The Waste Book One

By Matthew Sawyer

Dear Reader,

A word from the author...

Readers hate this story. And if you are one of those critics driven to warn others, you might as well copy and paste any of the following:

"How many false starts does this book have?"

"Tons of grammar mistakes and incomplete sentences."

"Is English even his natural language?"

I am saying, if you're a persnickety nag, you will loathe my writing. And you will miss everything I have to tell, because, who else can speak for me? The same question applies to the writing and the proofreading, editing, artwork. I'm responsible for every bit.

I persist regardless the persecution! Here I am, and I insist The Waste is an epic story. Well, antiepic; deviant of conventions. It's tragically adventurous. What is here is a novice's effort to create a story on the scale of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Stephen King's The Stand. But my tale is different. There is no good versus evil. Everyone here is an irredeemable sinner. There is only evil in this desert world called the Shur. God is gone, and that has left an opening for demons and alien gods to fill that void.

That supernatural struggle is reflected in the religion and the very same absent god of two theocratic combatants. A demon plays these factions against each other. That is probably where readers complained about encountering false starts in my story – you are meant to follow a demon and not any tangible character through the books. I meant the original titles – Pazuzu Book One published by Llumina Press and my self-published Pazuzu Trilogy – to reflect my intention.

The Waste is actually in its third revision. I self-published the thick volumes twice under my pseudonym, Mr. Binger. The Waste is a two volume edition of what I wanted the book published by Llumina Press to be. The out-of-print Pazuzu Book One, though, only told half the story, and people weren't buying it. That brought an end to hiring a professional proofreader. All we have got is a Libreoffice spell-checker. I hope readers have seen through the multiple revisions and incarnations of the story, I do correct typos as I go.

The Waste is always the uncensored pinnacle of the story. Whereas, a single novel would easily tell the tale, I always imagined two volumes. Just like the New Testament, there are two parts – a resurrection and an apocalypse. The trilogy split the story into three suggestively titled books – Manifestation, Emergence and the meaningless Abeyance – but that did undermine the whole idea to revise Christianity. The Waste, Book One and Book Two, is what readers should have got. This is Book One of The Waste. Herein, readers witness the Antichrist manifest in the dystopia of a godless desert.. -- Matthew Sawyer

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Sawyer
• Release date: Mar 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370529285

Matthew Sawyer

I hate talking about myself. Like everyone, I suppose, I am a bit narcissistic, but not egotistical. My own failure for success is that I just do not think much about myself. That is not to say I spend too much time thinking about others. In truth, I should think more of everyone; and there is a dull guilt attached to that confession. There is something of who I am, I am old enough for regrets.At my age, I am prone to think about immortality And being an atheist, there seems no alternative but science. Even so, I know that science is beyond my lifetime. I have no faith nor hope, nor do I believe in ghosts, elves, unicorns...In that hopeless disbelief, I write so there remains a record of accomplishments in my life. Unrecognized and even scorned, I continue to tell stories so I will be remembered after I am dead. My struggle with grammar and punctuation are evidence of my effort to make my writing decipherable. Because, what success means to me are hieroglyphics upon a Pharaoh's tomb.

Book preview

THE WASTE

BOOK ONE

Matthew Sawyer

Published by Matthew Sawyer at Smashwords 2018

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer

The Waste is a fictional story. All characters, names and locations are the creations of Matthew Sawyer. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental. Readers are advised of mature material of profane and blasphemous nature with descriptions of insurgency, crime, unlawful sex and violence.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing form from the copyright owner.

Please contact the author for permission to make copies of any part of this work.

Hardcover and Paperback books available from Matthew Sawyer's Storefront at Lulu.com.

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Isylumn

THE WASTE

BOOK ONE

Chapters

Reverend Joss Rasheed Had Come Before

Prologue

The Assailed Rock

The Wilderness

Samaritans

Trespass

Promised Land

Uncovered Nakedness

Leviathan

Wantonness

Pride

Assassin

Gnashing Teeth

Wild Beasts

Sabbath Eve

Wastrel Son

Blind Wanderer

Sorrowful Birth

Thicket

Sacrifice

Unripe Grape

Cast Flower

Concourse

Belly of the Furnace

Unclean Spirit

Unto the Beast

Grace and Supplication

Reverend Joss Rasheed Had Come Before

Before, there had been a man named Reverend Joss Rasheed. Reverend Rasheed was a Chosen priest. Please, patient reader, imagine the Chosen are a religious denomination. The Chosen are a separate people and they are the enemy of the Unchosen. There had been pagans, too, but who are all gone. And from pagans arose a man who called himself god. That man said, I am your creator god.

