Flicker

Flicker
Ian A. McKenzie
The candles are laid on every table but they barely light the room. They flicker and shake with every breath we take but it is only shadows that they cast across the walls and the faces of the people sitting around the tables. The shadows are so heavy that they suffocate the light. No one is really breathing yet because they are waiting but I don’t know what they’re waiting for and I am alone at a table I can see everyone. No one is breathing in their anticipation and what is left is completely empty of everything and anything that could possibly be filling this room. The silence is deafening. A man walks onto the stage in front of me (in front of everyone) and everyone sees him and seems to be waiting for him to (save them) speak. He walks back and forth (they breath in and out) across the stage (the candles flicker and shake) as he holds his microphone in front of him. He is already sweating. (I barely know) Flicker and shake as the man on stage is speaking (they are all breathing now, with every word it’s in out in.) He is talking about God. (The sweat is already glistening on his forehead.) He says tonight he wants to talk about the Plan. He says God has a plan, for everyone in the room and they breath in when he says this the candles shake and I am am I the only one that isn’t breathing flicker shake flicker shake in out in. (On the respirator 3,000 miles away someone isn’t breathing someone is dying on a hospital bed and no one is watching.) The man on the stage says He has a plan for us all for all of us and there is a room-wide sigh of relief shake flicker shake because yes they are lost they are all so lost and they are so glad someone knows where to be found. Some of them raise their hands some of them close their eyes some do both but all are breathing I am the only one. (The man on the hospital bed hasn’t been able to raise his hands for months but he wants to so badly so he could write his family 3,000 miles away so he could tell them how he feels. So he could tell them how it feels.) (I barely know) He says (flicker) He has (shake) a plan and I hear Hallelujahs from their mouths over and over hallelujah hallelujah and shouts of yes shouts of oh hallelujah (he is dying on the hospital bed 3,000 miles away no one is watching) and the sweat is pouring off him now as he says nothing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly, soon they will be drowning in their hallelujahs and his sweat. He wipes his eyes (I barely know) and says (flicker) into his microphone that there is a time for everyone to go (he can do nothing about the cancer in his esophagus as no one watches) and that is part of the plan Hallelujah hallelujah yes oh yes oh yes. I am suffocating. (I barely know) Everyone is drowning yes oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes as he says He has a plan for all of us drowning and (I barely know) everyone has to go everyone has to because there is a time because that is the Plan that He has for everyone (flatline) and that there is an old saying (3,000 miles away) that whenever someone says (no one is there) that they believe in (no one is watching) Jesus Christ (flatline) as their lord (flatline) and their savior (flatline) and means it (yes) then they (drowninghallelujah) will be (yes yes yesyesyesyesyes) saved (HALLELUJAH) and all the angels (flatline) have a party for you because you (YES OH) have been saved (OH YES HALLELUJAH YEEEEEEEEEESSSOHYES.) The man on stage looks at them looks at me and says so who is willing to be saved tonight who pause for effect for dramatic touch for nothing believes I do not believe I do not believe because I can see my grandfather dying on the hospital bed that no one watches but I can only imagine him because he is threethousandmilesaway I can only imagine my grandfather as he dies and I barely know him Ibarelyknowmygrandfather who I haven’t seeninelevenyearswhenhetookmefish ingonhisboat and putthewormonthehookformebecauseIwastoolittle but I wasn’t too little to loveh im for whathedid and whohewas he was my grandfatherandI couldwatchyougrandpaIcould watchyouandyoucouldtellmehowyoufeelandhowitfeelsandIwouldlistenandmaybeitwouldfeelbetter IcouldwatchyouIcouldIcouldIcouldIcouldIcouldI and the man on stage is asking me to love Him who tells me it is my grandfather’s time to go NO hallelujah nononononononononono drowningflatlinenoair no.