“And so Jacob led droves of downtrodden disciples through the desert. For forty years, men and women and little hungry children wandered across the scorching sands in search of something. Something they never really knew they would find. Why would they do this? What led them to such madness?” 

‍

Oscar stood in the deep scarlet glow of the neon cross behind him. He had practiced this pause, the intonations that led up to the silence. The measured waiting, three heartbeats long. He got down on one knee, swaying slightly off of the stage’s edge, speaking quietly, letting the words leak from his lips. He stared out across the room, catching a few pairs of metallic black eyes. 

‍

“God had spoken to Jacob in a dream,” he said. “Whispered four words like sweet, dripping honey, into the man’s ears. ‘A Promised Land awaits.’” He held up four fingers. “That was all it took. Four little words...for forty years of dogged determination and borderline insanity, let’s be real.” Laughter bubbled up all around him, a few claps trickling in from the back of the shadowy room. Oscar gave them a little smirk and stood back up. He paced along the edge of the stage, his hands behind his back.

‍

“Let me ask you this,” he said. “If a man can give up half a lifetime based on four words, what’s stopping us from fully giving ourselves to our Lord, from giving up a full lifetime to Him? We don’t have any excuses. None at all. You know why? We have this.” He held up the Bible. “We have 783,137 words… Jacob... had four... Now the band is going to come back up here and close us out. And as they do, I want you to ask yourself one question — how many words do you need to hear before you fulfill your purpose and come to know Him as your one true Lord and Savior?” 

‍

Oscar walked solemnly down the center aisle, his head held low, his eyebrows furrowed deep in thought. He strode through the control room, down the hall and into an empty, dimly lit kitchen. The steady strum of guitars and a soft woman’s voice faded into mumblings as he closed the door behind him. It was after hours at the snack bar. Oscar snuck in sometimes to avoid people until he had to make the rounds after each service. 

‍

He leaned against the cold metal countertop, waiting for a pot of coffee to brew. Over the last few months, he’d been avoiding this place. It felt silly to him now, staring at his congealed, misshapen reflection in the refrigerator metal, that he would dread facing an inanimate object, a lifeless machine sitting alone in the dark. But it wasn’t what was outside that he feared. He was afraid of what had to happen when the door opened. 

‍

He could hear the humming from deep within his skull, vibrating his hair. He wished he could be stronger when it happened. He reached for the refrigerator handle, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Just a sip,” he whispered to himself. “Just a taste.”

‍

A girl’s voice popped from behind him, slicing through the silence. 

‍

“That was a great sermon, Oscar.” 

‍

He whirled around, snapping to attention as he closed the refrigerator door behind him. Amber Gregson stood at the threshold, backing away slightly at his jumpiness. 

‍

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

‍

“Oh no,” Oscar smiled, an empty laugh slipping through his faux grin. “I was just grabbing a bite before heading home. I can never eat before a service.” His back was pressed tightly against the refrigerator door. Amber stood in the doorway, swaying and smiling softly in the half-darkness. “Anyway, I’m glad you liked it. It’s always a great lesson to explore.” 

‍

Amber nodded, looking over her shoulder at the throng of kids swarming into the main hallway. The sermon was over. “Definitely,” she said. “Well, I’ll see you next week.” She joined the swell of rowdy, restless middle schoolers and was gone. 

‍

Oscar took the long way home, winding through the pale orange streetlights of sprawling suburbia and thinking about his problem. He only had one, and it was unbelievably, deceptively simple. He had an addiction, a thirst that couldn’t be quenched. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it or stifle it, the primal urge he had within him could not be contained. He felt like a wild bear, roaming the deep recesses of the forest in search of a cure for his disease. He had been researching it for months. Nothing. Not one article or book on the subject. He dug and dug, looking for an answer to one question: Why? 

‍

Oscar was addicted to milk. 

