God preserve us from writers who regurgitate what they have learnt from books! It is people’s secrets we want to know – it is the natural history of the human heart that we have been trying to put down for a thousand years.
– August Strindberg
Tag: God
Fiction: One Low Payment
“I’m going next door for just a little while,” Pastor Henniks told his wife.
“All right,” Sue said. “I’m going on to bed. Don’t be too long.”
He nodded at her and went out the front door of his parsonage and walked across the lawn to his church. He let himself in a side door and went directly to the sanctuary. The pews could hold about eight hundred people, and most Sundays they were filled. He turned on the chancel lights, leaving most of the room in darkness.
He knelt before the altar and stared at the gold-plated cross.
“Lord, I know I’ve done wrong. I’ve done more wrong than a man should, especially a man in my position. I’m sorry. I am so very sorry. Please, please help me. Don’t visit my sins on my poor family or on my congregation. They don’t deserve that. I know I’ve done wrong. But I’ll change, I’ll change. I’ll mend my ways if you’ll just take this cup from me.”
Fiction: Fallen Gods
“Omari, you promised that this year you would explain the human Christmas to me.”
“So I did, Naji. Come, then; let’s take a little walk.”
Omari stretched, curving his back high, and ended up on all four paws. He led the other cat out of the warm shed and down the alley.
“Tell me, young Naji, about Egypt.”
“In Egypt we were worshipped as gods,” Naji replied brightly, “because we were the ones who killed both the rodents that infested the granaries and the fearsome cobras. This knowledge is part of every cat and is every cat’s birthright.”
“Very good,” the older cat said. “But later?”
Fiction: The Side of the Angels
“You’re … what?”
Lonnie had been sitting alone on the park bench, quietly minding his own business, soaking in a little late afternoon sun, and continuing to recover from the excesses of the previous night. He’d come to this part of the park to get away from the old busker playing his trumpet. Still, a few high notes would sometimes drift over. And he’d been alone until an absolutely nondescript middle-aged man came strolling along and sat down next to him. Even at that, the man was so utterly unremarkable that Lonnie didn’t notice him at first, or that he had a cloth bag. Then the man spoke.
“You heard me,” the man said. “I am Satan, and I want you to do a job for me.”
“Look, guy,” Lonnie said. “I had too much to drink last night, too. Go home and sleep it off. I’m not in the mood.”
“Your mood is not relevant to our conversation,” the bland man said. “I need someone killed and you can easily do the job. The target sold her soul to me and doesn’t wish to pay. She’s trying everything she can think of to avoid her fate, and I’m getting tired of it. Even though it will do her no good, she’s holed up in a church, and the priest is sympathetic to her. I want you to go in and kill her.”