I have visions. Angels, usually. Or saints. Sometimes there’s an Indian chief who will go for walks with me. I call him Chief. That’s what he said to do. He doesn’t say much. Just walks on the other side of the fence along the road. I like having him there. The angels and saints give me messages now and then. Like if I’m questioning a decision in my life, maybe one of them will come with a sign showing me which choice to make. It’s reassuring. And it gives me someone to blame if it ends up being a bad decision. But it never has been. Yet.
So when Jesus came to see me the other day, it was different but not unusual. I mean, I wouldn’t consider myself a Christian, but I do have faith in his divinity. I guess that’s the best way of saying it. So there I was, trimming the rose bushes, and all of a sudden, Jesus is sitting there with me. He thanked me for my time, for my tending of the land. Then he said, “Puffy’s blowing the winds of change another way and nature draws a hard line.”
I didn’t really know what he meant by that.
He turned his face to the sky with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched. Almost like he was inviting or challenging the clouds to rain down on him. And then I got it. I saw it. The droughts, the floods, the earthquakes, and tornadoes. It was all there around us. God, as nature, trying to shake itself loose of us, trying to rid itself of this human plague.
Then he looked at me and said, “It is quite literally the end of the world. This time I mean it. I honestly do. And no one regrets this new twist quite like I do.” There was such sadness in his eyes, heartbreak. Like, he couldn’t quite believe we’d taken it this far, gone this far off-track after all he’d given. And then he was gone.
I carried on with my day and I thought a bit about it through my Sunday morning putterings. Everything I did from then on meant more and, yet, also meant nothing. It all seemed sort of futile, but still, I paid close attention at the nights of my recycling as I put newspaper stacks wrapped on the curb as my offering. I did my small part. Then I turned my face to the sky in hopes of being swept away.

Based on the song “Literally the End of the World” by Holcombe Waller. Photo credit: { pranav } / Foter / CC BY.