John Wycliffe Award

for an author writing in English as a second language

Goes to

Adel Emmanuel

Cairo, Egypt

(Category:  19 and up)

Bio: I am a fresh graduate pharmacist. I graduated from Ahin Shams University in Cairo. I was greatly encouraged by my friends to write some stories and participate in some writing competitions and contests; they saw something good in my words.

I participated in a competition had been held this winter 2009 in college with my one-page very short story. I have won the first place. As a result, I was more encouraged to participate in international contests, like ACM writing contest, and it seemed that God, as well as Debbie Thompson, also saw something good in my words.

I like to read very much to the contemporary novelists like Paulo Coelho, his masterpiece The Alchemist had touched me so much and had given me faith, will and hope. and I really adore classical writers like Tolstoy and his marvelous War and Peace.

Oracle of the Wicked Land is my very first short story.

To contact Adel Emmanuel you may request his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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by Adel Emmanuel

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

On a sunny morning, Adam looked to the sky and smiled, “Good morning, God”. Then a sweet breeze of air played with his ears with the voice of God, “Good morning, Adam”

Walking among the green trees, Adam saw lions playing with rabbits, hawks flying with doves, crocodiles drinking with zebras. All lived with each other in peace, harmony, and were enjoying together the magnificent natural world that God had created for them all.

This was how animals lived in the garden that God had made,  The Garden of Eden.

Adam was the head of all creatures the LORD God had made. He was the most powerful creature of God, the man of God.

He went in a search for his helper that God had made for him, Eve. Although the garden was full of animals and the expanse of the sky full of birds, Adam found his joy with Eve. He loved the whole garden, but with Eve, it was different. She was part of him. He could talk with all the animals, but without Eve, he was so lonely.

When God wanted to create a man, he created Adam. Imagine how charming Adam was. When God wanted to create a woman, he created Eve. Imagine how beautiful Eve was. They were head over heels in love. A love story just as God wanted it to be. Love for them was a life style. They simply worked in the garden, ate from its fruits and loved each other.

One day, Adam went searching for Eve. He found her standing before a very beautiful tree talking with a serpent. He came closer so that he could hear what they were talking about.

The serpent was craftier than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. They were talking about the tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, or you will die.’ ”

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to Eve, “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When she saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some. Then suddenly Adam interfered and took the fruit from her hand and threw it to the ground, “Do not eat,” Adam shouted angrily, “the LORD God has commanded, ‘we must not eat of the tree that is in the middle of the garden’.  Do not listen to the serpent!”

The serpent then fled from Adam and Eve’s faces.

Eve felt happy that Adam arrived in time. “The tree was really beautiful,” she said.

Adam took her hand and showed her every other tree in the Garden. “They are all beautiful, Eve”

Adam lay with his wife, and she conceived and Cain was the first fruit of their love. Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

Cain, who had a strong body, was cultivating the garden. He loved the trees, the flowers and any plant  having roots in the ground. Unlike Cain, Abel, who was leaner than Cain, loved the animals. He was a shepherd.

One day, when Cain was working with the plants, he met with the serpent, “You are much stronger even than Adam.” the serpent said, “You can rule over Adam, Eve, Abel and the others.”

Cain stopped working, sighed, “And why do I need something like that?” Cain asked.

The serpent said, “Because you deserve it. Do you know what this tree is, Cain?”

Cain looked to the beautiful tree, “Yes, it is the forbidden tree from which I must not eat or I will die”

The serpent laughed loudly, “No one dies, Cain. He, who eats from this tree, will rule over the world, be like the LORD God himself. What does such a strong man like you need, except power, authority and omnipotence?”

Cain did not think for a long time. He was the strongest. He should  rule over the world like God, the mighty. He took some fruit from the tree and ate. Then his eyes were opened and he realized he was naked; He hid among the trees, so that no one could see him.

Evil entered his soul. Knowledge of evil was enough to spoil the beautiful nature of humanity. Cain’s mind then was opened to know what God did not like him to know.

In the cool of the day, the LORD God was walking in the garden as usual, when he called Cain, “Cain, where are you?”

“I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” Cain replied.

“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

“The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Cain replied in shame.

So the LORD God said to Cain “Because you have listened to the serpent, you are expelled from the garden”

Cain then was filled with ignominy. He silently walked out of the Garden wearing animal skin garments   made by God.

The LORD God said, “Cain has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God placed around the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Through the silence of the night, Cain wandered in the land outside of the garden feeling very sad and lonely.

There was darkness everywhere.  As he got deeper into the land he heard a woman sobbing. He walked towards her voice. There was a woman dressed in blue sitting on a big rounded rock in front of a big tree. When he got closer the woman lifted her head and looked at him. She was white like ice, with long dark black hair and a small pointed nose. Her eyes were black with no eyeballs.

Cain looked at her and said, “Who are you? I thought that people lived only in the garden the LORD God made.”

“You thought wrong,” she replied. “God created me even before earth and heaven.”

“Before Earth!”  Cain wondered in his mind.

After a short pause, he went on,”Why were you crying?” he asked.

“Because this is where tears exist. Out of Eden, you should get used of crying, fear, pain, despair, dissatisfaction, grief, not getting what is desired, separation from those you loved and association with the unbeloved.”

Cain sat on the ground beside her. He seemed confused with her words. He didn’t understand what she meant. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Forget about Eden. The days of Eden are gone. Now, they are imprisoned in the garrison of your memory and will be no more, Cain.”

He was astonished that she knew his name.

The woman sensed how he felt and knew what went on in his mind. She continued, “I was waiting for you. I am the one who called you from Eden.”

Her answer filled his mind with curiosity and doubt, he asked, “How did you call me from Eden?”

“I am the soul of the serpent. I have talked to you through his tongue.”

Cain dreaded the woman. He let out a shudder and asked, “Who are you?”

The woman then walked away giving her back to him, hid behind the tree and vanished. Cain walked behind her and whirled around the tree, when a serpent, which was hanging on a branch of the tree, looked at him and hissed loudly. There were many of them hanging on all branches. Cain got mad and said to the serpent, “You deceived me.” The serpent fell on the ground and bit his heel. It was the first time that Cain experienced pain, which was very hard on him. Ten minutes later, he experienced another new thing, which was even harder: fever. His temperature rose rapidly, and his vision blurred, then he fainted on the ground.

In the Garden of Eden, three days later, everyone was talking about Cain, how he fell into the serpent’s trap. For Eve, it was different; even  though she had many sons and daughters, she mourned Cain’s loss. He was the eldest son, the dearest.

From the moment Cain was driven out the Garden, she kept asking herself, “Why? Why did God permit this to happen? Did he not know that Cain would eat the fruit since he knows everything? Why did  he even create this tree? Did He want us to eat it in the first place, if so, then why did he create us? And why did he let the serpent do what he wanted to do?”

She went to Adam for the tenth time asking him her eternal questions. But finally Adam had an answer, “God  created us because he  loved us even before he created us from the dust. He knew us in his mind and loved us. He created the garden for us to live happily forever with him. And about the serpent and the tree, they are one and of one origin, one purpose, evil exists. God’s love does not oppose his truthfulness and integrity. He respected us, and wanted to let us know that from the moment that good existed, evil existed. And we have to choose one to follow and to live within. God  chose good for us. So, we should not choose  evil for ourselves”

Eve glanced at Adam and let her tears fall. “I wish I was the one who had eaten from that tree. I wish you had not prevented me. Then, I would be with my son now. Bring me my son back, Adam. I do not care if he sinned, I just want him back.”

Adam felt the same grief not less than hers. He mourned him too inside his heart. He knew it was impossible to bring him back as he had disobeyed God’s command, “What can I do, Eve? Even God has stopped walking in the garden as he used to since he drove Cain out of it. But I will ask him for I know he will listen to my voice in prayers. Surely he will.”

On the next day, Adam raised his heart to God and prayed, “Bless me my LORD for I want to talk to you. I know that you are angry and sad for Cain has disobeyed your command. I am not praying for the wicked land, but for Cain, for he is yours. I am not in the wicked land, but he is. Holy God, protect him by the power of your name. I want Cain to be with me wherever I am. We feel no joy in Eden, not anymore, while Cain is alone in the wicked land under your eternal damnation. Eve and I are begging your endless mercies. We want Cain back. And you, the mighty God of the universe, certainly can find a way. Bless me my LORD and I will not be blamed.”

Cain opened one eye, then the other. He was lying on a woody bed in an empty rocky hut. He stood on his feet exploring where he was, when a short, bald, old man with a long black beard entered the hut, “Well, our man woke up. How are you now, Cain?” asked the short man.

Cain wondered that there were many of people outside of the garden. “Fine, Sir. But who are you?”

The short man laughed, “You ask a lot of questions, Cain. Anyway, I am Belial.”

Cain did not have a clue who Belial was. “Where am I, Belial?” Cain asked again.

“You are in the city of Babel, the biggest city of the wicked land. After you were bit by the serpent, we got you here in order to heal you. Are we not kind?” Belial replied.

“Thank you, Belial. Of course you are very kind”

After sleeping for three days, Cain discovered another new sensation. “I am hungry.”

Belial laughed again, “Go outside and help yourself.” Cain went outside the hut. There were many strange people working with some strange instruments like they were preparing for something. He looked at the trees, they were blooming. He went to one of them, but it was an unfruitful. Going to one after another, he found all were unfruitful. He went back to Belial, “All the trees are unfruitful, Sir. How can I eat from them?”

Belial seemed happy with Cain’s confusion, “Yes, they are. You must work the land; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Are we not kind?” Cain was not amused by Belial’s words this time.

Belial glanced at Cain with a roguish look, “You have to choose between three choices: the first, till the arid land and eat from your own work, the second, die of hunger.”

Cain asked him about the third option and Belial smiled and answered, “We serve and feed you.”

Cain did not hesitate; he chose the third option. “But there is nothing for free,” Belial said.

“What do you want?”

Belial seemed happier as if he had achieved his desire, “that is something Lucifer will tell you about.”

“But who is Lucifer?” Cain asked him.

“Oh, that one you met three days before; the oracle of the wicked land.”

Michael was the archangel of the cherubim guarding the Garden, leader of the army of angels. He was the right hand of God the LORD.

God had made winds his angels, flames of fire his servants, so that they could serve him and his creatures. Their will was God’s. God’s will was keeping his children well protected and safe. Although he could have his will done without any angel,  he loved to share his work with his discreet creatures  humans as well as angels .

Eve went to Michael asking about Adam. She had searched for him everywhere for days but could not find him. She was overwhelmed by bitterness and sorrow of missing Cain and now of not finding Adam.

She asked him if it was still possible that Cain might return back to Eden. “Look, Eve. It is one sky and one God over the Garden of Eden and over the wicked land. And you should know that what is impossible with men is possible with God.” Then he ordered her to go back into the garden but gave her no answer about Adam. She went back wondering where Adam could be.

Belial went  with Cain to meet Lucifer. On their way, he kept telling Cain about her, “Lucifer is the greatest creature of God. Her crown and jewels are set and mounted in gold. She was the most powerful archangel. She was on the holy mount of God, walked among the fiery stones. She shook the earth, made kingdoms tremble. She made the world a desert and overthrew its cities.”

Cain was amazed at  how powerful she was. He felt it when he was talking to her before. He felt a kind of energy spreading through the air into his body possessing his mind, heart and sensations. “And then what happened? She does not look like an angel.” Cain asked.

“Being the most powerful archangel was not an easy task. The more difficult the task is, the more glory you should possess. But God despised her. Instead of the glory she deserved, he gave her a curse.”

They  arrived to the desired place. It was a very huge, black castle on the top of a hill. There was a dark cloud over it, through which lightening hit but did not harmthe  castle.

They entered through a big woody door that was opened with the help of two black giant beasts.

When Cain entered the wide hall of the castle, there were five chairs. The one in the middle was the biggest, it was Lucifer’s. The other four were alike. On three of them, there were three men sitting. The farthest one on the left was empty. Belial went and sat on the empty chair leaving Cain standing before the most powerful five figures in the wicked land, the chancery of evil.

Lucifer introduced the four men to Cain, “The farthest one on the right is Beelzebub – who was black skinny small man with two bony wings – the lord of bats. Next to him is Sataniel – who was a giant like an elephant with two big pointed ears and a dragon tail – lord of wild beasts. The one on my left is Iblis – who was hairy like a monkey with a head of a wolf – lord of evil weapons. And the one on the far left, whom I am sure that you know him already, is Belial, the lord of the wicked humans. And I am Lucifer, the fallen cherub, the morning star, the queen of the four devils and the oracle of the wicked land. I have all the wisdom, knowledge and power that neither angel nor archangel has.”

Cain could hardly keep himself from falling on the ground. He realized his lowliness in front of those lords of evil. That was exactly what Lucifer wanted him to feel.

“Now, Cain” she said. “Belial has told me that you have chosen the third option; being fed by us. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, here, in the wicked land, nothing is for free. You must obey our commands.”

“I will, my Queen,” Cain replied while giving her a low bow.

Lucifer glanced at Belial with a little smile on her face and then looked back to Cain and continued, “Well, God has despoiled my glory. He despised me as if I were made of dust. He glorified the dust-made humans and scorned me, the light-made star. But I have saved my power. And I want my glory back.”

“How will you do that?” Cain asked.

“Only by eating from the tree of life, can I return to my former glory and be like God, the mighty.”

“So, what has that to do with me?” Cain asked.

“You are my battle, Cain. Your blood is my power. Your damnation is my solution.”

“I do not get the point!” Cain said with growing fear.

Belial lost his head. He stood on his feet and said to Cain, “We have to drink from your blood in order to win our battle against Michael and his hosts. Your blood will give us the glory God has given you, and we will be back to our first state, the strongest host of angels.”

Hearing these words, Cain stared at Belial. He tried to run out of the castle but he wasn’t feeling his feet anymore. He stood still for a while confused and astonished. At last he said “You lied to me, Belial. I should not have trusted you.”

Then Lucifer interrupted him, “Cain, now you have just two options: agree or die. Take your time thinking. Time is my ally”

Outside the castle, all the devils gathered around the Death Lake, they called it the Abyss. There were hundreds of flying bats, hundreds of wild beasts and hundreds of smoky chariots that were drawn by reddish black horses. They were beating the drums with their woody sticks. It was like a kind of festival.

Lucifer left the castle with the other four devils and Cain.

When the crowd saw the Oracle, they all kneeled down. Belial took Cain and threw him into the Abyss which was shallow and salty. With two ropes, Belial tied Cain’s both hands to  two wooden posts, one post at one side of the Lake,  the other at the opposite side. He tied one hand to each post. Cain’s hands were stretched painfully. He was hardly able to breathe.

Belial cut Cain’s two wrist arteries so that his blood could fall in the Lake and been mingled with its dark water.

Lucifer stood at the bank of the Lake and was the first to drink from its water.

When she drank, she had transformed into a white giant lion having giant eagle’s wings. She hit the air with her wings and flew over the Abyss.

After her, all the devils drank from the water, but no one transformed, they only became more powerful.

Cain, after being the strongest of men, was a bony skeleton dressed by human skin. He was so weakened. He cried, “May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said ‘a boy is born’, may that night be barren, may not shouts of joy be heard in it. Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

Sataniel asked Lucifer, “Now, we have drunk from human blood. How can we defeat Michael? We are not stronger than him, and he also has a very strong army”

“I have a plan,” Lucifer replied.

Michael was walking amidst his army like every other day when he felt an earthquake shake the biggest mountains of the earth. He lifted his head to the sky and saw hundreds of bats flying blocking the rays of the rising sun. Then hundreds of running beasts with smoky chariots on the ground, from the misty mountain appeared to his sight led by the flying white lion, Lucifer.

Michael raised his flaming sword to the sky, and shouted, “Defend the garden of the LORD.”

Michael fought strongly,  as did his army. They  divided into three parts; one fighting the flying bats; one  fighting the ground beasts; the last one  standing behind, defending the Garden and the people within.

They fought each other all day. No one could see if the sun was still in the sky or not, for it was darkness at noon because of the flying bats and the clouds of dust made by the ground beasts. But they knew that the day was wearing away.

Michael and his angels were still powerful and strong while the devils were exhausted and weakened.

Beelzebub and Sataniel ordered their hosts to retreat. They went back to Babel, while Michael and the angels rejoiced because they  won their battle against the devils.

In Babel, Cain was tied by the ropes to the posts. He was so hungry. There were some pigs being fed beside the Abyss. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but none gave him anything. He was filled with disgrace.

He remembered when he was young in Eden. He was a five-year-old boy playing with his favorite friend the eagle, or Chogan as Cain used to call him. When the five-year old boy just thought to eat, Chogan flew to the sky and reached up to the tallest tree in the garden bringing back to Cain a very beautiful fruit.

