hallelujah

The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. __ast forever!_ Who hasn__ prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can__ recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees.

All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down. The lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam__ waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild? The same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played. The thistle is part of Adam__ curse. __ursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee._ A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia.

I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt__ing eye and say, __o you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?_ The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life.

A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky__ stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I__l not go northing this year. I__l stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow__ fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow__ seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming.

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof...

Jonah__ hair sprays water each time he flips around, in search of another fish. Droplets shimmer on his skin. He__ really cute. And Hallelujah can__ help but think about last night. About him liking her. He flashes her a smile, and something inside her swoons.

Hallelujah can barely breathe through the pain of each step. Rachel is panting from the effort of holding Hallelujah up. Still, when they get closer to the clearing, Rachel manages to call out: __onah! Help!__here__ a rustling noise up ahead. Twigs snapping. And then Jonah appears. His face is in shadow, but his voice is worried: __hat happened?___ turned my ankle,_ Hallelujah says. ____ okay.___he__ not okay,_ Rachel gasps. __he can__ put weight on it. Can you carry her?__onah doesn__ hesitate. He wraps one arm around Hallelujah__ waist, and then he scoops up her legs with the other. In a single, fluid motion, she__ off the ground. She holds on to his shoulders. For a second, she thinks about how strange this is__o be held like this, to be held by Jonah.

So what was Jonah like before high school? As a kid?___s a kid?_ Hallelujah brings up the picture in her mind. __e was . . . sweet, I guess. Dorky. He__ wear these outfits his mom picked out__leated khaki pants and polo shirts, with his hair slicked down with gel. And he would get really enthusiastic about things. Too enthusiastic. He went through this cowboy phase where he wore a cowboy hat and boots to school every day. Didn__ care what anyone thought._ The mental image makes her smile.__nd he and Luke were best friends?___tarting in middle school, yeah. They played soccer together.___uh._ Rachel pauses. __o when did Jonah get cute?___e was still pretty short in middle school. And skinny. But he did start dressing better.___o more pleated khakis?___o more pleated khakis. And then the summer before ninth grade, he had this growth spurt. And he started to, uh, fill out. So I guess ninth grade is when I noticed . . ._ Hallelujah fades off. __his is embarrassing.___o, it__ not. This is what girls talk about._ Rachel grins. __esides. I wanted to see if you were paying as close attention to him as he was to you.___ didn__ realize I was. We were just friends.___ou can be friends and still objectively notice someone__ cuteness.

Hallelujah songcarries on a gentle wind,heralding a king.

Are you hurt?_ the woman asks.__ust my__ Even after the water, her voice comes out as a dry hiss. She clears her throat and tries again. __ust my ankle.___an you tell us where the others are? Are they . . . ?_ Charlie fades off, but she knows how the question ends.__hey__e still out there. Still alive._ Hallelujah will not think about the alternative. But by not trying not to think about it, she__ thinking about it, and it__ making her feel panicky. __ was the only one who could walk, so I__ She gulps. Draws in a shaky breath.Charlie dismounts his bike and squats down next to her. __o on,_ he says. His voice is soft. His accent is southern. But not hillbilly southern. Deep South. He__ not from around here either.She can__ believe her mind is wandering like this. She tries to focus.__e found__onah found a trail, and I followed it to this road. They__e at a campsite by the trail. I . . ._ Hallelujah falters. __ don__ know how far. I wasn__ walking very fast. We haven__ eaten in . . . a while. And Rachel__he__ sick. She was throwing up. And Jonah cut his leg and it wouldn__ stop bleeding. . . .___esus,_ the woman says.

Jonah is something. Jonah__ opinion matters. And she doesn__ want him to hurt because of her.She and Jonah will never be what they were. Too much has happened. But maybe they could become something else.She decides to take the first step. __onah,_ she says.He looks over at her. ____ sorry,_ he says, voice low.__on__ be. I forgive you,_ she tells him. It sounds so formal. I forgive you. But it helps to say it out loud.__hanks. I don__ know if I deserve that. But thanks.___ou do. Of course you do._ Hallelujah says it firmly. __nd__ want to._ I__e missed you, she adds silently. She__ not ready to say that part. Not yet.

