Revelation

 

 

I might not have much time left so I'll get
this out while I still can: Miss Hooker says
—and she's my Sunday School teacher so she
would know—that no one can predict the hour
of his death, or hers, because God might take
him away, or her, any time He wants,
so before He ends what He began in
me I just wanted to say I'm sorry
for all my sins but somehow I couldn't
help myself, and still can't, and didn't she
say, Miss Hooker I mean, didn't she say
that everybody sins, it's Adam
and Eve who started it all and what we
have to do, people I mean, is cut back
on sinning, as much as we can, if we
want to go to Heaven when we die? That's
real life, up there, Miss Hooker says, it's life
 
eternal, that's fancy for forever,
and infinity, without running out
of numbers because numbers won't count for
diddly anyway. But sin too much and
you go to Hell, to burn, that's also for
eternity, so it's democratic
she says, even though I'm Republican,
she laughs. I don't get it but then I'm just
ten years old and she's 25, I know
because I counted her freckles and then
divided by 10, my own age again,
and if that's not a sign from God then I
don't know what the Hell is. I think I mean
 
go ahead and die—you don't have much choice
anyway, but drag it out as long as
you can without much sinning as you go
or you'll land to Hell even if you live
to be a hundred, which is 25
times 4, which is another sign. Me, I
sin about right now, just enough to have
fun but not too much, God will not be mocked.
I wonder if He mocks me. That's not good.