6 year old Shawn breathed damp air in between the soft fingers of our heros right hand. His tears flowed down around the edges of the large hand. Sweat and tears sprinkled and varnished a large gold ring. He took a long look into the childs eyes, his curled up lashes that glazed over look, the same naive look you get from a bull his head caught in the gate right before you remove him from the gene pool. Its the same sad innocent look your wife gave you when she left. That look makes it all the more certain that what your doing is right...and that can make any job easier to do.
The boy almost twisted his arm and jerked away as our hero reached for the rag in his pocket. With the same gentle nature that a wolf will grab its cub by the neck, he pulled the boy to his chest and holding his arm back slipped the rag over his gasping mouth. The rag went concave and convex with the heaving of the boys lungs. He was so innocent and young that he didnt know about things like chloroform. This made it a lot easier. And, here in the white wet walls of the toy store bathroom our hero lay the boy down against the cold green floor. He sent one more away to a place he'd never see.
The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want he repeated to himself and to the empty walls of his apartment , sounding more like he wrote it himself every day. By now just lip service, small talk with god. He didnt pray for himself. He knew he could ask for forgiveness, and by what he knew forgiveness would come and the next life awaited him, but their was so much more work to do. It was already Thursday and by the 4 hash marks he saw on the paper in the planner he held he knew that he needed to work harder. Less than one a day would get him nowhere.
If there were six billion people in the world, and the birth rate was rising surely that meant that there were at least a billion children under the age of 10. At less than 365 a year he would get nowhere. Already two months in now and he only had 18. He had to think bigger. Planes, trains, buildings, this is what went through our heros head.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he said with more urgency. he looked at the picture of his ex wife on the floor beside him. Just 22 and he already had an ex wife. Already 22 and hed only packaged and delivered 18 lucky souls to the soft white gossamer of forever.
"Let go of me god dammit" the childs words rang out against the walls of the warehouse. And, he did, he had to. What good was it to take the life of this one, already poisoned with sin, already filled with Satan. And so that we can have an eternity in heaven then we must make hell on earth...after he is done , fighting on the front lines of salvation, what will be left on earth...the throwbacks, any child not worth killing.
<------------
Youre 22, you have an ex wife, and youre trying to get a job at the nearby gas station, but its not looking good. Managers and human resource reps dont seem to look for that "I had 2 children die at birth, and my wife just left me" look. Your lifes not going how youd planned, but thats all just gods plan. God never quite was this specific.
\This was how you met her, here in a church, saved right here together, knelt down before the altar.\
"We are all gods children." The words went through his mind like a bird flying into the prop of a plane, falling, hitting the surface of the water and sinking deep. His rage and anger needed some sort of outlet some kind of catharsis. So far he could only blame himself. And, that only lead to an increased rage and a crippling sense of loneliness a dreaded sense of undeservedness that he had some how acquired through his days and nights spent worshiping this deity spent following all his word so closely . And now the winged beast that hit the water and sank so deep into the darkness had reached the peak of its descent and its carcass light and rigid began to rise back to the surface where all of his thoughts awaited.
In his mind the pieces were falling lightly into place like feathers flowing lightly down to rest and collect on top of the water. It had been a year since the death/birth of the second child. In the mind of our faithful hero failures come as signs. They mean something. They mean stop. After the first child had died he kept his feathers afloat with some clever things he had heard here or there. "All innocent children have a place in gods heaven." He knew the child had a soul if not then what was he arguing for sitting outside the abortion clinic so many Saturdays saving one more baby for the cause, one more baby that wasnt his. And god gave this fetus a soul and its soul was then condemned to either heaven or hell. What could it have done to deserve hell? it had died only 2 minutes after being born or maybe in fact that meant it was never born at all. And it didnt help our hero to think that this child had in the past years been burning in a hell of any making. He would not think it. It did not compute.
"Hes in a better place now" and that place wasnt in the empty 2 bedroom apartment of our hero, but a better place, a place somewhere with god. God had his child now. God had both children now he hoped and feared. And, as his pain grew even worse he remembered the phrase" its all part of gods plan." Was gods plan to steal his children from him? To keep them for his own. What other purpose could they serve to god that others could not? What purpose could they serve that their loss would end in the deterioration of husband and wife {this holy communion that god had so blatantly advised them to engage in). Then to be split apart by the weight of their own shame and grief, by the weight of the blame of themselves, and of the blame of each other, by the financial strain that going through 2 failed pregnancies can have on a marriage But, this was then all also part of gods plan, our hero thought.