Jonah shifts to lean back a little farther, moaning as he does. __oly heck, my leg hurts,_ he says, still with that strained, forced lightness.Again, Hallelujah mimics his tone. ___oly heck_? That__ cutting it close.___ have a gash in my leg the size of the Mississippi. I can say whatever I want.

She used to think alone was the answer. Alone would stop the whispers and the taunts. Alone couldn't get her into any more trouble. Alone meant not getting hurt. Now, she'd give anything to see another human being. To hear someone call her name

He__ looking at her with so much compassion. Like he knows what she__ going through. Like he cares about her. This is what she wanted to see after everything happened with Luke. Instead, she saw Jonah__ back, every time he turned and walked away from her.She blurts, __hy are you being nice to me?"She regrets it immediately. It__ the vulnerability talking. The fear. The adrenaline. For a second, she forgot the aloof, thick-skinned Hallelujah she needs to be.Jonah relaxes his grip. He looks away, out into the wet woods. He waits a long time before speaking. __uke told me.__allelujah is instantly tense. __uke told you what?__nother long pause. __hat he lied. About what happened that night.___hat happened?_ Rachel cuts in. __hat__ Luke lie about?__allelujah ignores her. She stays focused on Jonah, even though he won__ look at her. __hat__ he tell you originally?__onah flinches. __e made it . . . worse. Than what he told the adults. He said that that wasn__ the first time. And he said that you____ever mind,_ Hallelujah cuts in. __ can guess._ She__ heard the rumors. The persistent ones and the surprising, weird, creative ones. She bets there are a lot that she hasn__ heard, too. __one of that happened,_ she says softly but firmly, certain without even knowing exactly what Luke said. What Jonah heard. __one of it.___hat__ what he told me yesterday. I wanted to know why he was still__ He swallows, his Adam__ apple moving up and down. ____ heard him and Brad laughing about what they were gonna do to you this week, and I was like, enough is enough. Time to let it go. So I asked him what was up. Why he was still messing with you.___nd?_ Hallelujah asks.__nd he told me the truth: that he__ made most of it up. He said he had to keep you quiet. Plus, um. He said messing with you was fun.__allelujah lets that sink in. __ou really didn__ know it was a lie? You believed him this whole time?__onah suddenly looks right at her. His eyes plead. __ saw you, Hallie. And Luke was the only one of the two of you with a story to explain it.

I hate him._ She repeats it louder. __ hate him!_ She shouts it at the sky, even though it__ hard to shout lying down: __! Hate! Luke! Willis!__achel asks, __ut what did he do?__allelujah can hear Jonah waiting for her answer. She knows he__ waiting because he__ stopped making fire-building noises. He__ silent. Completely.She takes a deep breath. __e told a lie about me. Actually, a lot of lies. And people believed him. The grown-ups, because he__ the preacher__ son and he__ never do something bad. And everyone our age__ecause he__ popular and you don__ question the popular guy, because if you do, you__l stop being popular yourself. Or you__l never get the chance. And because of what he said, my parents stopped trusting me. I lost friends. I was just this loser who___he breaks off. Now she__ talking to Jonah. Even though he__ behind her and she can__ see him. __t doesn__ matter what you saw that night, or what he told you happened. Luke treated me like I was nothing, and you let him do it.__onah doesn__ answer.__ut that__ not what makes me the maddest,_ Hallelujah continues, pushing up to sit. __hat makes me the maddest is that I let it happen too. I didn__ stand up for myself. And when someone did tell me to stand up for myself, I got so mad___arah. She feels the emotion of their argument wash over her, fresh.__ pushed her away. I told her she didn__ understand anything. But she was right. I became this girl who wouldn__ stand up for herself. The quiet girl. The nothing girl. I just wanted it all to stop, but from the outside, without me having to make it stop. And I wanted to get away, but I figured, hey, college will get here eventually and then I__l be away, I just have to get there, and all the while I__ miserable, and I__ letting you guys make me miserable, letting you make me think I__ supposed to be miserable, that I__ supposed to be quiet, and I__ shutting people out, people who maybe actually care, and I hate myself for it._ An abrupt stop. The train of thought hits a wall.She__ never said that before. Never thought it before. Not consciously.But she knows, deeper than she__ ever known anything, that it__ true.Hallelujah has spent six months hating herself for being weak and silent and for letting bad things happen and for not fighting.