Bethsaida

Roland called today. He woke up in, of all places, Ontario. Said it was freezing. Mona's going to get him. I told her to pack warmly.

And now I'm alone in the house. Just me and my thoughts.

Which means I turned on the television just for the white noise. And with the noise of some stupid commercial playing, I didn't hear the footsteps behind me. Or perhaps there were no footsteps, perhaps he doesn't have feet at all, perhaps he just hovers over the ground, never touching the earth.

I'm getting off-topic. What happened was: I was cleaning the dishes, I turned around and I saw him.

Bethsaida. He was standing in the middle of the living room, his dirty red robe around him, that heavy book in his hand which looked so old that it might be falling apart. The seams certainly didn't look like they could take much more.

He was wearing a blindfold, but I've heard others say they've seen him with sunglasses. Somehow, thinking of him with sunglasses makes me laugh. So I started to giggle.

Then Bethsaida smiled and I stopped giggling. His teeth were brown and crooked and there was a thin film at the edges of his mouth. I imagined him opened his mouth wide and what that might look like and it wasn't pleasant.

"What do you want?" I asked.

He didn't say anything. Instead, he opened his giant book and took out one of the loose pages. He started folding it until it was in the shape of a house. This house. He placed the paper house on the table.

"Why?" I asked, fulling expecting no answer.

"Cause," he said, his voice soft and low. He was pointing at me. Then he pointed at the paper house. "Effect."

The paper house began to burn.

Bethsaida looked at me and smiled again.

Then he was gone, leaving wisps of smoke in his wake.