PETER CHRISTOPHER

By

Brandi Wells

Peter Christopher has been standing outside my apartment preaching for three years. Sometimes I can’t sleep because his sermons are so loud. Sometimes it doesn’t rain because his sermons are so loud. Sometimes it does not get hot in Georgia.

Everyone brings a sermon to Peter Christopher. He discards the bad ones and sings the good ones. When he sings, everyone in the world holds their breath and you can hear him in Poland. You can hear him if you are asleep. You can hear him if you are deaf or if you have been dead for ten years. Whoever brings him a mediocre sermon, he cuts them up to eat with apple slices. These people never forget Peter Christopher and they never write another bad sermon.

After listening to his sermons through my window for three years, I take my sermon to Peter Christopher. He looks at me and then eats my fingers, like they are sausages. My wrists, he swallows without pausing. Then arms and shoulders. He takes my feet, ankles, legs. Unlatches his jaw and engulfs my torso. He leaves nothing but my head and says, “There. Everything else was crap.”

I spend the rest of my life bleeding, writing sermons in my mind and eating all the words. I eat them and forget them and never use them again. I will never run out of words.