When the Prophet Died

The prophet died when I was twelve, and for a week after, the Elders kept the body in Ms.MacQuarie’s bathtub, awaiting his resurrection.

My mother traded words with the town gossips and brought home revelations regarding the prophet’s transformation. I don’t remember most, but two stuck with me.

The first: “The prophet’s body is turning black and hard. Soon his eternal spirit will burst forth, like a butterfly from the cocoon.”

The second: “The prophet’s body is given to flatulence, due to pushing out the impurities of the flesh.”

The cocoon thing made sense at the time, but the second was hard to picture. The prophet passing gas.

It felt wrong, a kind of impossibility. Saints don’t lie and prophets don’t fart—even if they are dead. But these things do happen. They must.

Hell, I caught the prophet picking his nose when I was about nine. He did it while the congregation sang “Boundless is God’s Love.” He was standing at the back of the Worship Hall, thinking no one was looking.

I told my mother after and she tanned my hide red. Then when she was good and done, and I was a blubbering mess, she sat me down and asked what I had to say for myself.

So I wiped the snot from my nose and tried to articulate a theological point, the best my young mind and mouth could conjure, which was this:

“If a booger-picking man could be a prophet, then most anybody could find salvation.”

Now to a young boy who’d done his fair share of nose scraping, this was as hopeful a sentiment as any. And I reckoned it sounded good enough to get me out of trouble.

Naturally I was wrong and my mother tanned my hide even redder—redder than a stovepipe on a cold winter’s eve. She said I had no place speaking ill of a great man, a man who was beyond men. So I kept my mouth shut and didn’t tell her what else I saw. But us being friends and all, I’ll tell you.

The prophet didn’t just pick his nose. He ate it too.

I didn’t reckon then that poor hygiene precluded a person from salvation or divinity, and I still don’t. If a man were to walk the land immortal, what’s to stop him from scratching his sack and shaking your hand?

And before you go saying that cleanliness is next to godliness, I recommend you take a stroll through the forest, it being the most natural of God’s creations, that place where life abounds, and note each time you almost step in fox dung, or see ants and all the little critters feasting on the burst carcass of a deer or rabbit.

It ain’t the gods who got a problem with filth and decay in the world—its people. So it’s no wonder the Marshal interceded when he heard the crackpot commune up on the hill was keeping their dead in bathtubs.

I caught sight of him through the window of our sitting room, him and his two deputies on horseback. I felt a real sense of awe watching those men ride high and proud, the kind of awe I was probably supposed to feel for the Prophet.

The Marshal wore a navy blue, single-breasted, stand-collar coat with matching slacks and polished black leather shoes. It was arrogant clothing, my mother said, the kind made by fancy machines down in the city. I was real keen on it.

I didn’t see the confrontation myself, but the way my mother told it, the Marshal and his deputies fell upon Ms.MacQuarie’s house like demons.

They ordered everybody out so they could inspect the body themselves. The Elders stood outside, and it was quiet for a long time, until one of the deputies dashed out the back and threw up in Ms.MacQuarie’s petunias.

My mother said it was because a sinner couldn’t stand to be in the Prophet’s holy presence.

Then the Marshal came out with a mean look on his face and told everybody that the body was a health code violation. He said he wouldn’t have the commune getting plague and bringing it down to the city, when we came to trade and sell.

He said the body had to be boxed up and buried.

The Elders went out of their goddamn minds. My mother put it different, but that was the truth of it. If you couldn’t say the prophet picked his nose, then you sure as hell couldn’t say his bloated, rotting corpse was a hotbed for all manner of disease and illness. The Elders got to hollering and protesting, Mr. Wilkins being particularly loud, as he always was.

My mother was keen on Mr. Wilkins, so he always showed up in the story even if he weren’t doing nothing.

Anyway, it went on like that for a while, with the Marshal not saying nothing while his deputies cowered behind, scared they’d be beat to death by the geriatric mob.

Then the Marshal fired his pistol in the air and everyone shut up quick.

Not that he had a need to. The Elders were the highest echelon in the community, members of the Pre-Eminent Unity—which meant they were celibate pacifists. The Marshal knew all that and he fired his gun off anyway.

I think he liked showing where the real power was.

That night the commune held a meeting. Again, I wasn’t there, so this all comes from my mother.

