Half-day

On half-days in grade school, right after the first bell we'd file out of school into church for the first of a two-part mass. After noon we'd return, incense swelling, to witness the priest recover the alter. This brief reprisal would end with a spirited hymn sung with all the joy of children eager to start the long weekend early. It was during the singing of one of these hymns I remember first feeling the rush, like adrenaline, like possibility, like freedom, raw and holy, pushing over the precipice of the sky, promising to obliterate us all.