Cain sighed remembering these times in Eden. “Chogan, I am so very hungry.” Cain told himself, “I long to see you, my brothers, my sisters and my parents again.” Then he thought of what Lucifer had told him  the first time they met, ‘separation from the loved and association with the unbeloved.’ She was right.

At this moment, he saw that the devils were back  the same as they had gone. He knew that they must have been defeated. He was happy at first. But when he heard Beelzebub and Sataniel telling Belial, who did not go with them, the sneaky plan of the battle, he became sad and despaired.

Lucifer, after she had drunk from Cain’s blood, was strong enough to beat all the angels, but not Michael.

But she had a plan.

She could transform herself to any shape, to any creature, even to an angel of light. When they waged the war against the angels, she had transformed herself to an angel. She walked through the fighting armies without any angel to notice her presence. And now she succeeded in her plan.

Lucifer entered the Garden, searching for the tree of life, but she found nothing. She was confused. She knew where the tree should be, but it was not there. She transformed herself back to the giant lion and scared all the people. She fought against the third host of angels, those were guarding people, and won. She gathered all the people in the middle of the garden, and prevented their escape.

When Michael came back from the battle, he was astonished by the turn of events. He tried to  fight the lion, but he stopped and got back when Lucifer told him to do so or she would kill all the people.

“You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till the wickedness was found in you. You were filled with violence, and you sinned. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. You have come to a horrible end and will be no more.” Michael said to Lucifer.

Lucifer laughed so loudly that all the people closed their ears with their fingers. “I drank from Cain’s blood, and I will eat from the tree of life and get my glory back. You are the one who will come to a horrible end, Michael, for I will destroy you, I will reduce you to ashes. And now tell me, where is the tree of life? Or I will kill all the people.”

“God the LORD hid it. None, except him, knows where it is.”

“Well, I will take all those people with me as hostages. And I will keep them forever till your LORD changes his mind. Or till you do so.”

Lucifer then took all people, except for Adam because no one knew where he was, and flew through the sky on her way back to Babel.

Taking people as hostages deserved a celebration party in Babel, especially when they were naked people. Naked people meant that they were virtuous people. And devils adore virtuous people; their suffering, their pain and their despair.

During the celebration, they drank all the night from their favorite wine, the bloody water of the Abyss.

One of the devils asked Belial if they could drink from the blood of the naked people. “Shut up, you idiot. We can not drink from the blood of naked people. If we did, we are all dead forever. We are only allowed to drink from sinned-humans’ blood, like Cain’s, to  gain more power. We can bother naked people, scare them, but we can cause no harm to them. Their blood will burn us forever.”

While they were celebrating, Cain looked up at the sky praying to God. He cried tears of joy when he saw an eagle flying over the Abyss. It was Chogan. Cain considered this  a good omen, “I knew that there was still hope.”

The devils celebrated all evening till they were exhausted. It was a long day for them; a spiritual battle at noon, and dancing celebrations in the evening.

The next morning, Lucifer ordered Belial to bring all the naked people to the Abyss. He did so.

When Eve saw Cain was tied by the ropes, she cried and grieved over him.

“Eve, I know that you know where the tree of life is. You better tell me where it is or I will kill Cain, your dearest son, in front of your eyes now.”

Eve fell to the ground and cried, “I do not know where the tree is. I beg your pardon, leave my son alone.”

“You beg my pardon!” Lucifer said in derision. “What pardon?” Then she ordered Iblis to bring their strongest weapon, the curved sword of envy and ordered him to slay Cain.

Eve ran towards Cain when Iblis got the sword but Beelzebub stopped her. She wept and wailed but no one listened.

Iblis hit Cain on his head preparing him to be slain, when Cain shouted, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Then Iblis slew Cain.

After few days, Lucifer decided to go searching again for the hidden tree. She ordered all the devils to drink from the lake,where Cain’s dead body  laid, preparing for the probable war. All the devils obeyed the order and together drank from the bloody lake.

Suddenly, there was light shining in the bottom of the lake. The light  gathered at one point on Cain’s body. Cain arose, returned to life. All the devils, including Lucifer, stared at him. He was a dead body a moment ago. How could he come back to life like that?

Then all the devils, who drank from the lake, were burnt to ashes.

No one could believe that all at once the devils existed no more. When Cain unwound the ropes and got out the Abyss, people recognized him, for he was not Cain, he was Adam, an innocent man.

Lucifer was the only who did not drink from the blood of Adam, so she lived.  Adam, now much stronger than she, forced Lucifer to run away, roaming through the earth.

After Lucifer had gone, Cain appeared from behind the trees. He went and drank from the lake, and was transformed into a virtuous man by the power of Adam’s blood.

All the people asked Adam how he came back to life. He replied, “After I had prayed to God the LORD, he took me to the tree  which he had moved onto Horeb, the mountain of God, in the form of a burning bush. Though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. He ordered me to eat.

I ate and  was transformed into the most powerful man in the universe. I can do everything. I can give my soul and bring it back to me whenever I like. I went to Cain after the festival of the devils had finished, wore the garments that he was wearing, unwound him and tied myself instead of him.”

Eve was the happiest. All the people congratulated her and Cain. During their way back to Eden, Adam opened his mouth and said, “Cain, if you thought that you were the only who was suffering in the wicked land, you were wrong. We suffered with you, even God the mighty. All of us went through your struggle by soul. Your pain was our pain. Your tear was our tear. Even if you had sinned, you were still one of us and will be forever, we love you wherever you have been. And as for God, he did not drive you out the garden, your sin did. Your sanctity did not bring you back to Eden, his love did. He has just done his miracle, bringing you back to your first state through me.

From now on, be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, Lucifer, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist her, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”

Cain hugged Adam with tears in his eyes, with happiness in his heart. He looked towards the people, his family, and said at last, “Surely my father took up my infirmities and carried my sorrows. He was pierced for my transgression, he was crushed for iniquity; the punishment that brought me peace was upon him, and by his wounds I am healed. The LORD God had sent his man to me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.”

^“3Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”  (Luke 15: 3-4)

Category:  19 and up

The Dante Award

goes to

Tracy Elson

for her story titled, The Crown and the Chronicles

The Shakespeare Award

goes to

Luke Curtis

For his story titled, The Tormentor

To contact Tracy Elson or Luke Curtis you may seek their contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Award

goes to

J.D. Greening

Port Orchard, WA

Third Place

(Category: 19 and up)

Bio:  Pastor Jamie Greening is a preacher who has a passion for communicating the Word of God to today’s culture.  He uses a variety of styles including story telling, word pictures and literature.  He has served First Baptist Church as Senior Pastor since 1999.

Pastor Jamie has a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Texas and a Masters of Divinity from Southwestern Seminary.  He has also earned a Doctor of Ministry from Beeson Divinity at Samford University.

Jamie and his wife, Kim, have two lovely daughters, Chelsea and Phoebe.

Website:  www.fbcpo.org

To contact Jamie Greening you may seek his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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CONVOCATION

J. D. Greening

All worshipers of images are put to shame,

who make their boast in worthless idols;

worship him, all you gods!—Psalm 97:7

The meeting place smelled of sweet smoke. An aroma of cedar and myrrh was strong, but pleasant. It was noticeable enough to get the nose’s attention but not so strong that it elicited a cough or throat clearing. The scent wafted high through to the top of the large chamber.

The room was lit from above with dazzling torches mounted on large Doric columns. At the top of each column was an impressive golden capital covered with elegant engravings of plants and vines, lilies and flowers. There was no roof. It was open aired. A row of six titanic columns equidistant apart lined each side of the room framing it in a perfect square. Fifteen feet behind the columns lay a stone wall that stretched immeasurably upward beyond the columns. These walls seemed to elevate for miles. The full moon hung overhead with Venus nearby marking the night sky.

In the middle of the room was a large stone altar made from rugged rock. This stone had never been chiseled by hands. The five craftsmen who formed it were named Time, Wind, Rain, Heat, and Cold. Neither iron tool nor hammer had ever touched this megalith. The top and the sides of the stone altar were stained with blood; human blood.

“This reminds me of Athens, or maybe Thebes,” said Zeus—to no one in particular. “Yes. I indeed like the columns and hanging there, why yes it is, hanging in the sky is lovely Aphrodite’s namesake. This room is almost perfect. It is worthy of Noble Hector or my strong son Hercules.”

“It reminds me more of Memphis!” barked another voice. The voice was irritated and annoyed; like one who was spoiling for a fight, or at least a good argument.

Zeus responded bitterly, “I thought I smelled the foul stench of Egypt. Greetings, Ra.”

“Why have you called me here, O Zeus the Indulgent?”

“Me?” said Zeus inquisitively. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Seconds later two more figures appeared around the stone altar. It was a couple: male and female. Both had coned shaped heads and elongated faces.

“Who are you?” asked Zeus.

“I am Baal, Lord of the Sky. This is my consort Asherah. Now who, pray tell, are you?”

“I am Zeus Almighty, King of Olympus, Son of Kronos and god of the Hellenes.” Zeus raised his hands and shot a dazzling array of lightening bolts into the upper reaches of the chamber.

“And I am Ra—Dread Lord of the Under…”

“We know who you are. I could spot your stench anywhere.” Asherah cut him off indignantly.

Within seconds the room became populated with all manner of figures: the many armed Shiva, Marduk, the Buddha, Tao, Thor, Sky-Spirit, the feather serpent Quetzalcoatl, along with many, many others. There were thousands of deities who suddenly appeared. Some were animals like the Native American Wolf or the Hindu Brahma. Some were more personified symbols or images, like the Tao or Humanism. After a brief hubbub they all stopped asking why they were there and, curiously, began to mingle like people would at a cocktail party.

The deities seemed to form in affinity groups. Those from the Mediterranean Basin grouped together, and those from the East stood together, the ancient Celtic and Norse deities from Europe mingled as best warrior gods can in a social context, and the mystical tribal gods from the American continents fused into something of a homogenous group. Allah, however, stood off alone in a corner and fumed while plotting domination. He was searching for a burkha to put over the ancient fertility goddess. This particular goddess is known by many names, the most common one is Isis.

Some were having fun with the event. Zeus was taking bets on exactly how long it would take the Sumerian Moon goddess Ishtar to seduce the chaste Buddha. Others were academically comparing and contrasting aspects of their cult. They discussed such things as requirements for novitiates, priestly adherence, ceremonial actions, and holy texts. It was a grand dialogue of comparative religion at the penultimate place. That was, until the main event began.

Just when everyone was getting comfortable and had forgotten where they were and the mysterious circumstances of their gathering; a light.

A great light shown and filled the chamber.

The light was pure. The light was penetrating. Oden held out his hand and the light made an X-Ray of his digits. In a moment of panic Zeus again shot out lightening bolts from his hands, but these seemed pale and yellow compared to the perfect light. The light started with a glow and slowly built up in intensity. When it reached an unbelievable zenith of photoscopic power a billion decibel choir rang out, seemingly from nowhere but everywhere, “Alleluia!” Then, just as suddenly, the light flashed out.

A man stood in its place. He was standing on the blood stained rock altar. At his appearance all the deities were pushed—not pulled—pushed by the force of the man’s gravity toward the marble floor. The gravitational force of the push flattened them prostrate onto their stomachs with their face down. Proud Ra fought to stay on his knees but he could not resist the intractable pressure pushing him into a fully humiliating position.

The man on the stone altar smiled.

“You may rise,” he said to the pantheon.

Shiva popped up and proudly asked, “Who do you think you are?” With the question he pointed all of his flailing hands at the man standing on the stone. To the question, the man replied, “I am.” As the word “am” came out of his mouth, again the push from above forced all the deities onto the ground once more.

The one on the bloody altar, the only one left standing, sat down upon the stone. It now no longer looked like a stone altar. It now looked like a throne. In his right hand was an iron rod. In his left hand was a shepherd’s crook. His legs and feet were bronze. He wore a simple white tunic.

He lifted his iron rod and regally proclaimed, “You may stand. But no more questions.”

They all slowly came to their full height. No one said a word, but many glances were exchanged. The dominant feeling among the convocation was confusion and fear. Never before had these deities been so powerless. A moment or two passed and the seated one began to speak.

“My name is Jesus, The Alpha and the Omega.”

The Roman god of war Ares shouted, “How can that be? We killed you on that hillside. I remember it. I was there with my faithful Roman soldiers.”

Hades chimed in, “Yeah, I was there too. You died. Why won’t you stay dead? You’re breaking all the rules.” The other deities chimed in with similar affirmations, “I was there when we crucified you. I remember!”

Jesus just smiled. “Obviously you are not as powerful as you thought. I am resurrection and I am life. But now it is time for judgment upon all the gods. Let me begin with the greatest pretender of all, Zeus.”

Instantly Zeus was front and center before the throne. He opened his mouth to make an argument, a defense, or even a plea. Yet nothing came out. For the first time in his existence Zeus was silent.

“You are not allowed to speak. You have spoken too much already; o Thundering Zeus of the Hellenes. You are guilty. You are indeed very guilty of being a very bad example. You have reflected all that is evil in people: Power, lust, capricious whims, vengeful spite, and anger. You have no love, only eros. You have no compassion, only pathos. You are a sham. You are a bully. You and the whole pantheon over which you preside are evil.”

The chief god of the Hellenes knew it was true. He cringed. There was nothing noble in him. Suddenly and without warning Zeus was moved out and another stood in his place. Actually, it was two others who stood before the altar-throne. The Semitic gods Baal and Asherah of Palestine stood where Zeus had just been.

“Baal, you are not alone in your wickedness. Asherah and her evil poles have done more harm than Zeus could ever hope to. No one really ever believed in him. Yet you, you have time and time again lead the peoples of the Near East away from their journey to true faith. You have lured them in with prosperity and wealth, good harvests and fine climate. None of which, incidentally, you have any power over. The only work you ever did was to lie and take credit for what I created.

“Under every green tree and on every hilltop in Palestine you deceived people, male and female. In this deception you model the old liar, Hasatan, and led my people astray. You have added sexual iniquity, prostitution, and violence to humanity. You stand condemned as did your prize pupil, Jezebel.”

Within the next few minutes Jesus moved very quickly through many of the shuddering deities. Ra was deemed demonic and oppressive. The pyramids of Egypt do not celebrate his greatness, but stand as a monument to his own vanity. The eagles of the Native American folk religion were dismissed as being too distance, uncaring, and impersonal. Christ condemned Thor as a cheap imitation of Zeus and with the added guilt of encouraging the heinous terrorism of piracy. Quickly the pace intensified as the God of gods summarily judged one false deity after another.

Then the pace slowed down again as the major world deities came before the stone throne.

“Shiva—I will allow you to represent all of the Hindu gods. You have held billions of people hostages to a caste system which benefits the wealthy and protects the privileged. Have you no shame? Do you not see the potential beauty in releasing people from their cultural shackles? You invent oppression and call it religion. Evil!

“You have added to your evil the belief system of past lives and future incarnations. What nonsensical bilge! Do you not know that man is noble? Each human being—woman, man or child is as unique as the Milky Way or as vast as the depth of the oceans? You and your ilk have missed the mark terribly in your estimation of what exactly comprises humanity.”

The Lord moved on.

“Oh Buddha; he who is not a god yet venerated; not divine but the enlightened one. Truly, truly I say unto you, you were not far from authentic revelation. In you I find no violence or greed. But you have likewise missed the concept.

The secret to enlightenment is not within the individual. No amount of reflection or meditation can bring truth. It only brings the hint of truth. True enlightenment emanates from the outside and penetrates the soul. You reversed the order and put humanity as the source of spiritual knowledge. What a terrible usurpation. Yes, you were close but still so far away. In your nearness you did not recognize the distance still to go. Instead you mistook almost there as arrived. This misjudgment led to arrogance and certainty.”

A tear formed in the fat Buddha’s eye for he knew the truth.

“The Tao must now be examined. Tao, you reflect the timeless truths which I have placed in the created order. There is indeed a balance in nature. Hot must have cold, day must have night, summer is tempered by winter, male is only complete with female. Humans have a yen for every yang and a yang for every yen. Opposites do attract.

“Nevertheless, you are a fraud for you claim to be the way when there can only be one way. I am. There is nothing in you which bringing the harmony you preach. Description is your only gift.”

There was only one more left. All had been exposed as insufficient and deceptive. All had been judged, except one. Jesus, still sitting upon the throne called him by name. “Allah,” he shouted. “Come here.

“Your time has come. I saved you for the end. You are more recent than these ancient false religions. As with all the others there are elements of truth in some of your words. There is only one God. Alms are proper. Fasts are good. Hospitality pleases me. Good works are a blessing.