Normally the Prophet conducted the meetings with the attendant privileges, including the power to veto anything the Elders voted on—though that rarely happened. The Elders considered handing that veto power to someone else, but decided against it. They figured there was no point, what with the Prophet’s death being a temporary condition and all.

So instead they got down to the matter at hand: What to do with the Prophet’s body until he resurrected?

Mr. Jones, the blacksmith, suggested the body be left where it was and that the Marshal be told to go down to the dairy and plant his head in a steer’s rear.

The Elders rebuked him and assigned two days of waste duty for foul language. They reminded Mr. Jones that the laws of man are the laws of the God, since no man could come to power except through His will—even if that man was a scoundrel.

Jake Rogers, a seventeen-year-old who couldn’t be told nothing by no one, suggested the commune sneak down to the city and put a hole through the Marshal’s head while he slept.

The Elders rebuked him and assigned twenty days of waste duty, which didn’t bother Jake none. He’d built up so much waste duty, it was practically full-time employment.

Finally, Mrs. Winsboro, a real marvel at quilt-making, suggested they build a mausoleum where the hill rolled down and met the sea.

The Elders thought that was a swell idea. Everyone applauded, including Mr. Wilkins.

When I heard the news, I asked my mother what a mausoleum was.

“It’s a little house for dead people.”

“But I thought he weren’t dead,” I said.

“Oh hush, boy,” she snapped. “Have some sense.”

So they built the mausoleum right on the shore with the door facing the ocean. That way, when the Prophet woke and stepped out, he’d be greeted by his favorite view: the golden sun rising, casting ripples of orange and pink across the gently lapping waves.

Everyone was in high spirits for the next three months, happily awaiting the Prophet’s return, right up until the hurricane came through. And then a lot of people died.

The wind blew fierce, knocking our houses down like they were little more than sticks and leaves. The Elders and some other folk—the most fervent believers—rushed out to the Mausoleum, to save the Prophet. I wish I could tell you what they saw, but I wasn’t there. And neither was my mother.

She was down in our cellar, holding me tight, praying to God.

I can tell you about the aftermath.

The commune was a ruin—all scattered bodies and splintered wood. The whole place was kicked-over, like an anthill. What remained stood hollow, frames twisted open like torn ribs.

And the mausoleum was gone too. The only sign it had ever existed was the bare foundation. Nothing was left of the Elders and those fervent believers who braved the raging storm. Some great wave, taller than the highest building in the city, must have come down on them—must have ground them into the unforgiving earth and dragged them, flailing, screaming, out into the indifferent sea.

The Marshal came back. He still had that hard look on his face, but I could see the compassion in his eyes. He said we were welcome in the city. Said he’d make sure we were cared for, if we agreed to go.

Mr. Wilkins, the only Elder that survived, the one my mother fancied, came up behind the Marshal and struck him over the head with a broken fence post. The Marshal fell flat on his stomach.

“You did this,” Mr. Wilkins seethed. “We moved the body and we were punished!”

Two members grabbed Mr. Wilkins and pulled him away.

“Calm your heart, Elder!” One man said.

“Violence isn’t God’s way!” insisted the other.

My mother went to the Marshal and helped him up. Blood poured from his scalp.

“Goddamn zealots,” the Marshal spat.

Mr. Wilkin’s bashed his forehead into the nose of the man on his right and socked the other in the jaw.

The Marshal pushed my mother down and drew his gun. “All I’ve ever done is help you people.”

“We never asked for anything from you!”

“I know.”

Mr. Wilkins rushed the Marshal.

The shot echoed off the broken homes and storefronts.

Mr. Wilkins slumped to the mud, dead. My mother rushed to his side, wailing in ways I never heard before nor since, save for my dreams.

The Marshal left.

As time went on, members of the commune followed the Marshal down to the city. It was only a few at first, but as the years passed and the truth of the Prophet’s absence set in—that he was well and truly gone—hope faded. Hope faded and people settled for the world, because it was all they had.

When I turned eighteen, I went too. I didn’t tell my mother or no one else. I just left.

I knew she couldn’t understand. She’d become a leader after Mr. Wilkins died, helping with the reconstruction. And she took on the responsibility of conducting the meetings and the worship service. She told people that salvation was at hand, that any day the Prophet would walk out of the ocean and raise the Elders from the dead.

Raise all the believers who’d fallen.

