CREATIVE NONFICTION
JENNIFER PHINNEY
JENNIFER PHINNEY
FEBRUARY BAPTISM
I
I read a story today, so absurd that it must be true, about a woman on a Sunday, apparently so moved by her preacher’s rantings and, perhaps, an insatiable need for Drama, that upon returning home from the service at the Total Praise Baptist Church, she walked into the river (the Coosawattee that runs behind her trailer) and drowned.
The police investigated. Something about a butcher’s knife and two sets of footprints in the muddy riverbank. The husband claimed she was “Baptizing herself – the way John did.”(was it John? I think it was.) “She would never commit suicide… Suicide is a sin,” and then, of course, (pause for effect), “No, she couldn’t swim.”
II
But I wonder. I wonder at the darkness in every corner of the world. Did she take Xanax? Did she need to take Xanax? Or Zoloft, or Paxil, or Lithium, or maybe just vodka- to get through the day. Did she watch Big Brother, or The 700 Club? Had she ever, perhaps in a ninth grade English class somewhere, read any Flannery O’Connor? Didn’t she know that a good man is hard to find? It might have helped. Or not.
I wonder. What possesses a woman to return home from church, eat an egg salad sandwich, turn on a NASCAR race (apparently still on when her husband returned home) and walk out the back door of the trailer on a freezing Sunday afternoon in February? And just keep walking. Until her bare feet sank in the mud, until the water covered her calves, her thighs, taking her breath away as it reached her ribs, her breasts, her mouth. Did she struggle to keep walking? Did she change her mind- too terrible to contemplate. Was she cleansed by the cold, swirling water thrashing its way downstream, swollen with the heavy rains of a north Georgia winter?
III
They found her body the next day – Monday- chilled like salmon, almost naked, battered from its violent journey through primitive waters. I hope she found what she was looking for. I hope she knew what she was looking for. But I doubt it. Like Flannery O’Connor, I doubt it.
I
I read a story today, so absurd that it must be true, about a woman on a Sunday, apparently so moved by her preacher’s rantings and, perhaps, an insatiable need for Drama, that upon returning home from the service at the Total Praise Baptist Church, she walked into the river (the Coosawattee that runs behind her trailer) and drowned.
The police investigated. Something about a butcher’s knife and two sets of footprints in the muddy riverbank. The husband claimed she was “Baptizing herself – the way John did.”(was it John? I think it was.) “She would never commit suicide… Suicide is a sin,” and then, of course, (pause for effect), “No, she couldn’t swim.”
II
But I wonder. I wonder at the darkness in every corner of the world. Did she take Xanax? Did she need to take Xanax? Or Zoloft, or Paxil, or Lithium, or maybe just vodka- to get through the day. Did she watch Big Brother, or The 700 Club? Had she ever, perhaps in a ninth grade English class somewhere, read any Flannery O’Connor? Didn’t she know that a good man is hard to find? It might have helped. Or not.
I wonder. What possesses a woman to return home from church, eat an egg salad sandwich, turn on a NASCAR race (apparently still on when her husband returned home) and walk out the back door of the trailer on a freezing Sunday afternoon in February? And just keep walking. Until her bare feet sank in the mud, until the water covered her calves, her thighs, taking her breath away as it reached her ribs, her breasts, her mouth. Did she struggle to keep walking? Did she change her mind- too terrible to contemplate. Was she cleansed by the cold, swirling water thrashing its way downstream, swollen with the heavy rains of a north Georgia winter?
III
They found her body the next day – Monday- chilled like salmon, almost naked, battered from its violent journey through primitive waters. I hope she found what she was looking for. I hope she knew what she was looking for. But I doubt it. Like Flannery O’Connor, I doubt it.
Jennifer Phinney, a former English teacher, is from the mountains of North Georgia, where she lives with her husband. This short piece is based on a true story.
