After the Wilderness

When I was a child, my father warned me to stay out of his shed. It was a flimsy structure with a bare dirt floor, sun-warped siding, and a roof patched with leftover tar paper. But one summer day, I snuck into the shed, thinking I would hide in the battleship-gray upright locker that stood next to his workbench and surprise him.

When I squeezed into the locker, the metal door snapped shut and fell face forward. I was terrified of the dark and pounded on the walls with my fists and feet as best I could, screaming until my water-parched tongue swelled and the sweat and snot stung my eyes—and then I passed out.

All I remember after that was my father finding me, flipping the locker over, and pulling me out. He did not scold me. He did not threaten retribution. He held me in his arms on the soft grass under the shade tree near my mother’s vegetable garden and wept uncontrollably, like a man suddenly disconsolate. He kissed my face dry of sweat, and dust-ingrained mucus. Later that week, he tore down the shed.

I hope someday Christ and His angels rip open my daddy’s grave, like my father did for me that summer day in Missouri so many decades ago. I hope Jesus and His angels gather up his bones and kiss them back to light, where no darkness can ever tread again. That is my hope for the resurrection.

Featured image is courtesy of Annie Spratt via Unsplash. We are grateful for her generosity.

Tommy Darin Liskey

Tommy Darin Liskey was born in Missouri but spent nearly a decade working as a journalist in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. He is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The Red Truck Review, Deep South, Driftwood Press, Biostories, Spelk, Heartwood among others. His narrative and documentary photography has been published in The Museum of Americana, Change 7, The Blue Mountain Review, Cowboy Jamboree, Literary Life and Midwestern Gothic, among others. He lives in Texas with his family.

“I take a more documentary approach to photography, using the camera to explore faith in images, and hopefully, the human story, through unplanned street portraits of people I meet in my both my travels, and everyday life. As both a writer and photographer, I believe my calling is to be present. I pray that God choreographs the rest.”

www.tomdarinphoto.com/