BODY OF CHRIST: A Novella by Matthews Mark

Author:Matthews, Mark [Matthews, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wicked Run Press
Published: 2018-01-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE: Faith at the Cemetery

Faith picked up the broken pieces, straightened the leaning crosses, and then knelt in front of the last damaged grave marker as if paying homage. The grass hadn’t yet dried from the day’s watering and her pants were getting wet, but the moist ground was easy to dig. She used her fingernails as a shovel, first by stabbing them into the earth, then lifting out a sod of grass and making a six-inch deep hole. She looked to both sides with suspicion, waiting to see if anyone was watching. Nobody will see , she told herself, you’re invisible , so she pulled the menstrual pad, still wet with life-fluid, from her pocket. She placed it in the shallow grave, said a silent prayer, and then covered it with dirt.

The burial ceremony was over.

She’d been coming to The Cemetery of the Innocents each month while having her period to give her discarded life-blood a proper burial and a sacred resting place. During those last moments, just before she placed the remains in the earth, the screams shot up into the sky as if the tiny creatures were being cremated alive. But soon as she lowered them in the ground, the noise faded like a crying baby succumbing to sleep .

The quiet that followed confirmed to her she was doing the right thing. Burying her discarded eggs, placing them in the ground, and waiting for the Second Coming. Salvation was possible. The cross that marked their grave was proof of this. The earth was a warm, natural blanket for their final resting spot.

Faith still had the soft dirt in her hands when she felt a bolt of fear. Someone was close by. She felt a change in the weather.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Keagan standing there holding a bat. His pants were stained and his shirt hung over his skinny body like his whole stomach and chest cavity had caved in. He wanted her attention, she could tell, and even though she felt all the sadness of his heart inside her own, she wished he hadn’t come here. He was an intruder in these parts. A man. A bat. Both of these ripe with violence.

“What happened?” he finally asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just murder. Children killed before they were born,” Faith answered. She ran her hand over the grass and imagined the green blades were bangs of hair growing from underneath. If others knew there was indeed something buried here, maybe they’d pay the graves more respect and not vandalize them.

“I mean how did they break?” he asked, a lot louder than he needed to .

“The swift kick from a bitter vandal. People don’t want to face the daily holocaust of abortion. Every day children are siphoned out of pregnant woman and left in medical dispensers and then burnt in waste dumps. Each of these grave sites represents a dead fetus. Life’s too precious. Protect life.”

Life. The sound hung in the air, and then her silence was the exclamation point.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.