All Write, Already!

There's a passage from the bible my mother used to read to me, ages ago in a place that seems to have nothing in common with here and now. It's Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven.

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

I always liked it best. It was so much like poetry, and it was stupidly comforting for most of my life. Life got you down? Don't worry - it's just a time to weep; there's a time to laugh coming, right around the corner. But beyond reassuring, there's also an element of admonition in there. There's a perfect time for everything, sure - but there's also the converse, those times which are singularly unsuited for a purpose.

There's a time to air your grievances, and there's a time to shut your fucking mouth. Let me give you a few illustrative examples: alone with your confrontee in a boat in the warm water off of the Italian coast? The wrong time. In marriage counseling? Much better. When you're trying to apologize? Nuh-uh. When you're trying to figure out what's wrong with the budget? Sure. When you want to break up with your girlfriend because she's not interesting enough, while she's vacationing in New Orleans?

Shut your fucking mouth, you stupid piece of shit.

The thing is, I didn't think anything of it. I'd been reflecting on our relationship (which is to say, I'd been munching foreign rug), and I felt like the spark was gone (which is to s - ooh, shiny!). And the fact that she was probably hip-deep in some sort of voodoo bullshit didn't even occur to me, even if she did have the whole emo-I'm-a-witch-look-at-me thing going on. It stopped mattering the moment I noticed my leg was broken, my nose was bleeding, there were stabbing pains in my chest -

There is a time for everything,
this is your moment to fucking scream, you asshole.

Her voice was mocking me, and everything slipped sideways, and there I am way down there. There's another voice, now, behind hers, and it's dusty and full of things that crawl.

"Not Loa," it whispers. "L'wa." And it laughs, and things are very very black.

I wish I'd learned.