‍

When he got home, Lara was helping the girls with their homework. He had two daughters, Rosa and Grace. Rosa was in the third grade, and was learning fractions. Grace was in the sixth grade. She had long, braided red-brown hair, and was working on a presentation about photosynthesis. 

‍

“How was the sermon?” Lara asked, poking her head out from behind a green poster board. 

‍

“Daddy!” the girls screeched, jumping out of their chairs. He knelt down to give them big, sweeping hugs. “Which Jesus story did you tell today?” Grace asked.

‍

“I told the story about Jacob in the desert, looking for the promised land.”

‍

“But, that’s too hot!” Rosa said, going back to her fractions and twiddling the pencil in her hair.

‍

“It was very hot,” Oscar said, pulling off his coat and draping it on the hook by the backdoor. “But that’s what God asked Jacob to do. When God talks, we listen, Rosa.”

‍

“You’re home later than usual,” Lara said without looking at him. “Got cornered by one of those flirty high school girls again?” She glanced up at him with sharp blue eyes. 

‍

“Oh, stop,” he said. “No, I had to help Warren plan out the summer schedule.” 

‍

He’d been lying to Lara for almost a year now. He could feel the guilt festering in his chest every time he did. A bulbous growth pressing against his ribs when he omitted a detail or padded a few false minutes to a timeline. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to shake her and open up his chest and let the bestial wrath spew from his poisonous core. He wanted to scream until his eyes bled and his eardrums burst. He wanted to show her the molten core swirling inside him. 

‍

Until then, there was only milk. Only the cold, creamy wetness sliding down his throat could extinguish the flames, could keep the gurgling creature at bay. He crept into his secret mini-fridge in the dewy hours of the night to chug a half-gallon so he could sleep just a bit longer. He tried sprinkling dried milk powder into his food. He hauled around empty gallons in his backpack. He worked out furiously, trying to sweat out the white hot gold that swam in his veins. 

‍

Oscar put the girls to bed while Lara took a shower. He sat between the girls in Rosa’s flowery pink bottom bunk and read them stories from the Bible. He’d been doing this since they could talk, and by now they’d heard every story at least twice. Tonight was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three young Hebrew men who were thrown into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon. It had a happy ending, despite the near-catastrophic burning alive part. That kind of fear is what made strong faith so impressive, he told them.

‍

“But, daddy, why does God make us hurt so he can feel good?” Rosa asked, her voice shaking as she squeezed the blanket into her fist. “That’s not fair.” 

‍

“That’s a good question, Ro,” he said. “Faith comes from courage, and courage comes from fear. Think about it. If things weren’t scary, we wouldn’t have a way to show how much we love Jesus, to show how much he means to us. We’re thanking him for saving us, remember?” 

‍

“Daddy,” Grace said, her eyes closing softly as she drifted off to sleep. “Who invented Jesus?” 

‍

That night he dreamt of the desert again. 

‍

Waves of neon orange sand blew across dunes the size of football stadiums, creating a rain of particles that fell into sleek black shadows. His feet were burning, but he couldn’t move them. In the distance was a single cactus, silhouetted against the transparent glaze of the radiating sand. Heaps of sand began to rise all around him, being blown in by an impossibly strong wind. It rushed skyward, as if falling in reverse, creating giant walls of sand for miles in every direction. Except the cactus, which remained visible, yet out of focus. He felt his feet leaving the ground. He could see his shadow forming through the gaps in his toes. He was floating up, slowly up. He heard a rumbling, gravel-coated voice speak from far across the desert floor, through the swirling sand. It was coming from the cactus. It spoke one word. 

‍

“Ascend.”

‍

///

‍

Dr. Gene Crawford’s office was a dark wood-paneled room tucked away in the cold, quiet halls of the administrative building. Despite being a deeply traditional man of the faith, he was an avid collector of ceremonial and mystical religious art. Paintings of Siberian shaman draped in cloth, calling forth lightning. Giant, opaque crystals, blackish blue, emerald and deep blood red, scattered across mirror-top tables. Rusty black lanterns from the middle ages hanging together in a corner that clanked like tiny suits of armor when the door slammed shut. A corporate museum of ancient paganistic relics.