Those pagans who believed this man was their god became the Chosen and the Unchosen. The Unchosen called the man their Living God. The Chosen, those who chose themselves, they said the man was a Mortal God. The Chosen killed this god. And they proclaimed, We now have the power of god. And our power is providence. As far as we see across the Shur and all within is our right. This spot marks that promise. It is the Promised Land.

The Chosen priest, Reverend Rasheed, he lived in the Promised Land. He lived alone in a military barrack the Chosen Church officially titled Saint Erasmus. There, an elderly Unchosen woman, Jillie Shoud, she watched Reverend Rasheed return to his red brick church called Saint Erasmus. She saw he hefted stone tablets. Jillie saw hieroglyphics, though the woman did not know what the drawings were named. She saw they were pagan: forbidden, outlawed. Possession of the stone tablets threatened the penalty of death – just as did any printed material in the Shur.

Jillie Shoud heard, that night, Reverend Rasheed cry loud howls of pain. She stole herself across the street from her tiny apartment, in the dark, despite and because of a curfew that the Chosen military enforced across the Promised Land. Jillie looked through the open doors of Saint Erasmus and she saw a cyclone of black feathers. She saw blood and that was all she saw anymore of the Chosen priest, Reverend Joss Rasheed. All that remained was blood and feathers, but the feathers were not pieces of Reverend Rasheed. There, too, were biting flies. The biting flies drove Jillie Shoud back home.

The bitten old woman did not radio the Chosen military and tell them what she had seen. The hour was after dark and Jillie was, after all, an Unchosen woman. The Chosen did not welcome her in the Promised Land. Whatever there was of Reverend Rasheed remained there in Saint Erasmus until dawn and curfew lapsed. The Chosen military themselves found the slain Reverend Rasheed. Jillie told them nothing. When the military came to her, she obeyed every order they gave her. The old woman forgot anything she did say, just as she prayed that the Chosen forgot about her.

More important for the Chosen military were the flies inside Saint Erasmus. Fumigators came and covered the red barrack with canvas. The exterminators then filled the church with gas. Jillie Shoud watched all this from the only window from her cramped apartment. There she stayed locked inside with her cursed child. He, too, saw the indigo and white tent cover Saint Erasmus and the brown uniforms and the rifles of Chosen soldiers. The disfigured boy also saw Reverend Rasheed carried away in small, bloody buckets.

Prologue

Captain Ioannu was the raging victim of extortion. Anger or withdrawal makes his hands quiver. Ioannu tugs his collarless white shirt. He then finally removes his black uniform jacket. Unchosen call the choice drug of this priest 'Ape'; a street name for poison that changes users into anxious and howling gorillas.

The pomp and dignity granted to Ioannu’s position guarded against that uncivil lunacy. No, the unquiet phases of a chemically grown monkey would not drive Ioannu into madness. The Chosen Church had promoted this middle-aged priest to captain because his genetically endowed discipline gave him immaculate willpower. After all, Captain Ioannu had been born Chosen. Even without rank, birthright bestowed upon him an authority over any Mortal God as the Church had authority over all else.

Nonetheless, responsibilities crush Ioannu under stones. He grumbled to himself. Those duties the Church press upon a mid-rank priest make me want Ape.

I'm old before my time, Ioannu confesses to himself. Using Ape isn't a problem, the problems start when there isn't any Ape left. You start to remember your age

Sobriety-sharpened nails press into his chest and head. Beneath his tormented rut, the priest tells himself, Nobody listens to me. And they just babble and interrupt me when I do try to speak.

I need Ape... it helps me make sense of other people.

Deep in his heart, Ioannu believes sobriety compromised his ability to control his god, the Mortal God. And he needed Ape to help him deal with all those Unchosen living within a squalid quarter of the Promised Land, now called Khetam. The migrants lived against the white limestone wall encircling the sprawling city. Only the west was open to the sea. That harbor remained guarded and mined.

Today, Ioannu deals with an unprecedented crime committed within the walled city of Khetam. Reverend Rasheed had been murdered here on the sands of the Promised Land. Ioannu had assigned Rasheed the custodianship of the Saint Erasmus parish. Ioannu thinks aloud, A heathen sympathizer killed him. Here, inside the Wall. It's those Unchosen.

The wall that separates Khetam from the deserts of the Shur foremost protects the city from the ravages of heathen terrorists, whom the pagan of old had become. No red-blooded heathen can get into Khetam, Ioannu mumbles. He tells no one inside his darkened office at the Chosen Church, Chosen exercise exclusive entrance into Khetam.