“But you have led the sons of Ishmael astray taking them down the path of violence. For centuries you have conquered with the sword, the machine gun, and the suicide bomber. You use fear as a spiritual tactic. You have oppressed the daughters of Eve. You are guilty of turning human beings into automatons. You have rejected your heritage of learning and science. You are guilty of abusing the human race which I made in my image. Therefore, you are guilty of abusing and therefore blaspheming me.”

The truth of what the Lord had said to all of these deities penetrated the hard hearts of all. They knew their place in the cosmos. They were not what they thought they were. They stood before him shamed.

King Jesus began to speak to the group as a whole now. “You are created in the image of man; gods and goddesses he made you in his own likeness. Male and female he made you. From his imagination he formed you; out of his own futile thinking he molded you and gave you substance. You were created by him and he breathed into you his own sexual appetites, violent tendencies, legalism, and desire for undisciplined spirituality without moral absolutes in order to justify his sin.”

As these words were spoken each of the deities stood with outstretched arms and said in one voice, repeating over and over again:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,

Who was and is and is to come

Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

To receive glory and honor and power,

For you created all things,

And by your will they existed and were created.

Now the brilliant light re-appeared and grew in ever more intensity. As it came to a crescendo the repeated spoken words were louder and louder until the blend of sound and light were one unified sensory experience. It was as if they were in the exploding core of a supernova. Then it flashed out and became silent. All the deities slowly dissolved into nothingness. Only Jesus was left.

He sighed deeply, stood up, and said, “Now it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God.”

is proud to present the 2009

Leo Tolstoy Award

to

Joseph A. Raborg

Hazlet, NJ

Third Place

(Category:  19 and up)

Bio: Joseph Anthony Raborg was born in New York City.  Shortly thereafter, his family relocated to Hazlet New Jersey, and the author was fortunate in having two more siblings: a younger brother, Thomas, entered the world in 1988 and a younger sister in 1996.  Having a shy and studious disposition, Joseph devoted himself to reading books and remembers the children’s books St. Jerome and the Lion, St. George and the Dragon, and an adaptation of the tales concerning Erik the Red as his particular favorites.  Under the encouragement of his parents, he transferred his energy from children’s and comic books (then, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes; now, he still reads comics, but these are exclusively of Japanese extraction) to a wide range of subjects spanning the natural, literary, historical, and religious areas of study.  In high school, he discovered that he had a knack for language and is now capable of reading works written in Latin, Greek, Japanese, and French.  One day, he hopes to expand his linguistic talents since translators take far too many liberties in his opinion.

It seems only natural that this bookworm wishes to write a book of his own.  He has been writing a fantasy fiction novel long before he turned his pen to “The Death of St. Magnus of Orkney” and hopes to finish the revisions within a year-if he can stop finding new ways to distract himself.

To contact Joseph Raborg you may seek his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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The Death of St. Magnus of Orkney

Based on the Account in the Orkneyinga Saga

by

Joseph A. Raborg

Copyright 15 May 2009, All Rights Reserved

May this miserable sinner receive aid from his glorious subject, the holy Earl Magnus, for the glory of the Refuge of Sinners and Oak of the Saints, who never refuses the repentant, constantly knocks at the hearts of those lost in sin, and empowers men to perform such magnanimous deeds.

A dragon ship sails the northernmost end of the North Sea, bearing Earl Hakon Paulsson, the proud ruler of half of Orkney. His ship bristles with coruscating spears and bright shields adorn its sides. Here and there, a man rows upon the still sea from his bench, draped in a dull, grey hauberk. Almost none of the men aboard lack a helm and secondary weapon. The crew exercised their duties with peculiar vigor, eager to reach their destination.

Yet, this martial preparedness fills one man, Havard Gunnason, with terrible apprehension; but, he reminds himself that earls and princes oft wish to exhibit their might, and this need not bode ill for the meeting which would seal the peace between the two earls. Earl Hakon himself had arranged this meeting after level-headed men interceded for the two opposing armies and averted civil war. Each earl would bring a single ship to the meeting in order to seal the peace.

But Havard marveled that so few of the leading men within Hakon’s earldom represented themselves onboard his ship. The crew consisted mainly of Hakon’s own retainers and guests, including two which Havard did not only feel the mission would be better off without, but the entire world besides: the two brothers, Sigurd and Sighvat. Havard glared at the two of them as they murmured filthy lies into Earl Hakon’s ears. Before these two began filling Hakon’s head with thoughts of fame and exciting the earl’s already rapacious ambition, the two earls ruled Orkney with hearts amicable and benevolent towards one another—as befits cousins. Now, no doubt, the two again were trying to incite civil war.

Havard stepped forward to prevent the two worm-tongued advisors from turning Hakon’s heart. “Earl Hakon, this is beautiful weather we were fortuned to have. If only the wind was a little stronger. It bodes well for the restoration of peace to these islands—as it was before.”

Sigurd turned his pock-marked face toward this new speaker. “Yes, before that greedy Earl begged our king to let him have a share of his patrimony. He’s only useful for starting up trouble, I tell you!”

Sighvat added his own opinion: “Orkney is two small for two earls. Hakon was ruling well enough before Magnus decided King of Scots’ hospitality wasn’t good enough for him.”

“Now, I won’t have you slandering Earl Magnus before his cousin, our esteemed lord,” Havard countered. “And it seems to me they held a wonderful joint rule—with justice lacking for none—until quite recently.”

Here the earl himself thought best to intervene. “Havard is right. We did jointly rule Orkney in a splendid fashion. Everyone had nothing but praise for us; perhaps for my cousin most of all.”

“Not at all, earl! We citizens of your domain—I speak the unanimous opinion—would not trade you for Magnus or anyone else.”

“Nonsense,” Sighvat said. “People are all greedy. The only reason people flock to Magnus is because he throws gold and silver right and left. It’s a wonder that anyone is still poor.”

“Yes,” Sigurd agreed. “I don’t care a fig about those who extol Magnus’s piety. He just knows that liberal princes gain more friends.” Sigurd added the following with a significant look in Havard’s direction. “I’ve heard that he’s given especially great gifts to chieftains from Earl Hakon’s domain.”

The hue of Havard’s reddening face approached the darkness of his brown beard. “Earl Hakon, I think these two are merely jealous of you for possessing so saintly a cousin. Some say he’s remained so chaste that he has not even consummated his marriage.”

This comment caused the other three to guffaw.

The earl said: “I do believe that you’ve mistaken my brother for a certain Englishman.”

Havard smiled. “Or St. Joseph. Without peer save for Our Lady, who surpasses all the saints.”

“Blessed be Mary, the Holy Mother of God,” Hakon said with his two sycophants struggling to catch up.

“Dragon ships off the port side!” shouted the lookout in the bow of the vessel.

Sure enough, seven ships rounded a point of land and began to approach Hakon’s vessel. Their emergence took Havard aback. Each one glimmered with spear points and their blazing red and yellow shields reflected the sun’s radiance.

Havard turned to the earl. “Earl, whose ships are these? Ought we prepare for the worst?”

“No, no, my good Havard, they’re mine.”

Havard paled. “But your agreement stipulated only one ship.”

“Don’t worry yourself. I merely intend to restore peace to these islands, and showing superior force will ensure us of coming ahead at the meeting.”

“Why, Havard,” said Sigurd. “Don’t you agree with his lordship’s plan?”

“I can guarantee you, Earl Hakon, that Earl Magnus will not come with more than one—”

“Of course,” Sighvat said. “I don’t know about his saintliness, but the man is rather simple-minded.”

“Now, men,” Hakon said. “I’ll not have you say any more about my good cousin.”

Havard said: “Well, my lord, please permit me to take my leave for the moment.”

The earl granted it. Havard walked to the shield rimmed railing and looked out upon the advancing fleet. Changing his line of sight, he examined the calm, blue sea as a gentle zephyr refreshed him. He sighed.

“I would have been a wonderful day to return peace to Orkney. God keep Magnus!”

When everyone ceased paying attention to him, he slipped overboard and swam to a deserted island.

On the same cerulean and serene sea, Earl Magnus in his lone vessel set their course for Egilsay. Onboard, Magnus had collected all the peace-loving men of his earldom, who had contributed much to preventing the outbreak of battle between the two earls. According to their means, each man possessed a sword or ax, but spears stood absent from the decks and shields from the sides. Not a man, not even Magnus himself, thought to wear a hauberk. Magnus, wearing an azure woolen tunic and green linen pants clasped with a golden buckled leather belt, sat against the mainmast, watching the blue sky with even bluer eyes. The breeze hardly disturbed his golden locks as it brushed across his fine, intelligent countenance.

The gentle weather necessitated that rowers propel the ship along. Two of whom, Svein and Holdbodi, palavered over the eccentricities of their blessed earl and good friend. Not a few times did someone chuckle, while the other made sly remarks concerning their lord’s mental state.

“See him? Our good earl?” Svein began. “He’s staring blankly at the sky again.”

“Well, it is a beautiful sky to gander at,” Holdbodi replied. “And very few on this boat have the leisure to do that.”

“You know what they say about men who do that?”

“What, Svein?”

“They either enter a monastery or burn down a barn.”

After both laughed, Holdbodi said: “Well, that makes our earl a future arsonist. They don’t make monks out of married men.”

“What marriage? I tell you, my wife would beat me if I permitted the flower of her maidenhood to bloom so long.”

“Well, they’re strange people: the earl and his wife. But, I’ve never seen a happier couple.”

“I wish all rulers would be so strange, then there would be paradise on earth.”

“One can’t have a double paradise, you know.”

“Who says? I think that your association with our strange earl is turning your brain.”

“Well, may he rule long and continue to bless us with this prosperity.”

“Hmm…I wonder what the chances are of that.”

“What do you mean, you depressing bastard?”

“The fellow’s too honest. I told him he should bring twenty ships—not one—to this meeting.”

“But the agreement—”

“You think Hakon’s going to keep his word? I’m sure he’s eager to fulfill that heathen soothsayer’s prophecy about him and his descendents ruling all Orkney.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Well, Magnus is young yet, but that time will come eventually—even if it is only Hakon’s descendents.” Holdbodi grinned. “You know, this Hakon should have learned from a Norwegian king of the same name. He rules well enough, but his ambition makes him detestable. If he rids himself of that, he might well merit the cognomen ‘good.’”

“Why, yes! I’ll even make a song for this Hakon entering Valhalla and greeting Odin—along with all the other devils in hell. That son of a—”

Neither modesty nor human voice interrupted Svein, but a towering wave rose from the mirror-flat sea and crashed upon Earl Magnus’s meditative form. All the crew yanked their oars back in the boat and rushed to surround Magnus, who now stood brushing the excess water from his tunic with a placid demeanor. The other questioned Magnus and themselves what this meant, marveling that such a wave could spring from so board-like a sea.

Magnus turned to his men. “I think that your worries are quite justified: it looks like that prophecy about cousin Hakon will come true.”

Some, ignorant of the rumor, said: “What do you mean, my lord?”

“This wave foretells my death. We may have to be open to the idea that cousin Hakon may not be exactly honest with us.”

“Then let’s turn back!” Holdbodi exclaimed. “Raise some men, and defeat that treacherous earl!”

The rest shouted their agreement. Magnus raised his hand for silence.

“No, I have no evidence that he shall betray us. I hope to the Lord that it is not so! Onward! Let me only keep my word and everything happen as God wills!”

“But, Earl Magnus—”

Magnus interrupted his housecarl with a smile. “I thank you for being concerned Holdbodi and for the mutual affection we’ve always shared. Nevertheless, Deus vult!”

This silenced all further protest, and the mournful ship continued its course to that glorious isle, fortuned to be soon nourished with the blood of a saint!

After several hours, Magnus and his companions at last reached their goal, the undulating island of Egilsay. Though a small farm might support itself here and there, much of the soil consisted of moss covered, black rocks. This feature predominated the area where they landed: the inhabitants saw nothing better to do with the land than build a small church there. As the sun now began to fall in the saffron sky of the west, Magnus called his companions together and sent two so that the parish priest might prepare himself for hearing confessions and performing Mass.

“Whether I live or die, I wish to meet my cousin with a clean heart.”

All his men declared that they would fight to the death for Magnus’s sake. Magnus ordered them to do otherwise: “No, I would not have you fight to save my life—if Hakon really values ruling Orkney at the price of kinslaughter…We shall see. In any event, let there be peace in Orkney, and let the will of God be fulfilled.”

They all knew that the earl stood beyond persuasion and prayed that the earl’s premonition of his death turned out false. Hakon and his men needed a longer time to arrive and would not present themselves until the morning. So, they formed a line for confession, and, once the Sacrament of Reconciliation cleansed one and all, they took their seats in Church to carry out divine worship.

The walls of the church bore several statues of saints both ancient and modern until the end wall; where a tabernacle was located to the left of the altar and its great cross, while the right displayed a statue of the Holy Family. Interspersed with the statues of the saints, stained glass windows described the life of the Church’s patron, St. Paul, from the stoning of St. Stephen until his own death at Rome.

The earl sat in the front pew, leaning forward as if to gain a deeper understanding of the divine mysteries by placing his head on its very bosom. The leading men of his domain all prayed that evil be averted from Magnus, while Magnus prayed that he might act according to the honorable tradition of his ancestors and the friends of God. As soon as Mass ended, Magnus announced that he would continue to stay within the Church, but that they may find shelter among the inhabitants or return to their ship. The majority took Magnus up on his offer so that they might discuss what they ought to do should Earl Hakon turn hostile toward them. But several, such as Holdbodi and Svein, remained praying with Magnus.

Holdbodi hoped that he might be given the opportunity to dissuade Magnus from this baneful course of action. Holdbodi edged nearer to the pew where Magnus prayed using his rosary of wooden beads and bided his time as he awaited Magnus to finish. However, Magnus’s companions dropped off to sleep one by one long ere Magnus finished. Leaden sleep at last pressed shut even Holdbodi’s green eyes and loyal mind.

Then, Magnus himself became weary at his prayers and, crossing himself and putting away his rosary, he rose to look at his companions, hoping that there might be one with whom he could unburden his anxieties. Yet, scanning the whole Church, he found not a man that fleshly necessity had spared. Indeed, sleep even began to swirl his thoughts.

“Ah, you fool,” he told himself. “Why do you expect comfort from men? But this church feels so warm. I should like to spend my final night, what I so greatly fear to be my final night, sending as many prayers to the Savior as I may.”

With these words, he left St. Paul’s for the cool evening breezes.

Outside the church, a full moon illumined the island, though not a single light from any building save those in the church augmented the natural light of the night sky. A million millions of stars greeted Magnus’s sight: not one constellation seemed absent. Grief invaded Magnus’s thoughts considering that he might never see them again. Magnus stepped through the mossy rocks until he found a hillside with great rocks shielding his view of the church, but not its victory-promising steeple. Turning about in this salient, Magnus fancied that from here he could fend off a substantial force of men. He shook the thought aside.

Kneeling toward the shining, black sea, he renewed his prayers. Yet, thoughts of his kingdom and how much he would forsake through his death began to assail him. Try as he might, the sting of losing all his possessions and the splendid world itself distracted him from prayer until shame wrung tears from his eyes.

“O Lord! I am so unworthy of Thee that the thought of losing all my possessions and created joys causes me real distress. Send Thy grace to this unworthy servant so that my heart may be free of them. Hail Mary…”

Thus he beseeched Our Lord, Our Lady, and those saints dearest to him. Soon, his tears dried and gentle resignation calmed his anxiety. In the midst of this peace, the cacophony of a fatigued man struggling in the tide startled Magnus, who rushed to help the naufrague onto the pebbly strand. Magnus turned the man on his side so that he might cough out the water from his lungs.

“Oh!” He coughed out some water. “That hurts!”

“Havard!” Magnus exclaimed. “How have you come here in this state? I thought you would be travelling with cousin Hakon.”

“Oh…” Havard coughed several more times for good measure. “I beg your pardon, earl. I have many things to tell you. Earl Hakon intends your death.”

“I know…I know, Havard.”

“Then what are you still doing here? My lord, you must leave Egilsay at once and prepare for war.”

“No, there shall be peace. If cousin Hakon really desires my life, he can have it; though, I hope to dissuade him from the awful sin of kinslaughter.”

“That man is too ambitious.” Havard rose from his side to a sitting position. “He will only content himself by your death.”

“What do I have to fear from death? Our Lord—”

“But think of your possessions! This glorious world! Who has returned from the dead? Who has told us what it is like?”

“Havard, I never knew you to advise me like a pagan.”

But Magnus could not hide the tremble in his voice as anxieties he thought quelled returned with renewed vigor. He saw a sly smile flash across Havard’s face and knew not what to make of it. His interlocutor pressed the question.

“You boast of the greatest wealth in Orkney: such fine clothing, beautiful weapons, a great manor, the choicest food and drink. Earl Hakon covets all these things—”

“Oh, truly? If my cousin was in such want, he need only have told me.”