‍

Oscar sat in a wide leather-backed chair, waiting for the pastor to arrive. The secretary had told him that Dr. Crawford would be in to see Oscar as soon as he returned from his “widow rounds.” Each month, the pastor went knocking on screen doors and walking through nursing home lobbies to give dozens of elderly, empty-eyed women fresh chrysanthemums and carnations. He sat with them, sipping on stale coffee and nodding at photographs, smiling and listening to them. He had told Oscar once that it was one of the most deeply saddening, exhausting things he was expected to do as a religious leader. “These women are intimate with death ,” he had said, massaging his brow. “Sometimes I feel like they carry it in their shawls, ready to drape me in it and bury me in their flowerbeds.” He had laughed wearily, but Oscar remembered thinking that it had felt strained.

‍

The door burst open and Dr. Crawford waddled in, cheerfully this time, over to Oscar to offer him a meaty swollen hand. He was one of those older men whose skin was always red and stretched tight across a solid frame, like hot rubber on concrete. It reminded Oscar of his own father, and maybe, he thought, they had something in common. Sons of proud, weathered, mid-western men who broke their backs in factories and waded through barrels of cheap whiskey until they died. There was a primal strength hidden deep within people like Oscar’s father and in Dr. Crawford. You couldn’t always see it, but you knew it was there—a secret violence waiting to be activated at the slightest threat to its existence. 

‍

Dr. Crawford was a first-generation Scottish-American, his parents having brought him and his sister over on a trading vessel in the 40s. Over the years, he had built a reputation in the wider religious community for his bold stances and unforgiving methodology. He started the New Hellfire movement, blending Old World paganism with twenty-first century neo-christianity. He was known for his three-hour sermons — performance art that included several acts of impassioned monologues, shakespearean-esque reenactments and line-by-line analysis of biblical sagas. His first book, Blood & Stone: Teachings From a Forgotten Age, received critical acclaim and people flocked from all over the country to hear him speak. Following “Crawford’s Law” became a foundational principle for new age religious leaders. Oscar had joined the church four years ago as a youth pastor after hearing one of Dr. Crawford’s lectures at seminary and applying for the post in person. He had driven from Ohio to Mississippi for the interview. 

‍

“Oscar, my lad, how are you?” Dr. Crawford said, dragging his too-tall wooden chair behind him. “My apologies for the wait, I was over at Pearl Henry’s house. She had me read the entire book of Job out loud to her, can you believe that?” He let out a breathy laugh and clipped the table with his knuckle. He looked up at Oscar and folded his hands over his chest, waiting.

‍

“Sorry to hear that,” Oscar said, laughing obligingly and fiddling with the tiny brown buttons on the cuff of his shirt. “I’m fine, Dr. Crawford, I just have a bit of a, um—” He took a deep breath. “Something’s been….eating at me for a while...” 

‍

Dr. Crawford’s brow doubled over. He leaned forward. “My son,” he held out a hand to touch the edge of the desk. “What is it? Fear not judgement in these chambers, lad. Speak truth.”

‍

He couldn’t get the words out. It felt impossibly silly when he practiced hearing what he was going to say. 

‍

“I have an addiction I’m dealing with...and it’s not...normal,” Oscar said. 

‍

Dr. Crawford stared at him, softly tilting his head in confusion like a barn owl. 

‍

“Okay so it started with these dreams,” he started panting as the words bubbled up from his chest. “There’s this cactus...and I’m in a sort of desert, uh, tsunami, and when I wake up, all I can think about is…”

‍

The sharp pink-black flash of the cactus’s silhouette lingered in his eyelids, searing onto the warm red slab of Dr. Crawford’s forehead. 

‍

“…milk.” 

