Growing Up Baptist
Chad Redden
I was taught Hell was always four inches below the soil. Even if you shoveled down four inches, Hell shifted four inches lower. I asked Brother Mark if that’s the case, why does snow stick to grass in winter? Why doesn’t it melt? Brother Mark replied, “Snow is immune to Hell’s heat because it falls from Heaven.” So Heaven is freezing? “No Heaven isn’t freezing, it’s perfect.” So if Hell is always four inches below ground, when we bury our dead does that mean they are in Hell? “That’s not how it works.” If we want people in Heaven, why not shoot them into space? If we bury everyone in Hell why we don’t say ‘I’ll see you in Hell’ with a friendly voice? If we bury everyone in Hell, of course we will see them in Hell, so why not say ‘I’ll see you in Hell’ to the cashier at the grocery store or hygienist at the dentist’s office? “The body is just a shell, a casing, from which death shoots the sprit upward into heaven. We must pick up afterwards. No one likes litter. The body is too heavy and not cost effective to send after the spirit.”
CHAD REDDEN'S work has appeared in a few analog and digital publications. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana where he edits NAP (Naplitmag.com).
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| Chad Redden :: | Growing Up Baptist |
| Sherri Marilena Pauli :: |
Translations in Rainstorms on Salt Flats |
| Megan Kennedy :: | Afraid |
| Jenni Lord :: | Five paintings |
| Steve Subrizi :: | Migrating to Portland |
| Backstroke | |
| Ben Segal :: | Tell It Again From Your Mouth |
| Russ Februaryy :: | I Put My Fingers In Your Eyes |
| Elizabeth Glixman :: |
American Cats Are Overweight Studies Suggest |
| Why Did Frankee Stein Become A Free Market Capitalist? | |
| Nick Sturm :: | The Fences |
| Three erasures | |
| Andrew K. Peterson :: |
Language, An Actress |
| Steve McQueen’s Lines in The Blob | |
| Rich Ives :: | Anatomy Lesson |
| Gabrielle DeMarre :: |
Stan |
| Kristen E. Nelson :: |
Song of Praise i. Him One |
| Song of Praise ii. Him Two |
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| Song of Praise iii. Him Three |
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| Yvette | |
| Acquanetta M. Sproule :: |
A Nursery Rhyme |
Homage to the Strange Spirits
| Hannah Weiner :: | Excerpts from Astral Visions and Weeks |