Structure

The narrative is divided into five sections: the introduction, then four parts. The seven-page introduction is set in the author’s paternal grandfather’s former church, where congregants wait for the rapture. The author foregrounds this incident because he sincerely believed that he would be taken, which would have been the end of his life story; however, the designated time passed and the author was surprised and disappointed to find that he was “still here” (5). The author twice repeats this assertion — “I’m still here” — as if in present disbelief that he survived the events to follow the introduction. “I have been left once or twice,” he writes. “Been found, too. And every time I turned around, the world began to end again — it’s even ending right this minute, I hear.” This section thus encapsulates the dramatic scope of the ensuing narrative.

Part I is about...