Another Idea for RV Short Story

The tent camper camped in the RV park reads a history of Roman sex in his tent.

A truck towing an older model 5^th wheel trailer, pulls alongside the tent camper and stops. The trailer is named Sea Breeze.

An elderly man emerges from the truck and begins decoupling the trailer. He is alone. No dog. That’s rare in the park with older RVers.

It takes the man about an hour to set up and then he sits at the picnic table near the tent. The tent camper emerges and greets the man. In short order, the camper learns: the man was from Grants Pass, a woodworker, who recently got divorced and had to sell the house for the settlement. He heard a calling from God to begin a mission up and down the coast, converting nonbelievers and sinners, bringing them into the flock. He closed up his business, bought the 5^th wheel, and was on his inaugural run. He brought along some of his hand tools and carved crosses from myrtlewood, the holy wood found only on the Southern Oregon Coast and Israel. He sold the crosses to churches to finance his mission. He often parked his rig in church parking lots.

The tent camper listened and asked questions. Being the son of preacher man and all, this mission interested him, particularly the RV aspect.

At some point in the conversation, the man began quoting scripture to support his taking up of the calling. The man asked the tent camper about his religious leanings. The camper told him he went to church every morning and sometimes twice or three times a day. The man appeared confused. The tent camper explained with one word: “Ocean.” The man replied that it, too, was one of God’s creations. The tent camper said there was never any guilt or human hierarchy associated with the ocean. The man didn’t say anything.

The next morning, Sunday, before the break of dawn, the tent camper was worshiping at the ocean’s edge and inhaling the stuff of death and life, rot and rebirth. The man was still asleep when the tent camper returned.

That’s the story.

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