With a very quiet surfacing the answer emerged belly up in front of him. It seemed as though all these thoughts flowing into toward one great resolve were coming in toward each other sinking down into a vortex and strengthening him by their density.
Hate.
Hate became the force his rage could displace. And who to hate. His children for dying? How could it have been their fault? Their mother for birthing them only so that they would then fall breathless? Their mother young and happy and anxious of the birth even after the first death clinging onto a self serving hope that had helped to push both of them through each pregnancy to the full term.
Of all the characters in this act only one thought our hero had not been brought to the curtain call.
God.
The villain he thought must have perpetrated all these things upon him ---it was all part of his plan---they were in a better place---children are all innocent in gods eyes. And then it was death that was part of the plan and then divorce and then poverty and then now rage must be part of his plan. And our hero now wanted to see the face of god more that ever beforeso that he could spit in it.
---------------->
Fire, no, gas, no, explosives...our hero debated how he was going to save at least 1000 innocent souls. It was getting easier. It was getting to be more fun. The way any job gets more fun once you settle into all the ways you can screw around. It was getting more interesting. He was building a good working knowledge. Now, not just picking off the easiest but hoping for a challenge playing games in the mall or around the park, eliciting complex schemes.
The easiest way to fool someone is with flattery. The easiest way to get a young mother to leave her young daughter just long enough to redeem its innocent soul is to tell her that you want to photograph her. And, nowhere is this easier than at the mall, and our hero was on his second mall today. Hitting all the malls in the city, one after another, never the same mall twice.
The first one went well. Mother and child in the bathroom, mother fixing her make-up, child sitting calmly in a stroller. The mother bends down and gives the child one last tiny peck kiss and wipes the lipstick off its cheek. Behind the black curtains against a blue background mother waits for the photographer to come back. Say cheese. Flash. And, the mother steps outside the curtain. The aperture closes the bright light of the mall makes her pupils tiny and useless. Every child she sees could be her own. She shaking like a Polaroid and the picture is finally developing. The truth emerges into bright contrast. Her child is gone. Our hero has saved the day.
Wind the camera. Another mother ready for more exposure. But, this wolf has learned to mind her cub well. When our hero returns into the black curtains hes sorry that the camera hasnt arrived yet and the crew isnt there yet. "How about we kill a little time" says the mother in the near pitch darkness behind the curtain her child below her in a stroller a child too young to know anything about sex...the perfect child to save. And, the young mother pulls at our heros sport jacket and pulls him in against her.
Sex, children and death (the father, the son and the holy ghost) the trinity that has brought him here and right now he cant take his mind off of any of them. The child sits within reaching distance of them as the young mother places our heros hand on her leg right below her skirt and thumbs and then tugs his black leather belt loose. In what light is sneaking in through the fabric of the curtain our hero can make out the top of the childs head still very much alive. As if in one motion the young mother unbuttons his pants and turns around to rest her hands on the stool she waited on for her picture. Our hero's hand still rested on her leg. Our hero is so close now he could reach down and snap the neck of the child. The mother might hear that. He pulls down her underwear and his as well, and then, as the child turns around at knee level to see them. Nothing. It isnt working. But why not? In the past what has sex led to? Nothing but the death of children but here in the mall behind the curtain sex wasnt happening. The young mother reached back behind her to find what she was looking for. Not her child. And, she found death. "I can't" is all our hero replied" half to the mother...half to the child...partly to his god...all to himself.
<----------------
Complications is the word the doctor used right before they shoved our hero out of the delivery room. Waiting out in hallway for what could have been days, but in actuality was less than 2 minutes. The door to the delivery room opened and his wife rolled by, nurses on each side, a lamb being brought to the sacrifice. He followed them closely behind trying to gain the attention of one of the nurses until the doors of the operation room closed in his face. He tried to force the doors open, through the criss-crossed lines in the window he saw a nurse coming back toward the door. The nurse opened the door and before she had a chance to say anything our frightened hero ran past her and toward the operating room. He made it just in time to see the surgeon cut his wife in half .
"Get him out of here!" A larger male nurse came toward him to push him out of the room. He side stepped and ran to the other side of the bed.
"Don't chase him!" the surgeon yelled. It wouldn't have done any good. Our hero had waited patiently just one year ago in the waiting room of this same hospital with the same word "complications" running through his head.