A radio squelch next to Ioannu rattles the captain. A man on the transmission calls Ioannu, Sir. A Reverend Benjamin Gadi pages, again. This Aper was a non-commissioned bastard from Khanazir. Captain Ioannu had just terminated a previous transmission from the irreverent extortionist.

Impatience and frustration compels the captain to radio back. Why do you keep calling me? Stop calling me.

Captain... Ioannu, Reverend Gadi stuttered. His voice was the aggravated squall of an addict. I know you don’t know me from Adam, but you have something I want.

Oh, I know you. I know what you are. What do you want? A demotion? How, in the name of the Mortal God, do you even dare speak to me like that?

Gadi tells his captain, Listen, I know you’re related to Judas Issa, the Don of Khanazir.

That is a sad coincidence. Ioannu claimed.

I know you keep the military away from Khanazir, you do it for him, asserts Gadi. I know Issa is your Ape connection, too.

I know you are a dead man, Gadi, shouted Ioannu. How dare you make those crazy accusations.

Listen, Gadi shouted back. Military patrols will come to Khanazir whether you like it or not. Simon is in this drift of Shur. Colonel Onesifrus himself is coming here.

I know, Ioannu yelled. The captain's blurred vision then sharpens. He capitulates. What do you want?

An assignment away from Khanazir and heathens, barters Gadi. This city will fall to heathens next, Simon is here.

I'm sure the military would like to hear that, sniped Ioannu. Let me think.

The solution comes with a staggered breath. Everything works itself out: a custodian position recently opened at Saint Erasmus. Now, a priest materializes who will shut his mouth if he's invited into Khetam. Ioannu thinks nothing else before he offers the position to Gadi. Ioannu tells himself, There will come a day when this wretched extortionist might want to twist my arm again.

Nevertheless, the treachery fails to stop Mitt from asking Gadi a more crucial question. Will you bring Ape into Khetam?

No, of course not, Gadi replied with a strained snort.

Please, there’s none here. You won’t find Ape inside the Wall.

No. Sounds like a trap.

No, exclaimed Ioannu. Sober thought stops him from saying more. That’s unfortunate, he eventually moans before ending his end of the radio transmission. The captain had looked forward toward another batch of Ape for himself.

The Assailed Rock

"After me, the Mortal God Himself will come to the Shur, whose people are not worthy of Him. I bring thee this warning, but He is a bringer of disruption. This state of man will not remain."

-- Chosen doctrine, Chapter One John the Betrayer

Madelyn Sebash must meet her deadline or she will forever be relegated to being an irresponsible hack. Not one of dozens of stories she's written have ever gone to military radio without heavy editing. Consequently, most everything she submits becomes tragically delayed by the censorship process. In fact, few of her stories are at all selected. Luckily, she makes her living doing transcription; but that part-time work has no future. Madelyn certainly had not spent so much time and money in school just so she might stay poor. She didn't feel like the Chosen her mother promised she was born.

Every Sunday afternoon, Madelyn meets her friends, alumni from the Journalism University of Khetam, and they will empty their liquor rations. During their gatherings, Madelyn and her friends rehash old and tedious complaints and whine about their lack of work, and the lowly commissions for those stories that are approved for broadcast. Still, the focus remains solely on the climate and nature of the reporting business.

Each especially avoid criticism of the Church itself, which will end a fledgling career. Madelyn and her friends console themselves with the fact they are still young, only a few years out of school, and all had hard luck earning a living in their chosen field. The expression, misery loves company suited them. They were a miserable bunch.

Khetam was different two or three generations ago. Madelyn’s grandmother had told Madelyn stories about the past. Madelyn then told her friends. The Wall was under construction when my grandmother was still a little girl.

The Church had called the period the Great Social Renovation, someone injected.

Another friend said what everyone knew. When Church-financed construction projects fed and clothed Chosen and Unchosen families. The projects were mainly defensive measures, such as the Wall.

There were consequences when the Chosen shielded themselves against the Shur. There were no longer airfields. And there was no space for one inside the Wall with farms, apartment buildings, slaughterhouses, refineries and both Chosen military and Church headquarters. Train rails went away secondly, then telephone lines, once heathens could no longer burn the Promised Land.

Madelyn says, My grandmother told me, long ago, that heathen terrorists waged suicide bombings and kidnapped priests straight out of Khetam. She said she saw a heathen bomb. I'll tell you that, she would say. The terrorist are impossible to stop because their desperation and daring. And they love ripping out the inside of people. They eat our guts. That's what grandmother would say.

