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Fiction

Bubblegum Prayer

Dawn Muenchrath considers the nature of art.

He said later that he knew almost immediately, knew before he’d finished reading it through – before he’d even reached the third stanza. That happened sometimes, every once in a long while: a piece of art – a movie, a novel, or in this case, a poem – that didn’t reveal its treasures slowly but instead all at once, bowling you over with the staggering force of its insight, the words leaping off the page to take hold of your hunched shoulders and shake them, to remind you not just why you loved art, but why you loved life – or why you had loved life, and could again.

For the first time in thirty-five years, Elroy packed his papers (yes, he still insisted on hard copies of everything) into his briefcase and left the office early. It was June, raining, and he didn’t have an umbrella or a jacket, he marched into the street with his head held high. He gazed upward and laughed in wonderment as fat drops smacked his forehead and flowed in rivulets down the lines of his face.

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