Importunity and Tears
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This has been the Prophecies of Silas Livestream 36, thanks for dropping by. For extra content, subscribe to my Patreon where for the Acolyte Tier subscription of just $5 per month, you receive exclusive prophecies from The Word Unlimited Limited Hangout.
Silas switched off the webcam and felt a tight pain in his neck. Rolled his head gently, ran his hands through his long frizzy mane and bound it up into a pony tail. Soon he would start work on the Thursday podcast, which he planned to make very special indeed. But first he needed a break.
Silas wasn’t a kind of, you know, some like whited sepulcher who was only in it for the big bucks. He believed sincerely in his prophetic gift, bequeathed to him by Gramps Joseph on his deathbed when he laid his hands upon young Silas. Gramps Joe had been an old-timey sort who liked to speak in tongues. But Silas believed in modern means to communicate a modern message.
That's why his message was essentially the same as that of Gramps Joe, though he'd swapped out the old man's swagger and cadence at the Full Gospel Congregation for a gamer's swivel chair and an angle mic setup. His focus was a nondenominational all-inclusive message that aimed for the widest possible audience. Congregation. Demographic, whatever.
Currently 78 subscribers, with an average pickup of just 53 viewers per livestream. But John the Baptist had raged thus, solo in the wilderness, so things could pick up anytime. He stretched again, leaning forward to check the screen and the comments thread from the livestream.
jugular_88 preche it bro, u rockin the lords real word
isiah_18.3 dont here you talk about the real problem in this world, you know who i mean
kylee_luvs_kats subscribed honeypie. luv luvv the hair is that natural?
oblatesignifier yahway not real god just a gay ass demiurge read ur bibble rite way up
west_african_prinz opportunities now in bitcoin ivestment bit.ly.06605532
oglyman @oblatesignifier no u gay
That was all he got. Theological attunement and paid subs were both sorely lacking. It was truly a barren land to walk in. The wilderness was in fact a lonely place with stark solace, a hardscrabble desert inhabited by the wailing lost souls with a tendency to be mean and inappropriate in every possible sense. But things could pick up anytime.
In the kitchen Marie-Helene had just made a shake. Though she always called what she made a smoothie, it had only icecream, milk, and strawberry syrup in it, with sprinkles from a large tub on the counter that she grabbed by the fistful. She offered him a suck on her straw. Silas declined, a headshake for her milkshake.
"How's the prophesyin' comin' along?" she asked between slurps. Her dreamy blue eyes fixed on him, her pale pink cheeks flushed with sugary pleasure. She was wearing that wraparound top that came off so easy. Just a tug on the side bow, and then he could sink his head into the comfort of her pale freckly breasts. But he put it out of his mind and let her go on slurping her shake.
"Got a keynote at a seminar this week," he said by way of answer. "Bakersfield Bible Study Group. At the Good Word Community Hall. Could be a great opportunity to get word out."
"That's good," she replied absently, half an eye on her Insta feed. "Word out is good."
She never listened to his prophesies, took no interest in the livestream or his socials. Though she was active enough when it came to keeping up with Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift's instas. Keen on the girlboss popqueens, Marie-Helene. The Lord's immortal Word, not so much.
They'd met in a church youth group workshop for weight loss. But she wasn't really religious, she told him. She was just there for the high-fiber snacks and the zero-gluten oatmeal bars. They hit it off over a confessional moment at the scales.
He confessed to doubts about the benevolence of the creator and to a craving for Oreos. She confessed to licking the open tops of ice cream tubs in the freezer sections of supermarkets and then replacing the tubs in the freezer. He fell in love then and there, but made a mental note to check the seal on the ice cream packaging on all future grocery shopping trips.
Now they sat at the kitchen counter, she with her monster smoothie-shake and him with his 20oz bottle of Mountain Dew. Despite the prodigious ingestion of sucrose taking place, the vibe in the kitchen was surprisingly subdued. More stronger kinda stimulants would be required.
The free local paper INNER EMPIRE was lying there on the counter. Silas' eye caught an ad:
BECOMING THE NEXT-LEVEL PROPHET YOU CAN BE
Unleash the voice within you
Gain insight and followers
Drive engagement using The Word
Maximize your authenticity
Stand out from the crowd
Alice le Faye Prophetic Workshops
How cool is that? There he was, looking to gain a following and drive his engagement, and here -right in front of him - was the way to do it. Truly a providential occurrence.
