The Revelations by Erik Hoel (e ink ebook reader txt) 📕

went back into the New Hampshire woods, and it was in those woods, the miles of forested reservation land, where Kierk as a child had tramped about in a paracosmic word of immense complexity, a physical world melded at its joints to an imaginary one, and at the points of contact raccoon prints could morph into human footprints, or brooks swell into impassable rivers, a bouldered hill could become a castle, the decaying skeleton of a fox a necromancer’s ritual. It had been a dangerous, wild place, where sharpened denticulated sticks soared through pine glens with a speed and precision lent by a carefully constructed atlatl, Kierk skinny and dirty, sprinting close behind his throws like a hunter, until one day he had speared a crow and struck it dead. He had cried over its body for a long time in that glen, dirty lips trembling, and he had promised and prayed and cried more and then had spent the rest of the day in an elaborate burial ritual, become a shaman laying it solemnly to rest, because back then all things had had an animus, a consciousness, from the trees to the crow to the creek, even the cervine saucer of grass where a doe had made her bed, or the perfect coins of snake holes, the tiny death’s-heads of ticks, turtles red amid the pebbles, all had been imbued with alien minds, like there was some great portentous spirit in the woods that whispered to him of his destiny to uncover their secrets—all of this, these landscapes and feelings, still there in that reddish mass of his brain, strung out in the finest bloody filigree, still located somewhere, though perhaps not even Laplace’s demon could chart such a map.

Everything is finished. He wonders what to possibly do with himself. He feels hungover, but not from any drug. With movements cycling between angry and sluggish he stuffs things into his old ratty backpack, first his new writing and journals, then a few changes of clothing. There’s so little of anything else besides the scattered books. How much would he get for the collection at a used bookstore? And with that thought Kierk knows he needs to leave this sad stripped apartment.

After shrugging on clothes he makes his way out to the bright streets. Unlike usual, the city to him seems ungainly and dirty, bombarded by light. People huddle about like refugees, moving quickly. There’s an ugliness to it all he hadn’t noticed—beggars on the side of the street, the sweat on people’s brows, the towering bland artifices of buildings, the grime on the glass, the wilted leaves of the trees. It doesn’t seem threatening or beautiful, just sad and overcomplicated.

Ambulation takes him all the way down to the location of the church where Carmen and he had gone to the Following Brothers of Christ meeting. It looks small and unimposing in the morning light and indeed, seems incredibly normal. In the cold, dim interior, Kierk’s steps echo as he descends into the basement, where there is a long hall.

“Hello?”

Finding the room where Carmen and he had snuck into the meeting, Kierk pauses at the doorway. Inside is what looks like a children’s playroom. Blocks and toys are strewn around, with some children’s books lying open to pages of illustrations. There are drawings and hand paintings on the wall, even a little cubby for shoes.

Kierk backpedals, checks the room next to it, which is a small storage closet. This had definitely been the room.

There’s a clattering as a janitor dragging a bucket and mop descends the stairs.

“Hello, sir,” he nods to Kierk.

“Hey . . . What happened to this room?”

The janitor peers in from the hall, as if looking for the source of what Kierk found disturbing.

“ ’Scuse me sir?”

“It was a meeting room.”

“It’s a playroom. For during the service. And for bible study. Parents bring their kids.”

“Is it used for anything else?”

“You looking for something?”

“Yes, the Following Brothers of Christ. They had meetings here. Right here.”

The janitor shakes his head. “Not anymore they don’t. They move, city to city. Stay for a while, preaching. Then they move on.”

“What?”

“They’re gone. Just a daycare now.”

“Where’d they go?”

Janitor looks at him strangely. “I don’t know. Why would I know? What’re you looking for anyways?”

Kierk lets out a breath. “I have no idea.”

“Then stop looking,” the janitor says, clattering away into the depths of the church.

The greenery of Washington Square Park is baking into yellow. Kierk doesn’t want to go home and face what he has to face, so he’s here. At the center of the park, by the fountain, he notices the girl with the dog he’d seen before, the one who’d reminded him of Alice, the PhD student he’d known back in Madison who became homeless.

She is sitting in a spot of shade, wiping at her face with a bandana. Her cardboard sign reads: KICKED OUT OF HOUSE NEED $$$ FOR ME AND ALSO DOG FOOD THNX. Kierk watches her dog struggle to breathe in the heat, a ragged wind ripping through each respiration.

Kierk approaches, kneeling down to hold out one hand to the dog, which sniffs at him tiredly. The girl is looking at him bored like she’s had this interaction a thousand times. From his kneeling position Kierk pulls out two cigarettes, lights both, hands one to her. A small hand with cracked nails takes it.

“Hey,” she says, her voice rusty. “Thanks, man.”

“What’s your name?”

“Glia. Nice to meet you.”

Kierk’s mouth hangs open. “Glia. Your name is ‘Glia’?”

“Yah.”

“. . .”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. That’s a really beautiful name.”

“Thanks.”

A student walks by, slipping a dollar into the cup next to the dog.

“It’s the dog,” Glia says.

“What?”

“See that, it’s the dog. Kids at NYU care more about an animal than me. If I died they wouldn’t blink an eye. But the dog . . . the NYU students . . . they’re getting to me, man. Just yuck. Apple this and Apple that. Skinny jeans and lattes. Rich bitches with parents paying their