[Fiction] Friday: Lovers or Haters
Haven’t played Fiction Friday or #FridayFlash for a while, but thought it would be good to write something fresh.
[Fiction] Friday Challenge #133 for December 11th, 2009:
Start your story during a religious ceremony.
Lovers or Haters
Singing in high notes wrapped around me, almost blew the roof off this fucking church, and I wished I did. Bent over some pool of water, I had my back to all those fuckers that said they loved me but really hated me.
The singing was deafening, I couldn’t hear myself think, it made me all claustrophobic, my head swirled but perhaps that was from being upended.
“We love you, but not the devil inside you,” they had said. “You need to purge the sin from your body.”
When I asked them what was so sinful about loving someone else, he whacked me upside the head again. He insisted it was the devil speaking and I had to fight him, let them help me.
The singing died down, but my head didn’t clear. I heard the room move as they all sat down behind me. I didn’t dare turn around to watch their fake loving stares. They hated me.
He came around behind me, and I barely noticed him as I tried to filter out his low voice proclaiming religious truths about what they were all gathered here today to do, the lovers that were really the haters.
He suddenly grabbed at my head, pushed me down toward the holy water, but I resisted, my neck becoming rigid and stubborn.
“Fight it, boy, fight the devil that is making you resist.”
“It’s not the devil. It’s me. I’m not a sinner, I’m a lover.”
My so called friends stood beside me, they wept. “He’s just trying to help you, Jason. Do it, do it for us. Let us help you. Accept our help.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t move. I felt icky, their false loving (really hating) slime wrapping around me, pulling my chest tight, and their godly guilt taking over me.
Again, he pushed. This time, with all of them around me, their hate as love pushing me, I went down.
Water, cleansing or more likely poisoning, flushed through me.
I was yanked up again, sucking in, trying to get in air, not sure if I was alive or dead but I did feel broken.
They cheered, the lovers or the haters, standing at applause.
Suddenly I felt the arms of my friends around me, congratulating me, crying, joyous as if it was them that had been saved.
“We have you back,” they cried, “You are you again, and the devil is purged.”
But now I felt the devil inside me, and I was not myself. I had been changed, disguised and a fraud.
I fake smiled, I pretended to love but now I hated myself, one great big liar.
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am curious as to how the narrator ended up in the haters’ church (and their clutches).
Interesting take on the possession story
mazzz_in_Leeds´s last blog ..#FridayFlash: Witness
Not so funny that we both referred to that claustrophobic feeling within one of those buildings…I enjoyed the POV you decided to take in telling this story – powerful and intimate.
mine took a bit of a twist while I wrote – it – but doesn’t everything? http://annieevett.blogspot.com/2009/12/first-blooding.html
Very powerful story, Ben.
Carol´s last blog ..Tritina Verse Form
This is fantastic, I really liked the take that you did on the baptism. I often times wonder how many people would follow a religion if they weren’t forced into it.
I love this. How the main fights for his true self but ended up hating what he had become. Powerful and can be casually related to any situation. Pretentious, but somehow defeated in a way.
You know, this is the first thing of yours I’ve ever actually read. And I have to say I liked it. Good job!
I’m going to have to check out this Fiction Friday thing. Never heard of it.
John Pender´s last blog ..Vampires and Prostitutes
The way you get under this guy’s skin is very powerful.
paul´s last blog ..Too Good To Be True
Awesome! Very effective. Pulled me right in. Liked especially the part where the devil ended up inside him; the shift was very provocative.