Just think, if he'd given in to the temptation to nuzzle Marie-Helene's stupendous bosom he wouldn't be looking at this ad. Gramps Joe would say: I made a covenant with my eyes; why then should I look upon a young woman? A true 'nuff word, oh my Lord.
The next livestream was not encouraging. From 53 previously to 28 viewers at peak this time. That wilderness just got more a little more barren, the soil rockier and the scrubs thornier. As the inspiration started to desert him and his words became more faltering, the thought suddenly hit him.
Silence.
God spoke, and now commanded him to preach against all the effusion of useless verbiage by example. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.
Mid-sentence, he stopped speaking and gazed serenely into the webcam.
kylee_luvs_kats mic muted
oglyman check mike
tybbles_sez hey bro you mic went out
He showed them that the sound was still working by clapping his hands once, twice, three times. Then he continued to look calmly into the cam.
oglyman u mad with us?
tybbles_sez ngl im confused now
kylee_luvs_kats did u swallow a bug?
He made his affirmation of silence in the face of the unending hubbub of an evil time. One by one, his 28 viewers dropped out of the stream.
For the last 17 minutes of the livecast he gazed with the stillness of certitude at nobody at all. Bearing witness to the surging electrons of the web, and to God, that he, Silas, had the courage of quietude. When he shut off the webcam at the top of the hour he was convinced that he had found the way to prophesize the true word, the word which was the hushed voice of the empty desert and the unpronounceable name of the Lord. Two hours after that, he wasn't so sure.
"I dunno, Marie, seems I can't get through either with words or with silence."
"Oh hun, it's gonna be alright. I can pick up a few more hours at the Save-a-Mart."
Again with the shake, this time banana with strawberry and choc-chip sprinkles. No way you could claim that a thing that labored under such a thick carpeting of chips was actually a smoothie. But Silas didn't press the issue. He was in full crisis mode.
"It's not just about the money, Marie. My service disability pension came through at last. We'll probably be OK for now, even if the livestream tanks completely. Which it prob'ly already has."
"Then what? What’s the prob, Si?"
"Marie, you're not hearin' me! I'm startin' to believe I might not have it."
She scooped up a fingerful of choc. "Have what?"
"The inspiration of the Word. The Gift, you know. Like my Grampa Joe."
"Thought you were goin' to Prophet School soon?"
"Yeah, pretty soon."
"Well then! You'll pick up some nice techniques then your gift will shine just like it's supposed to. Kiss-kiss."
As he kissed Marie-Helene, Silas picked up the taste of banana, strawberry, chocolate and above all sugar. They did offer sweet savour to all their idols. Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, it is the gall of asps within him. And it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.
Silas suddenly realized he had no idea what honey actually tasted like. Like, real honey from bees. Only honey-flavored cereal.
The seminar took place in a conference room in The Desert Lion Motel and Business Center on Highway 58, just outside Boron, California.
As Silas was parking his Nissan Leaf, he saw a rocket take off, up ahead at the Mojave Spaceport some miles down the road. Bezos up there in suborbital space, or something. The orange flame burned clear to blue as it lofted up into the clear sky. The rumble rippled over the parking lot as he got out, fluttering his chest with residual waves of sound. It felt funny, kind of like a tickle. Maybe that's what space was, that tingle, which is why the billionaires went so crazy for it.
Alice La Faye was waiting for them in the lobby, handing out name badges, keycards and study packs from her reception table. She stood beside it to shake the hands of all incoming participants, her assistant sitting beside her to manage the admin. She was cute, spritely, a red-headed middle-aged lady who looked after herself and had the vibrant thrum of a younger woman. Silas' brain forbade him to think MILF, but somehow he, or it, evaded the censor.
"Silas Macomber! So nice to have you with us! Have you come far, Silas?"
"Just from East Bakersfield. Not far."
"Local boy, huh? Maybe you could show me the sights after the induction."
"Would love to, Alice. I know a great little spot..."
But she was already on to the next attendee.
"Gloria Kyle! So exciting to have you back with us, sweetie!"
I want you to cast your mind back to your early years. Was your childhood different from that of all the other kids? Did you feel different? Were you an outcast? Did you have to pass through temptations and trials that the others avoided? Was the devil himself out to deflect you from your path? Did you sense God using these trials to shape you?
