W.A.S.T.E.
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2008
- Messages
- 680
Hello to all. This is a story I wrote around November/December of 2008. I submitted this as my final project for the fiction workshop I was enrolled in at the time. I haven't touched it since then and I was just wondering what you all thought. Constructive criticism is desired. :D
To clarify, because the text formatting on this forum is rediculous, any double space between paragraphs/lines should be intepreted to mean a jump in time. Thanks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The kiss of cold metal on the forehead. The grip caressing the moist, trembling palm. The trigger teasing the finger. Clear sensations coursing through the brain in electric effluxes. Beyond the sight, beyond the barrel, beyond the shaking hand, is a nebulous mass rumbling and trampling towards him in elongated seconds. Fire. Heat. The thrashing blur approaches. Porfirio Maximiliano Herrera has a choice to make.
“¡Dios mío, Maxi!” his mother said. It was his first time home since being proclaimed alive. She ran towards him in a flurry of flower-scent. Her wrinkled fingers pressed hard against his face pushing his cheeks into his mouth. “How is this possible?” She embraced him, but as soon as she did she pulled away. Her tired fingers stiffened against his shoulders. She held him at arms length. Her eyes narrowed. She angled her lined face. “You were dead”, she said. “You are dead. You don’t feel like my son.” She backed away, holding her face at the same angle. Her eyes still narrowed, stinging and glistening. She turned slowly and knelt before the crucifix in the living room. She began to pray.
The mass continues to wind and writhe toward Porfirio. The sound, softened and mutilated by distance now becomes clearer. It’s a voice. Garrulous and singeing. A volatile chorus blasting to the night sky.
“The LORD has come! The LORD will save! The LORD will save us from our grave!”
It was one month after he returned. He rummaged through the mail and it was envelope after envelope of the same thing. The letters inside told him to” buy your soul back from Satan” or to “die you dirty spick”. The letters were a pestering extension of the photographic flashes and the murmuring crowds, an extension of the headlines proclaiming “Modern-day miracle in Central CA”, an extension of that question that always came like a black, rotting, and waste-eating fly: “Can we speak with you for a minute?” Porfirio’s eyes began to dull to the white of the thin envelopes. The world had turned into a mushy, colorless fog when something small and red slipped out of the pile. It was a business card. Big Ray’s Deli. There was writing on the back. A message, both sweet and terrifying to Porfirio’s tired eyes: You are not alone.
The mass’ skin is flaming death. Black becomes red. Red becomes orange. Arms whip in unguided directions, in a violent frenzy of fire and sweat. Its legs hammer furiously, beating a blazing tattoo on the ground. The rhythm of the million steps like a blasting machine gun. Its voice is a roar.
“The LORD brings love! The LORD brings breath! The LORD will save us from our death!”
Porfirio walked downtown. The card in hand. Big Ray’s Deli. 4100 “M” Street. He turned the card over and re-read the small, scrawled message again: “You are not alone”.
The streets were barren. There was no rustling of birds in bushes, no bustling of cars on roads. He walked down “M” Street and every step built to an answer, the mystery unfolding like flowers in the light.
4096.
The message repeated in his head: You are not alone. Who wrote it? What can that mean? Are there others like me? What happened to me? Maybe answers are ahead. I hope.
4098.
Porfirio only experienced anticipation. He was getting closer. He could only get closer.
4100.
The deli was closed. He looked in all directions. Only empty streets and closed shops. He approached the window and peered inside to see only more emptiness; unoccupied chairs sitting at unadorned tables. He turned to leave when a rough voice grabbed his ear, “Over here. Follow me.”
A tall figure walked away. Porfirio needed to follow. He needed an answer. The man led him down an alley next to the building. In a small enclosure behind the deli was a small storage garage. The man opened the door. There was only darkness. He held it open and nodded towards the inside of the garage. Porfirio looked from the man’s expressionless face to the doorway. He crossed the door’s threshold and lost himself in darkness.
His breathing escalated. His heart beat wildly. He anticipated an attack.
A thought; why am I doing this?
The door closed. Silence.
He spun around. A dim light flickered on.
