“Oh Father, how long must we wait?”

            The abbot had been on his knees for over an hour, and he could no longer feel his feet. The cold stone was now warm, and he felt the temple floor had blended with his flesh and they were one.

            “Have our prayers fallen on deaf ears? I know that to you Father, man’s years are but blinks to your fathomless ages. You have spread out the world on the tip of your finger, but have you grown blind to our tribulation? We are weary and our holy torch is growing cold, the flames are diminishing with each passing season. Our land is changing its shape, and new orders are sprouting up like weeds. Do you not care that your followers are dying off?”

He always thought. He thought about his bookcase, thought about his past, the books never read, he always wondered what was inside. Each book spine perfect, each cover unbent. Next to the bookcase he had a TV with video built in.

Hey Skinny, the shop boy said, Skinny!

Yeah? Said Skinny.

We got that movie in.

Skinny looked around the store, looked down the isle, and fixed his eyes on the foreign section. Skinny's seen every movie here.

I must have dropped off to sleep before waking to the thump of the novel that tumbled from my hands. Victorian novels: heavy, dense, soporific affairs - not be to read by firelight on a cold winters night. The fire was well into its last embers and in need of fuel and a good stoke. As I leaned to toss in the remnants of a Heywood Wakefield coffee table, happily reduced to kindling from the salutations of my trusty sledgehammer, a second thud, this time from overhead, distracted me from my task. Cranky bastard. I tossed a table leg into the fire and made my way for the stairs to the second floor where I'd close a window, shut a door or tend to whatever needed tending to.

The 20foot U-haul punctuated the gray and silver cavalcade of mid-sized luxury cars and SUVs with a burst of orange and a hookah puff of smoke from the exhaust pipe. Inside the cab, a front seat argument was taking place regarding the merits of the present adventure. It struck one agitated protagonist that U-haul could probably provide a cheat sheet for such occasions - given the number of times their cabs played host to contests of logic regarding whether to move or not, and wouldn’t it be easier to sell the contents or better yet to throw them away; or why not hire a moving company instead of soliciting the help of family and friends? This road trip, though, was unique in the annals of U-haulage, as the back of the 30 foot moving van was empty, and would remain empty unless one counted the packing blankets and ratchet straps her boyfriend’s friend insisted on bringing.