A Just Farewell Read online

  Rahbin lifted a stone from the ground and placed it in Abraham’s hand.

  “Do not shame us, Abraham. You must cast your stone before that woman perishes. Do not shame us by being a coward.”

  Abraham hardly looked towards the woman, and his stone sailed wide of Sarah’s face. The effort didn’t satisfy Rahbin, who lifted another stone from the ground and forced it into Abraham’s hand.

  “That isn’t enough,” Rahbin growled. “You must strike her, and your throw must be judged to deliver hurt. Do not cower, boy. The stones we throw cast the great devil from her, saving her soul and freeing our village from his taint. Do your duty and cast your stone before the clerics judge you to be a coward.”

  Abraham wanted all of it to end. He wanted to retreat back beneath the ground, where he could bury his head into the pillow of his cot, away from the gaze of the bearded clerics, far from the still open eyes of the butcher’s severed head. He realized he would be unable to retreat until the men of the tribe threw the last stones and killed the woman who committed adultery against their Maker. Abraham realized the woman would die whether or not he threw a stone, and so he swallowed the sickness he felt rising from his stomach and cast his stone. Abraham’s stone struck Sarah’s bloody forehead, and for a moment, the woman’s hands released their grip upon her dark glasses. Yet Sarah recovered a piece of strength, and her hands returned to her face to prevent those glasses from falling off of her eyes just as she collapsed upon the ground, where stone after stone struck her body to shatter her bones until her breathing ceased and a broken thing lay upon the ground where there had moments earlier been a woman.

  “Very good, son,” and Rahbin nodded to his young son. “You will appreciate the Maker’s justice more as you grow into a man, and you will come to feel honored that our creator employs you as a tool in its administration.”

  Only Abraham didn’t feel the least blessed that night as he used his pillow to suffocate his sobs. He couldn’t chase away the image of the cleric’s knife sawing through the butcher’s neck, nor could he seem to wipe clear all the blood from his vision. His hand kept gripping a phantom stone, and the weight of that rock would not fall from his palm no matter how he shook his hand. He couldn’t fall asleep, and so Abraham sat upright upon his cot as something moved from within the jacket tossed across his wooden stool. His favorite burrowing cockroach friend, with its orange shell dotted with decorative swirls, dropped upon the floor, where it scurried to the center of the room and lifted its fine antennae as if waiting for Abraham to give an explanation of the day’s justice.

  “You shouldn’t linger in the light, friend.” Abraham whispered. “You were in my jacket, and you heard what the clerics warned, that any creation done without the Maker’s blessing is a cursed thing. I didn’t pray before I painted you, and so I’m afraid I turned you into a wicked thing. So scurry back into the corners and into the shadows before someone finds you in my chamber. I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you, friend, but you must leave this community before someone squashes you beneath a boot.”

  Abraham watched the bug scurry away at his command; and though he was certain that any of his cockroaches with the painted shells would be killed the instant anyone but him looked upon them, Abraham couldn’t help but hope that his friend would return. His father and his brother so often reminded him that he was about to become a man, but Abraham still felt like a little boy.

  And little boys needed friends.

  * * * * *

  Governor Chen rubbed her eyes, but she couldn’t dispel the sight of that suffering and gore from her imagination no matter how dark she turned the cinema’s screen. She might have forgiven the tribes for their archaic laws had it not been for the violence, or for the look of satisfaction that crossed upon the faces that witnessed such a brutal execution. She couldn’t fathom the worship of any god who asked for such terrible justice. She would never understand how the savages could believe that any Maker could bring such pain to his creation. Those of the tribe had taken such joy in the stoning of a woman whose only crime, as far as Kelly saw it, was the loving of her husband. If the tribe delivered such hurts to their own kind, what hurts did the savages long to deliver to those who live beyond their reach in the orbiting castles?

  Yet that boy had hesitated to throw his stone. The fine sensors implanted upon that small cockroach had constructed such a clear view of the scene while the bug hid within the boy’s jacket. Perhaps there was hope within the child. The bug had monitored how that child’s heart had raced at the terrible gore, and Kelly didn’t doubt the boy must’ve been terrified. She saw how that boy had hesitated to cast the stone. So long as the clerics’ brimstone interpretation of their faith appalled and frightened the children, wasn’t there then the hope that Earth and its savages might be redeemed, hope that the ultimate answer wouldn’t need to be executed in order to protect the civilization Kelly’s kind had spent centuries to shape?

  Kelly tapped the projector’s controls, and one of her favorite musicals of sound and color danced upon the screen. She doubted the songs would thrill her following what she had watched through the eyes of that bug, but Kelly knew the sight of that violence would prevent her from catching a moment of rest. More than ever, she craved to see what the world had long ago been.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 6 – Time to be a Man

  “Tell me, brother. Did the operation hurt?”

