Panegyric by Logan Macnair

Author:Logan Macnair
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Now or Never Publishing
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

36

PETRICHOR

Save me, O God! For the waters are come in unto my soul.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing:

I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

Psalms 69: 1-2

THIS RAIN IS not letting up. Three days later and the deluge continues. For three days now we have felt the force of this rain as it assaults my rooftop and cuts through spider webs. And I ask you, Lawrence, are we content with this fate revealed before us? Could you find the bravery within you to face the unbridled arsenal of the atmosphere? And it would rain then, as it is raining now. Whatever choices are to us today free were surely ungraspable then.

I was ten years old, a subject of the diocese of Bishop Fergus O’Grady, spanning across the entirety of the largely uninhabited lands of Northern British Columbia. Though they would never say what it was that made them leave, my parents would often tell me stories of their previous life in Quebec, of the connectedness of the Catholic community there, and of the outside world that conspired against them. Enter the empire of Fergus O’Grady—the Bulldozer Bishop—so named because of the amount of land he would convert into suitable grounds for Catholic schools. As I understand he would often operate the land-shaping machinery personally. A blessing to my parents that I might retain a properly pious education under the tutelage of Bishop O’Grady’s Frontier Apostolate.

And it would rain then, out on the schoolyard, as it is raining now.

Stand out in the rain Maxime. Feel God’s gift. Do not struggle against it. Palms upturned toward the sky, everyone’s heart so filled with God’s love. Please—enough—there’s a four-walled promise of safety escaping in the distance. I can’t hold my arms up any higher than this. They would never believe that. Have you any powers in you to make these rains stop, Lawrence? You haven’t. And nor did I. I felt heavy under the downpour as if I were sinking into the wet ground. What I wanted then was the safety of an enclosed space. Away from the rain, away from their eyes. My developing body defenseless under the weight of my wet clothes, my arms ordered to remain raised toward Heaven. And their eyes. And they are getting closer still. I pray that no one can tell the difference between the rain and the tears. Our drenched uniforms clinging to our bodies, forms made bare. Even then I knew how well-endowed I was. And so too did they.

My parents are dead now. Underground. Made soft by the rain. A congealed mush like old leaves in a gutter. Water has no memory and I refuse to believe that they are speaking to me through this rhythmic downpour. But switches exist on the control panel of memory, and they are depressed now by the curious force of these oversized drops. And they live again. And their piety lives again. And God speaks again, His voice muffled, scattered amid the cloudburst.

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