‍

Dr. Crawford didn’t move. He just stared into Oscar’s eyes, then down at his desk. 

‍

“I know it sounds absurd, believe me,” Oscar said, leaning forward, his palms pressed down on the old, warped wood of the desk. “I’ve got this eternally dry, unyielding thirst for, for milk.” He began to laugh as he spoke, but Dr. Crawford’s gaze diffused any humor. “My mouth feels like it’s filled with dust. I need it all the time, when I’m sleeping, when I’m driving, when I’m preaching—”

‍

“Tell me this, Oscar” he said, raising his head again with a devious smile this time. “Is ‘milk’ code for something else? Something more, eh, sinister? It’s okay if it is, I just need to know, ya see.” 

‍

Oscar let out a deep, full breath. “No, sir, this is actually milk, like what cows make, what we drink.” 

‍

Dr. Crawford’s mouth hung open and his eyes narrowed at Oscar, whose face had turned a creamy shade of white. 

‍

“Look, I’ve been praying on this, I really have. I’ve been reading and re-reading scripture. I haven’t told anyone. I’m considering therapy, but…” Oscar spoke slowly now, letting the weight of his words rest in the air. “What if… I think He’s trying to tell me something,” Oscar said, this time staring deep into Dr. Crawford’s flat, aluminum grey eyes. “What if this is a test of my faith? We talk about these ancient tests that great men passed or weak men failed. What if now is that moment for me, and I just can’t see it or understand it? What if God chose me for something more?”

‍

The two men sat in silence. Outside, a bus full of children laughed and squealed as they arrived from school, ready to jump and slide inside the bumpy plastic of the Noah’s Ark-themed jungle gym. 

‍

Dr. Crawford rose from his chair and began walking through the room, slowly and deliberately. He mumbled down into his chin. He ran his fingers along the spines of old, tattered books and hummed in short, muffled bursts. After several minutes of this, Oscar almost got up to leave, thinking he had made the old pastor uncomfortable. Why had he even come here? This was a mistake. Dr. Crawford was finding the words he needed to fire him, he thought. Either that or he was thinking about which mental health facility he should recommend.

‍

“Dr. Crawford, I—.”

‍

“There are times,” Dr. Crawford said, “— and there have been such moments in history, the Great Book tells us—when universal, supernatural forces of destiny, of spiritual design, find their way from deep chasms of the heavens into our mortal realm, down, down right onto our path, right at our feet,” he exclaimed breathlessly. His hands fell down, palms up, and he gazed down as if surprised by his shoes. He looked up. “Sometimes, the Old Gods would test their followers, Oscar.” He sat down swiftly in his chair, swiveling around from the doorway. “—by issuing a subconscious command, an indecipherable, untraceable desire into the hearts of men. Conviction, that’s what these men felt. Not instruction, no,” he turned to face Oscar, “yearning.” 

‍

“Why?” Oscar said, “What lesson is there in this? I feel it, I just don’t see—”

‍

“Oh come, man,” Dr. Crawford said, sitting straight up, his face small with rage, “do not for one moment pretend that because we are men of the cloth that we are divine partners, knowers of the almighty’s intentions. We are, as you very well know, merely students, blind and deaf to the plans of our teacher. If you’re being guided on a course, you must follow it.” He exhaled sharply through his nose, and leaned back with his hands on his barreled belly. 