“It would not do any good: the world itself would not satisfy the man. So, fight for your rightful possessions. The man does not deserve the scrawniest fowl on your estate.”

Magnus became silent for a while, as Havard said many more things. Reviling the greed of Hakon, yet saying how Magnus ought to enjoy his property. He described the very wonderful things of the world which Magnus, as a young man, might look forward to enjoy for many years. While his advisor noticed not the shifting attention of the young man, Magnus’s eyes strayed to the cross of the church steeple. At last, Magnus obtained his answer.

“But I myself do not deserve the scrawniest fowl on my estate.” With Havard taken aback by this remark, Magnus continued: “All these things came to me through the will of God. Why should I boast of things I have received? We know that a greater estate awaits the faithful with Our Father in Heaven.”

“Oh, that can wait. You are yet a young man. Many years still ahead of you.”

“But why trade eternity for a few more years of exile? Who would be so absurd as to believe heaven less wonderful and joyful than earth?” A divine spark flickered in Magnus’s eyes, and sweet consolation welled up in his heart. “Praise be to Our Lord—”

“Wait! Hear me out!”

“—Jesus Christ!”

Havard, the image of that man—which Magnus mistook for the man himself—vanished before Magnus’s eyes. But not before he saw the demon’s eyes fill with animosity and anguish, and his mouth form an unspeakable curse. With his knees shaking, fear took hold of Magnus. He bowed down and crossed himself.

“These are the enemies with whom I contend? Oh, aid me, O Lord! This one attempted to dissuade me from honoring my oath to cousin Hakon through greed and trusting in created things. But I was saved by Thy Holy Name.” Here he prayed the Act of Faith. “In thanksgiving for this precious deliverance, I shall offer to go on a pilgrimage to Rome—nay, even to Mt. Calvary itself—and never return to Orkney should my cousin spare me.”

Delighted with his new-found resolution, Magnus offered further thanks to God until footsteps disturbed his prayer. Seeking his new companion, he discovered Svein coming toward him.

“Your lordship, when I awoke, I saw that you were gone and went to look for you.” Turning to the sea, he said: “Only on the night of a full moon does the sea seem so brilliant.”

“Indeed.”

“Please pardon me, Earl Magnus, but I and the others can’t agree to what you’re doing: sacrificing yourself for the sake of your infernal cousin, Earl Hakon.”

Here Magnus chuckled. “Oh, cousin Hakon is really getting the short end of the deal: I shall wend to eternal life with God, while he’ll be stuck managing Orkney.”

Svein’s countenance became morose: “I wonder how many souls perished thinking the same thought, only to find themselves in hell.”

This remark rent the core of Magnus’s being in pieces. So much so, that he fell backward on the ground. Ignoring Svein’s entreaties as to his physical condition, Magnus said: “What an awful thing to say…Is not confidence in one’s salvation one of the gifts often given to those about to die?”

“Maybe, but think of those monks who beg for a few more moments so that they may have a longer time to repent before the end. And we laymen don’t hold a candle to them.”

“Those poor holy men who do penance for us sinners as well as themselves!”

“Good luck to them: sin is as common as dirt. The best remedy is a long life with many chances to repent.”

Magnus smiled. “A long life is not necessarily a good one. It is fortunate that the Church provides the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Between the two, all sins are crushed.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I sinned four times between Reconciliation and Communion and sixteen between then and now.”

Magnus knit his brows. “That strikes me as remarkably irresponsible, Svein—even if you were the most hardened of sinners.”

To Magnus’s astonishment, Svein guffawed for several moments—needing to hold onto his sides lest he begin rolling on the floor—before he regained his sullen countenance. “I suppose that I was exaggerating a bit. Still, you would agree that dying now isn’t the best thing.”

The rosary in Magnus’s chest pocket rustled, reminding him of its presence. He clasped it and gazed upon the final scene of his dear Lord’s mission. Then, looking at Svein, he said: “Why would Our Lord, who sacrificed so much for us, be so eager to damn us and set venial sins against our entry into the Kingdom? From sin He has freed us. Through His strength none ever need turn their backs on Him.”

“But think of how many sins we daily commit—”

“I expect to be punished for these, but not eternally. His purifying fire shall save me from the punishing flames of hell. As long as I do not turn my back on Him in my last moments, He shall fight for me and save me.”

“Oh really? I can number the sins against you since you gained the use of reason until this very day, and they exceed the very stars!”

Magnus thrust forth his crucifix. “St. Michael smite thee back to the depths of hell to remain there for a thousand years, demon!”

Like the first, this one too vanished. Ire coursed through Magnus’s stout heart. “I see how they work, these foul creatures! Against beginners, they use material things to lure them from the spiritual. Against the more advanced, they tempt them to despair. Well, I shall fight and fight against them even after this body perishes. That is the essential thing: never quitting no matter how many times or how deeply one falls.” Here he knelt and recited the Act of Hope. Then he said: “I shall make a second offer should cousin Hakon turn down the first: that I might be sent into a dungeon and held under guard by our friends in Scotland for the rest of my days; for the light of God inspires even those locked away in the deepest pits.”

The need for rest dunned his weary eyes. No longer did Magnus deem it necessary to keep his vigil. He stood up to return to his men in the church and did not progress far before he saw Svein and Holdbodi searching for him. He hailed the two men to approach him.

Holdbodi spoke first: “There you are, Earl Magnus! I hoped that I might be permitted to speak with you.”

“Blessed be the name of Jesus Christ.”

At once, they responded in unison: “Both now and forever.”

A smile lit Magnus’s visage. “How happy I am to see friendly faces! Speak your mind, Holdbodi.”

The earl and the other two sat down after the earl beckoned them to do so. Once they were seated, Holdbodi began: “My lord, please don’t do this thing. Don’t permit Hakon to kill you. You have brought real justice to Orkney and succor to the poor. Where would we be without you, dear friend?”

Magnus held back the tears which threatened to burst from his eyes and stifled the affection and joy welling from his very viscera. Suffering from so great an emotion, Magnus could not reply.

“There was never a better earl than you or a better friend. I daresay, there was never a better husband. How your poor wife will miss you! It’s wrong! It’s unjust for you to sacrifice your life for Hakon’s ambition!”

“Oh…my dear friends…my dear wife…”

“Please escape with us. Dawn has not yet broken. Free us from the unlawful tyranny Hakon threatens us with!”

Magnus placed a hand on Holdbodi’s shoulder. “Cousin Hakon is a splendid ruler, Holdbodi. I know you’ll miss me, but he shall not bring tyranny.”

“Still, you can’t leave your family and friends like this. It’s wrong!”

The sun just began to rise and illuminate Magnus’s mournful features. “You’re right in a way, Holdbodi. But there is a higher justice only fulfilled through charity: all souls belong to God. Through the perversity of their own hearts, many men are lost. It is a great shame to lose even one, and God does not receive his proper due: the love of all men. My death shall not destroy your souls, but may even save my cousin and many others besides.”

“But dying for Hakon…”

“Love your enemies. I have dispensed enough justice; enough criminals have been incarcerated through my judgment. That is not very great: it is not so wonderful that souls are sent to hell through God’s justice, but that so many are saved through his mercy. Deus caritas est. And I pray that my poor efforts may reveal the love of God to the poor sinners of this world. Even if cousin Hakon kills me, I shall not cease praying for his soul before the very face of God.”

Svein announced: “There are Hakon’s men! They’re searching the church! It is too late.”

Indeed, as he spoke, a formidable company of armored men with spears and shields entered St. Paul’s Church to search for the blessed earl.

Holdbodi mourned: “So true. We no longer have a chance to escape. It seems like the greater shame to me that so great a man will lose his life to the likes of Hakon.”

Magnus sighed. “If the vilest murderer had been given the same graces I have so often neglected, people might imagine that Christ himself had returned. But I hope to at least end my life for the glory of God.” Here he spoke the Act of Charity along with his tearing men. After they finished, he said: “Don’t fear. I have one last offer to deter my cousin from kinslaughter—this he will accept: that he mutilates me however he wishes or blinds me and casts me in a dungeon.”

This remark caused renewed wails from these two most loyal vassals. St. Magnus now comforted his two companions and bade them pray to God for courage and for the sake of all poor sinners.

After some time, Hakon’s men satisfied themselves that the earl had not hidden himself in the church and came back outside. Magnus rose to the top of a hill and summoned them, telling them not to bother seeking him elsewhere. The soldiers looked askance at one another, but they shrugged and began to approach. All of Magnus’s other men saw that they were at a disadvantage of eight to one and had already surrendered to Hakon’s men, in obedience to Magnus’s command.

As Magnus and his two companions awaited the soldiers’ arrival, Svein said: “Well, it was a great honor to have had you as our earl.”

Holdbodi still had tears in his eyes which he desired to wipe away ere Hakon’s men arrived. “Yes, if you can, continue to rule Orkney from paradise.”

Magnus laughed. “Indeed, I might just rule Orkney as a king; in the country where all are kings and queens, and where the lowliest handmaid has risen to become the greatest empress.”

“That is precisely what I shall tell, Earl Hakon: you’re his king now.”

“No, no, no. Don’t use me to vex my dear cousin. He may yet be saved. Obey this as my final command.”

Both his companions replied: “As you wish, my lord.”

“Now, let us say a few prayers.”

Thus it happened that Hakon’s men came upon Magnus and his friends praying. Though they clashed their spears against their shields and hollered so that the citizens of London might hear them, Magnus and his men did not glance up from their prayers until they had finished. The men never saw another soul face certain death so calmly.

When Hakon arrived at this place along with Sigurd, Sighvat and the rest of his chieftains, Magnus crossed himself and greeted his cousin, who returned this greeting with the news that he must die.

Magnus replied: “Kinsman, you ought not to have broken your oath, though evil advisors probably led you to the deed. But, I would not have you sin further by killing an innocent man and a kinsman; so I will offer you three alternatives.”

Sigurd, Sighvat, and the chieftains demanded to know what Magnus had to say. Magnus described his first proposal and Hakon’s men turned it down. They refused the second proposal more vehemently than the first. During this time, Hakon glanced from his men to the holy figure of his cousin saint Magnus and wondered what he should do.

At last, Magnus described his final offer: “Well, cousin Hakon, God knows I’m perfectly willing to lose my life if I might save your soul. So, I shall make this last offer: mutilate me however you wish or, having blinded me, cast me into a dungeon rather than murdering me.”

Before the leading men of his district could reply for him, Hakon shouted: “I accept! Without any other conditions!”

Yet, his men rose up against him and said: “We’re tired of conflicts between the two earls and civil wars rising every few years! It’s either him or you!”

“But what can he do while blind and imprisoned?”

“We’ll have either your life or his! One of the earls must die!”

Flustered, Hakon responded: “Well, let Magnus die. I am yet young and enjoy ruling people and places.”

A broad smile covered Magnus’s face and he knelt down to shed tears before God. Hakon no longer stood as a full murderer! He had argued with his men and fought for Magnus’s life! Only when pressed by the fear of death did he break at last.

Hakon told Ofeig, his standard bearer, to execute the deed, but Ofeig said: “Earl Hakon, I’ve played my part in this business as far as I’m going to go. Find another headsman!”

Rebuffed with such strength, Hakon did not ask again, but turned to scan the rest of his men. All showed forth a stony countenance save Lifolf, his cook, who, as he fought back tears, stood marveling at the great saint.

“Lifolf! Come here. You shall perform the deed!”

Instead of complying, Lifolf could no longer hold back his tears and wept aloud. Magnus noticed his fellow sufferer and went up to comfort him. Slapping him on the shoulder, he said: “Don’t weep! Such a deed can bring only fame to the one who accomplishes it. Show your bravery and my clothes are yours according to old customs.” Here Magnus took off his tunic and dried Lifolf’s eyes. “The man who gave you this order has far more guilt than you.” He turned to address his cousin: “Cousin, please permit me to say some final prayers.”

Hakon shouted his agreement before any of his men could put forward a different idea. Having received his permission, Magnus prayed for both his friends and murderers, wishing prosperity for the former and forgiveness for the latter. He also prayed that the last of his sins may be blotted out upon the spilling of his blood so that he might be greeted by the hosts of heaven.

Once he was finished, he was led away to the place of execution. On the way there, he turned one more time to speak with Lifolf.

“Kill me by striking with all your strength upon my skull. I have not committed a crime, and so do not deserve to be killed like a thief.” Remembrance of the deed remaining for him renewed the tears in Lifolf’s eyes. “Do not fear. I have prayed that you obtain the mercy of God. On your last day, I hope to see you again in paradise.”

Once they reached the place of execution, Magnus knelt and crossed himself to receive the blow. Hakon had been feeling sick during the entire episode and forced himself to watch his cousin’s death with clenched teeth. Lifolf took one last look at Hakon to confirm his lord’s will. Hakon gave a brief nod. Lifolf then raised his ax and struck Magnus’s death blow.

Sensing the mood, Sigurd and Sighvat had remained quiet for a long time. But a spirit of rashness, deriving from being long ignored, rose up in Sigurd.

“Good! He got what he deserved. All hail Hakon as the earl of all Orkney!” Hakon endured the cheers with a stoic countenance. Sigurd continued: “Let the body of this greedy man, Magnus, lie here for the crows to peck at!”

Sigurd crossed the wrong line. Hakon drew his sword and smote Sigurd’s helm with such a blow from the pommel that Sigurd lay stunned upon the ground. Then the earl landed several blows into the man’s stomach with his hard boots. Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth.

“Why isn’t it you lying dead out there instead of that godly man? Leave him for the crows! No! My cousin shall be given a funeral before God and men as he would have wished.” He turned to Sighvat. “Sighvat! You and your brother are never to return to Orkney as long as I live. I give you one week to gather your things and depart.”

As the years lengthened, the people of Orkney saw that though Earl Magnus perished, he continued to help them from his throne in God’s kingdom. Earl Hakon never committed such a grave sin ever again and died beloved of his people. Those sick and insane went to St. Magnus’s tomb and were healed. To this very day, a cathedral marks the victorious death of St. Magnus and God’s victory over the devil as revealed in this friend of God. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

George Macdonald Award

Goes to:

James Scott Lee

Sparta, WI

Third Place

(category:  19 and up)

Bio: I was home schooled all the way until college, studying by learning on my own whatever I could learn in textbooks and literature. I attended Hillsdale College from which I recently graduated with a BS in Chemistry. I am now pursuing a Ph. D. in Chemistry at Purdue University. Despite this I have always loved the stories of Chesterton and Lewis. However, as short stories go, I find most enjoyment and affinity for those written by Edgar Allen Poe and Graham Greene.

To contact James Scott Lee you may seek his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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The Devil Child

by

James Scott Lee

Copyright May 2009, All Rights Reserved

Under the grass and the pines, the devil child lay. It wasn’t dead, no… it was just waiting: waiting for the right sacrifice. The old woman had spent decades trying to bring it back. It was hers, she had brought it into the world, and on the very night of its birth, its father had taken it out. The man had paid, dearly. Paid in such ways as only the best can, she had seen to that. It had been the work of her long long life, finding the best man, deceiving him, and bringing forth the child of death. And in her moment of triumph, it was all taken away; all but the vicious broodings of an old hag.

She brooded and muttered, cursing all, even now when she had lost her power to call down misfortune on others. There had been a time when with this power, she almost ruled the people of a small town she lived by. Its people would bring her anything she asked for. Some obeyed because they were her disciples, others out of fear; but the result was the same, none dared cross her. She had lived there for nearly a century, taking whatever form was best suited to her ends. At times she was an old hag, at others, a lovely, innocent young girl; but inside, she always was herself, bitter, spiteful, and wicked. And now, deserted by the vile spirits she had once called her servants, and divested of all but a shadow of influence in those around her, she schemed to revive her greatest scheme, which was also her greatest failure. The thought made her old bones shake, and with them, the pines creaked.

******************************************

Harriet Lee was sitting in her front yard, clearing it of those blasted black walnuts. She was a frail old woman, well over eighty years old. And yet, there she sat, picking the walnuts out of her yard.

A voice called to her, “Harriet, come!”

She stood. It was not something one would have expected, knowing Mrs. Lee. It would have been much more like her to tell whoever it was to come to her. She was a strong-willed, hard-headed, stiff-necked old woman, and yet she was gracious. But this time, she stood. She brushed off her simple dress, straightened her hair, and walked toward the speaker. Although she walked slowly, and with every sign of rheumatism, she walked erect and proud. Almost it seemed that her rheumatic limbs were less painful, for she walked, not faster, but with more ease.

The voice spoke again. This time much softer audible only to Harriet, “You must go again. She will try once more, but she has not long. You must go to her.”

