Losing My Religion

Devotion is a curious thing. Those that leave the flock are spiritual lepers, doomed to an eternal hell that even Dante may have underestimated.

But belief must be maintained if one is to remain in the light. The path must be followed.

I have not been smitten, stoned or turned to salt for my transgressions, and the skies have not opened to claim me.

The strangest part for me is that my lapse is total, and I hardly even noticed. Is that the way it works? I used to be blessed, surrounded by my fellow worshippers in a congregation of the chosen who reaped the harvest of the earth while others slept, long before the opening bell.

Once upon a time, I would listen rapt as Sylvia from Frankfurt spoke the gospel from afar in a strangely moving accent, and a shiver would travel down my spine when the earnest Mormonesque David Faber recited breathlessly the devotional poetry of ebitdas.

I used to study the face of Alan Greenspan for clues to my beloved, but even this ageless prophet, having thoroughly converted me with his cautious yet inspiring revelations, has disappeared with his sacred briefcase from the Mount.

All that remains of this previously ecstatic relationship is a tidy sheaf of computer-generated correspondence, the last and final testament to a love that lasted through, and strengthened in spite of, plague and pestilence.

Sometimes, in the throes of a fitful sleep, I hear voices murmuring like the rubbing beads of a rosary,

"...forex forex forex...".