EXCERPT- nonfiction:

Published Summer 2005, Seattle, WA : The Strange Fruit
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Baseline

I cannot separate the fantasy from the reality of these memories. I am certain the blind boy on TV was my cousin, Kevin; my aunt is declaring vehemently that Oral Roberts will cure his blindness. She is adamantly saying the expense to travel to Omaha, Nebraska is worth it, what can we loose at this point. In my memory, my cousin is starting to pray each moment of each day for his new vision and plan what he can do with it. In my minds eye, my cousin is rocking himself with his rolled forefingers in his eyes, rocking slowly, self-comforting as he always did. Somewhere a voice urges him to stop rocking. Voices were always doing this to me too - only it was, "Kathy, sit up straight." And from somewhere a large adult hand would squeeze one shoulder or another by my collarbone and pull my shoulder back, trying once more to program the joint by force and will. I would hold the forced pose for a moment, then exhale into my slouch. Kevin rocked, I slouched.
So I don't know what is factual anymore, besides my cousins' blindness and my bad posture as a child, which did change years later. In my memories, I feel that it was my blind cousin on the TV, for which the crowd was singing extra loud and with extra longing. And there was heavy prayer energy seeking to bring sight to the blind boy. I feel it was my cousin whose sunken eyes poured tears when there was no miracle. How was it that the crippled boy next to him was given power in his legs? People cheered hallelujah when the lame boy hesitantly teetered out of his wheel chair, his limbs weak and frail as a newborn fawn's. What was it that made the Holy Spirit ignore the supplications of all of us watching, all of TV America pleading and promising things to God if only the blind boy could see as the lame boy had walked...

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