Hannah: Beloved of God

I feel like writing more prosaically today - in style and content. Well, I suppose I could never wish my writing to be prosaic in content, but I hope that it at least will be less aspiring - just there - not an attempt at profundity or inspiration, but simple storytelling.

"If banana pudding were sinful, I don't think I would be righteous." Hannah laughed as if she didn't want to, her eyes rounding and her eyebrows creasing her forehead. Her hands met palm to palm in front of her mouth, tenting around her nose. She always did this when my sacriligious acerbity surprised a laugh out of her normally pious sense of humor. It made her look like an embarrassed prayer or something. Her laughter egged me on. "I'm serious! This banana pudding is so good, I would eat it for breakfast. And then, I would eat it for lunch. And then, I would eat it for dinner. And then, I'd be thrust down to hell. No -- No, I would be kicked to like the ninth circle of hell." Her hands pressed more tightly into her face. I'm sure her nose was fairly squashed now, and her prayerful attitude looked even more ashamed and out of place. Her giggles muffled out, sluggish in the air, but there. She was trying to hold it all in and I knew if I continued I might bring her to her knees. "I'd have to go to confession like every week, and if I had to repent, Father might have to force-feed me with ipecac or something, because I wouldn't stop eating it. I'd be like, 'Sorry, man! You can't keep good pudding down!' when I puked all over him." The image of balding Father covered in what looked like tropical spit-up consummated the joke for me. I threw my head back and laughed, my left leg raising a few inches off of the ground. It always did when I really laughed. If I was sitting down, it would bend up at the knee and wander side to side. I opened my eyes mid-laugh to look over at Hannah. I always loved when her polite hehe's turned into guffaws. She didn't appear to be amused though. She was too reverant, standing there with her arms folded, to have been laughing at all in the few seconds when I was too busy savoring my hilarity to observe her reaction. "What?" "I can't believe you just said that." "What?" "That you would call Father 'man'!" I shrugged. "I guess I'm unscrupulous." "I wouldn't say that. You have scruples." "Yeah?" "I can't recall any at the moment, but I'm sure you do. Everyone here has at least some scruples."

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"So who is God anyway?" I always came to Hannah when I had theological doubts. "God is everywhere and in everything." "No, I mean, who is he? What does he do on the weekends? What color hair does he have? Does he like peanut butter? What is his favorite Jane Austen novel? Has he even read Jane Austen?" She laced her lips, licked them, then started in, "God knows everything, so I guess he's read Jane Austen. But he's no respecter of persons, so I don't think he would have a favorite anything. He's like an egg - his shell is the bounds of the universe and his golden yolk of essence is at the center of everything." "Hannah. You're kidding me, right? 'Golden yolk' of what? You want me to worship an egg?"

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"Hannah." She raised her eyebrows in my direction, glance still reworking the problems on her homework assignment. "Hannah." I willed her eye-contact; tugged at her pupils until they finally met mine. "Yes?" "I think I've decided to become a stripper." She began to gasp, and I followed that comment up with, "Just kidding. No, I could never display my scantily-clad body to the grossly undiscerning eyes of the mass male populace. Who do you take me for?" Hannah tried to smile mid-gasp, but I think the word "stripper" unnerved her too much. I grinned enough for both of us when I continued, "I really think I am leaving though." "When? Now? How did you get permission from Father?" Her eyes were owlish, her mouth hoot-able in circularity. "I'm talking to him tomorrow morning. But honestly, even if I don't get leave, I'm taking off. But I really don't think he'll refuse, as I have a good reason. I mean, I want to go on a quest. Or maybe I'll call it a crusade when I ask him. Or is the Catholic church still smarting about that? Would 'crusade' or 'quest' be more amenable?" "No way. Wait, quest or crusade to find what?" "God, of course. Do you think that's cause enough?"