Hickory'd punched that Angel, all right - hand curled tight into a fist, spitting and hissing' and swinging, it didn't connect -

He felt the blow splash when it hit, and then the light swallowed him up - and the world was gone, there was only light, he couldn't move, couldn't breath, couldn't -

Then nothing.

What had he done? Punched an Angel - right. Right. But wouldn't anyone? With Ma not getting no better, a Da long dead and buried, Hickory's knees long bruised from prayers piled up, unanswered, feeling more helpless by the day, even as he fought his hardest, did his best?

Then outta nowhere, up pops an Angel, not to heal Ma, but to ask for help? His help. A big ole glowing' Angel - all the power to fix the world's ails, but instead bleating' like a drunk sheep - "The Heavens call for aid!"

Was it wrong to punch? A sin? Hell, no! When someone's tryin to fuck ya, ya don't bend over to kiss their ass, ya punch 'em. Be it Angle or Man, there's plenty a time for forgivin' after, and that was the only way he'd have it - except this time if he bit off a bit more than he could handle?

Because when he was spat back out like a wad of chewed tobacco he landed in a round, stone room, a fountain in the center, but the walls? Seven stained glass windows, each done as real as life, each portraying an Angel -

Him. In these windows Hickory was the Angel - and the things he was doing? It didn't make no sense, because he looked terrifying! Surrounded by giant buildings, all sorts of power, magic - coming from him, and he was holding a book. In every window he held a book.

"That ain't me." Hickory said eyeing the book, "I ain't no reader."

But of course he knew one Book - the Bible, and for it to be there? For Hickory to be in those windows looking like an Angel? That could only mean one thing:

"I'm dead." Hickory whispered - getting to his feet, taking in the almost silence, the only sound was that fountain gurgling, and his throat was dry and hoarse because he'd just died - and it was without a thought that he leaned over the fountain and drank - the water was cool, perfect - pure. The best water he'd ever had in his whole life - or after, he reckoned.

Dead.

He didn't feel dead - but how would he know what it felt like? Even if he felt the same, how else could he be here? Hickory stood there thinking, trying to understand what it meant to be dead - leaving Ma all by herself, not getting to eat that catfish, not getting to see May again - not making Da proud - it made his stomach ache, feel hollow, knowing there wouldn't be nobody to watch them chickens and him not even saying bye -

Hickory didn't cry. He was mighty sad and maybe close, but - well, this was awful to say, but he was also distracted, not feeling right - from being scooped up and put in this strange room, dying, his stomach, upset - and he'd just been in class, around people, and Hickory was polite. Respectful - if it had been building up for a while and held back for a moment of discretion?

So in that quiet, hallowed room, illuminated only by the holy renderings of him as seven different Angels...Hickory made wind.

"I ain't dead," Hickory realized, "Ghosts don't fart!" He felt better, happy, it was good to be alive. He pinched himself to see if he was dreaming. He wasn't. A bit guiltily, he also sniffed his shirt - he'd smoked some crazy grass before - but nothing like this...

He wasn't dead. He was just, well, he'd figure it out.

Hickory circled the stone room and noticed beneath each of the giant stained glass windows showing him was a bowl of water on a table, and it would have looked like a sink if it wasn't so fancy, but not even in the nicest of bathrooms could he imagine it.

And each bowl was different, each matched the image above it -

The closet bowl to him was blue crystal and was carved to look like the ocean. As Hickory approached it the light caught the waves and they seemed to move, how real it all looked - he could practically hear the surf. And within the bowl the water churned like the sea at storm and he felt a misty spray, heard the cry of gulls but most of all -

He felt alive.

He was drawn to the water, felt the desire to strip naked, to dive into the bowl and to swim with the sharks and seals and - before he knew it his hands were in the water. Except the water wasn't wet -

Hickory loved to swim - everyday. Winter. Summer. Rain - And he certainly knew what water felt like, and sure this water looked right, and it was of a the prettiest blue, chilled and churning - but it wasn't wet.

The water within the bowl continued to turn like the tides, and Hickory tried to splash it - tried to slap it out of the bowl, but not a drop left.

He tried cupping his hands but not even a drop remained after submerging his palms and lifting up the water - it just flowed out and around and remained in the bowl -

There was a shell. A single oyster shell on the rim, and with a cautious hand Hickory picked it up and using it like a cup he was able to lift a single sip of water - the closer the shell got to his lips, the thirstier he felt, and the more wild it all was, thunder rumbled and lightning flickered and -

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In the window - that Angel, him - He didn't look happy, he looked furious, even surrounded by all those beautiful buildings made of seashells and smooth white sand - he set the shell down. He wanted to look around, try to make sense of why he was here:

What was he looking for? Because there wasn't a door to get out. Hickory tapped on the walls, on the windows, on the floor and it all felt solid - he was stuck here.

Which meant the way out had to do with these sinks of water somehow, and it was some sort of test. A test involving seven different sinks with cups, seven windows showing seven angelic Hickory's. Who'd think of such a thing and why?

And that it was a test at all of course had him sweating since there wasn't anybody there for him to peak at the answers, just to make sure his was right of course, that he knew a bit about the Bible?

