After

The Universe, God, slides a plate across an empty stone table, 12 seats long.
I don’t look at it.
I stare back at the universe’s vastness, emptiness, its presence, and hold eye contact.
I don’t need to look at the plate to know each savory bite is doused in the sweet sauce of irony.
At some point, I become aware that I have been staring at a stone wall for a few minutes now.
Eyes wandering, I see words engraved before me on the cold table.
They haven’t always been there.

PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT

Latin. I don’t know Latin but in this moment I do.

Let whoever earns the palm, bear it.

I purse my lips and nod slowly. I think the universe, God, is smiling at me from across the table.
He knows my mind is working double time.
My struggle with pride,
The need to be,
All of it,
All of it,
Laying at my feet.
Suddenly I’m standing.
The only sound is my chair falling backwards, landing on cool, hard stone.
I’m surrounded.
My heart is beating fast and I’m staring, again, at the other side of the stone table.
I know he’s there, I can feel him in the stillness of the air,
The way my hair stands on the back of my neck.
I swallow.
I will not look down at the plate.
I can not look down at the plate.
My leg bounces with anxiety.
And my eyes fall, again, to the stone table’s engraving.
Only this time, the words are different.

UT INCEPIT FIDELIS SIC PERMANET

I stare back at the other end of the table through blurry eyes.

As loyal as she began, so she remains.

I shake my head slowly and then faster and faster
And I feel Him nodding back in rebuttal, again and again.
I sink to my knees.
I feel the friction between my skin and the ground.
I shake my head.
I whisper, no.
I wish.
I should have.

I’m staring at hands I don’t recognize, bunion-ed and rough from a life that passed me by, when i hear
something slide across the floor.
It’s the plate.
I look across the room and I can feel Him, only this time he’s sitting on the ground across from me.
They’re not wrong when they say He meets you where you’re at.
Now there is Latin inscribed on the floor, somewhere between us.

LITTERA SCRIPTA MANET

The written letter lasts.

I think of kairos,
My brown leather journal,
The letters on letters,
My unanswered letter to Him, His son.
I think of the letters my father has written me and the ones I have written to my mother and brother.
I breathe.
Tears fall, and slowly, I look at the plate.
There’s a letter on it. Tied with a red ribbon.
I nod repeatedly at the task—as if it is one. and He sits there, patiently, a ghost.
I want to savor these moments before I touch the letter.
The cold stone everywhere, the chilling stillness, the engravings—oh, and the silence. The blessed silence.
Ginger fingers pick up the letter.
I read.

…

And I am forgiven.
There are flashes of colors and waves of warmth and the sensation that I am falling and then rising, and
falling. There is no fear, no excitement, my heart beats steady. Contentedness is everywhere—peace
materializes, it floods my veins.
I am forgiven.
My life flashes through my eyes but not like in the movies. I don’t see my moments of triumph, there are
no graduations and commencement speeches. I see the cup stains left on coffee tables and the
doorknob of my childhood home. I feel the soft dirt of a softball field beneath my feet and hear Carlsbad
waves crashing. I hear the laughter of my parents and the voice of my brother and a few friends.
And I am forgiven.
Nowadays, as I float, I ask Him to recall that day with me. He always points out that days, time don’t
really exist here, but He recounts it with me anyway.

Once, I asked him why He chose a cold empty room made of stone.
He said I chose it, not Him.
Once I asked Him, Why latin? Why not hebrew? Why words at all?
He grabbed me by the hand of my eighteen-year-old self.
Eighteen years of life and all I had for it were a few poems and a fixation on what I couldn’t grasp.
Ah, I reply. I understand.
I told her, you know.
My colors lighten. Yeah. I remember that now. But why then? I was so naive.
His color shakes with laughter. You didn’t want to study for your Economics final.
So you just gave me everything, huh?
You always had everything. Humans just can’t make sense of it.
I like to think I made sense of it more than most.
He chuckles. I thought you left your pride on the stone, huh?
I shrug, lightly.
He laughs.
We float.

Kendall Ryan is a sophomore studying Intelligence and Cyber Operations. She is an Air Force ROTC cadet at USC and enjoys reading, writing, and surfing.