‍

“When I was but a boy, fourteen years old, wandering the Plockton coast, lost as a lamb, I came upon a wooden crate, shattered and beaten grey with wood rot. It had washed up from the sea and sat perched perfectly atop a boulder fifteen, twenty feet tall. You see, a storm had brought that crate in from somewhere, a shipwreck or a distant village, but the water had never been as high as it had that day. The crate wouldn't be washed away unless a bigger storm came in and knocked it off the house-high rock. I climbed up on the side of that boulder, heavin’ my legs as hard as they could go. I was a curious young man, even then, and I wouldn’t let that crate slip back out into the waves, never to be seen again. I needed to know what was in it. I grasped and grappled and gripped the sides of that rock until finally, I made it. It had taken me so long to make the climb that the sun had begun to set along the beach. As I pried open the crate, breaking the sides and throwing bits of wood over my shoulder, I found something inside. I could see black leather and gold writing and swollen blue-white pages. ‘Am Bìoball Naomh’...‘The Holy Bible.’ You see, Oscar, there are rules written in every atom of Nature, primordial, pre-human prophecies that lead man deeper into the spiritual sphere. There are elements of shadow and light, of Good and Evil, carved into the fabric of our environment. It’s up to us to find and follow these signals.”

‍

“What are you saying, sir?” Oscar said. “What should I do?” 

‍

“Go where the signs of God are pointing you, son. Remember, the ultimate measure of faith isn't how many new members we sign up for Sunday School or dip in a vat of water or even whether or not we say we believe in our Father. Pure faith is found in the footsteps we take toward our destiny. You know where you must go. Now, do you have the courage to make the journey? That, my friend, can only be determined by you and the purpose you feel in your heart. Perhaps it’s time for you to do what I did on that boulder back in Plockton all those years ago.”

‍

“And what is that?” Oscar asked. 

‍

“Ascend,” Dr. Crawford said.

‍

///

‍

Oscar walked through the halls and classrooms and offices of the church. He crouched over the small plastic chairs in the fifth grade Sunday School room reading the colorful construction paper booklets with stories sprawled across them in crayon. There were stick figure drawings of Jonah in the whale’s belly, David conquering Goliath in the Valley of Elah and Moses parting the Red Sea. Men who had heard and answered the impossible beckoning of a God they couldn’t see. He drank milk from a lukewarm jug he’d been storing in his backpack.

‍

He lay on a pew in the old sanctuary. There were wooden carvings in the walls and an original full-scale organ that encased the choir loft like a giant metal-toothed mouth. He stood at the pastor’s podium, silently counting the shadowy rows of pews and the empty lights overhead, like he’d done when he was a kid, bored and waiting for the sermon to end. He had grown up in the church, having lived under the roof of a hard-nosed Christian mother in the heart of the bible belt. He sang in the choir. He had walked down the aisles as the second wiseman in the Christmas play when he was eight. This is where he thought God lived. It had seemed so simple when he was a boy. An entire network of adults had forced him to sit and listen to stories about Jesus, a mortal man born out of nothing but dust and sand. A prophet and a wizard who lived for thirty years, but was remembered for thousands more. Oscar had been shuffled through these halls and ushered into vans that would take him to summer camps with acoustic singalongs and Bible-themed competitions and long, silent nights where he was told which path to follow. 

‍

Where was he supposed to go now? 

‍

He floated in the baptistry basin, an empty gallon of milk floating beside him. Yellow crust had begun forming at the corners of his mouth. He closed his eyes, letting the warm, chlorinated water soak into his clothes. He lay weightless, opening his chest up to the carved wood in the ceiling, where bearded disciples gathered around a tomb to wait for their leader. 

‍

Oscar imagined himself suspended in a pool at the center of a lush oasis, a searing hot paradise surrounded by palm trees and dry bushes without a cloud in the sky. Wind sailed across the water, brushing his hair against his forehead. The desert was still and quiet, except the small crisp flaps of the water hitting the sandy bank. 

‍

A sudden gust of wind whipped across the water’s surface. It blew in like a raspy voice into Oscar’s ears, softly then all at once in a thick breath.

‍

“It’s time,” it bellowed deeply, and it was gone, gliding quickly back into the dunes. 

‍

Oscar woke up, thrashing wildly in the basin. He stood in the waist-deep water, scanning the invisible crowd for the source of the voice.

