“Johnny,” David Carver said, “God can raise the dead.”
“At first I didn’t understand how it could have been you,” David said, as if he hadn’t heard. “It was the Land of the Dead—you even said so, Johnny. But you were alive. That’s what I thought, at least. Even when I saw the scar.” He pointed at Johnny’s wrist. “You died . . . when? 1966? 1968? I guess it doesn’t matter. When a person stops changing, stops feeling, they die. The times you’ve tried to kill yourself since, you were just playing catch-up. Weren’t you?” And the child smiled at him with a sympathy that was unspeakable in its innocence and kindness and lack of judgement.
“Johnny,” David Carver said, “God can raise the dead.”
“Oh Jesus, don’t tell me that,” he whispered. “I don’t want to be raised.” But his voice seemed to reach him from far away, and curiously doubled, as if he were coming apart in some strange but fundamental way. Fracturing like hornfels.
