darwin's theory of evolution (mundane saints society, saint flora of converts and the abandoned)
Saint Flora calls herself Flor. She can never stay in the same place for too long. She is always sure that she is being followed. She sleeps in hollowed out corners of grandiose old train stations, blanketed by moss. She liked the way dust smells, and cathedrals, and street corners that have chalk outlines of dead bodies. Saint Anthony rolls his eyes at her when they run into one another over the spiked punch at parties. She’s a hack, he says, always picking up strays and turning them into something that they’re not.
You don’t understand, Saint Flora answers, turning away from him to break her heart over the jacket someone has discarded in the corner for being too fancy. There is a difference between being lost and being left. She always speaks in binomials like this. Everything is less lonely when it comes in a pair. When she is not busy exploring asbestos-riddled castles and sleeping in the trunk my grandmother used to keep her love letters in, Saint Flora is a casual archaeologist. She spends hours on her hands and knees with a toothbrush, scooping dirt out of a skeleton’s teeth. She likes them best when they are found outside of dig sites. Under parking lots and next to tree houses. She stands inside and says that she can hear the echoes of feet that used to run through. Then she cries. No I can’t, she says. No I can’t. Get me a toothbrush. Let me try.
Saint Flora was an evolutionist long before the other Saints converted. Of course we have changed our shape, she says, eating toast with Jesus’ face on it. We can’t stop. We wouldn’t be human if we couldn’t leave ourselves behind. I take a bite of my toast and ask, Are you human? And Flora cries a little, absently. No I’m not, she says. No I’m not. Get me a toothbrush. Let me try.