Tears fell from the old woman’s face, she knew that the Lord asked the impossible… well, not the impossible, just the nearly impossible. He had asked it of her before, and it had been hard then, when she was young. But now, she was old, ancient by some reckoning, and she was to fight again. Not the prayer warrior at whose approach demons fled that she had been for the past forty years or so, but a real fighter, someone who sought out their enemy, and destroyed their schemes. Also, this time, the man who had actually stopped the witch-woman would not be there to save her like last time. He had already received his eternal crown, moments after saving her. This time…. She shook herself. She knew that the tempters where already there, now that the direct Spirit was gone. She forced herself to recall the past, accurately, and without either rosy glasses or black ones, but with clear and candid remembrance. She hoped to read her enemy from her last actions, and also remember how bad it had been, and that the Tempter really didn’t care what age his victims were, he deluded them all, merely changing his tactics depending on age. Whereas now she felt frail and incapable, last time she had felt strong and ready. Both were deceptions. Ah, she had let her mind wander, back to the past.

Her first intimation that her friend had gone wrong was, as it usually is, a small thing. Chance comments are hard to remember sixty, or even seventy years later. But there it lurked at the fringe of her memory like a ravenous wolf, waiting for the fire to die before he leaps upon his prey. What she could still remember with a certainty was that it was a hot day in the summer: she could see the little stream running by, hear the mill grinding, the mosquitoes all round them, she even remembered her friend killing one on her own face, right as it was full up. Perhaps it was that little bloodstain on her face that made the impression worse. She remembered everything about the incident, except what had actually caused those chills, and goose pimples, and that horrid sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach. Even now, she felt that sickening chill. Tea… Tea would cure the memory of its chill.

As she sipped her tea her thoughts sank back into her ancient memories, to the next event that stuck out in the chronicle of her friends earthly damnation. Her friend had damned herself, slowly shoving further and further away from God, taking as many as she could with her…. But there, she wondered again.

Her mind sank back into its revere, forgetting its need for the tea, which grew cold in her hands. Flitting among a myriad of small things, which took all of them to build into something odd. Not even evil, merely odd when recounted. A look here, a word there, her friend had been very good at concealing how far gone she was. Determining this, she went, in her mind, to the very back corner where she had stored her worst memories. She didn’t want to bring them back to her consciousness, but that evil chill coming from the little girl with a bloodstain on her cheek must be stopped. Wickedness loved it when people forgot how evil it was, so she would remember and stop her friend once more.

She went to the worst memory of all, one which would not make much sense to anyone else without a little background. It was the spring of her twentieth year when it all the little things became a big thing. All the minute hints resolved into one huge catastrophe. She had had to stop it. She was chosen, not by fate or chance, but by the Lord. She hadn’t done so well last time, she had only partially stopped the witch-woman, Hedy. She had rebelled from her calling, and the town suffered. She hadn’t really been the one to stop the witch last time anyway. But he was gone. He had been willing to die for his child, and she… she had stood there in the light of those burning bones, in that small cluster of onlookers, knowing that something must be done, but petrified by fear. The man, who had so loved his child, and his wife, even though she was a witch, and his child who was cursed…. His death had been terrible, and she had stood there knowing that that should have been her action. He had charged into the flames and carried his doubly accursed wife, and his dieing child out of the flames. The flames had consumed him, for they were not ordinary flames. They were the very fires of hell, and he had endured them to save the evil witch-woman. Hers had been that place, and looking back, those doubts and indecisions that stopped her then now were revealed to be what they were: fear, and the devil. Her love for her friend had not been enough to even try to save her from her evil deed.

The witch was unscarred, but the man had died with his child. They should have been buried together, the man’s ashes to protect the child’s ashes, to keep the witch-woman’s bony hands away. But that is not what happened; nothing had gone right. She still had the child’s body, and the evils she had planned were not stopped, they were merely delayed. This time, the witch was old, hardened, and practiced. It is a rule with witches that they become more powerful as their bodies weaken. They dominate more of the lesser spirits, and befriend more of the greater ones. This time, it would not be so simple. Just snatching her out of her fiery magic circle wouldn’t do, it would not be possible for anyone now; especially not an old, weak, woman like herself. Stopping her supply of offerings wouldn’t work either. Everyone in the town was either her eager slave, was conquered by abject fear, or hadn’t the slightest inkling about what was really going on. No, the food, powders, potions, and sacrifices would flow to her house until either the Devil came to claim his own, or Christ did. Either way, the witch would be damned. And they had been friends. There only remained confrontation.

She shook herself, stood up, put on her coat, and left the house. It was a long walk, but it was impossible to get the witch-woman’s real house any other way. It was true that her real house and the one everybody else saw were in the same place, and looked almost the same. The differences were subtle. But one couldn’t see the witch for what she really was, unless one walked the whole distance, with the purpose of seeing the witch. The house everyone else saw was just an illusion, carefully maintained over many, many years. The only place that was the same place in both the illusion and the reality was the little grave where she had cunningly buried her little child. That place was a small little gravestone, overgrown with weeds under a willow tree, in both places.

As she walked she was assailed with the same doubts and fears as last time she had made this walk. This time, she ignored them. They were whispers and images put into her mind from elsewhere, and as such had no bearing on her present task. She arrived, and the house saw her.

“So you came,” the house said, “My mistress said you might. She also said not to worry too much about it, you will fail this time too. You are an insignificant wobbling chunk of senile flesh! What do you plan to do before one who commands the gods themselves?”

“I did not come to talk to a house. Where is your mistress?”

“Inside.”

“Let me in, I have business with her.”

“What if I say… No!”

“It’s alright, let her in.”

The thin creaking voice had come from inside the sentient house, but it was not the house that spoke. The voice made one think of dried pine needles. Not the pleasant warm afternoon smell, but their shriveledness, their brittle point, their deadness. It was wispy like the sound of the wind blowing through stands of dead pines, whose needles clung to them still, in a hopeless mockery of life.

The house lowered itself. Harriet whispered a prayer, crossed herself, and entered. Her palms itched badly.

***********************************************************

No one after could understand the fire that night. It raged all night, it burned with such a delight of burning as must have inspired the ancients to believe there were spirits in the fire. Everything burned, orange strove with blue, and white with black as the fire raged over the countryside, white hot, burning everything in its path. Its path was not like a normal fire, this fire had chosen what it would burn, and avoided what it desired not to burn. The swamp burned and the winds blew it everywhere, yet when it reached the town, only some places were burnt. Where there had been two pubs, one was burned and the other untouched; where there had been two churches, one was ashes and the other whole; the halving of the town did not extend to the dwelling places of the inhabitants. No, most of the houses were burnt down: those burnt were wholly burnt; those untouched wholly untouched. The firemen were ineffective; the fires burned insatiably and then went out like they began, together.

The strangest occurrence found in this strange incident was in the ashes of a house just out of town. There, two corpses of very old women were found; one burnt down the bones, and the other untouched by the flames.

is proud to present the 2009

GK Chesterton Award

to

Steve Rzasa

Buffalo, WY

Second Place

(category: 19 and up)

Bio:  Steve Rzasa was born and raised in South Jersey, and fell in love with books – especially science fiction novels and historical volumes – at an early age. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University’s College of Communications in 2000, and then spent seven years as a reporter and assistant editor at weekly newspapers in Maine. Steve moved to Wyoming in 2007 to become the editor of a weekly newspaper there, and now works at the local library. He and his wife Carrie have two boys and live in Buffalo, Wyoming. His favorite authors include Jeffrey A. Carver, C.J. Cherryh, David Drake, Robert Heinlein, and David Weber.  Website: www.steverzasa.com

To contact Steve Rzasa you may request his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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RESCUED

By Steve Rzasa

Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Jesus of Nazareth, from the Gospel according to Matthew 5:7

10 AUGUST 2602

LEVESQUE’S STAR SYSTEM

“Target’s separating quickly, Skipper.”

“I can see that, thanks.” Lieutenant Brian Gaudette was floating free in space, feeling relaxed in body but tense in mind. He was actually moving at seven hundred kilometers per second, the same speed as his ship, Sennebec. His sapphire blue eyes squinted at the pale gray hull streaming air and metal beneath him. It was increasing its speed every instant, in the wrong direction.

Brian tried to ignore the gleaming surface of the icy world looming beyond the short, stubby interplanetary vessel. Gravity conspired against him, reaching hungrily for its prey.

“Concentrate on keeping clear of debris, RK, and I’ll worry about making my date,” he muttered into the suit comm.

“You’re the Skipper.”

On Sennebec’s bridge, Ensign RK Palal kept his hands firmly wrapped on the drive controls. The navigation display flashed a red warning at him; he ignored it.

“Shouldn’t you attend to that?” Detective Sergeant Eddington Dupre stood well behind him, pasty face pinched with irritation.

“No. Sound’s turned off.” RK shrugged. “I can tell what she’s doing without looking.”

“Lovely. Perhaps you can tell her to keep us clear of that moon, using soothing words,” Dupre sniped. He deftly plucked a stray hair from his immaculate maroon coat.

RK raised his bushy black eyebrows. “Don’t you Kesek guys have anything better to do than bother helmsmen?”

Dupre scowled, and tapped the flat brass badge on his chest. “The purview of the Royal Stability Force is universal.”

RK didn’t answer. He’d known as soon as he’d seen the name of the target ship why Koninklijke stabiliteitskracht – Kesek – had sent a man tagging along on Sennebec’s last six rescue patrols.

Pushing the thought aside, he breathed a sigh of relief – Brian’s tracking signal on the nav display blinked blue as it merged with the target ship. “He’s touched down,” RK said. He stabbed the intercom switch above his head. “Lucinda! Ready the cradle. Skipper’s aboard and he’s gonna bring back the passengers.”

“Check. My medics are ready.”

Returning his attention to his controls, RK winced. The target ship’s velocity was now two kilometers per second faster than his own. He gave Sennebec a burst of thrust from its chemical rockets, saving the main drive fuel.

Judging by their distance from the moon’s surface, they’d need it.

Brian dragged the space-suited man through the corridor, gritting his teeth as his weight shifted and shoved his arm against a bulkhead. “Skipper!” RK’s voice came across the comm in a panic. “We’re running out of minutes up here! You wait too long, we won’t be climbing out of this gravity well.”

“Thanks, RK, I remembered. Sending out the first.” He unhooked one of four rescue probes from his suit pack. Slipping the limp man’s arms through the probe’s straps, he shoved the activation panel. The probe, a simple thruster operated by a homing device, sputtered to life and tugged the man out the hatch into the void. It dragged him across the distance separating the rescue cutter from the damaged ship, to the medics waiting in the Sennebec’s cradle – the cavernous hangar bay and rescue hold at its center.

“Lucinda?” Brian called.

“We got him. Nice work, Skipper, the drones couldn’t have done it smoother.”

“That’s why I don’t trust ‘em.” Brian was still moving, this time reaching for the hand of a woman, her dark eyes wide with fear behind her suit’s faceplate. He switched comm frequencies. “Ma’am, don’t worry. Rescue Corps. You’ll be safe in a moment.”

The woman nodded sharply, gripping the two tiny boys at her side, both looking faintly comic in their child-sized suits. Brian helped her slide a probe across her back, then showed the boys how to hold on to a second. They rose from the hatch on a flaring plume beside their mother.

“Right. One more?”

“Affirmative, Skipper, eight meters aft of your position,” RK said over the comm. “Hurry it up. You got about five minutes.”

The ship lurched, sending Brian toward the ceiling. He pushed off with one hand, grimacing. “RK, you are no good for morale aboard my ship. Remind me to put that in your next evaluation.”

“If you don’t die in a big, hot fireball, you go right ahead, sir.”

Brian smirked. He twisted through a corridor, spinning past a collapsed bulkhead, and spotted the last passenger. The teenager was trapped behind a fallen strut.

Switching back to the citizen’s band on his suit comm, Brian said, “Stay calm. I’ll cut through in a microsec.” He drew the plasma torch from his utility pack. Its blue-white blade of flame flared as it started slicing through the metal.

He was almost through when the ship bucked violently. Brian reached for the stanchion but missed. The movement threw him up against the ceiling, slamming him against the surface and knocking the wind out of him. His vision blurred, and sounds went dull.

When he recovered RK was practically screaming. “… Fifty seconds! Skipper, snap out of it! You got less than fifty until the ship’s at no return!”

“Quit yelling,” Brian groaned. He seized the torch and ripped through the last bit of metal, then put his shoulder to the strut and heaved. The youth, galvanized by the activity, pulled from his side. He managed to slither out in seconds.

“Half a minute!”

“Shut up, RK, that’s an order!” Brian grabbed the youth roughly, shouted, “Hold on!” and thrusted with his suit pack down the corridor to the open hatch.

They spiraled out into space, seemingly free, but Brian knew better – and if he hadn’t, his omnipresent suit sensors told him the facts. They wouldn’t have enough thrust to escape the moon’s gravitational pull, even using Brian’s suit jets combined with the last probe thruster.

Before he could register fear, Brian saw the silver tube hurtling his way, dragging a cord. “Short rocket, Skipper!” Lucinda called over the comm. “Light it!”

“Outstanding.” Brian caught the cord easily, grunting as the projectile yanked on his arm, then affixed it to the magnetic clamps on his suit pack. The rocket was immensely more powerful than the gentler probe thruster. Hesitating, he swiftly made the sign of the cross on his faceplate, then fired off the rocket. The burst of speed kicked him and the youth free of the gravitational pull, but the stress of acceleration proved too much for the boy, who fainted in Brian’s grasp. It didn’t do him much good, either – he fought off the dark growing at the edges of his vision until he saw Lucinda’s space-suited figure reaching for him from a blaze of light.

Then she and the universe spiraled down a drain of stars into blackness.

“You feeling better, Captain?” RK asked.

Brian let Lucinda peel off his white thermal shirt, exposing his chest to the cool sickbay air, as his first officer hovered nearby. Worry etched RK’s face with lines – one look at the bruises across Brian’s back explained his concern and use of the formal rank.

“Don’t get all serious on me. It’s nothing a week’s worth of leave can’t cure,” Brian said. He winced as Lucinda injected something into his side. “A little warning next time.”

“Yes, sir, Skipper.” She ran a med scanner over his chest, brushing past the silver crucifix suspended on a fine chain. Brian grimaced again. “What now?” Lucinda asked.

“Cold. The scanner’s cold,” Brian complained.

Lucinda grinned, the smile lighting up her warm brown face. “Missed me, did ya?”

“Not particularly. I prefer the galley to sickbay, Chief.”

“Now don’t blab that in front of my boys. You’ll hurt their feelings,” Lucinda clucked.

Brian peeked over her shoulder. Two of the ship’s medics were assuring the woman Brian had rescued that her husband would heal, while shepherding her and her children from the sickbay. The gangly teenager refused to budge at first, his face drawn and angry, until the mother whispered something and he allowed himself to be led out.

The third medic was frowning over the readouts above one of the sickbay beds. Brian was pleased to see almost all the indicators were green or blue, with just a few yellow – none were dangerous red. A med-robot craned its giraffe-like neck over the injured man’s body, scanners playing shimmering light over his serene olive complexion framed by a curly black beard. He was sleeping soundly, courtesy of Lucinda’s sedatives, while microscopic nanosurgeons crawled throughout his body, repairing damage.

“He’s mending well,” the medic called out. “Should be able to wake him and check reflexes in a half hour or so. Got nerve damage though – not something we can fix.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Lucinda said.

Brian returned his attention to his helmsman and first officer. “Where are we off to now?”

“The nearest hospital ship, HMMC Relief,” RK said. At Brian’s questioning look, he added, “Not my fault. Leduc has Esperanza laid up at Port Mignery for a main drive overhaul.”

“Hmm. Relief’ll do. They’re not as skilled as Leduc’s bunch, but close.”

“Well, I’m not picky. We should rendezvous in ten hours. Stefan has the bridge.”

“Good.”

During the exchange, Detective Sergeant Dupre had entered sickbay. He stood just inside the hatch, eyes narrowed as he took note of every detail. “Who let him in?” Brian muttered, loud enough for the Kesek officer to hear.

Dupre let the comment pass. “That was quite a risk you took, Lieutenant. Doubtless your drones could have done it just as well, without the unnecessary endangerment of your own life,” he said smoothly.

Brian bristled at the officer’s refusal to call him “Captain,” even though Dupre was not a part of the crew and was not required to do so. There were few laws, and fewer traditions, which bound Kesek. “Since our annual operating budget was cut by four percent for two years in a row, I decided to spend what I had on better pay for my people, and on much needed engine maintenance. No fancier drones this year; the ones that broke down stayed broken, and the ones that work can’t do the job better than a person anyway,” Brian countered. “Don’t expect your sympathy, though – your local Kesek office budget increased six and a half percent this year, right?”

