In her dreams, the Lord does not have the aspect of Man. The Lord is not figured at all. He is rather a total lack. A gap or hole in the World. Which does not mean He does not exist.

No, exactly the opposite. It means He is the only thing that exists. The only thing that matters.

The Lord is the sole result. Sole resolution. Therefore the omega that includes and guides the alpha. The Lord is the reason everything ends. And everything ends in Him. Which means the beginning always belongs to Him. From the start.

That’s how he appears in Patience’s dreams. When she sleeps—dead—throughout the day. Patience dreams of the end of everything and she names that end Lord my God.

And it for this reason she is Damned.

To teach the living that things end. Always. At any moment. And that the ending is the Lord’s judgement and the Lord Himself. It is even his Love. His horrifying Love. If Patience seems herself to persist beyond a natural ending, it is only as a tool for the Lord. Another route for the action of the Lord’s appearance, which is the disappearance of all other things in Him and through Him.

Take the fornicator under her hand tonight.

He'd slowed, then stopped his car. Inviting Patience closer, waving her to his window. He did not know what he was doing. What he had already done. Patience had only been walking. Moving through the night. Going nowhere. But now Patience was stopped. Now she was his encounter with the End. His chance to feel the touch of Divinity.

That touch had been harsh.

He is badly beaten, still in the front seat of his sedan. Unconscious. He’d been eager to find an alley, some out of the way place. For his sin. But now, his discretion works against him. No one will see. No one will save him.

Patience regards the man without feeling for a long time. He surely has a fractured skull. Blood runs from his hairline, down his face and neck in a long, serpentine streak. It stains the collar of his white dress shirt. The fracture will not kill him. At least it’s not likely.

Will Patience? She does not yet know.

The car’s idling is a distant hum. Patience balls her fists and her fingers crack like a string of fireworks. The man stirs, moans. Does not wake. Her jaw pulses as she grinds her teeth. The smell of his blood fills the sedan’s interior.

She will not kill him. That is her own punishment this evening. Having to stop.

And if his cracked skull doesn’t do for him later, he’ll go on living. For now. In the shadow of his own End.

That is what passes for mercy. That meager portion. It’s more than any man deserves.