Ravi Zacharias and the House of Hers

I was in the old part of town, nestled below the Appalachians.  It was dusk.  The streets here are more like alleyways than streets.  I don’t know why I’m here.  I’m walking.  There are many storefronts, most of which are abandoned or are mysteries. There are people about, yet they lurk in the shadows, going about their singular lives.  I pass by a place in which people are coming out of.  Some communion of sorts is dispersing, the people emerging onto the street.  They seem antagonistic.  

I spot an older gentleman and recognize him immediately.  He is Ravi Zacharias the Christian apologist.  He glances up at me.  We make eye contact.  He looks old and tired.  I speak to him awkwardly.  He does not stop walking.  He seems not to understand me.  I speak louder. 

“Mr. Zacharias, I can’t tell you how much your ministry has meant to me.  It is a great and wondrous work you do.”

He smiles weakly and thanks me. I walk with him, amazed that he is here, seemingly alone.  The few people on the street seem to have coalesced into a dark mood, targeted at Ravi.  Some people yell objections, never ceasing in movement.  I fear that Ravi is most unwelcome in historic Asheville.  We are separated.  He turns a corner.  I am left standing in front of an old house.  I look in the window.  A girl is sitting on the floor, inside the house.  She is looking at me bemusedly.  She is utterly solitary.  She has on very dark eye shadow and drab clothes.  The house is completely devoid of furniture, or of any other sign that it is being lived in.  Her gaze beckons to me, invites me in.  I enter the house.  

She sits on the floor, unmoving, alone.  I make love to her.  I think of the woman I love, and yet I continue to make love to this dark creature.  It is over.  I am back outside of the house.  I look at her through the window, and I long for her again.  She sits again on the floor, silent and still.  I somehow see her nude.  Her legs open.  She is not normal there.  There is a protuberance of flesh, as if she has been grossly over-stuffed.  The scene becomes a close-up.  I see inflamed skin, burst blood vessels.  And then I see her again clothed sitting upon the floor.  Her dark eyes are looking into mine through the window.