“Save it. He knows. They tried hard already. He ain’t going for it. He made his choice, see. He chose not to play in this ball game.”

“You have so much of life ahead of you, Horace. I don’t understand. Why would you even think of such a thing?”

“See, he has this image of the world as it should be, and this ain’t it. This ain’t the world he ordered. So he thinks he’ll get a new one.”

“I can’t believe this. This is a joke, isn’t it? I—”

“Joke? I don’t think so. Les you laugh at funerals.”

“Horace, let’s talk about this.”

“Talk. Talk. Talk. Nothing to say. You keep on talking. Hear? I’m exiting. Watch.”

Whether or not the malevolent spirit existed is irrelevant, in the end. For whether he caused it or not, the boy died. This is a fact. The bullet did break the skin of his forehead, pierce the cranium, slice through the cortex and cerebellum, irreparably bruising the cerebrum and medulla oblongata, and emerge from the back of the skull, all with a wet and lightning crack. This did happen. The blood did flow, mixed with grey brain matter, pieces of bone and cranial fluid. His entire body convulsed several times; it excreted urine. Defecated. The tongue hung out of the mouth and during the convulsions was clamped down upon, releasing blood to be mixed with the ropes of saliva stringing down. His heartbeat slowly decreased in pressure and intensity, soon coming to a halt; the arteries, veins, and capillaries slowly collapsed. The pupils of his eyes, now tainted in a film of pink, stopped dilating, resting like huge drops of ink surrounded by brown liquid in a pool of milk. Finally the eyes themselves rolled back, staring up, as though examining the sun through the canopy of tree limbs. In awe and respect. These are facts. Whether or not the demon was a ghost of his mind, or a spirit of the nether world, this did happen. And the man screamed, a helpless, affronted, high-pitched, terror-filled scream of disbelief, of anger, of disappointment. His screams shifted into a sobbing, moanful wail, unconsolable and primal. This is true, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the existence of dybbuks, djinns, or demons.

Most importantly, the day did not halt in its tracks: clocks did not stop. The school buses rolled. The cows mooed. The mothers scolded their children. Plows broke up soil. Trucks were unloaded and loaded up. Dishes were washed. Dogs barked. Old men fished. Beauticians gossiped. Food was eaten. And that night the sun set with the full intention of rising on the morrow.

Ifs and maybes and weres and perhapses are of no use in this case. The facts are enough, unless they too are subject to doubt.

REQUIEM FOR TOBACCO