“Hardly relevant,” Dupre said with a sniff. Turning his attention to Lucinda, he continued, “Chief Wainwright, is the patient fit for interrogation?”

RK’s jaw dropped. “Interrogation? Are you nuts?”

Dupre regarded him coolly.

“He’ll be talking in a half hour. I figure you already knew that,” Lucinda snapped. She applied a patch to a particularly ugly bruise on Brian’s left shoulder blade, then stowed her instruments in a drawer. “As for questioning, I won’t allow it, not today at least. The man needs a rest.”

“That is not possible. His information is vital to solving an ongoing case in the Corazon-Levesque region,” Dupre said sternly.

Brian rose, his crucifix sparkling in the bright sickbay lights. Dupre noticed it and scowled. “What kind of information, if you don’t mind my asking?” Brian inquired as he pulled his thermal shirt back on. He tapped the white fabric. “Remember? This means I’m the captain.”

Lucinda snickered. Dupre shook his head. “It is not your concern, Lieutenant,” Dupre said, stressing the rank. “Suffice it to say, it is a matter of a text-in-violation.”

That brought a hush over the sickbay. The young medic looked up from his instrument panel. RK muttered something under his breath, balling his fists at his side, but Brian cautioned him with a tiny wave of his little finger. “Why don’t you join me in the corridor, Detective Sergeant,” Brian said. It was not an invitation.

They ducked through an open hatchway, stepping out into the pale blue-white corridor. RK followed. “Take the bridge, Ensign,” Brian said firmly.

RK’s jaw muscles worked as he considered Dupre, but he muttered, “Aye, Skipper,” and departed.

Brian ran a hand through his close-cropped red hair and sighed deeply. “You mind telling me how you think we’re going to recover a text-in-violation when that guy’s ship got torn to little pieces over Pembroke’s moon?” he asked wearily.

“If it was on the ship, then it is destroyed,” Dupre said. “The fact still remains that he willing and knowingly transported that text. He also acquired it from someone. I want to know from whom.”

“How do you know he knew?”

“We intercepted his transmissions when he entered this system from Corazon,” Dupre said with a smirk. “He thought they were coded, but with Kesek having access to all Marktel communications networks and MarkIntech-manufactured computers, it was a futile hope at best. His message indicated he had the text in hand and was to meet with someone at the sundoor to Giachetto later this week, to hand it off.”

Brian frowned. “So you didn’t want to hang around the sundoors and wait for him to make the tract shift, afraid he’d spot your own patrol ships.”

“Exactly.”

Another thought, more sinister, blew coldly across Brian’s mind. “Why’d you pick a Rescue Corps cutter?”

Dupre smiled thinly. “We perceived that he might need assistance.”

Brian shoved the officer up against the bulkhead, heart suddenly pounding with anger. “You wrecked his ship?”

“Did I say that?” Dupre grabbed Brian’s wrists in his own iron grip, and slowly but surely forced the other’s hands loose. “I would not go making such accusations of Kesek personnel, Lieutenant, if I were you.”

Brian stepped back, putting his hands on his hips, and glared at him. “I won’t help you in your witch hunt,” he growled.

“You are bound to follow the Charter of Religious Tolerance, and the guidelines of the Convocation on Spiritual Unity, as administered by Kesek,” Dupre snapped. “This man’s possession of the Koran …”

“Oh, so now we get particulars!”

“ … Is a blatant and direct violation of that law, which is meant to preserve the stability of the Realm of Five from religious strife,” Dupre finished, his voicing rising a notch in volume. “Islam is particularly annoying to Kesek, especially the brand practiced by this man and his ilk, with their insistence on a sole prophet’s exclusive revelation from God.”

“Maybe your intelligence was wrong.”

Dupre shook his head. “The name of his ship is Abdun Nur.”

“So?”

“It is an Arabic term. It translates roughly as ‘follower of the light.’”

“Still not following you.”

“In the Muslim tradition, the Koran gives ninety-nine names for God. An-Nur, or ‘the light,’ is one of them.”

Brian shrugged. “Even so, that Koran has to be burned to crispy atoms by now, if it were a book. They’re all illegal, and no one around here’s even seen a printer, so what’s the problem?”

“The problem, Lieutenant, is that I am not convinced it was a physical copy, but a hidden electronic one, which means that man could still have it.”

“And what makes you think you have any right to dictate his beliefs?” Brian countered, jabbing a finger down the corridor toward sickbay.

“Do not think I am blind to your sympathies, Lieutenant.” Dupre poked Brian in the chest. “You wear them plainly enough.”

“I and my family are members of the Union Synoptic Church,” Brian said evenly. “We all have been for years. Monitored and approved by Kesek, isn’t it?”

“But your allegiance lies elsewhere, though you hide it well,” Dupre hissed. “One would think you are ashamed of your true faith.”

Brian clenched his teeth. “I have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, “As God is my witness.”

Dupre waggled a finger at him. “Be careful, Lieutenant. Be very careful indeed.”

Lucinda was alone in sickbay with the patient when Brian sought them out later. She was puzzling over the readouts from her nanosurgeon control system on her delver. Everyone in the Realm owned one of the handheld devices. They used delvers to access newsgrids on the Reach network, write notes, contact loved ones, file reports, store data, display holograms, play music, and do anything else required. Their society was totally paperless – with the exception of money – thanks to the King’s monopoly over information technology.

“Problem, Chief?”

“Oh, hey, Skipper.” Lucinda shrugged. “Sort of. The nanosurgeons turned up an implant in this guy, so tiny our initial scans missed it. I didn’t remove it – some of those prescription implants release medicine directly into the patient’s bloodstream and can pose health hazards if taken out without proper surgical facilities, you know.”

“Yeah. So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that his is way too small and isn’t leaking any medicine.” Lucinda called up an image on her delver, then projected it in a shimmering blue hologram a hand’s width from one end of the device. Brian squinted at the hazy image of a cylinder with rounded ends, magnified thousands of times. “You can see the microcircuitry here, and here,” Lucinda continued, pointing at two sections.

“Hmm. What is it, then?”

“Dunno. Might be a neuro-enhancer, but it’s kind of small. Doesn’t make sense to only leave one – you need dozens to provide neural strengthening. Nah, I bet it’s a storage device of some kind. Let me get the scanners pinpointed on it, now that I know where it is.”

“Okay.” Brian rolled his shoulder, working out an ache. “Can you work on it while I talk to this guy?”

Lucinda nodded. “He’s conscious, but resting. You can wake him if you like.”

Brian straddled the stool beside the bed, planting his hands on the rail. “Sir?”

The man’s eyelids fluttered open. He scanned the ceiling, then turned sideways to stare at Brian, anxiety creasing his face. “Where am I?”

“Rescue cutter HMRC Sennebec. I’m Captain Brian Gaudette. And you must be …” Brian drew his own delver and tapped it. “… Abu Saif Zayd al-Faraj, captain and owner of the merchant skipjack Abdun Nur, according to your ship’s manifest.”

“Yes.” Zayd frowned. “Where is my family?”

“They’re safe. We put them up in a pair of cabins down the corridor.”

“My ship. It was damaged. We had a thruster malfunction …”

“We know.” Brian read from the report. “Blew a nice hole in your starboard side, contributing to catastrophic but not immediate decompression. You got your family into their suits and did your best to alter course, but got snagged by the gravity of Pembroke’s moon, the nearest body along your trajectory.”

“My wife told you this?”

“She did, and so did your oldest boy.”

“Saif.” Zayd nodded, relaxing. “He was brave. He tried to go back and help our robots with repairs, but he became trapped.”

Brian smiled as the memory flashed through him. “Yeah. It took a bit to get him out.”

Zayd pushed up with his arms, trying to sit up in bed, but groaned in pain. Brian reached for the bed controls. “Let me.”

The bed whined and whirred, easing Zayd into a sitting position. “Thank you,” he said. A pause, and then, “My ship is lost?”

“Yes. Our cutter doesn’t have the mass or drive capacity to haul a ship of that size out of a gravity well. All we could do was pull you folks off.”

“And we are grateful for that. Ana mamnoon.”

Brian scratched the back of his neck, face reddening. “Yeah. No problem.”

“Skipper?” Lucinda gestured from her scanning station. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Okay.” Brian tensed. “Abu Saif Zayd, we’re going to conduct a scan of a foreign object implanted in your body, as allowed under Section Twenty-Two of the Corps’ Hazard Regulation Ordinance,” he said formally. “Do you wish to file an objection?”

Zayd sighed and closed his eyes. “May I opt out of having the scan?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I file no objection.”

Brian gave Lucinda a curt nod. She activated the scanner, watching as the slender device descended from the ceiling, its glassy scanning orb rotating into position. It projected a wide, glittering beam across Zayd’s body, panning up until it reached his chest. The beam stopped there, focused into a narrow stream of light, and stayed put for half a minute.

A series of beeps drew Brian’s attention away from Zayd’s rigid face. “Got something?”

Lucinda frowned at the results on her monitor. “Yeah. It’s not data storage – the circuitry’s a fake.”

“Fake?”

“False. Counterfeit. Phony. Bogus. Need more synonyms?”

“Ha, ha.”

Lucinda waved her hand at the screen. “Scanner says it’s covered with writing. I can project it if you want.”

Brian eyed Zayd curiously, but the man continued to stare up at the scanning device. “Go ahead.”

Lucinda punched a control, and the blank panel above her scanning equipment lit up. Flowing black script swirled across a golden background. She stared at Zayd, then looked back at the screen. “Empty my fuel tanks,” she muttered. “Ion etching. That’s an old trick, but the camouflage circuitry makes it harder to detect.”

Brian found the curving letters mesmerizing, but he didn’t recognize the writing. He came to her side and idly ran a finger across one line. “Can you translate it?” he asked her.

Even as she shook her head in the negative, Zayd began almost whispering, “Allahu la ilaha illa huwa lahu alasmao alhusna.”

Brian flinched.

“’Allah! There is no God save Him’,” Zayd said, his voice stronger. “’His are the most beautiful names.’ It is verse eight of the twentieth surah.”

“The Koran,” Brian said.

Zayd nodded.

“Blast,” Brian spat.

Dupre sat back in his chair, smiling in the shadows of his cramped cabin. It was barely big enough for a bunk, storage bins, and bathroom, and was the furthest accommodations from the bridge. Sennebec’s engine noise and vibration made it uncomfortable, but with his headphones firmly in place, Dupre didn’t care. He took great pleasure in Zayd’s recitation of the surah, as delivered to him from sickbay by the listening device Dupre had placed under a stool.

He saved a copy of the recording to his delver, then opened up the warrant file. There were a few blanks left to fill in.

Brian wasn’t surprised when the Kesek sergeant turned up on the bridge with an arrest warrant for Zayd. “I expect you to remand him to my custody immediately,” Dupre said.

RK snorted. Brian gave him a warning look, then asked, “And where would you like him incarcerated, Detective Sergeant?”

“You have a brig, don’t you?”

“No, we don’t. This isn’t a law enforcement vessel,” Brian said. He handed the delver back to Dupre, who snatched it away. “Sickbay should do for now. He’s still recovering.”

“Very well. He must be placed in restraints, as per Kesek protocol.”

“Oh, come on!” RK snapped. “Where’s he gonna …”

“Enough, Ensign.” Brian’s tone was steely.

RK met his glare with his own disgruntled expression. “Skipper, how can you let this guy …”

“I said, enough,” Brain cut in. “This is Kesek’s jurisdiction. Their rules apply. Understood?”

“Yessir.” RK hunched over his console, turning his back to them.

Brian rounded on Dupre, catching the smirk growing on his face. “No restraints, Detective Sergeant,” Brian stated flatly, and when Dupre protested, he added, “Lucinda and her staff are more than adequate to keep track of him. The guy is not a ship thief or a pirate. We can handle him. You can have him when we dock with Relief. Got it?”

“I thought we would continue on to Levesque for transshipment of the prisoner,” Dupre said.

“Which part of our rendezvous with a hospital ship did you not understand?” Brian said angrily. “The man is in stable condition, but he needs recovery time in a better facility than I can offer, and I don’t want him to wait three days until we get to Levesque.”

“The only reason those people were out this far in the system is that they were attempting a clandestine transfer of a text-in-violation.” Dupre smiled. “You did an excellent job proving that case.”

“Listen to me.” Brian brought himself nose to nose with the Kesek man. “You stay the hell away from Zayd and you stay the hell away from his family, or you’ll be sorry.”

“Interesting choice of words, for a Contritionist traitor.”

Brian sucked in a breath.

“Yes, you see I know a great deal about you, Lieutenant,” Dupre hissed. “Our budget allows us to employ efficient informants. So do not presume to level threats against me, or there can be great trouble for you. The Corps will not always protect you.” He indicated the double golden arrowheads on his collar, the symbols of his rank. “I will interrogate the prisoner as I see fit.”

He stalked off the bridge.

That night, alone in his cabin, Brian knelt on the metal grating of the deck. Hands clasped to his chin, face raised to the small, round porthole in his cabin bulkhead, he gazed out at the stars. Making the sign of the cross on his forehead, chest and shoulders, he murmured, “Au nom du Père, du Fils, et du Saint Espirit, amen. Lord God, I confess my sins to you and ask your forgiveness. Christ give me strength to do what is right. Show me your will.”

He continued on for twenty minutes. By then his knees hurt.

Zayd was talking softly with his wife when Brian came in early the next morning. Lucinda was busily prodding at her patient’s ribs, asking every second or third poke if something hurt. Most of Zayd’s answers were in the affirmative.

“Mornin’, Skipper,” Lucinda called.

“You missed breakfast,” Brian said with a smile.

“Yeah, well, Jimmy promised to set aside some chow for me. Freeze-dried deliciousness… yum.”

Brian snickered.

Zayd nodded in his direction. “Good morning, Captain. Do we need to talk?”

“I think so,” Brian said. He handed over his delver. The screen bore Dupre’s warrant.

Zayd sighed. His face looked more pale and drawn than the previous day. “I’m sorry to say, the detective sergeant was already here,” Zayd said.

Brian shoved the delver into his pocket, turned and kicked a cabinet. Lucinda watched him warily. “Easy on the hardware, Skipper,” she cautioned.

Brian rubbed his jaw, saying nothing. “I knew what to expect as soon as I woke up here,” Zayd offered. “Shepherding the prophet’s writings is a dangerous task in these times.”

Brian looked at the slender woman seated by his side. Dressed in flowing, emerald and gold silks draped over a tan shipsuit, her deep, dark eyes watched him carefully. “You endanger your family by doing this,” he said.

Zayd looked to his wife, who smiled at him and gripped his hand. “Soraya knew the risk.”

“I would not let my children grow up seeing their parents abandon their beliefs to fear,” she said softly but firmly.

Brian shook his head. “I can’t stop him, you know.”

“But you want to,” Zayd said.

“Is it that obvious?” Brian dug into the front of his slate gray coveralls. The crucifix dangled between his fingers. “My faith demands I face injustice. Too bad injustice is entrenched in law.”

Zayd nodded. “Your kindness will be remembered.”

“A lot of good that will do you,” Brian grumbled. He dropped the chain, rubbing his face with the heel of his other hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d rather we’d not found you alive.”

“I understand your difficulty,” Zayd said, smiling wryly. “A dead body causes fewer problems.”

“Yeah. Just sealed up in a bag …” Brian stopped. A curious look crossed over his face.

“Captain?” Zayd asked. “Are you well?”

Brian didn’t answer. He stared off above Zayd’s head. Lucinda finally reached across the bed and shook his arm. “Skipper!” she said. “Wake up!”

“Huh? Oh, I’m okay.” Brian smiled a small, amused smile. “Just fine.”

He walked out of sickbay, reaching for his comm. “RK? Get down to my cabin.”

The hospital ship HMMC Relief dwarfed the cutter. Two kilometers long, bulbous at the center and tapering to a knife edge at the bow and gaping anti-matter engines at the stern, it cast a shadow over the 120-meter Sennebec as RK eased the cutter alongside a row of docking ports.

Dupre stood at the main airlock, rocking back and forth on his heels. He tapped the delver against his free hand, humming a merchantmen’s tune he’d picked up on Corazon. This arrest was a fine addition to his record, he was sure.

His smile dimmed a bit when a visibly upset Brian strode toward him, followed by Jimmy pushing a stabilizer capsule on a hoversled. “What is this?” Dupre demanded. “Where is the prisoner?”

Brian rapped the smooth, curved container. “Stasis, thanks to you,” he snapped. “You have any idea the stress you caused with your stunt?”

“What are you babbling about?”

“He had a massive and potentially fatal heart attack after you served the warrant. Lucinda – Chief Wainwright barely had time to restart him and get him in the capsule before he died.” Brian folded his arms across his chest.

Dupre snorted in disdain. “I trust you have some proof of that.”

Brian waved a hand at the capsule.

