Damascus

by Veronica McDonald

I once had a dog named Damascus. I don’t know for sure why Dad named him Damascus. I especially didn’t know when I was a five-year-old, squawking kid who was constantly picking his nose and sometimes eating what he finds (you can’t trust what that kid knows, trust me). But now that I’m older and all and educated by some standard—at least thirteen years more educated than that pathetic kid—I would guess that Dad named him Damascus on account of his “road to Damascus” experience. Dad’s experience, not the dog’s.

I guess Dad was some kind of brilliant atheist once, before he fell for my pure-as-vanilla Christian mother and had some kind of religious “awakening;” Some radical, open-your-blind-eyes kind of thing. Except when he explained it to me, it didn’t sound all that radical. Not like the way it happened to Paul the Apostle, where a blinding light of God Almighty tells you point-blank He exists and, now that you know…you know…go do something important with that information. Naw, not at all like that. The way he tells it, he fell head over heels for this Christian girl, even though he thought all Christians were dumb. And when he took her out to dinner he had a whole spiel ready about how the cosmos were all there is and ever was and ever would be. But she looked so calm, so happy, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. And while his guard was down, she said something to him so simple—too simple really—that I didn’t believe it when he told me. Continue reading “Short Story (Fiction): Damascus” →