That none of them sinks had a wooden cup. That was known, that Jesus was a carpenter, he'd have a wooden cup, there was a drum cup from the music Angel and that was about the closest, and as he'd lifted it up he couldn't resist tapping his foot to the music that filled him, he knew with this cup, this water he could sing like no other, he could dance - he could fight, wasn't dancing and fighting the same? A sword - was it not an instrument?

There was also a horn and an acorn top, the oyster shell, a carved gem and a bone, but what truly caught his eye was bright white, as though plucked from the back of a flying Angel.

A feather - the window above showed Hickory with wings, a short sword, all in white and he was as fancy as one of them overseas churches, the buildings with all the columns of stone and the marble floors, it was the prettiest buildings of all the stained glass windows.

And with no better choice, Hickory picked up the feather and felt how light it was, even after he dipped it in the whitish water, it practically floated to his lips - he took in the sink, made of smooth marble carved like the outstretched wings of a swan.

A wind seemed to blow across his body, there was a sense of speed. Of height. Looking down with no fear of falling. No fear of anything - Hickory brought the feather to his lips and drank, and the water seemed to blow past his tongue, down his throat and it was too sweet - fake sweet, not like honey, or sugar or candy, but like the stuff in fake soda, but a whole mouthful, a chemical sweet.

And beneath the sweetness? Hickory gagged - because it had to be so sweet to hide whatever the hell that was, it was rotten and - Hickory gagged again, dropping the feather he dove for the fountain in the center of the room and drank again - and this time he noticed something else.

Something more...

Long swallows of pure water, his head held upside down beneath the stream feeling the relief as it washed away the horrible flavor, Hickory realized neither his face nor hair had gotten wet, and that meant it was the same sort of water that was in the sinks, as though the sink water had been made from this fountain...

He would have kept drinking it, thinking about it - if it wasn't for the boiling sound he heard coming from - Hickory jumped up and saw one of the sinks was changing, turning white - it had been green a moment before, made completely of leaves and branches, the cup was the top of a giant acorn - and he liked the Angel Hickory - who'd been riding a bear in the window down a road made of solid amber, surrounded by buildings made of redwoods and oaks...

But floating in that sink was the white feather - the cup Hickory had drank from and then dropped in his hurry to wash the flavor from his mouth. Where it touched, water boiled and whiteness spread. Hickory rushed over, pulling the feather from the water but it was already too late. He watched as the final changes took place and the last of the green was swallowed. Now there were two white sinks - two white windows. Two feather cups.

"Oh, this ain't good." Hickory said, hoping he hadn't already failed. But in a bout of sudden inspiration he went back to the fountain, took another sip, but this time he didn't swallow, he went back to the sink that started as green and spat the water back out - it landed, and a transformation began again. The sink changed -

But not as he hoped, the sink didn't go back to green, it faded to plain grey stone, matching the fountain, but even stranger was the window which became nothing more than glass, no painting on it at all, instead it had become a mirror. It showed just him as he was, a confused, guilty expression.

And he was no closer to getting out of here - he'd drank and that had done something - he'd poured water from one sink to another - did he have to do it to them all? Did that make sense, to make a choice, to make it to where all the Angels and Sinks were the same?

So Hickory tasted all the waters, and there was something he loved, and didn't, about each of them - he drank from the carved gem and felt his clothes become smooth as silk, watched as the stained glass window showed him weighing gold, carefully writing down tiny numbers in his Book in a garden filled with giant flowers while beautiful women cooled him with fancy fans and fed him grapes.

But Hickory's favorite was the horn, the water was wild beer - intoxicating, in the window he wore fur and as the spicy brew spread through his chest he felt stronger, a sense of chaos and freedom, the need to explore. It was like that half second just after you jump from the mill-way bridge, as you hang in the air about to fall toward the water. In the painting he ran through buildings made of piled quartz and logs, stacked together in the neatest way so much higher than looked possible, his Book gripped in his teeth, his eyes wild and hungry and unafraid.

It was the simple choice. The fun choice.

So with his decision made he took the horn around the room, splashing it into each sink, hearing it boil, watching it fade until it was seven fierce and wild Hickorys looking back at him, the whole room had taken on the pulsing excitement, and Hickory couldn't wait to go drinking with his buddies, fishing and swimming, fighting and fu-

Nothing happened. Silence. Except for the sound of a fountain - Hickory slowly turned to the source. And he knew.

And was it even a choice? Even with his blood pumping, the promise of fun like never before, the taste of good beer, his friends, being wild - all that strength, there was something that made it all better.

That made it impossible without -

The River.

Water. Pure water.

You couldn't swim in beer - well, you could, but you couldn't fish in it! And thinking that way Hickory remembered what he'd realized when he'd drank the second time from the fountain. That all these sinks promised to make him better in some way, some flavor - but there was something off about each, some catch, like it was a baited hook.

But they were all still made from that same water, the fountain's water. The pure water. And so Hickory put the horn down and watched with just a small sadness as the Angel Hickorys turned to mirrors - as he sipped from the fountain and spat in each one.

And the building began to glow, the fountain grew larger, and something appeared within it - a Book!

The Book he'd seen in each of the windows, the one thing that stayed the same, that linked them all!

Hickory reached out his hand and grabbed it, feeling the hard, smooth leather, the weight of it - and he opened it to the first page, and the building opened with it - the windows melted down, and the building opened up to the world, now just thirteen stone columns holding up a stone roof - the simple fountain in the middle.