‍

He felt the thirst rising up within him again. His mouth began to dry, and his lips stuck together. The urges had been getting stronger and more frequent. His thick, sour tongue searched between rotten teeth for any lingering drops of creamy, cold antidote. He needed it now. His empty, scratchy throat burned from lack of moisture. His heart began to beat aggressively in his chest, and his cheeks burned in frustration. He climbed out of the baptistry in a heap of dense, wet clothes and ran out of the sanctuary, past statues of Jesus standing erect in tunnels of light. His shoes squeaked on the slick, white marble floors as he made his way through the empty church and out into the parking lot. 

‍

When he got home, Lara was waiting on the front porch. 

‍

“Where the hell have you been, Oscar?” she shrieked in a whisper from the shadowy corner. “It’s one’o’clock in the morning, what is going on?”

‍

“Lara, honey, I’m sorry, I got caught up in something, and I’m not sure I can face what’s happening to me.” 

‍

“What are you talking about? Are you, are you having an affair?” She took a step out of the darkness and into the clear gray moonlight. “Please, oh God, Oscar, please don’t tell me you did this to me.”

‍

“No, no, nothing like that, honey, I promise.” 

‍

She glared at him with glazed, puffy eyes and a sharp brow that relaxed when he’d said this. 

‍

“So what is it? What have you been doing? Are you on drugs? We can get you help, just tell me, and we can get through it. I just can’t stand not knowing where your head is these last few months. You’re gone and you seem like you’re a thousand miles away when we talk, when we kiss, when we’re...having sex. I feel like you’re not a real person sometimes.”

‍

“I know, I know. Look, I’ve got a lot going on in my head right now, and I’m just not sure how to deal with it. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do or why this is happening to me, but I think I’ve gotten clarity. Can we just go inside? I need you to sit down and help me figure this out, Lara. There’s something...big...happening.”

‍

They walked inside and sat down across from each other at the kitchen table. 

‍

“This feels like an intervention, Oscar, and I can’t possibly understand why unless you tell me what’s really going on.”

‍

Oscar took a deep breath and pulled at the corner of his pants pocket. 

‍

“Lara, I think I’m… Well actually I know I’m addicted...to, to milk.”

‍

Lara looked as if she hadn’t heard him. Her eyes were dead and flat and cold. She quickly let out a breath and her whole body shook. She was laughing, quietly at first and then uncontrollably.

‍

“What did you just say?” 

‍

“I know it sounds absolutely batshit insane, but it’s true. I can’t help it. For some otherworldly, wildly irrational reason — and I think I know why now — I can’t function without it. I crave it, I-”

‍

“Fucking milk? Are you serious? Is this a prank, or like, a radio talk show or something? What are you talking about milk for right now?” Her voice shook and a thin purple vein snaked in her neck. 

‍

“It’s not a joke, Lara. It’s real, and I’ve been praying about it, and I think I have an answer.” 

‍

Lara kicked her chair back and began pacing around the granite-topped kitchen island. 

‍

“It’s a sign.”

‍

“A what?” 

‍

“A sign from, from God. Dr. Crawford seems to think that-”

‍

“Wait, you’ve told Dr. Crawford about this? Oh Christ, Oscar, you’re going to lose your job. He’s going to call a psychiatric specialist to take you into an asylum because this is absolutely certified serial killer behavior. Do you hear yourself?”

‍

She walked closer to him and held his arms. 

‍

“Oscar, honey, are you okay?” 

‍

Oscar laughed under his breath. “Babe, yes, I’m fine. Look, this isn’t something I can hope to explain to you, but it’s the truth, I promise. I’ve been reflecting on this, and I’ve heard things. He’s telling me to come home. He’s telling me I’ve got to ascend, to fulfill my true purpose.”

‍

“But, you’re telling me there’s some kind of prophecy involving you...and milk? Oscar, that doesn’t make any sense.” 

‍

Oscar began to breathe deeply. He pushed away Lara’s hands, turning his back to her. 

