Opening at the End

She just sat there, without a dress, her thighs graciously open, surrounded by the tendrils of her nasturtium. She should have crossed her legs like an old woman, like the old ladies, tilted her head towards the fjord and had a worried look. But she did not look at the sea. She was looking to the left. In front of the penitential tower was a tiny penitential church with a tiny choir of old women. Then the strange shepherd bent to a white staff, cared for the sheep, came to the old shepherd, handed him a yoke and bowed to the altar, the congregation and the fjord. “Now I will do this – that you who make the sheep do the foolish thing that you all do, come to this sermon, and you will think about it in your congregation and in your homes and in your cities, and you will find a beautiful sermon, a cool sermon that suits you and your temperament, and you will say, ‘We know what God requires of us, but we have not been faithful.’ And this you will say, and have nothing to do with my words.” But the cloud reflected something other than the sermon of repentance. It collapsed and made them shudder. And as the nasturtium leaves fell to the soft ground, she opened her mouth as if laughing. In the church, a woman screamed. Then the shepherd began. He bent his staff to the shepherd, rose, followed the sheep, into the great thicket.