Somewhere in the desert, a storied warehouse stands tall. A party hosted in every room, stack, stack, stacked within each other. Upstairs, Nina Simone cries sin, her music hurled through every window, shattering the glass.
Don’t you see me praying? Don’t you see me down here praying?
Next door, Daedalus weeps for his kin, suffocating inside of too many people, the people pushed up against the walls peeling with pithy paint.
Go, go to the Devil.
You listen and find yourself a space between the too many people and their hands, their frightening hands that pull on your hair, tug at your waistband, and rip your shirt.
He’s waiting, run to the Devil.
Downstairs Dikembe Mutombo plays pickup basketball on concrete. He leaps and shatters the backboard and glass falls like snow onto the heads of everybody in the room. They would have noticed if their scalps hadn’t already been picked clean by the hands, the too many hands attached to the too many people.
I cried power, bring down power, Lord.
You huddle and chant with her, her voice clear above the shouts, the moans, and the fear. The fear, that’s what you feel. Like a nightmare you can’t shake, a vision you can’t unsee, or a metaphor you can’t unmake. Like a poem you cannot write or a pool you cannot swim in. Somewhere in the warehouse there is a sex shop, shelves emptied like a flood is coming. Someone says that it’s upstairs on the right, but that can’t be; just a moment ago it was in the basement.
Hear me praying, Lord. Lord, hear me praying.
Another window shatters, this time in a room full of all of the people that hate you. They smile when you enter and even offer you a drink, a fuck, a smoke. It’s a crowded room and you cannot talk to everybody at once and you cannot breathe because of all the smoke.
Please hide me Lord, please hide me.
You wonder if the Lord is here tonight. If he is, you won’t find him here. You discover a way out of this room filled with the too many people oscillating between vices just before the wild horses come stampeding, trampling the too, too many people as Nina continues to cry.
You return to the ensemble as Odysseus nudges past, making his way to Circe’s room, where he will spend the night. He enjoys his time with her, knowing it won’t last. Through a
window you see the moon growing in the sky.
Flannery O’Conner taps your shoulder and tells you it will crash into us soon enough. She says this makes her sad. She leaves to find the sex shop, unwilling to spend her last night completely heartbroken. As she thumbs through the crowd, you spot a patch of missing hair on the back of her head.
Where you gonna run to, Sinnerman? Where you gonna run to?
The circulation of peoples grows and the music stays loud, blowing out windows that have already been blown out. Farrokhzad asks if you need anything.
“I want to go swimming,” you say. She shakes her head.
“In this desert, there’s no place for it. Besides, I can’t hold my breath long enough to get down to where you like to swim.” She turns and the moon is just outside the window. You ought to be praying, Sinnerman. You ought to be praying.
E.M. Walker is a senior English Creative Writing student at UNC Asheville. She writes fiction and poetry inspired by her early fascination with tall tales, religious yore, American basketball, and late-night variety shows.