The readout gave a record of Zayd’s body temperature, brain function and heartbeat, among other vital signs. “They look acceptable,” Dupre said, squinting.

“Yeah, for someone operating at near death. Chief Wainwright has the nanosurgeons repairing the valve damage his heart suffered, and the capsule won’t release him until their work is done. Problem?”

“Not at all. Bring him this way.” He pointed a finger beyond Brian. “But make sure his family …”

“We’ll take them back to Levesque, don’t worry. Your boys can track them from there.”

“Good.” Dupre drew himself up into a dignified pose. “Inquiry.”

Brian stiffened at the command. But he drew his delver, as instructed. Jimmy scrambled about in his pockets for his own. Dupre produced a black rod from his belt. Its multicolored lights flashed and strobed as the device accessed the contents of both men’s delvers, sifting through private communications, data and notes. It raised no alarms.

“Were you hoping for damning evidence?” Brian asked coolly.

“I consider you too clever to put your own spiritual musings down in writing,” Dupre said. “Besides, I wanted my own copy of your medic’s report on the prisoner’s condition – which I just copied. Good day, Lieutenant.”

Brian simply nodded.

Jimmy obediently pushed the capsule through the link tube to the Relief’s airlock, Dupre in the lead. Captain Thomas Renquist waited for them at the hatch. “Detective Sergeant,” he boomed, throaty voice a match to his tall, barrel-chested build. “Welcome.”

“Captain. I will maintain a constant watch over this prisoner during his recovery. A Kesek patrol craft is on its way to take us both in two days, you understand.”

“Yes, that was all in your commnote,” Renquist said.

Dupre smiled. “Excellent.” He waved a hand dismissively to Jimmy. “That will be all.”

Stabilizer capsules were timed units. They were preset to gradually awaken their occupants and then unseal themselves, unless medical staff sensed a problem in the readouts and overrode the timer. Dupre saw that, according to the medic’s report, Zayd’s capsule was programmed in concert with the nanosurgeons and would indeed remain sealed until they signaled successful internal repairs.

He was content to wait the four hours, preparing his own reports, giving instructions to the pair of Kesek constables based on Relief, and generally basking in the glow of his own satisfaction. But when the time expired, he made sure he was present in the small cubicle of hospital ship’s cavernous main sickbay where they’d stored Zayd’s capsule.

Captain Renquist joined him. “A momentous capture?”

“Text-in-violation,” Dupre said proudly.

“Ah.”

The capsule’s control panel beeped, its indicators all flashing. A hiss escaped its edges as it unsealed itself and equalized air pressure with the sickbay. A medic reached down and heaved open the lid …

To reveal a battered rescue drone.

All the color drained from Dupre’s face. His delver clattered to the deck, shattering the silence.

Renquist had difficulty smothering his smile. “Oh my. He looks in rough shape.”

Dupre rounded on him, nostrils flaring. “Get after them!” he snapped.

“Who?”

“The cutter! Lieutenant Gaudette! You must pursue!”

Renquist shook his head. “I’m afraid you overestimate this ship’s capabilities. Sennebec can out-accelerate us and cruise circles around my ship any day.”

“Then get on the comm and get my patrol ship!” Dupre demanded.

“Sorry, did I forget to mention?” At Dupre’s blank look, Renquist put on a fairly poor attempt at a sorrowful expression. “Our comms are down for regular reprogramming. It will be at least two hours. My apologies.”

Renquist walked away whistling, as Dupre stared down at the drone and watched his career disappear.

He missed when Renquist’s whistle became a murmured song.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face …”

RK chuckled into his hands. “You think it worked?”

Brian grinned. “Thomas was only too willing to assist. Kesek locked his uncle up for proselytizing last year, and his oldest sister disappeared at their hands when he was a boy.”

They were in sickbay, sharing canisters of orange spice tea with Zayd and Lucinda. Brian raised a canister in her direction. “Here’s to my chief surgeon and her skill with falsifying medical records.”

Lucinda clinked canisters with him. “What falsification? Must have been some kind of mistake,” she grinned.

“But I still need to go to a hospital, yes?” Zayd asked. “I thought that was necessary.”

“Of course, but your injuries aren’t nearly as critical as I made them out to be to the dear detective sergeant,” Brian explained. “We’ll get you to Levesque and get you healed up. I know some people who can help you disappear.”

“Your bravery astonishes me, Captain,” Zayd said warmly. “In what situation have you placed yourself for my sake?”

“I couldn’t let them haul you off,” Brian said firmly. “Kesek destroys a little more freedom every time we let them arrest someone for what they believe. We don’t need a religious police. Don’t worry about me – the Corps looks out for its own.”

“Yeah, and it does help that you’re something of a local hero on Levesque,” RK pointed out.

“True.”

Zayd raised an eyebrow as he sipped his tea. Lucinda laughed. “Something of a hero? The man saved the prime minister’s boy from a wrecked star-sailer, and is the humble recipient of three Emerald Coil medallions!”

Brian blushed. “C’mon, guys.”

Zayd laughed. “Ah, Captain, Allah has put me in great hands, I see. He truly is As-Salam, the source of peace and safety, the Most Perfect,” he said.

“Zayd, you know all of your Ninety-Nine names for God, don’t you?”

“Proudly.”

Brian nodded. “Well, there is a name for God that you don’t know, and to me, it is the most important.”

“And it is …?”

“Father.”

]]> http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/2009-joe-keysor-gk-chesterton-19-up-steve-rzasa/154.html/feed 1 http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/2009-athanatos-christian-ministrys-cs-lewis-award-for-first-place-19-and-up-michael-pape/152.html http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/2009-athanatos-christian-ministrys-cs-lewis-award-for-first-place-19-and-up-michael-pape/152.html#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:26:28 +0000 admin http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/?p=152 Athanatos Christian Ministries

is proud to present the 2009

C.S. Lewis Award

to

Michael Pape

Irving, TX

1st Place

(Category:  19 and up)

Bio: Michael Pape grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, which taught him the value of hard work and moon boots. He likes cheese and dogs, and dislikes raw onions and cats. He can currently be found fixing computers or writing crazy stuff in either Irving, TX or an unspecified location in Wisconsin, depending on when you’re reading this.  His web page is:  www.epthnation.com

To contact Michael Pape you may seek his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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Those Chickens, They Don’t Roost in Some Random Coop in Another State.

by Michael Pape

copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

The neighbor’s cat was determined and fearless, and it was now balancing itself on Derrick Hearst’s backyard fence. He believed the cat’s name to be Sprickles, but he almost certainly had that wrong. Sprinkles? Sparkles? Oh, he supposed it could also be their other cat, Tushka. It’s impossible to tell two similar cats apart when you don’t care about either. At least this explained the dirty little clumps of cat fur he kept finding in his yard.

On most other days, Derrick wouldn’t be staring out his kitchen window at 9am. He would be at the office, making sure the people who wished to stab him in the back got preemptively stabbed before they could brandish their knives. But today, he called in. Threw in the towel. Raised the white flag. Quit before he began. And why? Because of a bad dream.

The cat carefully prowled along the top of the fence for a few seconds, then stopped. Its gaze scanned the yard like a spotlight on a guard tower — forward and back, forward and back. Derrick loved to see animals hunt, even if this wasn’t exactly the wild. It was searching for something, but what?

—

His stunned state was caused by more than just a dream — the seeds for this were planted a week before, during a “non-mandatory teamwork and self-improvement exercise” held by his employer. It was billed the Weekend of Hypnosis and Beer, and it was held at the Twilight Hills Retreat Center, a spa/lodge/holistic (read: wacked-out) wellness complex 2 hours outside of town in the lovely Clackamas Valley. The stated purpose of the weekend was to eliminate all self-defeating thoughts from the attendees’ heads. He agreed to do it because he always attended any work-related event, especially the non-mandatory ones. They were all part of the game. Plus, everybody has self-defeating thoughts, right? If hypnosis and beer are all it takes to defeat them, then why not partake?

There was a shuttle from the office to the THRC for any interested attendees, but he decided to take his new BMW instead. I mean, come on — why go to a work event if you’re not going to show off a little? He hadn’t paid 50 grand for a totally impractical little car just to leave it at home during showtime.

The weekend was being run by the Twilight Hills staff, all of whom all had a decidedly hippie vibe about them, even while wearing polos and khakis. There wasn’t one male THRC person without a ponytail. This was the first bad sign. The next one came when he was handed the Schedule of Events, which was packed with things like “Group Meditations” and “Nature Walks.” There seemed to be very little hypnosis planned, and even less beer. He wondered why he was even there, but he recognized that as the kind of self-defeating thought this weekend was supposed to be about eliminating. Of course, because he was Derrick Hearst, go-getter, he ended up throwing himself full-bore into these activities without thinking about the consequences first. The Boss, after all, might be watching, and his bespectacled eyes appreciated constant enthusiasm for whatever the company thought was worth being enthusiastic about, no matter how inane or pointless.

The first night they all got together in a big flourescently-lit room and did team-building exercises. Derrick hated these things. It was like they were baiting the negative thoughts out of him. After what seemed like hours of Getting to Know Your Teammates, they each went to their own rooms without any beer at all. That was such a downer. Derrick wanted to talk to some of his office-mates — Morrison from sales, that Amanda chick from Logistics, the albino HR guy who always wanted to discuss fantasy baseball — about how lame Friday night was, but didn’t dare. If word got back to some of his enemies in the office, the ones that wanted his job and the jobs he coveted, they would surely bring it up to the Boss, and that would result in a big black mark of uncertainty being placed on him like a scarlet letter. It would be on his permanent record. He hadn’t worked this hard for five of his best years to be brought down by some non-mandatory work activity, no matter how lame it was.

The next day brought with it the promised hypnosis, and significantly more beer than Derrick thought was possible. Because of the beer, and possibly the hypnosis, he didn’t remember much. He remembered getting up at 7am and going for a wonderful, pore-opening run in a majestic valley. He remembered taking a shower and rushing down to the kitchen just in time for the end of breakfast, which turned out to be runny eggs and toast with some funky-tasting hippie-produced jam. At 10am the group meditation started, and he remembered everyone lying flat on their backs on the same kinds of mats he once used during nap time in Kindergarten. He remembered starting to space out, and thinking that hypnosis is just being really sleepy. He remembered being instructed to find his “safe place,” or place in his mind where he could be safe and feel like everything was super great. For that, he chose to imagine his old college frat house. He didn’t remember his reasoning in picking that place (since he hadn’t thought of it in…like forever), but he remembered mentally walking up to the red wooden door on the front of the house, shoving it open (it always stuck), and stepping into the foyer. He remembered it being unusually warm inside the frat house in his mind, so he decided to go into the hall and change the thermostat, again in his mind. He was getting a little bored with the exercise at this point, and just needed something to do. Moving from the foyer to his right, he strolled down the two steps into the main party room. The hallway was on the other side of the couch. He remembered it being really tedious to continue imagining the process of walking step-by-step, so he flew over the couches in the middle of the room and into the darkness of the back hallway. There was a bright blue light coming from under the door at the end of the hall, but that was the only thing Derrick could see. He couldn’t even see the hallway walls, and it felt like the darkness was crushing him.

He then remembered waking up to the sound of a clanging bell being enthusiastically wrung by one of the ponytail guys. It was 5pm in the evening. He had “slept” right through lunch, as had (apparently) all his office-mates. When he awoke, he was greeted by the sound of rushing water and the smell of bacon. He remembered being totally confused and disoriented, and thinking that he was still back in college. The rushing water turned out to be a CD the hippies were playing, and the bacon turned out to be, well, bacon. It was dinnertime.

He remembered sitting down at the long supper table and seeing two giant kegs on a stand at the far end of the room — one of LaBatt Blue and one of Molson. He remembered thinking that the hippies must be Canadian, which actually explained a lot. He was very excited at the first appearance of beer, even the crappy Canadian kind. He went over to the keg stand and poured himself a frosty one, then sat back down. He vaguely remembered drinking and eating that night, but for some reason he felt like he was having a meal in his old frat house, as if the hypnosis session and the meal were mixed together in his mind. He didn’t remember anything after dinner, either – the scene dissolves as he’s drinking Molson at the dinner table, and resumes the next morning with him waking up in a pool of sweat.

On Sunday, he asked Morrison from sales — the only one in the company he felt he could really trust with such a question — about the previous night, and Morrie indicated that ol’ Derrick had been the life of the party. There was apparently lots of karaoke and bad drunken dancing involved, and possibly a 10pm “nature stumble.” He assumed he had gotten drunk and blacked out while on his feet, and he expected memories of that night to come flooding back as they always did in these situations, but they never came. That night, and most of that day, has remained an impenetrable mystery to Derrick, even after Morrison forwarded him a link to an internet video featuring Derrick dancing with the ugliest life-sized clown statue in the world and singing that inane “In the Year 2525″ song. He didn’t remember any of what he saw on that video. He had been drunk before (too many times to count, especially in college) but never had he been so out-of-it that he permanently forgot a memorable shindig.

—

The cat stood motionless in a dead crouch on top of the wooden fence. It seemed to be staring very intently at the one tree in his backyard, the giant spruce he desperately needed to have trimmed. It stayed in the crouch for at least 30 seconds, patiently waiting for something. The top of the fence was no more than two inches wide, and the cat’s sense of balance was quite impressive. It was trying to become, for all intents and purposes, part of the fence.

—

Calling in sick was a brand-new experience for Derrick, and as he was about to dial the office, he realized he had no idea how to do it. What does one say? He knew about the proverbial pretend-coughing and such, but didn’t know how much of a ruse was necessary. He had a bigger problem, though — if he called in sick, people would undoubtedly view this as extremely out-of-character for him, and assume he was either a) on his deathbed, or b) having a nervous breakdown (a la what happened to Dzelzkalns last year). It didn’t matter that b) was probably right; what mattered is that there would be a chance that the Boss would send someone to his house to check on him. Even if nobody came, he would at the very least have to field several “concerned” phone calls disguised as work questions. He needed to have his story straight. If he claimed illness, they would send a doctor and the jig would be up (more likely, the doctor would diagnose it as “stress,” which would effectively end his career advancement because he would now be “unable to deal with the pressure” or whatever). However, if he said he just needed a day off, he would prove himself unreliable on a day-to-day basis, and that would be that. He could see no way out of this conundrum, besides going to work. And since going to work with those people was definitely not an option, at least not today…

He calmly dialed the office number and spoke his pre-planned script to the albino from HR, the one that would most likely shoot down his rising corporate star. He went with illness, the kind that has served derelict workers for decades — sore throat, sore muscles, probably highly contagious. He even did a fake cough, mostly out of guilt. He was going to see the doctor, and might be in later if everything looked okay. He hung up the phone and stared straight ahead at nothing in particular. After all he had done for that company and that Boss, they owed him at least one mulligan.

—

He continued to stare out the window at the cat on the fence, but he wasn’t thinking about the cat. His mind wandered to the dream he had experienced earlier, the one that had set his rocker off its hinges and out the door. It was getting fuzzier with each passing minute, as these things do, but he vividly remembered the end of the dream. In it, he walked through the glass doors that separated his company’s office from the rest of the Brubaker Building. Everything looked the same as real life, except for a couple inches of freshly-fallen snow on the floor and the cubicles. He was wearing one of his normal everyday suits, and was shivering from the cold. He crunched his way through the snow down the hall past cubicle row, and noticed that nobody else was there. He walked left through the open doorway to his own personal office, and suddenly found himself outside in a blowing snowstorm. There was a woman in a white hooded sweatshirt about 20 feet ahead of him holding a shovel, and he trudged up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and looked at him. He vaguely recognized her face, but could not think of her name. (What was her name again? No. Just NO!)

The mystery woman smiled, dropped her shovel, and whispered, “On to the next thing.”

He awoke, not knowing where or who he was. It was 4:42 in the morning. This rang a bell in his head, and he just lay there and let reality re-coalesce around him. He didn’t want to think about the woman in white, or 442, or the snowstorm, or the dream (No. Just NO!). Staring up at the ceiling, he thought about fantasy baseball. He discussed with himself for at least 30 minutes the possible merits of trading for a different backup catcher, then went on to mentally tweak his outfield. He got scared a little when he thought of the consequences of losing one of his starters, such as that unhittable stud Cole Hamels, to injury. Two hours later, he got up and took a shower. The thought of going to work (Just NO!) made him nauseous, all of a sudden. He blamed the Canadian hippies, but it didn’t take.

He made some coffee and the deceptive phone call. He read the paper and listened to some talk radio. It was 9am. What do people who call in sick do all day anyway? He missed the office, and with it the habitual clawing for that golden ring that so consumed every minute of his days. So why was he watching this cat become one with a fence again? And why had he made his coffee so Irish this morning?

Because…(Just NO!)