  “You worry too much about pain, Abraham. Pain is only another color brushed into the Maker’s glorious creation.”

  “But did it hurt?”

  Abraham and Ishmael were busy sweeping and cleaning the floors of their subterranean home before the day’s sunrise. The orbiting castles long ago forced the tribes’ families to live beneath the ground, but that didn’t mean they needed to grovel through the dirt like common bugs. The Maker taught his people to make the most of whatever surroundings he gifted them, and so sons of the tribes spent many hours scrubbing the dirt floors and walls before they applied the lacquers and oils that would harden their chambers against mildew and moisture. The Maker also taught that all work, no matter how tedious young boys might think it to be, demanded care and attention, and so Abraham’s constant questions exasperated Ishmael.

  “Will you concentrate on your work if I tell you about the procedure?”

  Abraham smiled. “I promise to work like never before if you do.”

  “Maker forgive us and keep father from catching us prattling when we should be working.” Ishmael set down his brush and took a seat leaning against the wall. “You don’t feel anything when the clerics put the Maker’s weapon inside of your body, brother. You feel only a little more than a prick as the clerics stick a needle attached to a tube into your arm. They ask you to count to ten, and you fall asleep before you can reach five. It feels like you sleep for only a minute, but your awake hours later with the Maker’s weapon placed within your body. Only then can you can wear one of the capes that announces you are a man, and a warrior, of the tribe. Only then are you ready to deliver the Maker’s wrath in his war against the unbelievers.”

  “Did it leave a mark?”

  Ishmael pulled at his tunic to reveal the long scar that ran across his abdomen. Abraham held his breath as he followed the small dots of pink tissue that marked where the clerics who conducted the operation inserted the needle whose thread had stitched his brother back together. The scar appeared pink and tender, though nearly a season had passed since Ishmael had undergone the surgery. Ishmael approached Abraham and took his brother’s hand, gently setting Abraham’s fingers upon the knot that protruded beneath the skin just above the navel that showed the location of the explosives implanted within his body, ready for a moment when Ishmael might find himself in a position to deliver a blow against the unbelievers.

  “Does it hurt?” Abraham repeated his question.

  Ishmael chuckled. “There are some mornings when it is sore, but the discomfort is a minor cost to pay for the right to w
ear a cape.”

  “Who controls the weapon within your stomach?”

  Ishmael shrugged. “The Maker of course, brother. The Maker moves through the clerics, as he moves through us. Whenever my weapon should detonate, I do not doubt the Maker will be the one who presses the button to deliver me to my martyrdom.”

  A mumble of footsteps and hushed voices echoed through the subterranean chamber, chasing Abraham and Ishmael back to scraping their cleaning sponges against the flooring and walls. Father Rahbin appeared suddenly around a corner, followed by none other than the high cleric and a pair of his bearded associates. Ishmael and Abraham furiously moved their sponges, both of them determined to show the bearded men who visited their home that they exercised their due diligence in the completion of the tasks father assigned them. The high cleric never paid any home a casual visit, for the time he was required to spend in contemplating the Holy Book rarely afforded him the occasion to leave his private apartments. Abraham wondered what business brought the high cleric to his home? Was he or his brother in jeopardy of facing a punishment like the one delivered to the butcher and his wife? Did the high cleric come to Abraham’s home to make him pay for painting cockroach shells in a rainbow of colors with the dyes he stole from his mother’s loom?

  The high cleric smiled softly at trembling Abraham. “There is no reason to fear me, son. Know that the Maker walks beside me, and that the Maker brings you good news. We come to discuss your future.”

  Rahbin nodded towards Ishmael. “Continue your duty. This only concerns Abraham.”

  Abraham followed his father and the clerics into the central chamber of their home, where his mother cast her sight upon her floor and quietly walked away from her loom to vacate the room to the business conducted by men. They sat upon their family’s finest carpet, and the capes worn by Abraham’s father and the bearded clerics seemed to melt into the carpet’s pattern. The high cleric placed a wooden box into the center of their circle, opening it to reveal a cleaver and a long, serrated knife. Abraham employed all of his courage not to gasp or cry out at the sight of those blades. He didn’t close his eyes, though the vision of the butcher’s execution flashed in his memory. Was the high cleric aware of his crime of painting bugs without the Maker’s permission, and had he come with those knives to take a finger, or a hand, to punish Abraham for the theft of his mother’s dyes? Would it be better for Abraham to suddenly cry out his admission of guilt? Would the high cleric consider him young enough for mercy, though he entered the year that would shape him into a man?

  “Calm your breath son,” spoke the high cleric. “Your apprehension at the sight of these sharp blades speaks well of you, for by recognizing the gravity of these knives, you show yourself to be mature for your age.”

