The crayons are hard to write with. They catch and drag on the walls. I want the red crayon, red, but it keeps breaking and my hand hurts more and more trying to hold it. The janitor washes away the word of God every night while I sleep and Dr. Frey pretends I never heard it in the first place.
He gives me an Underwood with a red ribbon but I must promise to behave, promise not to write on the walls, and give him my red, red crayon. The typewriter hurts my hands too but it's different.
God speaks, and I type. WILDFIRE DESTROYS RESORT TOWN. Dr. Frey says it’s fire season and anyone could have predicted that. UNHOUSED PERSON FOUND DECEASED IN LOCAL PARK. Dr. Frey says I’m just playing the averages now. He has no faith, even though everything God said has come true.
Then God is quiet for a while, so Dr. Frey says words like “discharge” and “halfway house.” But before I can leave, God tells me PSYCH PATIENT ESCAPES FROM LOCKED WARD and Dr. Frey says words like “restraints” and “shock therapy.”
God never told me to type those words.
In the morning Dr. Frey stands at the window of my tiny room while I watch him from the trees near the fence. He shouts and points and pounds the glass like a crazy man.
Dr. Frey’s God may be dead, but mine is not.
Comments