The Lost Voice of God

Micro-fiction by Charles Sutphin

The subway rumbles with indigestion; rattling shakes the bed, jitters me to sleep. Din is as ubiquitous as piss upon the sidewalk -- or pigeon shit against the wall. From Harlem to Battery Park, the city resonates an existential hum: fans and motors, mumbles and curses: kids shrill on the playground, boys ghetto on the blacktop, barkers bark, handlers pan and if you listen rightfully—angels cry while rats die quietly. When you mix it and serve it to the denizens of Gotham, the outcome is a static that disconnects people from the voice of God.  Though His presence remains —scrounging through trash, dirging in the dark, curdled in the gutter—the whisper of His love is blocked by a concrete vault that entombs the city.

Cavernous rumbling, barking dogs, horns blaring—such sounds dissipate the delicate melody of birds and breeze, insects and flapping leaves – drown out the holy and the sacred. God and nature live in harmony. When one dies, the other follows.

Safe in my bed, I listen to a man down the street, wheezing for air, but I cannot hear God—not in the park overrun with drugs and hustlers, tourists looking for the things they don’t need, or in the sky scraped raw by buildings blotting out the light and dwarfing trees hoping to survive. I do not hear God. Residing on the Lower East Side in a cold-water flat, I am fortified in the belief that this dispirited place is where the Lord is most alive—shivering in the subway, concealed by rags —lonely, hungry, frightened—hidden in the corners of my mind, waiting to be found.

I should lend Him a hand. I owe Him that much at least.  

BIO: Charles Sutphin is a retired professor, attorney, journalist and capitalist. He volunteers at the Northside Food Pantry and serves on several not-for-profit boards, including a community foundation, art museum and cemetery. Married for 35 years, he has two children, two dogs and a koi pond. In recent years his writing has appeared in Eclectica Magazine, Literally Stories, Vita Poetica, Metaworker, CafeLit, Helix Literary Review, Agape Review, Visible Magazine and other publications.