At that moment the doctor reached down into his wife and pulled out 4 pounds of blue and red. The nurses all gathered around the mass of tissue trying to breath life into it. Our hero ran over beside his sleeping wife and brushed back her hair. After the next 2 minutes the electricity left the nurses and the room. The doctor whispered something to the large nurse who then took our hero by the arm and led him back to the waiting room. He didnt put up a fight. Who could he have fought? What could he have done? Hope was his enemy now. His wife now being sewn back into one piece was fast asleep maybe still dreaming of hope. Our hero almost hoped that she wouldnt wake.
------------->
"Spare him from going down in the pit", our heros word bounced like fire off the back of the 4 year olds neck making the hair stand on end. He felt the same heat in the palm of his hand cup over the childs mouth and nose. " I have found a ransom for him"--- "hurry up Dylan" a womans voice pleads and interrupts him from outside the mens bathroom door here at the new baseball stadium. "then his flesh is renewed like a childs it is restored as in the days of his youth"... Inside the stall our hero is pulling another fish from the water ..The needle enters the childs right arm, and for moment the child puts all his might into biting down on our heros index finger . "He prays to god and finds favor with him" our hero speaks from behind squinting eyes and a choked whisper throat. Blood runs out from around the childs teeth and out from around the needle in his arm. The plug has reached the tip of the syringe. All the insulin is in Dylan now "he sees gods face and shouts for joy" and the insulin coursing through Dylans veins isnt helping him. It isnt making him better. The only difference between medicine and poison is the dosage. "He is restored by god to his righteous state"... Our hero pulls the needle from the child and sets him softly down on the toilet of the stall and walks out the door and by the mother, talking into her cell phone. He smiles...she smiles back.
Our hero sits in the back of the church. He surveys the small tufts of hair that barely make it over the backs of the pews. Now and then one or another goes to the bathroom now and then one or another falls asleep. You think your safe here. Everyone plays by the same rules.
Following the childrens heads back near the back of the church he notices a face. He moves his head along still surveying, stalking his victim, diagnosing his patient. His eyes take him back to the woman whos eyes come back to meet his. The eyes are baggy and dark, her clothes just as baggy and just as dark. Another child walks off alone to the bathroom. Our hero is torn, glancing at the child, he's losing precious seconds. Looking back at the lady in black and gray hes feeling many things, most of them smothered in shame, many of them stabbing him with anticipation, with anxiety, like a child stabbing holes in the top of an empty jar to keep their pets from suffocating. And the sermon is over. Its time to take the children to a separate room. Its time for R rated church. viewer discretion is advised.
Some of the children are lining up behind the woman in gray and black, and they have the children alone. Each person has at least 8 children alone. Conveniently broken down into groups by age. And what look like children from 4 to 6 follow the dark dressed lady out of the main room of the church.
Our hero watches the preachers hands rise and fall, his head shake, and the pages of his bible flutter back and forth, but he doesnt hear a word. He only hears his own thoughts. All the time the preachers words seem to be for everyone else, our hero left out. He raises his voice for emphasis it sound like the voice of a best friend, whos sleeping with your ex-girlfriend, and everyones looking at you, they dont know whether to laugh or look away, and our hero he doesnt know now whether to run away or walk.
/Have you ever been bitten by a snake? It sways hypnotically before it strikes. And gods the life of the party. but your taking god home drunk and angry and looking for something to hurt. Our hero stands up sober an walks out the church doors./
[the sky is blood red as our hero walks along a dusty path in between large rows of stone columns. To either side are heckling crowds; our heros wrists hurt. He looks over at his wrist to see it impaled by a crude spike and fastened to a large piece of wood he drags along the gauntlet. The faces resemble the people at church, they resemble the people at the mall. Children from the crowd run to and sit upon the large plank he drags behind him. He cant bring his head above the line of his back which nearly points at the ground in front of him. Drudging himself and his passengers up to the top of a dusty hill. The children hoist the wooden planks upright. And, they say that Jesus died so that you could be a fuck up and get away with it. A full grown man, without sin, without temptation, a bearded child. And our hero has killed more then 40 Jesus' now, martyred before they could become fuck ups. And the aging mob stands waiting at the foot of the hill .] Our hero opens his eyes to the dark bare wall of his apartment. Or at least its his until they change the locks.
