judgement_day ovenbird “You should read the Bible again,” she said. “It’s not what we were taught in grade school, you know.” I thought I had a pretty decent grasp on the Bible and I didn’t expect it had changed much since I was twelve years old. I suspected that it wasn’t the Bible that had changed, but this friend that I’d known most of my life. “These are the end times,” she said, “And I’m going to be ready on Judgement Day.” I couldn’t totally disagree with her assessment. One look at the news proves that things are pretty dire. She then told me that Elon Musk is the devil. (I mean, it could be true). Then she told me she’s been canning and stocking her pantry for the second coming. I’m not entirely sure what good jam will do during the apocalypse, but I guess it can’t hurt. She seemed a bit disappointed that I refused to be saved but I got the sense that she gave herself credit for trying. We changed the subject, talked about our kids and our pasts, safe topics that don’t risk revealing how different we’ve become. I don’t expect Jesus to save me, but she did, when we were eleven years old and she became, suddenly and completely, my best friend. When I was bullied and lonely and self-conscious and faking illnesses to stay home from school, she was a steadfast source of kindness and pre-teen wisdom. She always seemed older than her years, forced to grow up too fast in an abusive home where she was the oldest child. She always had a depth and unshakeable nature, which I realized later in life was a defense mechanism. When feeling would break you, some people learn not to feel. This looks like measured calm, but I know now that she buried so much in places not even she could reach. She can’t save me now in the way she thinks I need to be saved. My soul is content to face its fate without any divine intervention. But she saved my spirit when it was being slowly crushed and as far as I’m concerned that’s a much bigger miracle. 260108 what's it to you? who go blather from