Most folks didn’t believe her. I know because I asked. Of those who stayed, most stayed out of habit. It was the life they knew.

And besides, there was always a slim chance she was right.

The prophet died when I was twelve, some thirty years ago. My mother died last week.

I received a letter from Jake Rogers, the seventeen-year-old who couldn’t be told nothing by no one. He was in his late forties now and had gone on to a successful career as a doctor, specializing in gut pains and afflictions.

He’d diagnosed my mother with gastric cancer. Said her time was short.

I rode up to the commune on horseback, knowing it’d be a ghost town. As I passed the empty storefronts and homes, I was surprised how little had changed. There was no interest in progress or the passage of time. The concerns of the city held no weight here. These people had chosen a moment and dedicated themselves to a project of preservation, to crystalize and render immutable what there was no hope of keeping.

And they had done so, until they died or moved on. Until only my mother was left.

Finally, I came to my mother’s house. I dismounted, leaving my badge and my pistol with the horse. I knew she wouldn’t understand.

Besides, they had no power here.

I opened the door and stepped into the sitting room—into the past.

“Mama,” I said.

“Back here.” She called from down the hall.

I walked to her room.

My mother lay in bed, older. Frailer.

I pulled up a wooden chair and took her hand. I placed my fingers on her cheek and found myself wishing I could wipe her wrinkles away, like make-up.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello.” Her voice was fragile. Small. Whether it was the disease or treatment that had stolen the bulk of her strength, I couldn’t tell.

There was a silence.

“How have things been?” I asked. Like a fool.

My mother laughed. “You been gone thirty years. Where would I start?”

I thought about it. “At the beginning.”

So my mother talked, the way women love to talk, about who had gone where, what they done, and who they done it with, and even though I was the sort of man, like most men, who would tune all these goings-on out, I listened with intent. I laughed when she laughed. I cried when she cried.

“Oh, it’s dark out.” My mother glanced through the window. Out in the endless night, ribbons of gold danced and flickered—the moonlight playing on restless waves. “I’ve been talking your ear off.”

“Don’t bother me,” I said.

“You’re sweet.” She caressed my face. “I must have done something right.”

“I’d say you did.”

“But God, I’m tired.”

“That’s alright.” I said, tucking her sheets. “Get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

“You’re staying?” She asked.

I nodded. “I still got a room, don’t I?”

“You do.” She said. “I’m sorry.”

“You got nothing to be sorry about.”

My mother looked out the window. “I don’t even remember what he looked like.”

“Who?”

“The Prophet. If he came back today, I wouldn’t even know his face.”

She looked at me. “I’d know your father. Or Mr. Wilkins. But not him.”

“It’s okay, ma.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t think it is.”

I held my mother.

When I woke the next morning, she had already passed.

Sometime in the dead of night, she had made her way—crawling perhaps—into the bathroom. I found her lying in the empty tub, arms crossed over her chest.

She looked peaceful enough.

I took my horse and rode out to the beach, to be alone. I sat where the mausoleum once stood.

The sun peeked over the horizon, yellows and reds mixing with the sonorous blues of the sea. Then something rose up from the water and walked toward me, bathed in white light.

I stood up, hand on my holster.

It stepped onto the dry sand, its body glowing. Incandescent.

“Who are you?” I called out.

“The Awaited One.”

I stepped forward, shielding my eyes. “The Prophet?”

“I am the perfect form, beyond life and death. Beyond man and woman. I am the Unity of All Things. And you are the first disciple—my prophet.”

“I’ll be your prophet,” I said. “If you raise my mother from the dead.”

A hand came up. “I cannot.”

“What?”

“All who follow me shall ascend. But those who have passed cannot return.”

“You did.”

“I am the Quintessence.”

It stood there, shining bright, saying nothing else. Waiting in silence for my response.

The words came slow to my quivering lips. “My mother waited for you. She said you’d bring them all back. The Elders. Mr. Wilkins.” My jaw tightened. “My father.”

“Then she waited in vain. But do not despair, for starting now, no man or women need age. The Transfiguration is at hand. I shall build my city on this hill and all who follow me shall know everlasti-”

The shot rang out across the sand and rolling water.

The Quintessence, the Prophet, whatever it was, stumbled and fell back into the crashing white waves.

I holstered my gun and watched the tide carry the body out to the sea.

Then I mounted my horse and went home. Ω