All Your Fathers All Your Brothers All Your Sons and Their Sons

Illustration by Pedro Gomes

They waited among the bushes in black masks and black hoodies. It had been ten minutes. It had been almost two months. Ladybugs alit and then rose from their shoulders. Late fall. An hour was more than enough time for either of them to reconsider. Opt out. But they’d decided two months ago. At the height of their plans, silence. Black hoodies, black masks and silence.

Almost fifteen minutes. Then the rasp of sneakers against macadam. The mucky outline of a figure. Topher’s six-three lurch. Sahara jumped first. Then Declan.

Declan’s first original idea did not come until the middle of second semester sophomore year. He had an Irish Catholic name, but he’d been raised First-Generation American Hippie. The “Readings of Genesis” class fulfilled a requirement. The book was a revelation. Weird to be twenty and never to have read the Ten Commandments. Halfway knew them but never read them. Never had an original idea. It arrived all at once. He raised his hand reflexively. Like he’d seen so many people do in his years of schooling.

“Future tense,” he said.

Half the class turned to look at him. It was a seminar, so half the class was eight people. When Declan talked, people listened. Until now, he’d been expert at repetition of facts. Now he had an actual idea.

“The whole thing is written in the future tense,” Declan said. “You think of it as a command at first—a commandment. Like it’s telling you what to do. ‘Don’t kill people.’ But it isn’t. That’s not literally what it says. It’s telling you what you are going to do. Or not do. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ In the future, you will not kill people. It’s stated as fact. There’s no wiggle room. In the tense.”

The professor just stood with his mouth open. Declan understood. Usually he fulfilled the task. Read closely and repeated language.

“Tense,” a girl in the front row said.

Sahara was staring at Topher.

“Felon,” Sahara said.

Professor Hurkenmuller didn’t hear her and asked her what she’d said.

“Nothing,” Sahara said. Then she got up and left the room. “Absolute nothing.”

“OK,” Professor Hurkenmuller said. “Huh. Back to Declan. Deck. That is honestly genius. Never heard