‍

“There’s something calling me through this thirst, through this insatiable, never ending thirst. It’s a test that I have to pass to save you and our family and our church and the entire community of believers. I can see it, and I can hear God whispering to me from the desert. He’s telling me to come up with him, to the very highest level, and it may seem impossible and illogical, but that’s not for me to decide. I’m not the judge, Lara, I’m the vessel. The free spirit of Christ flows through our reality in ways we can’t even begin to comprehend.”

‍

“Look, I think we should just go to bed and maybe talk about this tomorrow. You aren’t yourself right now, and before this gets too out of hand, I think we should reset and take a breath.”

‍

Oscar turned to Lara. He could feel a powerful, searing rage building within his chest. He stared deep into her eyes.

‍

“When God came to Joshua and asked him to wander in the wilderness for Him, he listened. When a higher power calls you into the lion’s den, you answer, you follow that voice, even if it seems like we’re sinking straight into the fiery chasm of Hell, we go because we believe, because we have faith.” 

‍

Lara walked down the hallway toward the bedroom. 

‍

“I’m going to bed, Oscar. Goodnight.”

‍

“I’m going to the desert, Lara,” Oscar said quietly, calmly. 

‍

“You’re doing what?” she turned to him.

‍

“I’m leaving this all behind so I can move us all forward.” He walked toward her in the deep, dark hallway. “I’m the seeker in the night, bringing light to the clouded eyes this world has created. I’m being summoned. I know that deep within my soul, I’ll be rewarded. I’ll be a great man because I dared to give up the flesh I was born into. They’ll write about me like they did Ezekiel, Daniel, Peter, Moses, the Gospel and the Wise Men and every great Man that went out into the harsh, cruel world because we had to. I’ve been training for this my entire life. I’ve been brought here, to this point, because of the plan that He has for me. If you can’t see that, then you’re lost. If you doubt me now, when I’m this close to ascending into the free flowing righteous realms of Heaven, then how can you call yourself a believer? How can you deny the One True God and defile His name with moral judgment? Who do you think you are to question the vision of our Creator? Who are you in the eyes of the Almighty? You are nothing to Him. He has created entire worlds with the snap of his fingers. He has flooded planets and reigned fire and willed death and destruction with a whisper. And you, you laugh at His power? Who are you to Him? If you doubt him, then you doubt everything I believe in, and you’re nothing to me.” 

‍

///

‍

Oscar trudged along the searing hot, thick sand along the western edge of the Sonoran desert. The sun was high above him, leaving just a sliver of shadow beneath his teeth and behind his legs. He wasn’t far now. 

‍

Lara hadn't told Oscar she was leaving that night. All that was left the next morning was a note that said she was taking the girls to live with her brother in Jasper until he had “gotten the help he needed.” A year ago, Oscar would have begged and pleaded for his wife to stay with him, for her to forgive him for being this way. He had wanted nothing more than to be loved and to be a good man for his family. Now, he was different. This was bigger than he and his wife’s relationship or his daughters or his friends or even than himself. This was the True Path. This was humanity’s key to salvation, to uncovering the secrets of life, how to escape the wrath of the empty beyond. 

‍

He stopped at the peak of a large dune to take a few sips of hot milk from his canteen. It had been three days of silent walking, drinking, waiting, squinting. He wasn’t sure what he’d find, but he knew there was something, a gift, waiting to reward him for his faithful exploration. Over the whispering, whirling piles of sand, he could make out a small black patch against the golden grains and endless blue sky. The cactus. He felt a chill go along his ribs and up the back of his neck, past the sweat and hair of his warm, pink skin. He walked toward it. 

‍

It was getting closer to noon now, he thought. It had to be almost noon because he’d been climbing and clawing through this hell for nearly four hours. At this pace, he should reach the cactus in just under an hour. Just another hour, and he would find what his sacrifice meant, what the milk had been trying to show him. If he could just get to that one sign of life, he would find out what was inside him, trying to get out.

‍