REVEREND SYKES: Friends, tonight I want us to think together of this humble program as the soil of faith. I want us to think of ourselves… joined here tonight, together, in the electronic soil of faith today. I want us to feel used and satisfied by the Lord together tonight.
UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Miss Beaksman, hear the mandate! REVEREND SYKES: So friends, laugh if you will, but tonight I have a game for us to play together. A profoundly and vitally important game for us to play together tonight. The stakes’ll be as high as the stars in heaven, friends, I’ll warn you now.
The Partnership Singers begin to hum a harmony even more pleasing than the pleasing harmonies previously hummed
REVEREND SYKES: Friends, I want us all to get up and put our hand on our television screen. Those of you who might be unable to get up with us tonight, why you have a friend or loved one bring your television close to you. Friends I want you to come to me and place your hand on my hand, that I hold out to you tonight. Let us all place our hands together in the electronic soil.
UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Sow to reap a pretty boy!
REVEREND SYKES: So there is the game, friends, and now here are the stakes tonight.
THE PARTNERSHIP SINGERS: The stakes tonight… (They return to the pleasing harmony.)
REVEREND SYKES: Every player, every one of you who feels something, who feels what I can feel standing right here before you tonight, who can feel the individual imprisoned inside these secular shells of impotent pain and desire flow out of you, flow out into the soil, who feels the sort of union with all and with- the Lord our Savior Jesus Christ that I feel right now, when you touch my hand, each one of you who feels what I know in my heart we shall all feel together tonight… each player who feels it will go straight to his telephone and call us here at the Partnership Pledge Center at 1- 800-PARTNER, to become a partner with us and with God, tonight. So to feel what I feel tonight, friends, is to become a partner. No two ways about it. This game is a challenge, friends. Are you up to it? I stand here challenging you tonight.
UGOLINO THE SIGNIFICANT: Holy holy!
REVEREND SYKES: Use me, friends. Let us play the game together. I promise that no player will feel alone. You see my hand? Here it is. I hold it out for you to touch. Touch it. Lay your hands in the soil and touch me. Here I am for you. Friends I sense we are all ready tonight.
/d
“Well no I’m not angry, you silly,” says Mindy, kneeling in front of the television. Cold light comes out from between her fingers, on the screen.
“I promise to tell,” Rick says, looking down at himself.
“I know you’ll tell,” Mindy says softly into the television. White shimmers melt down her back. Drops of light stop and start. She reaches back with her free hand, tosses her hair out of the way, unhooks herself.
“What are you doing?”
Mindy rises and turns and slides out of everything, moving her hips.
“I said I’d tell,” says Rick.
“I know you will,” says Mindy. “I know you’re upset, but I feel like I just know you will.” She comes to the bed. Her body moves a million ways in the wet white light. Behind her Rick can see a flickering hand, dead and cold. It covers everything.
“I really will,” he whispers.
Mindy touches his leg. Light comes out of his leg, between her fingers.
“Don’t you worry about anything,” she says. “I know you.”
“You can trust me,” R. V. says, watching her hand. “I’m a man of my