<On the news another child eats a handful of lead paint and dies in his sleep. A child chokes on a throat sized happy-meal Disney toy. Another child chases a ball out into the street. Another child tries to use stairs for his first and last time. In the news paper another kid gets hard boiled in the bath tub. Some poor kid saw his favorite toy in the family swimming pool. Some parent shook their child like a wrist watch to get it to stop crying. Another kid drank anti-freeze like lime kool-aid. Still another is left in the back seat of a car with the windows up, or down with the car left running in the garage. Parents and children taking it upon themselves to do the right thing. All these clean souls ascend softly to eternity. Society has its built in fail safes its population control mechanisms. This makes our hero's work a little easier.>
Our hero walks devil may care into the church half way through the sermon like a delinquent child walking into class 20 minutes late and making no apologies. As if she were waiting for him to enter the woman in gray and black from the previous Sunday ,now with a little more color in her wardrobe, just red, stands and walks up behind our hero and says into his ear "You need to leave. Its not safe for you to be here.". "Meet me outside."
Outside its muggy but clearing from a rain all that morning. She pulls a cigarette out and begins to smoke it, doesnt offer him one. "They have pictures of you, on television". "You're in a warehouse of some dollar store." "I could tell it was you, and I know what your doing, you have to stop" Our hero stays quiet hoping his silence will save him from even further trouble. "Why are you," she stops herself short "Dont you think that Im angry too?".
"How have you been?" our hero asks diverting the line of questioning.
"Well, miserable, but Im getting better". "You cant come here, you cant go anywhere" .
"Whats getting better?" our hero interrupts.
"You need to find some place to hide out for a while".
If she only knew, he thought.
"I never wanted you to go." he says deliberately staring the opposite direction of her face.
Inside the church the sermon is winding down it sounds like a horse race and the winner has just been announced. No further bets. " I have to go," she explains.
At the childrens hospital, our hero is giving out hugs to sick children. Hes hugging their necks tightly with four fingers resting on the backs of their necks, and thumbs trying hard to reach those fingers. Hugging is choking for beginners. The only difference between medicine and poison is the dosage. Some of these children no doubt were getting the job done themselves. They say that in heaven even crippled children can walk and these quadriplegics dont put up too much of a fight. This can make our heros job a little easier. For some of their parents its the end of a long trial. For some it will come as an late abortion. This could be considered euthanasia, its passive murder, our hero just unplugs the machine.
"I still dread all my sufferings" he whispers to the side of the pillow. "For I know you will not hold me innocent." He pulls the pillow away and this child is cured.
------------------
Children sit along 3 tables coloring pictures of Jesus, and Joseph of Moses and Mary, and a woman dressed in gray and black sits at the front of the small room watching them. She stares a little too long at some of them. Two boys color together at a table alone. These boys could have been hers. If only they were a about 4 pounds and dark red an blue. The color you paint a fish or a loaf of bread, the colors you paint a wise man on a camel.
knock. Knock
At the door our hero stands. His shirt is a dull blue. His black tie is pulled up too far. The bottom flap shows at the tip. A tucked shirt bulges irregularly under his black pants pulled a little to high. Tourniquet synched is a brown leather belt along his waist. His hair, an even 1/2 inch all around, and dirty blonde approaching clean brown. His eyebrows make an upside down v looking both sad and also concerned. His face cleanly shaven.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"God didnt speak to me", he answered, "I wasn't called out. This isnt a miracle. This isn't a crusade. This isn't the lords work. Im doing this for myself. I'm doing it for them, and I dont think god likes it. I don't really care. He hesitates for a moment. "I know you must understand what I mean." He looks over her shoulder at the children in the class coloring large wooden boats, lambs, fig leaves. "I've got nowhere to stay". Alligator tears fall and hit his tie. "I know your lonely, thats why youre here almost everyday. I want your help. And maybe I can stop."
You cant just leave him homeless. You cant just let him starve. He's lonely. He needs guidance. He needs a savior. What would Jesus do? She turned around facing in the door.
"Class" she said. When all seven faces were staring back at her she said "field trip".
<--------------
5 days and nights for recovery and evaluation. Then, our hero and his wife are going home for bed rest, this was when home still had a bed. And our hero still had a job at the toy factory. The second bedroom in their apartment filled with toys discounted or free due to defects. Our hero's wife just sitting in the middle of that room and staring at you standing at the door. Shes too smart to say try again. Shes clinging to a defective baby doll just a little discolored one chemical or another wasnt mixed in the appropriate amount, probably some of our heros work, but it was free.
When the words "well get through this" or "I love you" should have came out, the words the came out of our hero standing in the doorway were "what now?" His wife began to sob even louder.
