What kind of mentality puts the face of the Messiah on the front of a pair of y-front underpants? One slip of the contents and it looks like Jesus is sticking his tongue out.
“Christ!” I accurately observe.
I can’t find my clothes, so I wrap myself in a sheet, noting that, although I may not’ve lost a kidney, I’ve still got a pretty nasty gash on my side. I make for the door. The sticky handle slips in my fingers. I figure it’s blood from the graze on my palm. But the gashes’ve scabbed over. And there’s blood on the handle, clear as day. I feel a chill creep up my back, a chill that grows and grows as I twist the knob and nothing seems to happen.
But the door’s not locked. That was my worry and I’m glad to be proved wrong. I step out onto a dark landing. I reach out for the ivory white banister and I scream silently. What my bleary eyes took for the handrail turns out to be a scrawny arm. And that arm retracts, lightening fast, into the hunched figure of possibly the most peculiar person I’ve ever seen.
Christ, it’s repulsive – almost rodent-like. But what sex is it? I can’t tell from the black, basin-cut hair. It watches me from dark sockets, twitching its head like a housefly.
“Fuuuuuuuuck, you’re ugly,” is a thought that shouldn’t get said out loud, but does.
The creature’s response is surprising. “Yes, the good Lord has gifted me rather idiosyncratic features. Not for me the sin of vanity.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m still feeling woozy. I’m unsteady on my feet. I reach out to steady myself on the actual banister, but it’s further away than it appears and I fall flat on my face.
“Sorry,” I say, picking myself off the floor, “but since I left Jesus, I’m having problems with perspective.”
The little creature’s face takes on a thermo-nuclear glow. “Yes! Yes! I know! Jesus puts everything into perspective!” And it raises its hands to the sky, flinging blood from bandaged palms up the wall and all over me. I dry retch, thinking of HIV and hepatitis.
Now I’m nervous. I decline the offer of a dirty handkerchief and wipe my face with the sheet. I laugh awkwardly. The creature turns and beckons me down the creaking stairs. What can I do? I’m not armed. I follow at what I think is a safe distance, through a bead curtain and into a pine-floored room. The walls are bright white and bloodied, red handprints everywhere. What isn’t spattered or smeared is Jesussed. I mean, it’s got a picture of Jesus on it. If The Lamb of God isn’t starring beatifically from over here, then he’s starring beatifically from over there, usually above some ditty declaring his greatness whilst ignoring his dislike for anything resembling a graven image. Handmade pro-God tapestries adorn the few surfaces the Big J. hasn’t got to and Mary, Mother of God, gets a look-in on a cushion cover.
Getting haemorrhoids on that hard floor – God forbid they sit on the Holy Virgin’s face – sit two more creatures, imploring the gigantic Jesus above the mantelpiece for assumption. They’re small, spindly and I could probably snap them with one hand. But they’re still truly terrifying.
They say God heals the sick. He also recruits them. Four more creatures sit in four wheelchairs, systematically gouging themselves with kitchen equipment. The most senior of these figures looks up from the steak knife embedded between the radius and ulna of his left arm and saws – in, out, in, out – to the sickening sound of tearing sinew.
“Good morning,” he purrs. “You’ll forgive us for not greeting you… en masse, but we find the stairs so much trouble, these days. Our piety has left us somewhat debilitated. But I trust Novice Peter has been taking care of you?”
“Yes, Elder Adam,” Novice Peter replies, tugging the forelock of his appalling haircut. “But soon I hope to be a cripple, too, Lord willing.”
It’s not a recognisable word that comes out of my mouth.
Elder Adam wheels forward, leaving burgundy daubs on his tyres. He’s so close I can feel the heat from his decomposing mouth. “Well then,” and he reaches into his cardigan to produce my papers. “Well then, young Hugo…” and he taps my photograph with the talon that sprouts from his bandaged mitt, “welcome home, brother.”
“I…” I start, but the words stick in my dry throat.
Elder Adam smiles wide and warm. “You have questions. It’s only natural.”
“How did I get here?” is my eventual croak.
“Ah! You’ve found your tongue, child. Well, the good Lord put you on this Earth to glorify him.”
I nod furiously. I figure it’s best to agree. I’ve heard of religious extremists scoring the soles of a captured nonbeliever’s feet before. Then they can preach all day and he can’t run away. That’s God’s love for you.
“Er, yes. I… I understand that,” I say. “What I meant is… how did I get here… in this place, with… with you?”
“You cried for help and we answered. You went to the bridge,” answers the female Elder Paul. “That was your cry!”
It seems they’ve got me figured for a suicide attempt.
“You went to the bridge,” Elder Paul trills in her soprano voice, “and you jumped. But we caught you. And we know what you did was a sin, but the Lord forgives those who repent.”
Obviously ‘caught’ me metaphorically, I reason, or I wouldn’t feel like I’d been hit by a truck.
“Many of our brethren come from the bridge,” Intermediate Solomon explains excitedly. “It is the duty of those still afflicted with the curse of walking to find souls to save. And what a soul you are! You already wear the wounds of the stigmata! How pious you must have been before your deviation from Jesus!”
Suddenly, everyone’s studying me. And so I check out my reflection in the polished wooden floor – all wrapped in white linen, with my injured head and hands, and the great gash in my side. I look like I’ve been crucified by work-experience centurions.
“Yes, it is an auspicious occasion,” confirms the very-pregnant Under Elder Eve who’s clearly been under Elder Adam.
“God must truly be thanked for bringing you home to us!” says Novice Luke. “You are a sign, my prodigal one, a sign that even the most devout, even those that bear the true, God-gifted wounds of the stigmata, may fall from grace. You are a reminder that we must not backslide. We must slash our devotion into ourselves, lest we forget!” And he takes up some bladed implement.
“Please!” I say, attempting a calm voice and failing miserably. “Please! Don’t slash anything! Look: I don’t have the stigmata. I’ve never had the stigmata!”
“It’s useless to deny,” says Novice Peter.
“You can’t deny it,” says Elder Adam, “the evidence is clear to see, as plain as day; the wound of the crown of thorns etched into your forehead!”
“It’s acne and a head injury!” I bawl.
“No!” cries our maniacal collective simultaneously. “It is the wounds of Christ!”
“As is this!” Elder Adam whispers, unwrapping the swathes of dirty bandage around his hand and letting the loops fall silently to the floor. He takes a pen and jams it through the rot-edged sphincter in his palm, pushing a plug of congealed matter out onto the rug. His expression remains beatific throughout, suggesting that, not only is this perfectly normal behaviour, but a noble pursuit children should be encouraged to emulate.
“Disinfectant,” I creak, backing as far as the walls will allow.
“No disinfectant,” says Novice Peter, “because we are pure both in faith and physiology. There was no disinfectant for Jesus, after all. And what right do we have to something denied to Jesus? No, there will be no disinfectant for any of us, including you. For what is rot, anyway, but the slow return of our bodies to the Lord, bit by bit.”