  Rahbin grinned at Abraham. “The high cleric and I have discussed a position for you within the tribe, Abraham. The tribe will need a new butcher, and I agree with the high cleric, who thinks you are of the proper age to begin learning the trade.”

  The fear rushed away from Abraham, and he couldn’t resist grinning in the company of the high cleric. The high cleric’s smile grew as well, and Abraham felt ashamed for feeling that the clerics came to deliver him doom.

  The high cleric nodded. “You needn’t speak, son. It will not be your place to speak while we teach you a butcher’s way of wielding those knives, and your smile tells us that our suggestion makes you very happy and proud.” The high cleric retrieved the wooden box from the center of the carpet and snapped its lid once more shut. “But you must start your transition into manhood before we can teach you, Abraham. Your tenth birthday is still a few months away, but we would like to begin your training as soon as possible. And so I ask you to take your first steps into manhood today. Come with us.”

  They climbed the ladder rising onto the surface and were greeted by a young, rising sun that promised a hot day, one sure to chase the tribe into the cooler shelter of their underground chambers. A hundred questions raced through Abraham’s mind as he followed his father and the clerics beyond the edge of the village, but he didn’t voice any of them. He knew it was not his time nor place to speak in the business that brought the clerics to his family. Abraham knew they were not headed towards the city ruins on a hunt for salvage, for they travelled in the direction opposite of the unbelievers’ wastes. Many minutes passed before they came to a flat and featureless landscape devoid of plant or weed, over which rose ripples of heat mirage already burning in the young day. The high cleric pointed ahead of him, and Abraham saw the shovel set upon the ground.

  Rahbin proudly squeezed his young boy’s shoulders. “The time has come for you to dig your own hole, Abraham. The time is here for you to announce that you will be a good man for the tribe. And the day greets you with a proper, bold sun, whose heat will show that my son is strong.”

  Abraham swallowed. He wished he had eaten a breakfast, and he was already thirsty. But the clerics provided him with a proud opportunity, and Abraham wouldn’t lose his chance by complaining about his discomforts. So he stepped forward and gripped the shovel; and when the high cleric nodded, Abraham started to dig.

  * * * * *

  The bug with the orange shell silently watched Abraham finish his work from the edge of the hole as its delicate and sensitive antennae waved in the air. No matter the heat, the boy had dug through the day, so that by the time the sun prepared to fall beyond the western horizon, the boy had to stretch in order to reach his hole’s ledge. The effort with the shovel blistered Abraham’s hands and turned them bloody, and the moisture that emptied from his taxed body drenched his tunic. The bug had watched it all, and it dodged another clump of dirt tossed by Abraham’s shovel before settling still once more and extending its fine antennae into the air.

  Abraham panted as he finally leaned his shovel against the wall of his hole. “What do you think, Oscar? Do you think my hole promises that I’ll grow into a strong man?”

  Tribal symbolism filled Abrahams’s hole. Customs of the tribe demanded that each boy dig a hole on their tenth birthday. The hole represented the home each boy would soon be expected to establish within the community, a miniature and simplified representation of the chambers the boy might in the future dig beneath the ground to accommodate a wife and children. Boys taxed themselves in the efforts, for the clerics visited at nightfall to judge the merits of each boy’s hole, to gauge whether the boy who all day wielded the shovel showed the strength demanded by the Maker, or whether the boy betrayed weakness the great devil exploited. Though many a boy fainted from the dehydration, a hot day was considered a blessing that showed the Maker took particular interest in a boy wielding a shovel on the birthday marking the year during which he would transform into a man.

  Abraham circled about his hole, bending to scoop up extra extra clumps of dirt with his bare hands before tossing the debris out of the hole. “Let’s pray the Maker considers my efforts worthy. I wish you could stay with me when the clerics arrive to judge how well I wielded the shovel, but you must leave, Oscar. Remember, the clerics will think you’re a tainted creation made without blessing, and they would squash you with their boot.”

  As if it had the ears and the comprehension to follow a boy’s request, the orange bug retreated away from the hole’s ledge towards the direction of the village. Abraham’s body ached and he felt dizzy for the lack of water in his system. Yet he didn’t slump upon the floor of his hole, nor did he lean against its wall. Instead, he stood in the hole’s center and concentrated on holding his posture straight and rigid, refusing to show the cleric’s any trace of his fatigue when they arrived to consider his constitution.

  The clerics decided to let the sky darken before visiting the boy’s work, and another of the unbelievers’ castles, with so many levels of blinking blue and pearl lights, orbited overhead to crowd the stars. Abraham’s eyes felt very heavy when he heard the soft footfalls of the clerics returning to inspect his efforts, and he forced a dry swallow to gather what strength
remained to keep his legs straight as the high cleric’s long beard and wrinkled face appeared at the edge of his hole.