Good as Gone

by Amy Gentry

I used to want the world for Julie. Now I just want something to bury.

she purchased by taking strangers’ money for reassurances that their lives are okay, that everything will work out.

I have spent my own life looking to my left and right and finding only the well-worn tracks of my own thoughts and behavior hemming me in.

I guess she never thought about how uncomfortable it was to walk four blocks in church flats.

This is why people need God—because people are awful, even the good ones. I’ve always prided myself on being so rational, so unafflicted by spiritual yearnings, not realizing my personal gods were Tom and Julie, the good people. But nobody ever gets to be good except on the terms the world hands them.