The Rapture

Did the pilot really say “I’ll see you in

a future life?” We’re flying over the

South China Sea, I think. Outside, the bitter

cold would kill us, or at least give us a “radish”

as my four-year-old granddaughter called the rash that

covered her bottom with what was probably bug bites

from a night spent at Bible camp. We’re flying into

a thunderstorm. The lightning looks to me

like the apocalypse; the rapture, perhaps, I

am thinking how we mistake things. How the feel

of foreignness is unnerving, or at least funny. The

“future life?” A “radish?” Sometimes icy cold

can be perceived as hot. Sometimes autumn

seems like spring; the voice of God, the wind.