She used to frequently conclude that about many of her stories about heathens

A girl friend of Madelyn tells her, A barrier between the Promised Land and the uncivilized world was the only solution.

Madelyn replies, Once the Wall was complete, the Chosen lived within the barricaded city, while most of the Unchosen found their families rooted in the despicable slum outside called the encampment.

Careful what you say, warned a male friend.

Madelyn knew this information – it was common knowledge. The encampment was originally a temporary home for migrant construction workers during the Renovation. The squalor was once a flat stretch of sand covered with tents huddled around a naturally fed cistern. The ghetto grew larger when more Unchosen came for work.

I'm a little bit drunk, Madelyn confessed. Don't tell on me.

That girl friend persists and complains. People still arrive today, despite the end of construction years ago and avaricious reins on Church money. The encampment has become a waypoint for destitute and Unchosen pilgrims seeking entrance into Khetam.

Blame it on heathens, somebody exclaimed.

The girlfriend rants, The encampment is like a weed. It sends runners outside the gates of Khetam. It's poverty and squalor is a stark contrast against the wealth of the Chosen Promised Land and where the holy and righteous tribes had gutted the Mortal God.

Okay, enough, Madelyn declared. I get it, we don't talk about the Unchosen.

But, then, she said, Why are we writing for the radio? My grandmother said magazines, newspapers, and books were once found in people’s homes. They were once for sale in legitimate shops and people could buy them – even Unchosen, if they could read. All that non-propaganda stuff did not always cower inside cardboard boxes, and wasn't always kept hidden and secret from neighbors.

That cautious male friend tells Madelyn, You are drunk. You better stop. You're challenging the Church.

I know, Madelyn groaned. I just wanted to write creatively. That was a fantasy I had growing up. At one time, libraries held more than technical manuals, carefully worded textbooks, and archived recordings of sermons and military news. That liberty vanished before any of us learned to read. All printed materials that had not been scrutinized were then deemed by the Church as potentially subversive and systematically collected through books-for-cash programs. Later, all had been taken by outright confiscation and indefinite detainment was inflicted upon violators. There aren't any more books.

Someone tells everyone, Even bibles and hymnals printed before an exaggerated prehistoric date didn't survived. The Church has become the only authority on the Mortal God.

Still, Margot sobbed, The fact that independent publications had ever existed inspired me to write. The freedom sounded ideal. When the practical side of life later conflicted with the naivety of youth, the debt for my higher education smothered me and there seemed no turning back on my career path, not yet.

All of us, testified a girl. Hey, we have to be home by curfew.

Madelyn once dreamed of the possibilities opened by the re-introduction of the written word. For her, those possibilities were primarily additional opportunities to sell stories. All grown, she still suffers fantasies. A free newspaper means a level of restriction on information dissemination was lifted, which meant opinion and commentary might even be possible; no more walking a tightrope for the grace and pleasure of the Church.

Once Madelyn and her friends go to their own homes, Madelyn recalls the deadline she had wasted another day against. Crawling alone into bed, she remembered she asked her old friend, Mark Adino, Your story?

She remembered the conversation exactly because she was a reporter. Why would you give me your story?

I’m just sick of tales about murder and suicide, Mark claimed. I don’t want it.

Madelyn was not convinced. Stories like this one have paid your bills the past year.

Oh, I’ll come back and do them, Mark said. But for now, I’m on sabbatical. I want to clear my head.

Madelyn was grateful, at first. Well, thanks, she exhaled then learned details.

A priest was murdered in his parish; probably a botched robbery, Mark told her.

Where?

The Saint Erasmus parish. It’s the ghetto of Khetam.

I know what it is. Madelyn knew the parish as where the most fortunate Unchosen live within this city. She tells her friend, So a priest gets killed, that’s a big deal – but not special in a parish like Erasmus.

Mark then delivered his special condition. The military wants to use the event for a very specific broadcast, or nothing at all about the incident will be reported.

Sounds hairy, Madelyn said worried. An assignment like that will kill me if I screw up.

The military has an outline for you, Madelyn, Mark promised. All you have to do is make up the details, make it sound truthful.

Thank you again, Mark. This is a big favor You should come over on Sunday, I think you know a couple of my friends.

I can’t, Madelyn, I’m married. Merriam, remember?

I wish I forgot, Madelyn said, merely echoing her friend’s complaint about his wife. He laughed then rushed the conversation so he could leave for wherever he went.

