God of Feeling

 

I met the God of Feeling

in the middle of the night

in an underground garage.

He, an informant,

and I, his operative,

as my body

lay sleeping

41 flights above.

 

He was in a trench coat

and possessed

a kind demeanor.

He hung back

in the shadows

seemingly intent on my

making the first move.

I broke the ice.

“I have a frozen lamb

in my heart and I don’t

know how to melt it.”

I said, not caring

how it sounded.

He stepped forward

into better light.

“I know someone.”

he said simply.

Would I be willing

to travel cross country

to see a specialist?

 

I felt a chill

of uncertainty

as he spoke so 

deliberately

and with great tenderness,

I suddenly felt

I was the lamb

in the basement

of my own body's

boundless geography.

“Shall I drive?”

He asked, nodding his chin

at a nearby auto.

I figured I'd

no reason not to

trust him as he

helped me into

the passenger seat

of a Chevy chariot.

 

“Is this your car?” I asked,

thinking: God drives a Mazda?

“It’s a rental” he replied,

moistening a finger and

rubbing out a smudge

on the windshield

before settling into

the driver’s seat.

 

As we drove off,

he kept assuring me

that everything

would be fine and

our goal was to merely

defrost my senses.

I began imagining

a small surgical-like

procedure that would enter

at the pupil of the eye.

 

Outside the car windows

a needle-like sleet

pelted the windshield.

The world seemed to be

weeping chilly tears.

Along the road,

remnants of an ice storm

had littered our commute

with downed branches

glazed in a husk of glass.

The fields along the roadway

were as clean and waiting

as a painter’s canvas.

I wondered with what of myself

could I have filled it in?

 

We arrived

at our destination,

just as the dread of

the procedure

was growing larger

in my mind.

God pulled the car over

and got out,

crunching cautiously

around to my side before

rapping on the window,

signaling me to get

out of the car.

In the distance 

I could make

out on the horizon

a gaunt snowman

with branches for arms

and a wilted carrot

drooping from its

lopsided head.

I took a breath

and got out

and as I did

God and I

inexplicably faded

together into white.

A moment passed

and we were

standing inside

a child's sketch

of a room;

it’s details

etched in crayon.

 

Out of nowhere

a young boy appeared

in a white lab coat

to play doctor

and introduced himself,

grinning as

if he were the punchline

to a juvenile joke.

I thought to myself:

This is the doctor

that’s going to perform

the procedure

to thaw the lamb

in my heart?

 

Despite my trepidation

I felt he had sympathy

towards my plight as

he was obviously still

ahold of something

I was not.

I needed to trust him,

favored as he was

by God, though God

was now nowhere

to be seen.

I resigned myself

to the fact that

a mere boy

would be executing

what may well be

a tricky procedure

to jumpstart my heart.

Still, the clock was ticking

as the recovery

of my feelings

waited in the wings.

 

The boy instructed me

to lie down on a table

sketched by his boyish hand.

He then brought

a white cottony ball

up toward my face,

and said reassuringly:

“See you on the other side”.

An acrid odor prickled my nose.

I struggled to stay aware,

fighting not to lose myself

to what was plainly

the erasing effects of ether.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6…

and then,

in the instant

I went under,

I woke up.

 

I lay reunited

with my body

in a warm, dark room,

foolishly realizing

I’d been asleep

through all of this.

I wanted to thank the boy

who seemed so beyond

his years and so kind

but it was too late.

God, the snowman, the boy,

the car, the ice storm…

all were gone.

 

Across the plaza, Christmas lights

throbbed like a purple heartbeat.

I laid my hand on my cat’s back,

marveling at her harmonizing effect

on my senses; her fuzzy warmth,

her feline smell, her brindled litheness.

Her very being as silent

and still as the dawn.

To lie so closely

beside another creature

was to make one’s sorrows palatable.

 

I tried to remember

how, what, why, and where 

I had been

just moments ago.

I must remember…

I’d met the God of Feeling

in the guise of a man…

in a dark parking garage.

He’d been kind and loving.

Then there was the boy

dressed like a doctor

and me lying on a table

and the boy putting me out

with a cotton ball soaked

in ether…and as I counted

to 10...I fell asleep

and promptly woke up

in the very same instant

with nothing to show

for any of it 

but my weeping. 

 

 

1/13/23