i almost ran into him: a skinny teenager in a torn t-shirt, a beanie pulled low over his eyes. he slid on his skateboard between the lanes, into the headlights of my car. barely noticing me, he was nearly hit by a truck in the next lane. the driver honked loudly. the skateboarder came so close to it that the draft knocked him back shaking, but he laughed all the same at the truck. "Go to hell!" he screamed and flipped the driver off. then he glared at me once and kicked off.
god knows what was on his mind, if anything at all. he might have just been stupid or stoned. but i had a feeling it was something more, by the way he swung himself about, as if he couldn't care, by a strangely resigned look on his face, flushed though it was.
he seemed like some sort of fallen angel, with his long hair, his fleshless and half-grown figure. the contempt at which he seemed to hold his life was stupid, but there is something precious about such abandonment. it has the passion of the doomed. only those who are certain of doom can burn like that.
being damned or redeemed do not seem so different, after all. both involve a breathless letting go, both demand a greater intensity. most of us, who are ordinary and frightened, who cannot stand as much suffering, are incapable of either being found or lost. that is God's insult to us.