Recovered early the Monday morning after a long Sunday afternoon with her friends, Madelyn followed the steps her friend, Mark, dictated. She navigated the typical bureaucratic maze. Madelyn stood in lines, presented credentials, and provided a request form and retrieved the crime summary and photos.

After the normal protracted delay, a mute and sexless clerk provided an additional cover sheet, flagging the case for censorship. Typical. Instructions had been included, stating the murder was to be linked with heathen sympathizers who committed an opportunistic attack upon an isolated member of the Church.

The morbid curiosity of the public will be satisfied, Madelyn told the silent, immovable clerk. And patriotism infused.

Only the preliminary writing remained.

The information she had collected listed the priest had been killed the night before, making the story a day old. The summary was brief, which again, Madelyn expected from the military. Details are the realm of reporters and censors. The summary stated the victim was Reverend Joss Rasheed, age forty-three. The priest had no rank.

Given the location of the Saint Erasmus church, that a non-commissioned priest monitored the parish did not surprise Madelyn. The summary described his death was a result of fatal lacerations. The incident occurred in the church sometime after sunset. The name and address of a person who had reported on the crime had also been included.

Apart from the bullet points on the summary and the additional instructions, the story the military wanted presented only circumstantial evidence. Madelyn supposed she could sew it together with embellished stitches, but a bad habit took hold of her. She planned to visit Jillie Shoud. Madelyn would gather quotes. Saint Erasmus was on the opposite side of Khetam, which meant traffic would be gridlocked in the usual places and thick everywhere else. Madelyn anticipated wasting the remainder of the morning going to the parish. She ran back to her car in the immense parking lot at military headquarters and started on her way. She wished gloomily that the roads on top of the Wall were open to civilians.

Madelyn gazed up painfully toward the crest of the Wall while she was snarled in traffic. Daydreams played through her head; likely the same dreams other drivers nursed inside their wedged vehicles. Cars and trucks were compacted together like bricks. Atop the Wall, people could speed away on those empty roads above the smog. Trips would last minutes, instead hours. But rather than dreaming today, Madelyn determined she should use her time trapped in traffic. She could write a draft and even peek at the crime photos. She preferred to delay looking at the images.

Madelyn was not disappointed in her expectation; the freeway was jammed. She completes her draft between pushing her little red compact car on short jogs, leaving a few blank lines where she might insert quotes. She had already scripted the comments she wanted Jillie Shoud to say, but formality insisted that the Unchosen woman actually say them. That would not be a problem because Madelyn imagined herself a crafty reporter. Ahead, traffic comes to a complete stop near the address of the Saint Erasmus parish where a delivery truck had overheated in the center lane.

The summer had been unusually hot. Strained engines often quit while automobiles idled in traffic. Air conditioners added constant labor. Minutes pass before frustrated drivers begin creeping around either side of the stricken vehicle. A poetic imagination saw a large stone dropped into the middle of a stream. Water parts and merges again behind the sudden obstacle. Alas, human behavior was not so serene. Drivers spar and inch ahead of each other. Great metal jabs and feints produce scratched and dented fenders.

Horns blare as if to wake the truck from death’s slumber. In the meantime, the folder with the crime scene photos awaits. Madelyn hoped she might escape looking at them. In her head, she essentially completes the story and doesn’t need to review the photos. That had been her plan from the beginning. However, she currently has nothing else she can do. A modicum of integrity creeps in with boredom. Her own ethic came from the same place as did the military enforcement of formality. Both withered over time.

The photos slept in a pale green folder stamped with the heavy red words Evidence, Authorized and Authorization granted. Madelyn’s name appears handwritten on the line following Authorized. The name stamped in smeared black ink on the line below was presumably the clerk’s superior officer. Madelyn opens that folder with one eye squeezed shut. The photos are actually black and white photocopies. She knew they would be, but knowing doesn’t desensitize her enough. Even before looking, she knows solicitations for other violent stories will come few and far between. She reserves covering them during tough times, for her and the victims.

Madelyn feels odd she is disappointed by the few photos included in the story assignment. They are inky and unfocused. A body at the dais of a nondescript sanctuary might be surmised. It appears deeply slashed numerous times. The severity of the attack is impossible to assess because the poor quality of the copies. So many cuts imply the crime was an ordinary third degree murder but also a hate crime. There may be truth in the angle that the military hoped to portray, or the attacker was some aped intruder. Ape decimated this city, especially the clergy. No one said anything as all Chosen priests were officers in the military.

