ascending Into Heaven / Colfax Avenue, Denver, Colorado
Originally for the Story: A Life of Bright
(If you're reading the story, remember to click through and start at #1.)

a life of Bright / 1 *

Saints don’t write. Saints live in a blaze and leave us behind to stammer. “Once there was a man”—already he’s a fairy tale. Impossible to tell. Still—

A saint arrives in a high and dry American city. Any number of impossible things go ahead and happen anyway. Popular and unpopular parables. Miracles no one wanted or, at least, miracles no one deserved.

What is a saint anyway?

A saint is a stamp marked cancel on the usual system of rewards and punishments.

A saint is the end of getting what you deserve.

Bright. Impossible to tell and still—pressing, waiting, scratching at the mind. Demanding to be told.

In the end—what can I do? The devotee gives up, admits defeat, begins to write.

Once upon a time, in Denver, Colorado, there lived a man named Bright. . .



(* Here, again, is the story I've written a dozen times in a dozen years. I am toss it out here at last and promise I will never tell it again.)