Arch Deacon

Even when man is asleep there's dogs howling in the night, so a wicked, restless spirit finds voice. I'm awake when they cry out and I recognize my own. I dreamed last night that wasps was crawling on my heart and my heart was laying on an old wooden table. There was me, Ted, Shel and Horseshoe out by Blackfoot Lake and I was daring em' to stare in the water and see what kind of sumbitches they were. Night was coming and I could feel that darkness in my heart. Horseshoe is staring into the lake. I pick up a big rock from the shore and smash him over the head with it. Ted and Shel act like they was birthed for murdering; I could smell blood on their breath, even past the smell of Bourbon and the atrocity that reeked of rotting apples being devoured by starving mouths. They held Horseshoe's head under that freezing, dark Kentucky lake until his frantic legs stopped kicking. I felt like cutting his spine out of his back cause I'd never seen one and never held one in my hands. Instead I walked his heavy body into the lake like he was being baptized and watched it sink slow like it was holding on to this world. I told Ted and Shel to get on home and waited on the shore for God to come down from Heaven and punish me. I saw him in the half light of early morning before the moon hid behind a cloud. He looked at me cross and then walked off into the forest. There I was on the shore all alone with no God to hurt me like I wanted to be hurt.