The man stood in front of the door and said “My name is John and I’ve been waiting for you.”
The room was layered with dust. The air was thick, almost solid. It smelled of oil and wet dirt. The walls were bare except for a few paintings. There were two chairs and a table. John motioned for them to sit.
He ran his hand through his beard. “Your name is Porfirio Maximiliano Herrera, correct?”
“Yes,” Porfirio said “but I prefer Maxi”.
“Maxi? Okay, Maxi. First things first, do you have any questions for me?”
“Who are you?”, Porfirio asked. His heart agonized through beats.
“I”, he began, “am John as I’ve already told you. And I am part of a movement. A revolution. The Assembly of Holy Resurrection.” He coughed and rumbled like a saw. “And you are very important to this movement.”
Porfirio was eager. He didn’t want to hear about a movement. “What do you mean by ‘You are not alone.’?” He showed John the card.
“You aren’t alone, Maxi.”, John affirmed. “The Assembly of Holy Resurrection is spread throughout the town and we’ve been waiting for you.” His eyes widened and lengthened with every word. The irises became browner, the pupils became blacker devouring the frail light. “We, The Assembly of Holy Resurrection, have been chosen to protect you. Our purpose is you. Now that you are here, we can continue with the Divine Plan.” His voice trembled with every syllable. His consonants shuddered and his vowels blended into one another becoming nearly indistinguishable. “You are our Lord. The Lord”.
Deep creases formed on his forehead as he waited for Porfirio’s reply. His skin glistened with sweat. His breaths were shallow.
Porfirio inhaled deeply and asked, “Who chose you?”
John’s eyebrows rose and his head recoiled, “Who?”, he repeated, “The same one who brought you back. The same one who brought me to this town. The same one who gave me the dreams.” He pointed to the paintings on the walls. “The same one who brought us together.” His shaking brown eyes remained fixed on Porfirio. He leaned forward and whispered, “God”.
A long and strained silence followed.
“You’re insane”. Porfirio stabbed the air with his finger. “I’m not your Lord or part of some divine plan.”
John again pointed to the paintings, stammering, “You see those? They show what will happen! These are visions I had in dreams. You can’t deny or escape the plan.” His eyes were black expanses of space.
Porfirio stared intensely through the feeble light at the paintings. Figures worshipping a floating body in one. Red paint splattered in another one. A black night sky. A red moon. Color patterns like fire.
“You”, John continued, “must make sure you stay alive. You must make it through the plan. I was warned that you might not believe me and I can tell that you don’t. But you must stay alive. You must make it through. A new age will come in your name!” His voice boomed off the walls and echoed violently. “In fire your age will come.”
Porfirio rose from the chair and slowly backed towards the door, towards the sunlight, towards sanity. John’s face burned through the dimness.
“Before you leave. You must take this.” John took a handgun from under the table. He approached and held it towards Porfirio. “You can never be too cautious. Especially with who you are.” He smiled knowingly. “Our time has run out. You must go.”
Porfirio’s thoughts jumbled in frenetic electricity. He took the gun.
Silence.
He backed towards the door. The dust that burst with each footstep danced chaotically around John’s darkening frame. He hit the door with his back.
A count: 1…2…3
Porfirio turned and bulldozed his way out the door into blinding light. He sprinted feverishly towards home. The gun tucked into his jeans, warmly singeing the cold flesh of his back.
Countless eyes blaze towards Porfirio like comets of brimstone. The mass tramples on itself to reach him, to reach him and enrapture him in its singeing grasp. Its million tongues dart in and out in myriad directions. It wants to embrace him. It wants to hold him up.
Porfirio feels the kiss of warm metal on a cold forehead.
March 16. His mother, that bastion of kindness, the bearer of eyes like warm chocolate stung him endlessly with those very eyes. The endless, discarnate prick of distrust. He could feel a poison slowly taking effect. A toxin coursing through the veins, thirsting for the flesh of vital organs. It ailed him as he attended school. It ailed him as he came home and cleaned, as he cooked, as he worked and washed the dirt from dishes and clothes and walls.
