saddest vacant lot in all the world

     Ethan begins to speak, “These silly people, they believe in sky daddies and fairy tales, the things that have no proof or measure: how dare they offend my modern intellectual sensibilities!  Such sensibilities are derived from fact, can be replicated, and will be studied relentlessly; in science, we even leave room for our positions to be readjusted!  Over two thousand years spent at worship, and those charlatans haven’t updated the Bible once.  This makes me wonder – what does Bible study even mean?        “Harumph!      “The worst of them is Ian.  He must have something to do with this; he is always out to get me.  It would be in his best interest to see me utterly crestfallen. I will not allow it!  In fact, I could practically hear the smile stretch across his face during my tribulation, and it irks me to admit I was truly grieved.  How could I not be?      “Should there be a...

               The Clint-shaped hole in Ethan’s heart has been filled with a highly developed interest in a grey monoculture: an autocratic worldview where the pluralities of good versus evil have been stripped away to protagonist versus antagonist, where the structure of something is the ultimate truth and the very implication of an objective morality is devil-speak, whereupon such devil-speak causes him to recoil, shuffle through his notes to refute scripture that no one cited, and smile self-assuredly. But at this very moment, he makes an exodus from Traverse City, forsaken and malignant of heart, intent on doing harm unto Ian as a well-measured act of retribution that he sees now is far overdue.  To fund the trip, he had to pawn off the collectibles that were once to furnish the shag shack, which had become painful to look at in recent months.  The Gears of War Lancer was the most hurtsome. . . . “Dude, is that what I think it i...