The lacerations had likely resulted when the priest fought back. A blade must have sliced his face into ribbons, then his arms and the clothing of the unarmed clergyman. The crime summary did not indicate the military found a weapon, but a lot of blood covered the floor. In the photo, the black ink flowed together with shadows cast from the altar and pews. A blurry line hinted at where shadow would end and blood began. Madelyn was glad the photos are gray and blurry.

Something else in the photos puzzled her. Black oblong shapes spin outward in a circular pattern around the puddle of blood. The scattered shapes might be a tasteless inlaid design for the floor, but that assumption did not feel right. Traffic abruptly started moving again. Madelyn saw the stone had been removed from the stream.

Madelyn hurries and replaces the photos. She stacks the folder, summary and draft, and secrets the loose bundle beneath the passenger’s seat. She will ask Jillie Shoud about the shapes. Madelyn can also look for herself, if she worked up fortitude and personally investigated the crime scene. The old woman lived across the street from the Saint Erasmus church, there at L99 and F66, near the Wall.

Upon an immediate release from the freeway, Madelyn travels the surface streets into the Saint Erasmus parish. Two-story, concrete block warehouses line the streets. Squat apartment houses sprout sporadically between the warehouses, like weeds from cracks in sidewalks. Madelyn did not see the church in which the priest had been murdered. She decided to park her car and find the woman who spoke about the crime. Well past noon, Madelyn the reporter knocked on the door to the apartment of Jillie Shoud. While Madelyn scratched prickly stumble in her armpits while she waited outside under a scalding sun.

The old woman the reporter had come to interview lived in a tenement house. The door of her apartment faced the street. An open, crooked hallway and stairwell link other apartments in the building to the old woman’s barred entrance. The asymmetric construction looked like units were added when older ones readied to burst. Stucco covered the conjoined dwellings in some misguided attempt toward unity, but the overall appearance was that of a tumorous mass covered with face powder.

An excited yelp came from inside the woman’s apartment. Madelyn thought her knock had probably startled a small dog, yet the thundering toward the door was not from an animal that belonged in an apartment. The door then opened inward whilst metal bars stood in place before the opening. A short and thin teenage boy bounced inside. The boy wore a rumpled indigo t-shirt and yellow shorts. The shirt bore a decal of a fuzzy pink cartoon pig.

Lazy the pig, Madelyn recalls after a moment. The only movie she had ever seen was about this animated cartoon animal. The Chosen once used the cartoon in propaganda against the heathens before print and film had been banned as subservience across the Shur. In the film, the pig's name was Lazarus, but a cartoon farmer gave him the nickname Lazy. Madelyn remembered a bit about the squealing farmer waking Lazy from a barn loft with a pitchfork. The ranting character then sacrificed the pig. And, like the Living God of the heathens, Lazy returned to life without guts.

The boy resembled the cartoon pig. This kid had a flat nose and tiny ears. His squinting eyes were set a little too far apart and lopsided, like the cartoon. A minute passes while the boy and Madelyn stare at each other. Madelyn offers a tentative smile and the boy’s mouth drops open.

Mama, he cried. Mama, a pretty lady’s here. It’s a pretty lady.

The boy disappears into the impenetrable shade of the apartment. Humidity in the heat coming from inside the dwelling feels worst than the dry hot air outside. Madelyn feels content standing beneath the broiling sun. The boy repeats himself, changing the announcement into a song. Madelyn hears hushing from within the apartment then the singing stops. A ghastly old woman appears. Purple wheals bubble every bit of exposed flesh of her face and arms.

You’re right, the old lady tells the boy.. It is a pretty woman. She looks just like a mermaid. She's all wet, like she's been swimming.

Hawing laughter rises behind the old woman. Madelyn blushes and holds the slanted smile begun with her reaction to the boy. The old woman is her visitor's height, a little shorter than average. Her skin glistens with an oily salve.

Hello, can I help you? the woman asked. The old lady sounded as if she worked her whole life behind a counter. She personally took polite servitude to heart and practice.

Hello, Madelyn answered. I’m Madelyn Sebash…

I’m Jillie Shoud, the old woman cheerfully volunteered. And the little boy who ran away is Dowie. He's my son. Laughter rises again. Jillie turns around and sends a warm. Shh. to the child.

Madelyn wondered aloud. I thought he was a grandson or a foster child?

Jillie Shoud looked too old to have a teenager. The disbelief showed upon Madelyn’s face, or the woman had grown accustomed and immediately provided an explanation about her situation. Jillie blurted her confession.

I know, I’m an old woman. He was an accident. But I love him with all my heart.

