gregorienchant

i'm a hedonist - born on the island of misfit toys and raised by wolves. artist, musician, chef, treasure hunter, time traveler, author, trash collector - anything and everything i choose to become. In one of my quantum journneys into a parallel universe, god came down to visit me. He's very large - like a small moon . . . he gave me the gift of sporadic enlightenment. Then he asked me for a favor. He asked me to spread his ashes. It was beautiful. I sat on the step and cradled the carved wooden box on my lap and eyed it like it was some hard thing inside of me that I struggled to get out, to exorcise from somewhere deep inside of me where only God can see and where other men dream that they can – as if it were my own heart that I would have to reach inside myself and pull forth, dripping and still beating as I held it in my trembling hand. But more. I let out a long slow breath and after a few moments lifted the lid and let my eyes fall on the contents as the hardness of the thing fell from my shoulders. Ash. Bone. Sadness and joy together mixed in some bizarre dance as if two old enemies had reconciled at last. I fought back a smile as my eyes brimmed and I reckoned as to how many times the two of us had sat together on this very step and taken in the beauty of the black trees silhouetted against the evenings twilight while we composed songs or just sat in company watching the sunlight dim against the snowcapped mountains, listening to the sound of the river and the ravens talking with one another and to us in a language I had long forgotten but was struggling to remember. With now not a tremble or a falter I opened the bag and sunk my fingers into the gray dust soft at first like a fine powder but with a grit, a sharpness that pressed up into the quick of my nail beds. I was keen to these sensations as well as the slight breeze and the constant but subtle rush of the river singing to us from close by. I cupped my fingers and lifted up a bit of the ash and let it sift through my fingers back into itself with a fine powder like smoke or spirit or some other apparition all its own rising up from the bag. I watched the apparition dissipate in the soft air and my throat began to close but it still managed to choke out a barely audible “thank you.”