The Priest
Formerly known as Bob (part 38)
(Schedule change: The Priest is going to be on Fridays from now on, quotes will be on Saturday, and Sunday will be links to my favorite articles from the previous week.)
Rolling on the river.
Maybe it’s not a river. I’m not sure what it is or if I’m rolling. It feels like I’m rolling. I remember rolling like this when I was a kid, in a wagon or something. I don’t remember it hurting this much, and I don’t know if the hurt is real or part of something else. There’s a long, gently curved, downhill path that looks perfect. I’m on a Flexy Flyer, if you don’t know what that is, it’s kind of like a sled with wheels and little handles that you use to steer and what, I found out too late, were woefully inadequate brakes.
I’m still rolling, rolling, rolling maybe I’m a kid again and rolling down a long grassy hill with my arms stretched out over my head, laughing uncontrollably. I’m not a kid, I’m not sure who I am right now, but I’m rolling. Each turn hurts worse than the last turn, and I’m thinking that it may never end, and I wonder if this is what the journey to the afterlife, such as it is, feels like just rolling, rolling, rolling and then it stops. I’ve encountered an obstacle. I don’t want it to stop, but I’m not really in charge. There’s people here, the sound of their feet moving toward me, I hope it’s not the same people as before. Someone is crouching next to me with a knife, and I’m afraid that I might die, which wouldn’t be altogether bad because then it would stop hurting so much. The restraints on my feet and hands are loose, maybe that’s what the knife is for. Someone is holding my head and crying, it sounds like a little kid, and someone is gently probing my body. I open the eye that isn’t swollen shut and there’s a man in a dress hovering over me and I scream, but the sound comes out all gurgling like, and the man tells me it’s okay. I don’t believe him and I gurgle/ scream again and there is someone with a bottle of water, and they’re trying to get me to drink. My first sip comes right back up and someone tells me to take it slow. Things are getting less foggy, my good eye clears up, and I can see them around me, and it takes a second before I realize that I know them and they don’t want to hurt me.
The little kid says, “It’s okay, we’re not going to eat you.”
I look at him and say, “That’s good.”
He smiles when he hears my voice.
The man in the dress asks, “What happened to you?”
It’s Dolly, and I remember now.
“Rock, head, bathroom, bad people, hurts, Kurtz, dangerous.”
Dolly smiles. “Whatever happened didn’t make you any more cohesive.”
I didn’t hear the last part because I fell asleep.
I’m not sure how long I was out, but when I woke up, there was the smell of some type of food product being heated up, and I asked for some.
Tiki came over and helped me sit up and held a plate while he spooned some soft, gooey, dog food tasting stuff into my mouth.
“You see,” he said, “We have food, so we don’t need to eat you.”
Dolly came over and sat next to me. “You don’t look so good.”
“I had some trouble.”
“No shit.” He said. “Where did you go?”
“I hung back to go to the bathroom and just as I settled in, I got hit in the head, with a rock, I think. And then I was tied up and dragged somewhere, and then I met this Kurtz guy, who I think is the supreme leader, and he talked to me for a while, actually seemed nice enough, and then he nodded at the men who were with him, and they started beating me, and the next thing I knew, I was here. He told me he wanted to send a message, and when I asked him what the message was, he said, not what, but who, and then they started on me.”
“So you’re the message?”
“Yes. Do I mean anything to you?”
“It’s the same message we sent them when we killed their guy. They’re trying to scare us. Introducing fear, perhaps to see if we’ll give up or something.”
“Kurtz said that it was them that did the killing in Ash Fork.”
“That was a pretty fucked up scene.” Said Dolly.
“What should we do?” Asked Stuffy, who had come closer to hear what was going on.
Por came over and said, “It’s only a matter of time before they get tired of this game…”
“It’s not much of a game.” I said.
“It’s all a game to them. Pretending is a defense mechanism, at least for the ones I interacted with. The only problem, for us, is that they don’t like to lose.”
“What happens when they get tired of the game?”
“They take all the pieces off the board and then go looking to find a new game.”
“Take all the pieces off the board?”
Dolly stepped over. “She means kill us.”
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(I borrowed this from Sarah Kendzior)