Madelyn nods and begins again. I’m Madelyn Sebash. I’m a reporter…

The old woman interrupts the introduction. You heard about Reverend Rasheed. Jillie Shoud was straining Madelyn's patience, so Madelyn goes to her point.

Yes, I want some quotes. You found the body of the priest, is that right?

The old woman nodded and waves for Madelyn to step back. Jillie turns and looks into her dark hovel. Baby, stay inside and don’t lock your mother out. I’m going to talk to our friend.

The bars swing out with a slow creak. Madelyn sighs. The hottest part of the afternoon had crept upon them, so if the old woman wanted privacy, she will get it. On wilting days like these, people stayed shut inside their shaded apartments. The street had emptied except for an occasional car coasting by with its windows closed and air conditioner blowing. Afternoon commuters in this part of Khetam wandered lost, hunting only for shortcuts around busy routes.

Would you like to sit in my car? Madelyn asked the old woman. I have air conditioning.

Jillie answers with her requisite. I can’t go far without someone looking after my baby. He gets into trouble if he’s not watched.

The news busts Madelyn’s idea. Her little red compact, nicknamed Meriggiare because it was so often her only shade. The old woman graciously declines when Madelyn pointed the direction.

Jillie Shoud brings a scarf and drapes it over her head. The floral-patterned cloth partially covers her eyes, although she still uses her hand and shields her face against blistering light. Madelyn wears her sunglasses. The pair take a short blind walk toward the curb. The afternoon is too bright.

What happened? Madelyn asked Jillie, unable to restrain herself any longer. It looks like you were bitten, a lot.

The old woman tisks her hands as she holds them out and rotates her wrists. She says to Madelyn I’ll tell you, it happened when I found Reverend Rasheed dead.

A second minor mystery now pended; the objects or marks on the floor and now the bites. None of these miscellaneous facts will find their way into the story for military radio. These details were superfluous and outside the bounds of the censors and therefore automatically and anonymously struck from any submission and never received. This story had already been written, but Madelyn grew curious and she wanted to know more herself. She prompted the old woman.

You found Reverend Rasheed's body?

Jillie answers, I was coming back from work down the street – I dust a few shops for cash. I can’t work at the factory because I have to be home with Dowie most of the time. The owners at the strip mall are nice. They don’t really need me, but the shelves do get dusty.

Madelyn intervenes. Miss Shoud, it is warm out here. The old woman may not have heard Madelyn’s sharp complaint. Jillie makes the poke a convenient spot in which she pauses and inhales.

Well, it was after curfew and I had to sneak back home. Saint Erasmus is on my way. I thought I would stop there and catch my breath and wait for the patrol to pass before I came home to Dowie. Sometimes they can be so mean to an old woman, even before curfew. My neighbors will watch Dowie sometimes, if I fix dinner for all of us.

A smile spreads across the old woman’s face. She actually enjoyed living in this neighborhood, but Madelyn only wanted to go back to Meriggiare, fearing her car had been stolen but as much so for the cool air. Still, questions must be asked. This time Madelyn interrupts the simpleminded old woman. Where is the church? I thought you lived close.

Oh, it’s right there. The old woman points across the street. A tented building stands between two low and large concrete warehouses. Thick, vertical indigo and white stripes on the canvas make judgment difficult, but beneath the distortion, Saint Erasmus is a flat, rectangular box. There are no steeples nor buttresses as Madelyn was accustomed seeing on the mediocre churches where she lived and had gone to school.

The old woman tells her, They covered Saint Erasmus when the fumigators started work. They had to kill the flies.

Madelyn’s curiosity twists into confusion. She opens her mouth but gets an answer before asking her question.

They came out of nowhere after Reverend Rasheed was murdered. They were nasty and biting, and big. I’ve never seen flies like them. They must live in the desert with the heathens and eat carrion. They probably share their dinners.

Poop, Dowie yelled from behind a closed window. Only Jillie notices the muffled boy. She waves him away.

Please, start at the beginning, Madelyn insisted. She felt a timeline must be established or the story will quickly become convoluted.

I was coming home from work when I stopped at the church. The doors stay open late into the night after curfew. Reverend Rasheed was a night owl. Bless him, although he never welcomed company for long. He screamed before I reached the stoop. I thought someone tortured him – the way he screamed.

The old woman’s face pales, making the angry blemishes glow as neon in the shadow of her scarf. It was horrible. When I opened the church doors, blood was everywhere. They stripped Reverend Rasheed to his bones.

