The Church of East Jesus
A short story
You know those long days on the road, where even though you wore your best shirt and brushed your hair, ever driver keeps passing you like you’re some sort of parasite and it takes you all day to get a hundred fifty miles to a flat spot in the desert for the night. And tomorrow it’s just gonna be the same thing, worse, because at least there’s people in Flagstaff but from the looks of it there’s nobody out here, not a soul. It’s maybe Arizona, maybe New Mexico, maybe the bastard dropped you off in Utah, but you still wave and smile and say “Thank you sir, god bless,” as the minivan pulls away into the night and you’re left out there in the desert.
Still, not a bad place to pitch a tent. Seems like they haven’t invented street lights out here yet so you can’t really see if there’s anything nearby but all you saw coming in were rocks and more rocks and the occasional saguaro or some other kind of giant succulent standing there like a Buckingham palace guard like there was something real important out here that you weren’t allowed to see. But unless the dark is playing tricks on you there’s nothing, nada, zilch.
In the morning though, the sun pokes out and lights the sky up pink and tickled and you come out of your tent to see that darkness hides a lot of things, that there across the dusty road is one fine looking establishment…
