On those days when nothing seems worthwhile, when all prayers turn to paste on my tongue, when God seems infinitely distant and improbable, where do I turn?

On those days when life seems pointless and absurd, when there are no pretty words, when other people become all fools and unreachable idols, when God is the God of saps and freaks and posers, in whom do I seek refuge?

When the cold, dull hand of human evil presses its senseless fist against my forehead, shoving me down beneath the surface of brackish water, making everything seem gray-green and murky and foul, who do I blame for the ensuing melodrama? At whom shall I rage?

What is free will, if without God my will is nothing, the chaotic turnings of quarks in their shells? What is the artifice? What is the reality? Who is fooling whom?

Where is the magic that does not fade, the joy that does not wind into apathy, the gold that can stay?

What is heavy enough that I can throw it and break this apart? I want to throw something, break something. That is all I want. I want things to shatter and fall apart. Every other desire has been dulled by entropy and doubt. If I am only a floating cork then drown me, please. If I am something better then teach me what. For I cannot stay floating like this, atop a gray-green sea.

What sort of world is this, where the miraculous fades and leaves nothing but soot and hands and unfulfilled words of promise? Where we strain and strain and reap only hatfuls of empty air. Where love dries up. Where passions fail. Where death becomes as appealing as life.

Who would have made such a world, and to what end? I tell you I do not know. When ignorance is your only apologia, you are screwed, my friend. You are royally screwed. You are waving a blank flag, a flag easily mistaken for one of surrender.

Here, God--my only prayer today is this box of snakes. It is not what I'd planned to offer up. But it was the only real thing I had.