Paul Verhaeghen

The room is dark.
She dreams up sentences.
Like:
- This planet is a hoot and a half, mister.
Or:
- I like your ham-fisted approach to democracy.
It kills time before they switch on the flashlight.
There it goes.
She braces herself. Many a thing with feathers has been shot out of the sky, to be roasted on a spit.

Her strategy is simple. She will tell them the funniest joke in the world. They will die laughing.
Ha, they say. Ha-ha. Do you really think that love will save the world? And do feel free to answer us in iambic pentameter. We have this harmless poetry habit.

The light plays up and down her belly.
I will name him Awake.

Ah, but, the choir replies. Feel free to try. We’ll still wreck him. With fear. With politics. He will believe in an afterlife. He will not be a heathen. He will share our values. His soul belongs to us.
Excuse me, she says. With due respect. I do not believe in soul. I believe in mind, shaped by its travels through the world. No soul to be created and then stay at rest. My son will not be. He will become.
They snort. We do not need your kind here. Go away.

May we all, she said, know happiness and where it comes from.
May we all be free of suffering and where it comes from.
May we never be separated from joy unto others.
May we live with poise, free of bias, thirst and anger.

For heaven’s sake, they say, for crying out loud. That can never be. Grow up!

He will, she said. His name will be Awake.

The thing with feathers: shot out of the sky.
To land on its feet. To spread its wings. To rustle, to wrestle, to roost and coo; the sweetest song in the gale.

Awake.