7. Time is a Liar

Tom's hands and knees were numb but he stopped anyway to look up at the cliffs and bleed. He'd parked the station wagon at the chain link border to the Desert Pavement Glyph Monument. He'd crawled across the restored desert pavement and its markings to get to the side-of-ribs rock formation he was resting on now. He'd fashioned a loin cloth from a fox coat inherited from his great aunt, Reptily. His neck ached from holding up his head on his punishing 100-yard scamper, so he let it fall back. The sun was setting behind the sandy cliff edge. The last tip of the sun made a blue and painful silvery star just where the smoke was rising a bit beyond. Tom watched the smoke and felt the star blazing down on him. The smoke grew and tormented itself into a thunderhead and shook the bushy creosote that dotted the sacred wasteland.

"Now that this phenomenon has entered my body and the circle of time is nearly complete, I consecrate myself as a host to these and every creature who shall reap sustenance from my flesh into eternity."

Tom came out of it for a sec and then look surprised, and then lightning flashed, and in the light of electricity, which was all that was left, Jesus's face appeared instead of Tom's, and anyone who might have been there could have reported it. Tom only felt a flush of understanding, a surge of tender pity for his former self, and then a singular curiosity at the events unfolding at the cliffs edge, now bathed in gentle sun. A fire crackled just out of view.