This was a kind of stream-of-consciousness exercise where I just started writing based off that first line about winter that I had thought up while driving through a particularly cold breeze in the Valley with no sweater and a pang of loneliness.

I realized a few sentences in that I was essentially telling the story of Job, who I think is a pretty relatable character to the maleficiaries (for lack of a real word) of an American recession: a society, composed primarily of Christians, trying to make sense of faith in a world kicking them when they’re down.

I’ve never been particularly religious, but the more I read the Bible the more I find the core of it relatable, if not a bit dated in its delivery, understandably. I’m very interested now in studying the Book of Job more scholastically and expanding on this story into perhaps a novella or novel format.