Something Like a Prayer

By Erin Justice

I went to Japan and found enlightenment. 

Real enlightenment, floating in on waves of incense in front of the Daibutsu; incense that carries purity and centuries of ritual, respect for the divine and sacred. The kind of smell that makes you forget about the stench of the mundane bullshit. 

We fly along the rails, bullet train-bound for a coastal city. I think about the pure, white smoke that spiraled up to Heaven and hold on to the feeling that for half a heartbeat, I felt close to something resembling the God I forswore almost a decade ago.