“The body of light, sometimes called the astral body or the subtle body, is a quasi material aspect of the human body, being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual…”

They kicked the family out of the apartment upstairs and I saw them with their things on the side of the street. Everybody is looking for someplace safe.

The first time I died, Ima tells me, the sun flared its great, fiery disc and swallowed the whole world in a moment. And everything that had been was then no more. The second time I died, it was at the hands of a grand, dark army, their bayonets through my stomach and heart. And when I fell their boots marched over my corpse as though a body that falls was never standing to begin with.

The day breaks sweaty like the last. Like every day in summer. And especially so in the city where there are no trees to provide shade – only countless blocks of cement baking like the desert, or like the desserts baking in oven pans from the church basement after service. All we can do is hope for rain.