Meet at church. What now? Become friends. What now? Fall in love. What now? Move in. What now? Have a child. What now? Get married. What now? Please go back two spaces. The games is playing against you. They keep skipping your turn. Up ahead on the board you see "buy a house", "soccer practice", "get a mortgage". Go back two spaces...roll again...go back two spaces. You can keep laying down bets or you can fold this hand and wait for the next deal. What now? School, church, police, television...they tell you that this is the only gamethe only board...and here are the rules...roll again...and the card says go to live at mothers.
-------------->
Kidnapping---adoption, its really all just a matter of paperwork. Our hero and his new sidekick and their 6 adopted children( one had gone back into the church to tell his parents} are making their way down the freeway a half hour from the church where the parents are no doubt raising hell and praying to god simultaneously. They had just stopped for food and for a bathroom break, the last one before they got to where they were going. In 2-3 hours the childrens pictures, their crying parents, and, of course, the preacher would be on the news, next to a photo of our trusty sidekick. And, later on, a thirty second update on the status of the "kiddie killer."
In an empty parking lot, not empty as in just a few cars but actually empty, our trusty sidekick parks her suv at the far end where through the front glass perfectly framed is the outline of an outdated arena. Stepping out of the car the children stretch their legs "were the only ones here."
Our hero grabs a tire tool. "C'mon were gonna miss it."
Inside the doors and past where our hero has ripped off the signs and taped marked "keep out" and "blast zone" the children look around in amazement at the empty arena looking like an ancient Greek landmark.
"I dont think we should be in here." one of he children urges.
"I dont think we should be in here." says an older child with a mocking whiney voice.
"Take a look around," urged our trusty sidekick " but meet me back here in 10 minutes, were still having class."
The children scattered in all directions leaving our hero and his sidekick alone at the entrance.
"You could have saved me" our hero confesses, looking her straight in the eye.
"I'm saving you now," she replied.
"Why didnt you stay."
"I felt like I was dying" she says lighting another cigarette " But, now even that doesn't matter."
"Still, I'm afraid."
"So am I."
One of the children runs up to them "I dont think we should be in here. I found a thing on one of the walls that says EXPLOSIVE. I dont think its safe in here."
"Its fine." assured our trusty sidekick. "Go have some fun and meet back here in about five minutes"
He wasnt going to take her for her word. He went back to the children "We need to get out of here, lets go back to the car."
"Go back then if you want to." one of the children demanded.
So, he turned around and headed toward the exit.
"Wait." one of the other children asked, "im coming with you."
And, the two of them walked out the utility door and back toward the suv, while the other children jumped around in seats, played behind the counters, ran up and down the stairs, explored hidden rooms, until their ten minutes was expired and in a huff of disappointment and exhaustion they walked back over to our hero and sidekick.
As she took the last few drags of her cigarette while the kids stood waiting, our hero looked over at her and out of habit or nostalgia asked "what now?"
"Follow me." she replied
They made their way through a labyrinth of hallways and doorways until they opened a large green door and stood in the dug out looking at the field, muddy and overgrown.
"Wait. Where is Eli, and Jacob?"
" I think they went back to the car" replied the oldest child
Our hero and sidekick eyed their synchronized watches.
"Never mind, well meet them later" she said "Does everyone remember the lords is my shepherd?"
Several heads nodded halfheartedly.
"Good. Now lets recite it."
"The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want".."not want" the delay of the young minds was catching up. "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside still waters"
Thats when the first blast goes off.
Still waters turn instantly into terrified screams as across the field, at the other side of the stadium, smoke billows out of the corridors as the structure seems to swallow itself.
"He restores my soul " our hero and side kick speculate, not missing a beat as another blast and another go off fractions of second later.
"He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his names sake"
Outside the stadium, across the parking lot, sitting on the hood of an suv, Jake and Eli finally hear the blast which lays them instantly flat on the hood out of surprise.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for you are with me."
One child runs to the door. She pushes herself out and disappears into the labyrinth. Another child hoists himself onto the field.
"Your rod and your staff they comfort me."
Outside on the hood of the suv the two boys watch as fists of smoke and rubble reach around both sides of the stadium.
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all my days of life."
Our hero and sidekick can not even hear their own words in their mouths. As they recite unfaltering, she pushes out her hand in his direction only to find his open hand is already there. They implode into each others fingers, their eyes looking at the ground each looking at another set of eyes, two children at their waists squeezing tightly.
"And I shall dwell in the house of the lord, forev."
No more sound.
Only the quick zip the doors of the suv make as they unlock by themselves.
The two boys get in and sit down.
--
-{wsokg !
!9-9-9-{wsokgTTTT-{wsokg
