Build Your Own Savior

Build Your Own Savior

In the back of the comic book, there was an advertisement. It read: “BUILD YOUR OWN SAVIOR!” and featured a picture of a little boy and a little girl on their knees who reminded us of us. They looked so happy to be saved. We eventually convinced Dad to write us a check, “proof of your love,” we said, and stuffed it into an envelope and sent it off that day.

When the package finally arrived it was just a bucket of mud. “1. Sculpt mud into the form of your SAVIOR and 2. Let dry,” were the only instructions. We fought for hours over what the form of our savior should look like. Abe wanted it to look like a dinosaur, with big teeth and hard scaly armor all over its body. I thought it should look more like a caterpillar, or a cocoon that some ultra-mega savior would spring forth from. We argued and argued. We went without lunch that day. We went without supper that evening. We went without sleep that night.

In the morning, we saw the mud had hardened in the bucket. We pray to our bucket god, begrudgingly, every night before going to bed.

When school started again, it wasn’t long until we realized all the other kids had been praying to the mud in their buckets as well. Except, of course, for the only children who molded their Savior into whatever form they wanted. We killed them all on the kickball court at recess.

Not long after the crusade, Principle Wallace remarked how, for the first time in his 20-year career, peace had fallen upon Islip Elementary.

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About Brent Canle

Canle is a bartender in Raleigh, NC. His work has appeared in Bull Magazine, Angry Old Man, Cease Cows, Phantom Drift, Caliban, Fur-Lined Ghettos, and more. Follow his work on Instagram @creature_BC.