His mother prayed intensely for him. “I pray for your soul, Maxi”, she told him. “I sleep at night and pray to God that you be saved.” Porfirio could not embrace her. “Don’t touch me!” she said. “Your body is cold like death.” She always crossed herself in his presence. She always crossed herself before sleeping. Then she always thanked him for the things he did. She thanked him for the cleaning, and the cooking, and the working, and the washing. She had done just that when Porfirio received a call.
“Lazarus Nero”, a man said smoothly into the phone. He was a televangelist. Millions of followers and counting. A pastor for the Brimwood Babylon Church. From Chicago, Illinois. He wanted a meeting. One week from that day. There were important things to discuss. Easter Sunday. Porfirio and Lazarus Nero would meet on Easter Sunday.
The slick and sliding grip is rigid in Porfirio’s dry palm.
A thought: All this because of me.
Seconds stretch thin in the blaze and the heat.
It was Easter Sunday and Porfirio walked to St. Sebastian’s Church of the Chosen. A man in a black suit sat at the steps leading to the entrance. He extended his hand and said “Lazarus Nero”. His voice brushed Porfirio’s ears like a smooth feather.
“Maxi Herrera” replied Porfirio. Lazarus loosened his grip, his dark hand moved slowly like thick honey.
“Maxi, I just want you to listen”, Lazarus said. “I do not expect an immediate answer from you. You can call me over telephone when you decide. But just listen. Listen closely.”
They sat on the steps of the church. The sun falling down, glowing dimly in the sky.
A thought: He seems nice. He seems good. Maybe he can help me? Maybe he has answers?
Lazarus’ long body relaxed on the steps. His suit was creaseless and clean. He began. “Maxi, I am a man of God. I was raised on the Word of the Lord and I shall die on the Word of the Lord. My calling is to adhere to God; to be a mouthpiece for Him, so all, everybody, the poor and the rich, the lowly and mighty, can hear His truths spoken.” He cleared his throat.
Porfirio fidgeted on the steps. He was feeling uncomfortable.
A thought; why am I doing this?
Lazarus continued, “People see me and hear me and they know that God is great. They know that He exists, yes. They know that there is a great beyond where they will reign as kings in times of peace.” Lazarus’ hands danced to the rhythm of his words. Punctuating the breaths and the stops. Weaving patterns in the air with every syllable.
Maxi felt an edge in the smooth folds of Lazarus’ voice.
“I tell my congregations of the great future times that lie ahead, yes. But I have always known that we are in a special time. A holy time. A divine time. And you Maxi—you Maxi are the sign of its divinity. People have been waiting for you. You are one of God’s miracles.” Lazarus breathed in and stared at the fading sun. “It is your destiny to lead the chosen people to salvation, but you cannot do it on your own. We need each other.” Lazarus pointed at himself and at Porfirio. “Your story is publicized and accepted, but the Lord’s true believers will not take you seriously. You are from nowhere. You are no one. You are a student. I, on the other hand, have a name. I—I am a preacher. My voice reaches millions of ears.”
Porfirio saw answers disappearing with the waning sunlight.
“If we are together”, he continued, “people will praise God and his glories, yes. God can have power. We can have power.” Lazarus voice flowed like ocean waves. Porfirio floated along.
“Together, you and I, we can own the people. They will lift us up and never speak of greater glories. No cent to unholy causes. No words for small matters. Every breath for you and me.” The sun fell farther. Light weakly lingered in the air. “Think about it. That’s all I ask. Then tell me what you decide.”
The trigger trembles under Porfirio’s steady finger. The seconds stop. Each one loops onto itself. The mass is frozen in its fire. His thoughts drift to the beginning.
December 22. Winter just began, but the days had long settled into the icy mono-rhythm of frost in the morning, frost in the afternoon, and frost in the evening. Porfirio awoke to familiarity. He felt the drunkenness of sleep. He showered with laziness. He ate breakfast with satisfaction. He thought with languor. He breathed with emptiness. He did the things he always did.