I believe that's the case. It was true in my own case, for instance. I had to learn that my path was different. Narrower and more open to temptation than others. I fell into a kind of despair. I used drugs. I would do anything for drugs. I would suck strange dicks! I apologize for the frankness of my words, but we're all adults here, I would suck. Strangers'. Dicks. To get a baggie of meth.
This was not exactly the message Silas had signed up expecting to hear, but it felt exciting to be receiving it. A tingle across the chest like a far-off rocket soaring into space. Inspirational.
But all that changed when I found the Word. As a prophet, you get everything straight from God. You have to get your appreciation from God. You have to get your recognition from God. You have to get your worth from God. It’s you and God. I had to learn how to let God bring vindication for what did not seem right. If God tells you it's right, then it's right, no matter how wrong it seems. You all, as prophets, will come to understand that.
There was a Q&A after the induction keynote. Silas put up his hand.
"Do you think it's true that a prophet is born not made? That really training seminars and workshops might be kind of, you know, pointless?"
"Do you think it’s pointless, Silas?" Her eyes looked so far into his.
"I... I'm not sure. That's what I'm here to find out."
"I think you know the answer, Silas." She smiled at him warmly and the tremor arose again about his breastbone. "You know you were born this way, chosen, and that further learning can only hone you into God's sharp sword."
She looked around at the forty or so attendees in the room. Beamed at them.
"If up-and-coming prophets would only seek out balanced training resources from legitimate prophetic ministers with proven ministries, we would see such a more stable and productive prophetic movement in these times."
Jawbone Canyon was a special place for Silas. He’d taken Marie-Helene there soon after their first meeting at the church weightwatchers' group. They’d taken a blanket and let the sweetness come over them out here, where there was no one to see.
To anybody else, Silas supposed that Jawbone would look pretty much like any other stretch of the Mojave Desert. But to him, in the late afternoon light, the place was suffused with a serenity that few other places possessed. The hills as they stretched out to the west beneath the declining sun were like the profile of a great mother earth laying down to receive embraces.
He'd driven Alice's SUV out here, and he stopped it by the side of the road in a more or less random spot. They got out, the air folding in fat waves around them as they stepped out from the airconditioned interior. Grillos and quail chirped and scuttled in the evening. They held hands. Things were moving fast, but right here and now there was a stillness.
"So what is it you're lookin’ for, Silas? You seem so bereft, darlin’, despite your clear prophetic power…"
She had a voice that was soft and strong, a way with words that was unfazed and confident. It was like she could say anything and the strength in her words would speak for themselves. It was intoxicating, thought Silas. These strong words like some exotic honey liqueur.
"Alice, I never learned the art of the brash sort of self-confidence that does so much to win people over. I have self-confidence, but it's of the taciturn type that doesn't garner you so many friends."
"Silas, the key is simple. You gotta assume that love of people, do some make-believe like you do care about them. Fake it till you make it, as they say."
"Fake it, Alice? Ain't that lyin'?"
“Not if you can fake it enough so you believe it. That's the American Way, honey. It's how the West was Won."
She drew in close and he took a step across the void between them and kissed her. There was a dark sharp sweetness - was that honey? - but mostly she tasted of mauve, like the aromatic desert sage that grew all around.
It was settled. He felt galvanized by an energy he never had before, a spirit that was dangerous and jagged, but felt very real and powerful. It was settled: he would live and work with Alice at her place in LA. This energy was like shocks that flashed through him at certain times, it was God and it was Alice and it was his own vibrant strength, unknown to him before now even when he'd been in a warzone. It was settled: he would break up with Marie-Helene, pick up his stuff, and move in with Alice at her place in Gardena.
Alice and he traded cars so he could fit all his stuff into her SUV. She took his Nissan Leaf back to her place so he would have all the time he needed to break up with Marie-Helene.
"Where'd you get that car?" asked Marie-Helene as she hugged him just inside the door. Alice's SUV was parked out in the driveway and the distraction worked just enough that she didn't notice the guarded nature of his hug, the equivocal shuffle he made as he pushed past her into the hallway.
Let God bring vindication for what doesn't seem right.
Alice put Silas to work straight away. Her backroom had long been converted to a home studio for streaming livecasts and podcasts and recording videos for YouTube and TikTok. Now with a slight rearrangement of lighting and backdrops, chroma-keyed from greenscreen for ease of use, his setup was ready. He would do Tuesdays and Thursdays, she had Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and together they could do a livestream session on Saturday.
