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Render Unto Caesar
By Meredith L. Patterson
"I can't stand it when people go
telling me what a saint their mother is. Or their grandfather,
or their cousin, or their great-nephew-twice-removed or what-have-you.
They haven't the faintest idea what it's like to live with one,
but I do. Sainthood's been skipping generations in my family
since the Dark Ages, sort of like male pattern baldness. Along
with male pattern baldness, I should say; every last one of them
are smooth as eggs by forty-five. They look at it as just another
cross they have to bear. Me? I think it's the halos."
"It was late Saturday night when
they brought me in. Strapped to a stretcher, disinfectant smeared
into the corners of my eyes. Six of them, dressed identically
in the green and grey of the company uniform, the smell of petroleum
in their greasy sideburns."
"It was hot. Maybe that’s all
there is to the story. I doubt it. It’s always hot in Louisiana,
so that can’t be it. If that was the case, it
would’ve happened all the time."
"The chickens are the size of ostriches
and they are hungry. I was feeding the hogs at dawn when I heard
them coming. Clucks and screeches too big to fit in my head.
I’m glad I sent Ruth and Jackie to Dad’s yesterday. "
"Geraint paused just inside the doorway
of the ranchhouse and groaned. Two crisp-suited MAMI’s
boys lingered in the open foyer, talking at the receptionist.
With any luck, he could ghost on by, get to the hallway and into
SuperCrypt before they spotted him."
"40 miles north of Tucson, Ariz.,
was the town of Camillero, established in 1869 by Juan Esquivel
as a refuge for La Dualidad, a cult who believed the world would
end on June 14, 1873. The world did end on that date,
according to Esquivel -- in a 'parallel' universe. 'The
gods have granted us a reprieve,' he said. 'But our
work isn't over. Only La Dualidad can avert such doom again in
the year 2003.'"