From morning to afternoon he stared at his computer. He studied the intricacies of the cell, the eukaryotes, the prokaryotes, the physiological processes of plants and animals, etc. until his watch alarm rang shrill in the air. It was a reminder of his duties as a student and so, with a familiar emptiness, Porfirio headed to the public library.
The walk there was uneventful. Familiar sensations guided the way. The empty white sky extended into infinity and was dappled by familiar eye floaters. Barren trees bowed starkly in a glacial wind. Houses stood rigid and icy, like slowly moving glaciers. Impulsive dogs greeted him with rabid barking that stopped only when their snouts stiffened.
The library was no different. Books were everywhere and arranged so elegantly. Porfirio was fulfilling his duty so he walked into the science section and pulled out a book. He checked out and proceeded on homeward.
The sky, still white, reached outward in every direction. Floaters still shadowed smoothly as his gaze scanned the sky. Houses remained frozen. Dogs barked rabidly and stopped from coldness.
As Porfirio walked, focused on the rhythm of his footsteps, a voice behind him asked, “Hey man, do you have any money?” He turned and his mind split open as a crack attacked the sky and assaulted his ears.
He registered quickly that a bullet had been fired into his chest. It exploded through his skin, dug through his breastplate and entered his heart interrupting the familiar rhythm. A hand reached for his back pocket and he plunged into an unfamiliar darkness.
Then he stirred as if waking from sleep. No feeling of drunkenness. His eyes opened to a pallid, pistachio ceiling. He lay on a bed covered only by a thin, cold sheet. He turned right. A sign read “Haadeskinn Funeral Parlor”. Below it, a calendar with an encircled December 25th. Panicked, he raised his head and saw a table of syringes and pumps. He sat up. Footsteps approached and a voice behind him cried, “Oh my God!”
The moment circuited through the singular dimension of a second. The thought seeping through the quarter-sized muzzle of the gun. The seconds slowly unfold. The stampeding mass moving quicker in an instant.
“The LORD is love! The LORD stops sin! In fury the LORD’s age will begin!”
Porfirio walked home after meeting with Lazarus. Porfirio walked under a black and infinite sky. He walked past blooming trees that shifted slowly and gently in a light breeze. Houses shimmered with warmth. Dogs slept and drooled in silence. Porfirio listened to the rhythm of his footsteps and just as he began to think of the darkness from months ago, the city roared and exploded into innumerable, charred fragments. He ran.
Ma. What is going on? Is she okay? What is going on? There’s fire.
The house was in disarray. Windows were broken. The door was gone. There was no sign of his mother. Graffiti on the walls. “Spick”. “Die”. “Survive like dirty roaches”. There was a note in the center of the living room:
“Maxi, I have had enough. I am at your aunt’s house. Good-bye.”
The city roared again. Fire leaped from the ground and shot into the black sky as smoke. Porfirio needed to get to his mother. Safety. A weapon. He ran to his room, to the gun. A voice from months ago spoke in his head, in fire your age will come. He ran to the street. The moon smoldered crimson in the night sky. It loomed larger and pulled stronger, swallowing the flames and the fumes of the burning town. A mass rustled in the distance.
Porfirio experiences the details in sharp clarity. The feel of the gun in his hand. It’s push against his forehead. The blackness. The smell of burning asphalt. The writhing and glistening limbs of the mass. The multitudinous, ear-tearing voice that cuts through the thick, palpable heat.
Lazarus’ words come to Porfirio like lightning. Together, you and I, we can own the people. They will lift us up and never speak of greater glories. No cent to unholy causes. No words for small matters. Every breath for you and me.
And as the sky melts around the smoldering moon. As the houses burn. As the writhing mass comes so close Porfirio can feel its thick breath like a sinister caress, he makes a choice.
He explodes a bullet into his brain.
The sound of the shot strings together with the wailing of the mass: “Noooo! Maxiiii! Maxiiii!” There is no longer a need for answers.
Porfirio plunges into the familiar darkness.
Porfirio’s eyes open. The world is shapeless. Only white. A light turns off. The world gains shape. He turns left. Black letters against an eggshell wall: Kharmadine Research Industries. He stares at the words and mouths them. Each syllable falls on his head like a stone. His eyes sting and tremble and moisten.