—

The cat still stood in the same exact place. It had been at least 10 minutes since the cat stopped moving. Derrick could tell it was still watching the tree, and had figured out that it was actually the birds inside the tree that the feline predator was watching. He counted at least 20 brown and black birds in its ample supply of branches, most of whom were just hanging out and chirping. Some of the black ones were making noises that sounded like electrical equipment short-circuiting. He hated those oily birds and their gosh-awful racket.

Something must have spooked the birds, because instantaneously the tree emptied, pouring black and brown blobs into the air towards the fence. Derrick thought at first that the cat would be knocked off the fence like Humpty-Dumpty, but the birds all flew over and past the cat in their hysterical race to escape. The cat waited silently, crouching even lower, and what happened next forced coffee out of Derrick’s mouth and nose and onto his Parisian silk bathrobe.

The last bird out of the tree was a brown one, looking bigger and plumper than any of the others. In an instantaneous burst of motion, the cat pounced off the fence directly toward the path of the flying brown bird. It had compensated for the brown blob’s speed and acceleration, and if the bird noticed the flying cat it was far too late; the bird was carried by inertia into the waiting claws of the feline missile, and the two small animals crashed to the ground in a explosion of fur, feathers, and squawking. As the coffee hit the bathrobe, Derrick looked around as if to say, “Did anyone else but me see THAT?” Looking back at the ground, he saw that the impact of hitting the lawn had caused the cat to let go of its avian prey, and the scared plump brown victim was flapping its wings in a panic in order to get away from the momentarily stunned cat. The predator took a split second to roll to its feet, and shot off towards the bird. At first, it was making up ground, but even fat brown birds can eventually out-fly a ground-ridden cat. Eventually, the bird got high enough in the air to clear the fence, and the cat stopped and began walking in circles. It was looking up in the air, and now had an obvious limp.

The cat deserved the limp for trying something so rash, stupid, and unnecessary, thought Derrick. There were probably Tender Vittles waiting at home in a dish — didn’t the cat know that? It squeezed its little furry body under the fence with great difficulty, hind legs clawing at the ground in a desperate push. There was just enough space for it to smush its bones in-between the fence and the grass below, and it was tearing a hole in his lawn. Stupid cat.

—

As Tushka or Sprickles’ hindquarters slowly disappeared, Derrick looked down at the brown stain on his robe and wondered what could get coffee out of Parisian silk. Amazingly, the shock of cat vs. bird had taken the starch out of his malaise, and he now found himself able to think semi-clearly. The cat may have been a gift from God, sent to snap him out of his mental prison and help him face whatever he had to face. (No. Just NO!)

(Maybe.)

(Ok, FINE. Have it your way.)

If there was guilt inside him for what had happened to Abbie Rehfeldt, it was time to deal with it. Drinking himself into oblivion during hypnosis weekend didn’t stop this, and neither did pleading ignorance. It’s obvious that things like the bad dream would keep happening until he found a way to be rid of them. He couldn’t afford to miss any more days of work. This had to end now. Only a clear-headed man could achieve what Derrick wanted to achieve in life, so it was time to cleanse his head. And he knew a possible way to do it. Hoping for a lucky break, he pulled his laptop out of his briefcase, set it on the dining room table, and attempted to open the lid. His hands were shaking so much he was unable to pop the latch.

—

He really didn’t remember much about Abbie, since he only met her once, and that was over nine years ago. He couldn’t recall anything about her face, but always remembered she had jet-black straight hair that went down to the middle of her back. What he thought of most were the things she told him during their conversation at the beginning of his very first frat party. She was a freshman, just like him. She grew up in some crazy cult in Alabama that she literally had to escape from, like through underground tunnels. She hadn’t seen her parents in four years, because they had disowned her. It was a really heavy conversation, filled with the sorts of things you’d discuss at the end of a party, rather than at the beginning.

So when the slimeball Steve Sanderson took him aside and handed him a vial of some clear liquid with the numbers “442″ on it and told Derrick to drop it in her drink, that this was part of the initiation process, and that everybody does it before they get into the Brotherhood of Alpha Mu Rho, it was quite disappointing. He thought she was pretty cool, a fact that always bothered him on those few occasions he thought back to the events of that night. This wasn’t some dumb sorority girl we were talking about here — this girl had substance. It wasn’t even clear how she was able to get in the party in the first place, since she apparently didn’t come with anyone. Abbie was just a naive alone girl trying to make some friends. For that mistake, she was victimized in a way that Derrick couldn’t allow himself to think about.

She left to go to the bathroom. His eyes and Slimeball Steve’s met. He looked down at the vial. Everybody does it. Part of the initiation process. I need to do this to get on to the next thing. God, all those thoughts, and many more, went through his head. He was trying to convince himself. He confirmed that Steve was still looking at him, emptied his brain, and felt a flood of something enter him — Confidence? Power? The Devil? Whatever it was, it got past all the mental barriers he had, and he coldly opened the vial and poured it right in her nearly-full beer glass. Now not only Steve but Brett “The Plow” Wilkinson and Terry Leonard and like 12 other Brotherhood members were smiling at him. Some were nodding approvingly. He took his finger and stirred Abbie’s beer. She came back and smiled at him. She fricking smiled at him, after that. She sat down and asked why he was sweating.

It is precisely at this point that the memory fades. Thinking about it always made him sick to his stomach (No. Just NO!), so he tried his best to forget it and get on with his life. He had succeeded for nearly nine years. He hadn’t thought of Abbie Rehfeldt at all since he landed his current job, and with it the girlfriends, the house, the BMW, and the stress. He made one mistake in his life, and he couldn’t get away from it. The whole thing wasn’t even his fault! I mean, Steve gave him the vial and made him use it. It wasn’t Derrick’s plan. So why did he feel so guilty?

—

Ever since making the transition from sales to management, Derrick had found the internet to be an invaluable tool in evaluating and understanding the people who worked for him. It always amazed him that people would put personal details, likes, dislikes, and dreams out there where anyone, even their enemies, could find it. He needed to clear his conscience once and for all. Surely Abbie Rehfeldt had an internet presence. Surely she would be a successful writer, or banker, or something. Surely this one thoughtless act hadn’t totally derailed her life. A desperate hope filled his soul as he finally popped the latch and got the laptop open.

He typed her name into the Google search box and pressed enter. It was entirely possible that she got married, and now had a different name, but he had no way of knowing that. The first result that came up under “Abbie Rehfeldt” was a ZPlace page, one of those social networking sites where people typically put too much information about themselves. This might be it, he thought. He clicked on the link, and came to Abbie Rehfeldt’s ZPlace page. This particular Abbie Rehfeldt had customized her page with a black background and some blinking crucifixes. There were tiny blinking Jesuses all over the screen. At the top of the page was a picture of a raven-haired girl who looked like the one he remembered from nine years ago. This was definitely her, the Abbie Rehfeldt he once met. There didn’t seem to be much on her site — some generic comments from various people he didn’t know, the one picture, the blinking background, and that was pretty much it. She didn’t even have any hometown listed. Derrick’s hopes faded, but he did notice the page stretched past the bottom of the screen.

Scrolling down and scanning her “notes” section brought everything into focus. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing at first. Was this a joke? He looked away, and looked again. It was still there. In all caps, the note’s title screamed TO DERRICK HEARST. The walls of his home started to spin counterclockwise around him, and his field of vision was reduced to a small circle around those three words. After a few seconds of spinning he succumbed to the encroaching darkness and slumped completely off his chair…

…And was back in the frat house hallway, facing the back door just like during the group meditation. This time, however, he slowly walked toward the door (instead of running away in terror for hours). It was open a crack, and the light coming from behind it was a burning bluish-white. Derrick pushed open the door and was greeted by a rush of cold air. The room was filled with falling snow, and before him stood the woman from his dream, the one with the white hooded sweatshirt. She took down the hood, but she didn’t have to. He knew it was Abbie. Who else would it be? She smiled at him, the same smile he saw after his treacherous act. He started to cry.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because…it’s all so horrible.”

“Horrible? You haven’t even faced it yet.”

“What do you mean? I came into the room. I know what I did.”

“Do you? Why is it snowing?”

Derrick thought about this for a bit. He didn’t know. He was sure he didn’t want to know. The stern-faced White Abbie held out her hands in front of her, and cradled inside them was a tiny, twinkling snow globe. The dream got loud and black immediately, and he was forcibly ejected from his own head.

He heard frenzied yelling, and his sprawled-out body sat up in an instant. He was sitting on the floor of the kitchen, and the yelling he heard was coming from his own mouth. With its ceasing came the surrounding sounds of the mundane — the refrigerator was humming, the birds outside were making friendly little chirps, his wall clock was methodically ticking, and he was breathing heavily. The chair out of which he fell was directly in front of his outstretched legs. The concept of standing up didn’t quite process yet, so he just sat there and let his senses lead him. The distracting smell of coffee was coming from his robe, his throat felt tingly and sore, and his cheeks were damp with tears. His eyes went up to his laptop computer, sitting on the table. Oh, yeah. TO DERRICK HURST.

—

Less than five minutes after the 18-year-old Derrick Hurst had done the dirty deed, even before Abbie showed signs of feeling whatever effects were in store for her, he got sick and excused himself from the impending act. He didn’t want to hear any of what would be going on in that back room, so he went outside and vomited over the porch railing into the bushes below. There was a recliner on the porch, so he collapsed into it and stared out into the night sky above campus. It was an absolutely gorgeous fall night. A bit chilly, but gorgeous. Next to the recliner was a small wooden table with a snow globe on it, which he picked up and began to turn back and forth and upside down. The snowman inside stared at him with two black pinhole eyes, and it was never not smiling. The little flakes floated up and down in the water, making it look like the stereotypical winter scene it was intended to be. Between the hypnotic globe and the comfortable recliner, Derrick was able to relax a bit and take stock of what had just happened.

He never thought of himself as a criminal, but he had committed a heinous crime, one he could go to jail for. One he should go to jail for. This really was beyond the pale. He was now a real-live criminal, thanks to the Brotherhood. They owed him now, big time. What if she told people? He knew the Brotherhood would stick together, but that might not deter her from calling the authorities. If he could just…

This was ludicrous. He was a criminal. It didn’t matter if she told anyone — the truth would always be that he did this terrible thing to another human being. And his first thought is “What if she tells people?” What the hell kind of man was he anyway? It was that Slimeball Steve’s fault. He had made Derrick an unwilling accomplice, and now the Brotherhood and Derrick stood together in mud and blood. Maybe that’s why they have initiations like this in the first place. Nothing binds people together like a secret that’s too evil to tell, right? What kind of people had he just attached himself to?

On the other hand, he was now definitely a Brother, which marked the culmination of this stage in his life plan. He needed this. Being a Brother would mean connections, a probable good job, prestige, and an incalculable number of tremendous potential experiences. He had to do what he just did, if he wanted his life to work out in a superior way. Sometimes tough moral choices just needed to be made by men of action. Would the admiration of friends and family make up for the guilt of destroying that poor girl’s life? Probably, eventually.

So as the snowman fell prey to an intense snowstorm which pelted him from all sides and turned his life upside down, Derrick decided that this Just Didn’t Happen. He would not think of it again. If someone brought it up, he would act like he didn’t know what that person was talking about. She might accuse him, but admitting it wouldn’t help anyone. The Brotherhood were the only ones who knew the truth, and they would never tell. It wasn’t over and done with, because it was a non-event.

He put the globe down, walked to his dorm room, and slept his sleep.

—

And now as he sat alone on the dining room floor of his four-bedroom ranch-style house, he realized that everything he had, he owed to Abbie Rehfeldt. If he hadn’t made that bad choice, it was possible, even probable, that the Brotherhood wouldn’t have accepted him. That would have meant no internship with the Plow’s dad, and no job offer from Duke’s family friend, and no experience which led to a job with his current company, and no BMW or nice house or closets full of suits or hot girlfriends or membership at the Club. He might have turned out just as successful, but probably not. In any case, he used that to become this, and he therefore owed it all to her. There’s guilt, and then there’s the kind of guilt that has nowhere to go, and so it just seeps into every cell of one’s body and stays there, never moving, waiting to pounce at an opportune moment. It had measured exactly the right time, and jumped when Derrick saw his own name on his victim’s ZPlace page. It was all too much, and it wasn’t going away. The parade of “on to the next thing” had ended. There would be no next thing, anymore.

The last thing on earth Derrick wanted to do was read that note. He wanted to get up, go to work, push the guilt back down his gullet, and get back to his life. But he owed her this. This was about her, Abbie Rehfeldt, the real human. He was led to her — he didn’t know how, or why, but there was definitely a set-up involved — and coming this far was pointless if he didn’t go the rest of the way. So he crawled up from the floor and slid into the chair in front of the computer. The screensaver was up, and the words “Failure Is Not an Option” floated by in 3-D. That platitude seemed so…completely dead, now. He hit a key and the blinking crucifixes were back. He closed his eyes, and tears formed as the afterimage of crucified saviors filled his entire field of view. She was a real person, and the event was a real event, and these were facts he couldn’t bear for much longer. He clicked on the note, which brought him to a new page. The note said:

Derrick,

i don’t know why, but i feel the need to do this. you’ll probably never read it, and that’s ok. i’ve got to write it. it’s taken so very long to get here. if you should somehow stumble onto my page for whatever reason, you need to know

i forgive you.

– Abbie

The cat skulked back to its home, wounded and prideful and hungry as a lion. It would lick its wounds and get back on the fence again, if it was allowed to roam free. No amount of reason can convince a cat to stick to Tender Vittles in a dish. Even so, a bird has no real reason to be worried. The cat may have claws and guile, but it’s also subject to the laws of gravity. The ground is always fast approaching, and birds are blessed with wings.

]]> http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/2009-athanatos-christian-ministrys-cs-lewis-award-for-first-place-19-and-up-michael-pape/152.html/feed 1 http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/2009-christian-writing-contest-award-winners/141.html http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/2009-christian-writing-contest-award-winners/141.html#comments Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:17:24 +0000 admin http://christianwritingcontest.com/entry/?p=141 WINNERS OF THE 2009 CHRISTIAN WRITING CONTEST

(scroll down and click on the names and titles to read their stories in full.  Discuss them on the forum)

Buy the Anthology on Amazon.com!

19 and up category

The Athanatos Christian Ministries C.S. Lewis Award (1st Prize)

Goes to Michael Pape for his story, Those Chickens, They Don’t Roost in Some Random Coop in Another State.

Author of Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible, Joe Keysor, is proud to sponsor the GK Chesterton Award (2nd Prize)

Which goes to Steve Rzasa for his story, Rescued.

Third Prizes- Presented in Alphabetical Order by Last Name

The International Academy of Apologetics presents the Fyodor Dostoyevsky Award (3rd Prize)

Which goes to J.D. Greening for his story, Convocation.

An Anonymous Sponsor presents the George MacDonald Award (3rd prize)

Which goes to James Scott Lee for his story, The Devil Child.

ChristianManuscriptSubmission presents the Leo Tolstoy Award (3rd Prize)

Which goes to Joseph A. Raborg for his story, The Death of St. Magnus of Orkney.

Honorable Mentions

The Dante Award: Goes to Tracy Elson for her story, The Crown and the Chronicles
The William Shakespeare Award: Goes to Luke Curtis for his story, The Tormentor.

The John Wycliffe Award

In the course of the contest as more international authors surfaced, it became evident that some writers were writing in English as their second language and deserved recognition as such.  For this reason, a new award category was created.

Confident Christianity Presents the 2009 John Wycliffe Award (ESL)

to Adel Emmanuel for his story, The Oracle Of The Wicked Land

High School Category

The Athanatos Online Apologetics Academy JRR Tolkien Award (1st Prize)

Goes to Elizabeth Chance for her story, Azrael.

The Confident Christianity Dorothy Sayer’s Award (2nd Prize)

Goes to Kimberly Hanson for her story, Way Out West

Third Prizes- Presented in Alphabetical Order by Last Name

The John Milton Award (3rd Prize)

Goes to Morgan Nystrom for her story, Greater Love.

The William Blake Award (3rd Prize)

Goes to Nate Rankin for his story, To Make A Wretch His Treasure.

The Sojourner Leatherwork Flannery O’Connor Award (3rd Prize)

Goes to Josèphe-Anne Rocke for her story, Secrets of the Phoenix.

Honorable Mentions

The Graham Greene Award: Goes to Melanie Scarff for her story, Trial, Truth, and Triumph.
The Charles Williams Award: Goes to Jennifer van den Bogerd for her story, Windows of the Weald.

To contact any of these authors for any reason you may request their contact information through the contest administrators at director@athanatosministries.org.  All of them have indicated that they are available for interview.  Anthony Horvath, the executive director of Athanatos Christian Ministries, which is the host of the contest, is also available for interviews.