![Eli Christman](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/43938671240_c22b25991f_k.jpg)
Thy Kingdom Come
It was an ordinary day, rich with the unexpected: morning and evening I narrowly avoided car crashes. I was unharmed, but strangely stirred.
First came reckless driving at the roundabout. The way looked clear and I drove ahead. The car on my left which I expected to turn left or go straight instead changed lanes and followed the roundabout—crossing in front of me—towards the right exit.
I slammed on the brakes to let the crazy driver pass. “Good driving, Mister Magoo!” I muttered.
He—thick glasses, florid jowls and a white bandage on his bald head—glared at me, outraged to see my car shuddering to a stop a metre from his silver Corolla. I glimpsed a Saint Christopher medallion hanging from his rear-view mirror. I gestured, clumsily, that it was the wrong lane to make a right turn. The elderly driver shook his head dismissively—no possibility of error on his part!—and continued his leisurely exploration of the roundabout.
Saint Christopher had his hands full…
What offended him was not a lack of quality, but of purpose. He simply couldn’t tolerate—perhaps due to his profession, which was accounting—things that remained forever and intentionally ambiguous. He’d been trained to view unsolved problems as errors. To John, a balance sheet was poetry, and a bookkeeping ledger, a metaphor for human life.
Aug 29 2024
14 mins
"I felt a massive tug at my waist, as my body was taken in a nightmare grip by something I couldn’t see. A darker darkness than even the ocean bottom closed around me—whether the jaws of my nemesis shark or the iron-sinewed tentacles of a giant squid it didn’t matter—I knew it was goodnight for me"
Aug 24 2024
25 mins
Jack and Judy had been married for fifty-seven years and, apart from a few minor marital bumps along the way, it had gone pretty well.
May 28 2024
5 mins