Then a voice, “We’ve been waiting. Now, shall we begin?”
To clarify, because the text formatting on this forum is rediculous, any double space between paragraphs/lines should be intepreted to mean a jump in time. Thanks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The kiss of cold metal on the forehead. The grip caressing the moist, trembling palm. The trigger teasing the finger. Clear sensations coursing through the brain in electric effluxes. Beyond the sight, beyond the barrel, beyond the shaking hand, is a nebulous mass rumbling and trampling towards him in elongated seconds. Fire. Heat. The thrashing blur approaches. Porfirio Maximiliano Herrera has a choice to make.
“¡Dios mío, Maxi!” his mother said. It was his first time home since being proclaimed alive. She ran towards him in a flurry of flower-scent. Her wrinkled fingers pressed hard against his face pushing his cheeks into his mouth. “How is this possible?” She embraced him, but as soon as she did she pulled away. Her tired fingers stiffened against his shoulders. She held him at arms length. Her eyes narrowed. She angled her lined face. “You were dead”, she said. “You are dead. You don’t feel like my son.” She backed away, holding her face at the same angle. Her eyes still narrowed, stinging and glistening. She turned slowly and knelt before the crucifix in the living room. She began to pray.
The mass continues to wind and writhe toward Porfirio. The sound, softened and mutilated by distance now becomes clearer. It’s a voice. Garrulous and singeing. A volatile chorus blasting to the night sky.
“The LORD has come! The LORD will save! The LORD will save us from our grave!”
It was one month after he returned. He rummaged through the mail and it was envelope after envelope of the same thing. The letters inside told him to” buy your soul back from Satan” or to “die you dirty spick”. The letters were a pestering extension of the photographic flashes and the murmuring crowds, an extension of the headlines proclaiming “Modern-day miracle in Central CA”, an extension of that question that always came like a black, rotting, and waste-eating fly: “Can we speak with you for a minute?” Porfirio’s eyes began to dull to the white of the thin envelopes. The world had turned into a mushy, colorless fog when something small and red slipped out of the pile. It was a business card. Big Ray’s Deli. There was writing on the back. A message, both sweet and terrifying to Porfirio’s tired eyes: You are not alone.
The mass’ skin is flaming death. Black becomes red. Red becomes orange. Arms whip in unguided directions, in a violent frenzy of fire and sweat. Its legs hammer furiously, beating a blazing tattoo on the ground. The rhythm of the million steps like a blasting machine gun. Its voice is a roar.
“The LORD brings love! The LORD brings breath! The LORD will save us from our death!”
Porfirio walked downtown. The card in hand. Big Ray’s Deli. 4100 “M” Street. He turned the card over and re-read the small, scrawled message again: “You are not alone”.
The streets were barren. There was no rustling of birds in bushes, no bustling of cars on roads. He walked down “M” Street and every step built to an answer, the mystery unfolding like flowers in the light.
4096.
The message repeated in his head: You are not alone. Who wrote it? What can that mean? Are there others like me? What happened to me? Maybe answers are ahead. I hope.
4098.
Porfirio only experienced anticipation. He was getting closer. He could only get closer.
4100.
The deli was closed. He looked in all directions. Only empty streets and closed shops. He approached the window and peered inside to see only more emptiness; unoccupied chairs sitting at unadorned tables. He turned to leave when a rough voice grabbed his ear, “Over here. Follow me.”
A tall figure walked away. Porfirio needed to follow. He needed an answer. The man led him down an alley next to the building. In a small enclosure behind the deli was a small storage garage. The man opened the door. There was only darkness. He held it open and nodded towards the inside of the garage. Porfirio looked from the man’s expressionless face to the doorway. He crossed the door’s threshold and lost himself in darkness.
His breathing escalated. His heart beat wildly. He anticipated an attack.
A thought; why am I doing this?
The door closed. Silence.
He spun around. A dim light flickered on.
The man stood in front of the door and said “My name is John and I’ve been waiting for you.”
