The Summer That Melted Everything

by Tiffany McDaniel

Why, upon hearing the word devil, did I just imagine the monster? Why did I fail to see a lake? A flower growing by that lake? A mantis praying on the very top of a rock? A foolish mistake, it is, to expect the beast, because sometimes, sometimes, it is the flower’s turn to own the name.

am not the ruler of hell. I am merely its first and most famous sufferer turned custodian with the key to the gate in my back pocket.”

That is the undeniable torment of the fall. For such a divine event, it’s a rather ordinary agony. To have hope raised, only to realize there is no hope to be had. Hope is just a beautiful instance in the myth of the second chance.

“People always ask, why does God allow suffering? Why does He allow a child to be beaten? A woman to cry? A holocaust to happen? A good dog to die painfully? Simple truth is, He wants to see for Himself what we’ll do. He’s stood up the candle, put the devil at the wick, and now He wants to see if we blow it out or let it burn down. God is suffering’s biggest spectator.

But up close, the trees were scorched, the grass was dead, and the boys were on the verge of tears with the belts of those morals tightened around their necks, threatening to hang them if they dared step off the stool of masculinity.

And isn’t that the biggest tragedy of all? When a boy has to be the devil in order to be significant?

“There is no lack of understanding between the two of us. We’ve been part of the same crash this entire time. We just had yet to meet and pull each other from the wreckage.

It’s hard not to fall in love with the only blanket in winter.

“I said to him when you hold the knife, you have to ask yourself will more light come from this than dark? And if the answer is yes, then by all means cut away. If through your death, you can walk someone home, then do it—but if by your death, they lose a home, then think again.