She wrote his script for him, just until he could get used to the rhythm of doing them himself, until he could master her teachings and inspire his inner spark with the next-level prophetic voice she knew he had. She tousled his hair, loving his frizzy mane, and adjusted the lighting to better bring out his dark complexion.
"You got your own people out there waiting for you," she said. "Your people just waitin' for a voice to speak from out the wilderness and you gon' give it to them."
He wondered what was up with that syntax. She didn't usually talk like that. When he looked over the script she gave him he began to understand.
Oh my brothers and sisters in seizure, allow me to apostrophize you, for I am sore afflicted with apostrophes and other possessives which possess me and oppress me grievously even unto deaf, and I must be unburdened and unbridled now before I explode in a tinkling firework of twinkly prophetic rage, of pyrotechnicalesque and blissful stress.
Hear me now, O my siblings, for not a one among you will escape the big D, the destiny that is to be doomed and foreordained and foreenabled and foreflayed from your skin like leaves on the dry lone aspen whose rhizomes are shrivelled and quivers no more in thrilling communion with the other aspens on the mountainside but lurks unenrhizomed and lonely and unquivering and proud.
For the fishy scales have fallen exfoliated from my eyes and I see, not the truth my brothers and sisters, like a workaday grey workaround paltry prophet, but the troof - the TROOF I say, my siblings, which is no weak sauce or defective balm but the actual, honest-to-God, authentic, gen-u-wine shit.
Whatever the thoughts that troubled him during these weeks, these were good times, huddled in the bedroom with Alice in her modest little house in Gardena. Rolling out the Alice-scripted word of God in a way that would appeal to a young and urban demographic.
And it had to be said, Alice’s text had a strong voice, even if it wasn't really her authentic voice. Wasn't really his voice either. But it was the Word, so it was surely a truthful voice enough. And the message was really starting to connect.
The TROOF, my ailing wallabies, my fellow sons and daughters of the catastrophic consequence of consciousness, if the TROOF be told, we are all alone and not alone. A paradox I know that troubles the silly soul, but whose folds and flexes I shall expound and unflex for you without further ado or further adon't. You are alone and not alone, such is the TROOF.
Alone in the stretched-out destiny of the me-me-me timmy-time of unboxing and reboxing, in your boxes, where undelivered packages stand forlorn on the porch of your desire while the you-you-you lies weeping and alone inside the house, on the other side of the door that cannot be opened.
Alone, ain't it the TROOF my brethren, the TROOF at the root, O sistren, alone I say in the grey sleepless midnight hour, or is it the grey before the dawn? The timmy-time of timorous terrors and TROOF it is, when the big D lurks down upon you and grabs you by the imaginings and says You're Mine Baby, You're Comin' With Me.
Of course Marie-Helene hadn't believed they were breaking up. She said it was too sudden to be real. That it wasn't right, it was a scam, that this older woman was using Silas for something. If not just sex, then something. Silas had stood silent as she wailed there on the couch, and he forgave her bitter recriminations. She was upset. She hadn't understood that my path was different.
Then we are alone, like disconnect trees whose roots don't touch, then we are the unrecipients of the unopened box of delight, then we are the bearers of an unjust dessert, the dreamers of a dream that is unsleeping and most undreamy. Just silly souls subject to solitude, sliding down the chute of the sadness.
But we're not alone in the shared beat and rhythm of the you-know-whats, the pink pulsatin' of the innerspace tripes and the hearty heartbeats, the green green grass of our shared home: the rhizome-laced mountainside where we rustle and quiver together like happy aspens shimmyin' in the breeze. Can you hear my apostrophizin', sisterbros? Have I unburdened myself of the heavy heavy heaviness and layed it on you lengthwise? Can you feel it? Can you hear it? Can you hear the TROOF, Roof?
It was Alice's genius touch to layer on shouts of "Yeah!" and "Preach it, brother!" over the peroration of her own preachings as delivered by Silas. She hit the soundboard at key moments as the sermon wound up, then faded out to a nicely-crafted picture of Silas with frizzed-out mane and pecs showing through an open nomad-style tunic. The slogan BROTHER $ILA$ PREACH DA WORD! - Livestream Tuesdays and Thursdays 7pm Pacific, catch up on his socials was below it, with appropriate links. Was his skin tone just subtly darker? Hard to tell.
Alice was very pleased with the result. She rushed over to hug him, sitting in his lap, her kisses at the same time both warmly affectionate and powerfully sensual to Silas as he began to come down off the high of his oration.