The room was layered with dust. The air was thick, almost solid. It smelled of oil and wet dirt. The walls were bare except for a few paintings. There were two chairs and a table. John motioned for them to sit.
He ran his hand through his beard. “Your name is Porfirio Maximiliano Herrera, correct?”
“Yes,” Porfirio said “but I prefer Maxi”.
“Maxi? Okay, Maxi. First things first, do you have any questions for me?”
“Who are you?”, Porfirio asked. His heart agonized through beats.
“I”, he began, “am John as I’ve already told you. And I am part of a movement. A revolution. The Assembly of Holy Resurrection.” He coughed and rumbled like a saw. “And you are very important to this movement.”
Porfirio was eager. He didn’t want to hear about a movement. “What do you mean by ‘You are not alone.’?” He showed John the card.
“You aren’t alone, Maxi.”, John affirmed. “The Assembly of Holy Resurrection is spread throughout the town and we’ve been waiting for you.” His eyes widened and lengthened with every word. The irises became browner, the pupils became blacker devouring the frail light. “We, The Assembly of Holy Resurrection, have been chosen to protect you. Our purpose is you. Now that you are here, we can continue with the Divine Plan.” His voice trembled with every syllable. His consonants shuddered and his vowels blended into one another becoming nearly indistinguishable. “You are our Lord. The Lord”.
Deep creases formed on his forehead as he waited for Porfirio’s reply. His skin glistened with sweat. His breaths were shallow.
Porfirio inhaled deeply and asked, “Who chose you?”
John’s eyebrows rose and his head recoiled, “Who?”, he repeated, “The same one who brought you back. The same one who brought me to this town. The same one who gave me the dreams.” He pointed to the paintings on the walls. “The same one who brought us together.” His shaking brown eyes remained fixed on Porfirio. He leaned forward and whispered, “God”.
A long and strained silence followed.
“You’re insane”. Porfirio stabbed the air with his finger. “I’m not your Lord or part of some divine plan.”
John again pointed to the paintings, stammering, “You see those? They show what will happen! These are visions I had in dreams. You can’t deny or escape the plan.” His eyes were black expanses of space.
Porfirio stared intensely through the feeble light at the paintings. Figures worshipping a floating body in one. Red paint splattered in another one. A black night sky. A red moon. Color patterns like fire.
“You”, John continued, “must make sure you stay alive. You must make it through the plan. I was warned that you might not believe me and I can tell that you don’t. But you must stay alive. You must make it through. A new age will come in your name!” His voice boomed off the walls and echoed violently. “In fire your age will come.”
Porfirio rose from the chair and slowly backed towards the door, towards the sunlight, towards sanity. John’s face burned through the dimness.
“Before you leave. You must take this.” John took a handgun from under the table. He approached and held it towards Porfirio. “You can never be too cautious. Especially with who you are.” He smiled knowingly. “Our time has run out. You must go.”
Porfirio’s thoughts jumbled in frenetic electricity. He took the gun.
Silence.
He backed towards the door. The dust that burst with each footstep danced chaotically around John’s darkening frame. He hit the door with his back.
A count: 1…2…3
Porfirio turned and bulldozed his way out the door into blinding light. He sprinted feverishly towards home. The gun tucked into his jeans, warmly singeing the cold flesh of his back.
Countless eyes blaze towards Porfirio like comets of brimstone. The mass tramples on itself to reach him, to reach him and enrapture him in its singeing grasp. Its million tongues dart in and out in myriad directions. It wants to embrace him. It wants to hold him up.
Porfirio feels the kiss of warm metal on a cold forehead.
March 16. His mother, that bastion of kindness, the bearer of eyes like warm chocolate stung him endlessly with those very eyes. The endless, discarnate prick of distrust. He could feel a poison slowly taking effect. A toxin coursing through the veins, thirsting for the flesh of vital organs. It ailed him as he attended school. It ailed him as he came home and cleaned, as he cooked, as he worked and washed the dirt from dishes and clothes and walls.
