Milt Sinew and Cold Station

Temperatures outside the isolated station were cold enough that even inside the heat-generating metal walls, people’s breath still puffed in clouds as they moved through the halls, bumping each other continually because every corridor was only wide enough for one and a half average people, and the gravity’s pull on everyone, coupled with the indulgent diet designed to stave off depression, made everyone a little rounder than average.

Milt Sinew observed this again as he stood in the surface elevator waiting for the doors to close. He fished in his deep pockets and mentally grabbed hold of one of those last thoughts. A diet designed to stave off depression. It hadn’t worked too well. Everyone he knew was in a shade of the blues. Even he, the laughing, joker of the crew was only standing in this elevator because the trip up to the surface was long enough for him to let out a sigh.

The doors finally closed. There was a pause before the elevator began to progress upward. Milt drew in a breath, and sighed it out. His fingers finally found the box in his pocket, and he pinched inside it to draw one long white cigarette into view. He perched it between his lips and fumbled for the lighter in his other pocket. The smoke bobbed in and out of his vision as he raised the little flame to its end. The next moment he was breathing warmth and heat, the only warmth and heat that could be found around here.

The elevator dinged to a halt, faster than anticipated. Milt sucked smoke into the back of his throat as the doors opened and the ever-present janitor stared into the chamber.

“You coming out?” he asked through fat jowls that looked like extra marshmallows were stuffed in them.

Milt smiled thinly and shook his head once, holding his breath and mentally urging the doors to hurry up and close. Once they slid back shut over the blank face of the janitor, he exhaled, sending simultaneous bursts of smoke and breath vapor billowing into the chamber. Milt coughed. He was used to taking risks like that, and having them turn out fine. Usually the janitor wasn’t there.

The janitor. Milt pinched out his cigarette and shoved it back in his pocket. The burned patches on his thumb and forefinger were numb enough by now that he could do it without pain.

That janitor was an enigma. He’d been here as far as Milt could remember, yet no one knew his name. They only knew the blue coveralls and stubbly jowls, and the mop he was sometimes seen toting.

Milt absently fished a palm-sized can of air freshener from his pocket and sprayed it for a good fifteen seconds, till his nostrils reeled. Not enough to cover the smoke smell–nothing ever was–but this time it was brownie-scented, so before anyone noticed the smoke smell they’d be thinking about something else.

Whenever anyone saw the janitor, he was at the elevator door. Never down the hall, or near the sealed airlock to the surface, or even a little further down the hall. You never saw his back either. The man could have a hole in his pants large enough to display any number of ludicrous underwear choices, and no one would be the wiser.

At that thought, Milt smirked and the elevator doors opened back on the original level. He stepped out into the halls and was confronted with everyone’s attention. He thought he could sense their drooped heads pick up a little bit. Almost as if they expected a speech.

“Hello,” he said. They smiled.

They expected something funny. They always did. He scrambled around in his head for something.

“Forgot my keys,” he said. They chuckled and turned back to their work. Milt melted in along with them, looking for something else to do. As the joker around here, he was something like a captain. The only one who could keep his spirits high enough to make a decision.

He felt around in his pocket for the box of cigarettes, and counted them up by the feel. Three. There wouldn’t be another supply shipment for another four months. Let’s hope there aren’t more than three big decisions to make before then.

Luna

Have you ever looked up
And seen the Moon
Looking down from her velvet throne
Holding the scepter of the night,
And wondered what in grace
Could be so great that
It would replace her grandeur?

And then remembered that it’s
The Son in glory,
Sitting down beside the ivory throne
Holding the book of life,
The brilliance of the moonlight
Now a twinkle in his eye
As he engulfs her splendor?

Have you ever looked up again
And watched her start to sing
And gotten the sense that even she
Can’t wait for this to be?

Inclinations

I have lived in two houses so far in my life. Both of them were on steep inclinations. The hill outside my current house slants away from us, before curving and climbing up another hill to get to the entrance of the neighborhood. If you’re coming toward the house, you’re climbing. If you’re leaving, then you’re descending.

It was the same way with the hill that we lived on in an older, more run-down neighborhood. Starting from our house, you could ride a bike down the long street that went straight down the hill to the end of the block. You could also go too fast and panic, jerking the handlebars to send you skidding scraping into the asphalt, skinning flesh off hands and knees. I remember the tingling sting in my hands after hitting the pavement hard, and a sharp pang in my wrist continuing afterward for a few days. One time my brother Zack seriously bit the dust, coming up with bright red bleeding cuts on one knee, elbow, and hands, and needed us to gently usher him back up the hill to our house.

Everyone’s on inclinations, at some point on our way up or down. Some are on their bikes speeding down that old hill, falling off and getting back on and continuing, down past the mailbox sitting on the street corner, encircled by thin dry weeds, down further than we were allowed to go, down and down, past the house with the blue roof, and the guy who was always working on cars in his driveway, to where the road climbed up and curved away into unknown territory. Far away from home.

Others, like me, are climbing upward, legs burning, lungs gasping, marveling at how out of shape we are, making slow, painful progress. Our home is at the top. Sometimes, as we climb up to it, we slip and fall and scrape our knees. Sometimes nothing. We spend most of the climb on hands and knees, crying, wondering why we keep falling down. Why can’t we keep our balance for once? Why does our skin keep breaking open, gushing all this messy redness out everywhere? Can’t it just stop? How long does this have to be? Will we ever reach the top?

But when you slip and skin your knees on the way up, it’s different from falling off your bike while rocketing downhill as fast as your hedonism will carry you. Injuries or no, they’re headed away from home. But we, well, we’re on our way home, even if we have to go through so many scrapes and bruises, and the protests of our weary bodies, lungs, and hearts. We’ll get there. We’ll arrive at where the Father waits, watching down the road, for the crying little boys to trudge on up to where he stands, eager to run out to them and scoop them up, like my neighbor did when his son crashed his bike, and carry them, still crying, into the house. And then he’ll sit you down, on the couch, maybe, and gently kiss your wounds, and then look you in the eyes, and wipe away your tears. And then perhaps you will think to yourself that it was indeed worth the climb, and all the pain and struggle it took, when you see this full display of the abundance of your Father’s grace.

In the Boat

Oh Jesus, I don’t know what this storm’s gonna do
But I know for sure it’ll listen to you.
It looks to me like you’re asleep
While the waters heave and the heavens weep.
But I don’t want to wake you.
I just want to join you.

Pull me close on the cushion of this little boat–
Time will tell if it’ll stay afloat.
Show me how you can have such peace
While the world around is gnashing its teeth.
And let me taste your Father’s rest
Till the rage outside must be addressed.