"That was just a wonderful run-through, Silas, you're so natural and powerful, and I just know you're gonna be a great success at this!"
"You don't think it's a little..."
"...A little what, Silas?"
"Well, you know, a little too... Black?"
"Well baby, you are Black."
"Yes, but I didn't really wanna make that my thing. I want to spread God's universal word to all without regard to race or color."
"Silas, just think. I already do that. What we have with you is a wonderful opportunity to get the word out to people of color. They might not pay no never-mind to someone like me, but they'll listen to and respect you. You'll see."
Twin pillars of society. Politics and business. Should come under the sway of the Word of God.
Silas looked at the notes he'd taken from last night's seminar, given by by Alice over at the Torrance Baptist Center, and wondered how he could work them in to next Tuesday's spiel. He still had three days before he submitted his draft to Alice for approval and enhancement.
The last six months had been an education in several senses of the word. In love: he came to understand what it was to be close, really close, to a woman. To be drained of being, and to cherish every moment of that emptying-out. In confidence: he felt that he was a new man, no longer the hobbled, almost broken, bundle of complexes and fears that had come back from Afghanistan. In prophesy: he felt that the Word was coursing through him, at times from him, at times from Alice, but always channeled through his new persona of Brother Silas the Street-Level Prophet.
They'd gone places, Alice and he. Become an influence. For the good. And a success, both in a monetary sense and in the spreading of the troof.
Musing on how to begin his Tuesday livestream, where he would bring the twin pillars of politics and business into the fold of the shepherd, he started for the kitchen to get a snack.
Where he saw Alice's cellphone. She'd gone out for a run and left it behind, which she never did. Her Madonna tracks were on it and she used the exact five minutes of "Express Yourself" to time her sprint-stint. She'd have to sing it or play it in her head this morning. He got some slices of whitebread and went to the fridge for the mayo and ham. Then he had a thought. Wicked in its implications, a temptation for sure. Is the devil himself out to deflect you from your path?
She kept harping on one particular text these days: Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle unto you. Judges 13:12. Who knows why that particular verse? But then the thought...
1-3-1-2. In. He swiped through her WhatsApps hungrily. There. Last week.
Jerry
Can't stop thinking abt our time togetherAlice
Me either - rocked my worldJerry
When can you get away? Need to be with youAlice
Cant rn. With silasSilas swiped through lots more of the same. Lovey-dove. Rock my world. And then this:
Alice
U know I cant leave Silas. Apart from being a good kid and a pretty passable lay hes my ticket to whole new demographic that was out of my reach before nowJerry
blacks huhAlice
One day soon we can get together for realsies. Meantime send me a dick pic. Not soft know what I meanAnd Jerry had obliged. Though Silas still didn't know who Jerry was, he now knew far more about him than he would ever want to.
The limo service took him on, providing he cut his hair. Sure, they needed drivers, but George the dispatcher said that the clients weren't too happy with guys with long hair, thought they were on drugs or something.
"I can tie it back, you know like a ponytail or something," suggested Silas. He didn't much care for George, but this seemed to be the best and easiest gig in Cal City.
"No, that's worse," said George. He shifted the toothpick in his mouth and fixed Silas with a rheumy eye. "Ponytails is like you're for sure on meth or fentanyl. Cut it respectable or no deal."
He was back with his parents in Cal City, Buttfuck Nowheresville, California. Mom was pleased to see him, Dad not so much but then he never was pleased to see anybody.
Pick up folks from the airport in George's limo. Drive them to Baker, or Berdoo, or Mojave, or places even more godforsaken than those.
Easy enough work. Most days he took to waiting between jobs at the Glen Edwards Memorial, out in the desert between the Mojave Spaceport and Edwards Air Force Base.
Captain Glen Edwards crashed the big flying wing that was the prototype of today's stealth bombers right there, where a flagpole and a tiny replica of the huge plane now stood. He got two things to preserve his memory: the name of the Edwards AFB where they do all the Top Gun shit, and this rinky-dink little memorial in the spot where in 1948 his life came to an end. The cracked mandible of the experimental plane crashed down to earth right here.
See, the thing about the original flying-wing design was, it was tremendously unstable, in need of fly-by-wire tech to smooth out its oscillations, its tendency to go phugoid and become uncontrollable. But fly-by-wire was nowhere in prospect way back in the 40s. So she was a beautiful deathtrap, inevitably prone to spinning wildly out of hand. Edwards wrote in his diary that she was the darndest airplane I've ever tried to do anything with.