His mother prayed intensely for him. “I pray for your soul, Maxi”, she told him. “I sleep at night and pray to God that you be saved.” Porfirio could not embrace her. “Don’t touch me!” she said. “Your body is cold like death.” She always crossed herself in his presence. She always crossed herself before sleeping. Then she always thanked him for the things he did. She thanked him for the cleaning, and the cooking, and the working, and the washing. She had done just that when Porfirio received a call.
“Lazarus Nero”, a man said smoothly into the phone. He was a televangelist. Millions of followers and counting. A pastor for the Brimwood Babylon Church. From Chicago, Illinois. He wanted a meeting. One week from that day. There were important things to discuss. Easter Sunday. Porfirio and Lazarus Nero would meet on Easter Sunday.
The slick and sliding grip is rigid in Porfirio’s dry palm.
A thought: All this because of me.
Seconds stretch thin in the blaze and the heat.
It was Easter Sunday and Porfirio walked to St. Sebastian’s Church of the Chosen. A man in a black suit sat at the steps leading to the entrance. He extended his hand and said “Lazarus Nero”. His voice brushed Porfirio’s ears like a smooth feather.
“Maxi Herrera” replied Porfirio. Lazarus loosened his grip, his dark hand moved slowly like thick honey.
“Maxi, I just want you to listen”, Lazarus said. “I do not expect an immediate answer from you. You can call me over telephone when you decide. But just listen. Listen closely.”
They sat on the steps of the church. The sun falling down, glowing dimly in the sky.
A thought: He seems nice. He seems good. Maybe he can help me? Maybe he has answers?
Lazarus’ long body relaxed on the steps. His suit was creaseless and clean. He began. “Maxi, I am a man of God. I was raised on the Word of the Lord and I shall die on the Word of the Lord. My calling is to adhere to God; to be a mouthpiece for Him, so all, everybody, the poor and the rich, the lowly and mighty, can hear His truths spoken.” He cleared his throat.
Porfirio fidgeted on the steps. He was feeling uncomfortable.
A thought; why am I doing this?
Lazarus continued, “People see me and hear me and they know that God is great. They know that He exists, yes. They know that there is a great beyond where they will reign as kings in times of peace.” Lazarus’ hands danced to the rhythm of his words. Punctuating the breaths and the stops. Weaving patterns in the air with every syllable.
Maxi felt an edge in the smooth folds of Lazarus’ voice.
“I tell my congregations of the great future times that lie ahead, yes. But I have always known that we are in a special time. A holy time. A divine time. And you Maxi—you Maxi are the sign of its divinity. People have been waiting for you. You are one of God’s miracles.” Lazarus breathed in and stared at the fading sun. “It is your destiny to lead the chosen people to salvation, but you cannot do it on your own. We need each other.” Lazarus pointed at himself and at Porfirio. “Your story is publicized and accepted, but the Lord’s true believers will not take you seriously. You are from nowhere. You are no one. You are a student. I, on the other hand, have a name. I—I am a preacher. My voice reaches millions of ears.”
Porfirio saw answers disappearing with the waning sunlight.
“If we are together”, he continued, “people will praise God and his glories, yes. God can have power. We can have power.” Lazarus voice flowed like ocean waves. Porfirio floated along.
“Together, you and I, we can own the people. They will lift us up and never speak of greater glories. No cent to unholy causes. No words for small matters. Every breath for you and me.” The sun fell farther. Light weakly lingered in the air. “Think about it. That’s all I ask. Then tell me what you decide.”
The trigger trembles under Porfirio’s steady finger. The seconds stop. Each one loops onto itself. The mass is frozen in its fire. His thoughts drift to the beginning.
December 22. Winter just began, but the days had long settled into the icy mono-rhythm of frost in the morning, frost in the afternoon, and frost in the evening. Porfirio awoke to familiarity. He felt the drunkenness of sleep. He showered with laziness. He ate breakfast with satisfaction. He thought with languor. He breathed with emptiness. He did the things he always did.
From morning to afternoon he stared at his computer. He studied the intricacies of the cell, the eukaryotes, the prokaryotes, the physiological processes of plants and animals, etc. until his watch alarm rang shrill in the air. It was a reminder of his duties as a student and so, with a familiar emptiness, Porfirio headed to the public library.
