The tang of the sea was pure, even if this place was not.

This gave Alan some cause for comfort as he watched the Babylonian pack up her bumper stickers – her propaganda. He’d been coming to Third Street to preach since he moved to Los Angeles from a far less degraded place some three years ago. She’d been there then, hocking what the Reverend said were her lies and her sinful filth, right across from Alan’s pulpit, and she was there now, and he didn’t think either of them were going anywhere anytime soon.

She looked up and locked eyes with him, as she sometimes did. She smiled shyly and did not speak, but Alan searched for lasciviousness, as his mother taught him. Her stomach, exposed at the midriff, was tattooed. He broke contact before he drowned in a sea of gray.

The Lord’s work could be dreadfully hard at times like this, and Alan wanted to accost the woman for testing him so. But she was already walking away, her arms loaded with boxes of paper hellfire.

Maybe tomorrow, Alan thought…