Madelyn knew the last part wasn’t true, she had seen the photos. The incident was already embellished and on its way to becoming a ghost story for scaring children back into their homes at sunset. Jillie Shoud may even already practice the story with her son, Dowie. All the same, Madelyn would not contradict the old woman. For the sake of expedience, she avoided bickering over inevitably censored details.

And feathers, like a whirlwind.

Feathers? Those are the shapes in the photos?

Madelyn almost asks Jillie if she knows what they mean, but the old woman volunteers her idea before the reporter asks.

It was the devil, Jillie gushed.

Jillie’s comment dissuades Madelyn from asking about the feathers. She also apparently could not get into the building and look. A tour of the crime scene was not necessary. Besides, Madelyn realized the blood would still be there with the feathers. That stomach-turning vision and sleepless nights can be happily avoided.

Please, go on, Madelyn asked Jillie.

I wanted to run home, but instead I went outside and called for help. The patrol was right there. A little while after that, an ambulance came, then the flies.

The old woman breathes hard and moves her hand in a gesture from her shoulder to hip. She acts very orthodox. They were big, and black and white, like bees, but the stripes went the wrong way. Jillie motions up and down with the hand she used when she crossed herself. They came for the blood. I swear, I heard them lap it up.

The description makes Madelyn ill. She battles against conjuring the sound. Her imagination can disquiet her at times. Thankfully, the hot weather proves an adequate distraction. Madelyn dabs at perspiration on her face with a tissue pulled from her purse. While she dries herself, the old woman describes her encounter.

The little monsters bit me and the photographer, as if the blood on the floor wasn’t fresh enough for them. They wanted living blood, right from the vein.

Miss Shoud, please.

I’m sorry, honey, but that’s what happened. Well, the men from the ambulance put on their coats and wrapped up their faces. They pulled out the remains of Reverend Rasheed and stuck him into a bag right outside. Then they left. I told the patrol what I saw and they let me go home. I told them I was coming home from work. I’m not as quick as I was when I was your age. That’s why I was out after dark.

Madelyn had enough. She will omit the quotes and submit the story as written in the summary. The report will be accepted, since it already read exactly as the military wanted.

Thank you, Miss Shoud. I need to get back to military headquarters.

You do believe me, the old woman states. About the devil. I won’t set foot into that church until the new priest arrives. Reverend Rasheed was a good man. He commanded the Mortal God. He commanded miracles to make Dowie normal. That’s why the devil killed him, because he was jealous. That’s in the Chosen’s bible.

Madelyn nods. She considers herself religious, but at the same time educated and rational. The belief that miracles are produced upon command, and the existence of a malevolent force, one that was envious of man’s authority over God, are pedestrian Church fables for children and the despondent. The second case likely applied to Jillie Shoud. Madelyn withheld judgment. Although she noted, not so deep inside, the old woman’s superstition separated the castes. Madelyn was Chosen and Jillie Shoud was Unchosen. Madelyn told herself a matter of privilege and education made the difference. Still, she was glad to have both and be Chosen.

Madelyn returns to her car while Jillie Shoud goes back home. Madelyn starts the engine and air conditioning. The instant cool breeze is wonderful. Madelyn sits back, relishes the air and flaps the collar of her blouse. After a moment, she pulls Meriggiare from its spot on the asphalt. When she turns from the curb, she looks back and sees Jillie try the handle of her apartment door and rap on a window. The old woman was locked out despite her instructions for Dowie. Madelyn was certain the disabled boy thought the trick was the funniest thing since the last time he locked his mother outside.

Enough time in the day remained in which Madelyn could type her story, return to military headquarters and make its submission. Reporting for the military was much like transcription work; reporters translated handwritten scribbles and summaries into typed pages later read on the radio. Censors required that the assigned summary and any photos were returned to the military. Madelyn was too familiar with the procedure.

The material was to come back in the same condition it had been when by the military presented the assignment or the submitted story faced rejection. If a reporter failed at that small task, he or she would become the subject of a prying investigation. The military would then look into one's personal affairs, followed by an extensive audit of previously submitted stories. The whole process crippled reporters ability to make a living and must not happen to Madelyn again. Telling her own version of truth and justice had just gotten her career mired immediately after graduation.

Putting aside the old woman’s assumption the devil had murdered the priest, the culprit was still unknown and at large. The summary reported nothing had been taken. Madelyn expected the meager donations and ornamentation inside typical churches were untouched – unless the fumigators had taken anything. Evidently, no proclamation or threat associated with heathen sympathizers had been found at the scene; the military would have noted something. Yet, there were those feathers.

Madelyn thinks, "This may be