The walk there was uneventful. Familiar sensations guided the way. The empty white sky extended into infinity and was dappled by familiar eye floaters. Barren trees bowed starkly in a glacial wind. Houses stood rigid and icy, like slowly moving glaciers. Impulsive dogs greeted him with rabid barking that stopped only when their snouts stiffened.
The library was no different. Books were everywhere and arranged so elegantly. Porfirio was fulfilling his duty so he walked into the science section and pulled out a book. He checked out and proceeded on homeward.
The sky, still white, reached outward in every direction. Floaters still shadowed smoothly as his gaze scanned the sky. Houses remained frozen. Dogs barked rabidly and stopped from coldness.
As Porfirio walked, focused on the rhythm of his footsteps, a voice behind him asked, “Hey man, do you have any money?” He turned and his mind split open as a crack attacked the sky and assaulted his ears.
He registered quickly that a bullet had been fired into his chest. It exploded through his skin, dug through his breastplate and entered his heart interrupting the familiar rhythm. A hand reached for his back pocket and he plunged into an unfamiliar darkness.
Then he stirred as if waking from sleep. No feeling of drunkenness. His eyes opened to a pallid, pistachio ceiling. He lay on a bed covered only by a thin, cold sheet. He turned right. A sign read “Haadeskinn Funeral Parlor”. Below it, a calendar with an encircled December 25th. Panicked, he raised his head and saw a table of syringes and pumps. He sat up. Footsteps approached and a voice behind him cried, “Oh my God!”
The moment circuited through the singular dimension of a second. The thought seeping through the quarter-sized muzzle of the gun. The seconds slowly unfold. The stampeding mass moving quicker in an instant.
“The LORD is love! The LORD stops sin! In fury the LORD’s age will begin!”
Porfirio walked home after meeting with Lazarus. Porfirio walked under a black and infinite sky. He walked past blooming trees that shifted slowly and gently in a light breeze. Houses shimmered with warmth. Dogs slept and drooled in silence. Porfirio listened to the rhythm of his footsteps and just as he began to think of the darkness from months ago, the city roared and exploded into innumerable, charred fragments. He ran.
Ma. What is going on? Is she okay? What is going on? There’s fire.
The house was in disarray. Windows were broken. The door was gone. There was no sign of his mother. Graffiti on the walls. “Spick”. “Die”. “Survive like dirty roaches”. There was a note in the center of the living room:
“Maxi, I have had enough. I am at your aunt’s house. Good-bye.”
The city roared again. Fire leaped from the ground and shot into the black sky as smoke. Porfirio needed to get to his mother. Safety. A weapon. He ran to his room, to the gun. A voice from months ago spoke in his head, in fire your age will come. He ran to the street. The moon smoldered crimson in the night sky. It loomed larger and pulled stronger, swallowing the flames and the fumes of the burning town. A mass rustled in the distance.
Porfirio experiences the details in sharp clarity. The feel of the gun in his hand. It’s push against his forehead. The blackness. The smell of burning asphalt. The writhing and glistening limbs of the mass. The multitudinous, ear-tearing voice that cuts through the thick, palpable heat.
Lazarus’ words come to Porfirio like lightning. Together, you and I, we can own the people. They will lift us up and never speak of greater glories. No cent to unholy causes. No words for small matters. Every breath for you and me.
And as the sky melts around the smoldering moon. As the houses burn. As the writhing mass comes so close Porfirio can feel its thick breath like a sinister caress, he makes a choice.
He explodes a bullet into his brain.
The sound of the shot strings together with the wailing of the mass: “Noooo! Maxiiii! Maxiiii!” There is no longer a need for answers.
Porfirio plunges into the familiar darkness.
Porfirio’s eyes open. The world is shapeless. Only white. A light turns off. The world gains shape. He turns left. Black letters against an eggshell wall: Kharmadine Research Industries. He stares at the words and mouths them. Each syllable falls on his head like a stone. His eyes sting and tremble and moisten.
Then a voice, “We’ve been waiting. Now, shall we begin?”
