naked rock under a steaming, naked sun, surrounded by
molten, naked sand. It’s a rock made to outlast the desert, a
bare and brazen rock; and the Dead Sea spreads out near it,
below it, touching the edge o f the desert that touches the edge
o f the rock. Dead rock; dead water; a hard land; for a hard
people; God kept killing us, o f course, to make us hard
enough; genocide and slavery and rape were paternal kindnesses designed to build character, to rip pity out o f you, to destroy sentimentality, your heart will be as barren as this rock
when I’m done with you, He said; stern Father, a nasty
Daddy, He made history an incest on His children, slow,
continuous, generation after generation, a sadistic pedagogy,
love and pain, what recourse does a child have? He loves you
with pain, by inflicting it on you, a slow, ardent lover, and you
love back with suffering because you are helpless and human,
an imprisoned child o f Him caged in the world o f His making;
it’s a worshipful response, filled with awe and fear and dread,
bewildered, w hy me, w hy now, w hy this, w hy aren’t Y ou
merciful, w hy aren’t Y ou kind; and because it’s all there is, this
love o f His, it’s the only love He made, the only love He lets us
know, ignorant children shut up in D addy’s house, we yearn
for Him and adore Him and wait for Him, awake, afraid,
shivering; we submit to Him, part fear, part infatuation,
helpless against Him, and we thank Him for the punishment
and the pain and say how it shows He loves us, we say Daddy,
Daddy, please, begging Him to stop but He takes it as
seduction, it eggs Him on, He sticks it in; please, Daddy. He
didn’t rest on the seventh day but He didn’t write it down
either, He made love, annihilation is how I will love them.
Y ou might say He had this thought. It was outside the plan.
The six days were the plan. On the seventh He stretched
H im self out to take a big snooze and a picture flashed through
His mind, a dirty picture, annihilation is how I will love them,
and it made everything w ork, it made everything hang
together: everything moved. It was like putting the tide in the
ocean. Instead o f a stagnant mass, a big puddle, there was this
monstrous, ruthless thing gliding backwards and forwards at
the same time and underneath the planet broke, there were
fissures and hurricanes and tornadoes and storms o f wind,
great, carnivorous storms; everything moved; moved and
died; moved, killed, and died. On the seventh day He made
love; annihilation is how I will love them; it was perfect and
Creation came alive animated by the nightmare o f His perfect
love; and He loved us best; o f all His children, we were the
chosen; D addy liked fucking us best. That Christ boy found
out; where are Y ou , w hy have Y o u forsaken me; common
questions asked by all the fucked children loved to death by
Daddy. At Massada we already knew what He wanted and
how He wanted it, He gloried in blood. We were His perfect