Standing next to the parked limo, Silas spent hours upon hours gazing at the arrangement of signs: the memorial plaque on its scuffed white lectern; the sorry Air Force flagpole propped in a small cairn of stones; the larger flagpole with the stars-and-stripes, balanced in a haphazard little pyramid of bricks; the toy plane made of zinc on its own short pole.
The way they all tilted slightly in different directions, their placement here out in the middle of the unregarded desert. The assemblage made up the most forlorn sight Silas had ever seen. He studied it intently at different times of day to see when it was at its most abject and saddening. He settled on late afternoon, just before sunset.
Pickup at the Mojave Spaceport. By now Silas had gotten used to the sight of the absurd rocketship blasting straight up and coming right back down again a few short minutes later. He tried not to look at it as it lifted off: a bit too much like that memory of Jerry's eavesdropped dick-pic, and of the day Silas had walked away from being a prophet.
It was still an impressive noise up close, though. The wave of sound, that roar that mounted until it seemed it couldn't get any louder, but it did, and you covered your ears and felt the throb of it in your chest as climbed up to where the air was rare and the sound diminished. Finally that lion's roar died away, and there was only the sweetness of the honeyed silence.
When you heard the word "spaceport" you imagined something like a gleaming structure with rounded flanges, glass stretching in curved sinusoids, and a soaring parabolic spire, with comicbook rocketships parked next to launchtowers, and columns of tiny figures passing through glass tunnels between spaceships and the fabulous terminal. You know, a spaceport.
The reality was a place like a bankrupt business park with a single traffic control tower lurking above the sheds. Acres of tarmac where a few scattered cars were parked. The Jetsons were nowhere in sight.
It was a pickup of two PAX. They came out of the spaceport building, which looked pretty much just like an industrial unit. They got in. Silas already had the destination: Cal City Airfield. Started rolling. Looked in the rear-view mirror: is it? Doesn't he have his own drivers, his own limos? Helicopters? Rocketships?
But it was him. Must have been a problem with the regular driver, or maybe he was just riding with the other guy for some reason. Silas kind of recognized the other guy too. Politician from out of Sacramento. State senator? Maybe the governor? No, not the governor, he had his own motorcade like the president of some silicon republic. One of those guys, though.
Twin pillars: business and politics. At one blow, a shimmer in the chest like a rocket blasting off, Silas knew what he had to do. After all the failures, all the lost chances to spread the Word, here was the one opportunity. Nobody would understand, perhaps. But if God tells you it's right, then it's right, no matter how wrong it seems.
He made his move just after turning off the 14 for Cal City Boulevard, before coming in sight of the Shell station. No traffic in any direction. Pulled over to the side, hit the intercom:
"One moment, gentlemen, sorry for the delay, just need to check something."
Pulled out the Browning automatic he kept in the glove compartment for such eventualities as this. Got out, walked to the rear door, opened it and leaned in, gun first.
The O's of the open mouths. Satisfying.
"Gents, I'm gonna need your cellphones. Throw them out of the door at my feet, please."
The politician started to protest, to deploy the well-honed weapon of his voice. Silas pumped a slug into the seat beside him, then waited a moment for the ringing in all their ears to subside a little. Still no traffic.
"Cellphones out of the car at my feet." He tried to raise his voice over the raging tinnitus but without seeming to be mad, just to be sure the word was getting through. "Cellphones out, now."
They took their phones out of their pockets, the O's of their mouths still formed perfectly like those fuck-me dolls you see in the adult store. Silas motioned for them to toss them out through the door, and then kicked them gently to wedge up under the rear wheel, so they'd be crushed as he drove away. Doors locked. And away.
Jawbone Canyon was just exactly as it had been when he'd been with Marie-Helene, when he'd been with Alice. The sweetness of those times now to be the sweetness of his culminating speaking of the Word. Still the earth mother lay to the west, ready to receive her lover’s embrace. But the sun was on the other side, rising still early in the morning to the east.
He pulled over deep into the desert, stepped out and went back to open the passenger door with the gun in his hand.
90º already and still not ten o'clock. Gonna be a hot one.
It’s characteristic of prophets that they don’t receive their mission from any human agency, but rather seize it.
Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion
I loved how this took the normal ambitions religious leaders and self-styled evangelists have and gave it a Twitch-era edge. I enjoyed reading it, thank you!