The Fence is Always Hungry

We feed it raw chicken three times a day, but it is never enough. The fence is always changing. Do not be fooled when it is a white picket fence. Do not remember neighborhoods of old: emerald lawns, oaks, wrap-around porches, rockers, sun tea. The fence insists: once a citizen here, always a citizen here.

The fence holds history. For fourteen hours, it was drystone walls evoking the Galloway hills of Scotland. The fence holds creativity. For seven hours, it was an aquarium fence: tall, wide, transparent walls: butterflyfish flitting in the water; angelfish; dragonet; royal blue tang, their front fins like wings in constant motion. We gathered buses for a hasty field trip, even allowing the cathedral builders time to see this remarkable sight. 

The fence is unpredictable. Once it was unchanged for twenty-one hours, a lovely Western cedar fence with gaps between the horizontal boards. A few citizens fled. But when a wave of people began climbing, the fence transformed: triple concertina razor wire, shredding muscle, fat, bone, then swallowing. We lost forty-nine in one instant. The fence loves to fuck with us.

The fence loves sevens. But the patterns between transformations are getting more complicated. Recently the fence transformed in one minute, then six minutes. Our schoolchildren figured that one out quickly, but when it transformed one day in exactly 2.64 hours, it took time before someone realized that’s the square root of seven.

Sadly, we haven’t yet determined patterns for the rare times the fence moves toward us. Luckily, only once did it smoosh some citizens. But they were hanging out after curfew. Who knows what they were up to. We are reassured that the fence always returns to its original spot.

The fence will love our miniature cathedral. Shout out to our diligent citizens who’ve built the foundation, walls, and pillars. And of course, the crypt, which is already filling up. Our hopes, our prayers, our certainty: once we have a proper place of worship with seating for 700 and multiple services every seven hours all seven days of the week, the fence will be satisfied, the hunger will cease, our sacrifices will not have been in vain. Birthdays at age seven, fourteen, twenty-one, and so on will be festive, cake and balloons and games instead of the sacrifice of one to save the many.