EPILOGUE

So it ends... 
...Or maybe with this ending there is another beginning.

So often she has found him fallen, broken, and confused... 

So frequently in fact, that his struggles had become part of how she would make love to him. 

Even in life she could never stop loving this part of the ritual...
The ritual act of picking him up and dusting him off...

...and continually telling him that he would just have to keep trying until he got it right.
 

He was Her religion 
...and she loved him for it. 
...and felt only love for him when she died because of it.   

He was Her drug... 
...and she craved him for it. 
...and felt only love for him when she died because of it.  

Unlike the worldly things or the earthly potions and poisons he struggled with,

she knew that he would never let her down in this regard.

He would always need her, 
and she only wanted to feel needed by him.

She knew that he would always need to be picked up, dusted off, and reassured...

and... 

He would need Her to do it.

And she felt something euphoric about it every time

Never resentful

Never too busy

But this time when our narrator fell... 
...he had been on the verge.

He had finally gotten the message.

He had suddenly realized that the empty hole in his soul...

... it felt like it was just about the same size and shape of his Lil' Step.

He suddenly realized how incomplete his journey had been. 

He suddenly felt that his purpose was to make someone feel loved.

And Lil' Step needed to feel that she was loved by him.

Our narrator had figured it out.

...and he was on the verge. 

He was almost home.

And then he fell.

Lil' Step was sitting on an old tree stump by the pond when she heard the distant sound of a metallic violent crunching followed by silence.

She stood up on top of the stump and put her hand above her eyebrows... 

which might have actually helped if she had been tall enough to see over the rows of corn.

As she brought her hand down from her forehead a breeze blew gently through her hair.

The breeze gusted and opened the unzipped front of her jacket... 

she felt like the gusty breeze was tickling her before giving her a hug.

She furrowed her brow, sat down on the stump, and thought...

Hmmm... just like Steppy likes to do.

This time when our narrator fell he picked himself up and dusted himself off.
He required no assistance.
He did not expect to be reassured.

And as the car quietly pulled up to where he stood looking confused, but comfortable...

Suddenly, his wife's sweet voice was like a sound as sweet as sugar syrup to his new ears...

and he could hear her singing along with Ani Difranco.

The sound was floating from the car...

"Cause I've got
No illusions about you
And guess what?
I never did
And when I say I'll take it...
I mean,
I mean as is..."

Salvation was suddenly revealed to him in the joyful eyes of his wife.

He felt confident that this time would be the last time that any sense of distance would separate them.

This time it was forever...
And there wasn't a vacant desire, ill-willed person or a useless worldly thing that could take it from them now.

It only took a lifetime of falling down for our narrator to realize that Salvation was as easy as she had made loving him look to the rest of the confused, unfortunate, and forgotten addicts -- the walking dead who were struggling to find their way alone-- 
most of whom haven't ever had the privilege of being picked up at least once or twice...
Never dusted off, given a hug, and encouraged to try it again... 

A lot of those who fall 
--who's family and loved ones turn their backs on them -- 
They just end up...
Lost in Rural America.

This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo