"Things Blowing Up" - A Novel - Chapter 23

Things Blowing Up is a young adult novel about a small town that's dubbed "the most depressing town in Missouri." The town is subsequently invaded by aliens seeking to study depression in order to cure an epidemic on their home planet. The story follows a group of teens and their troubled families as they struggle to survive the invasion. Things Blowing Up will be available July 21, 2025, from lulu.com. 

Chapter 23: The Phenomenon of Sorrow

It was about two o’clock in the morning when Adelia started screaming. Everybody’s first thought was the aliens were sick of flexing in the sky and they were coming in. But in the dim glow of the nightlight I saw Adelia hanging onto Barry’s leg as he struggled to climb the stairs.

He’d been rummaging through Tumbleweed’s stuff while everybody slept, and found a big pair of boots and an old flannel jacket. He was laughing. For a second I thought him and Adelia were playing around. Then I realized he had the shotgun in his left hand. Adelia hung onto him like a pit bull and started pulling at the oversized boots he’d scavenged.

The rest of us jumped up when it finally sunk in through the grogginess what was going on. Me, Dad, Mario and Dave went after Barry. Brenda pulled on Adelia to get her away while the rest of us tried to wrestle Barry down the stairs. I grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and struggled to keep it pointed up. I noticed blood on the stairs. Dad’s bandages were open.

Mrs. Pico and Brenda finally got Adelia away from the fight, and Mr. Pico was gingerly sneaking up with a pipe of some kind in his hand. Any other time it would have been a little extreme, but Barry was completely insane, with superhuman strength and a shotgun. When I saw a stray yellow capsule on the stairs, I lost my grip. We should have checked his pockets or made him tell us if there were any other hiding places for Tumbleweed’s dope.

As soon as I lost my hold on the shotgun, a blast sent us all scattering as plaster rained from the ceiling. Barry let out a loud, crazy giggle and sprinted up the stairs. I felt paralyzed. It was that demented laugh that froze me. It pierced through the intense ringing in my ears as I lay there on my side, watching my friend, turned into a giggling lunatic, disappear into the darkness above us.

Seeing Dad’s blood on the stairs and on my hands must have snapped me out of it. I forced my brain to cooperate in helping Mario and Dave carry Dad down the stairs. His foot was a mess and his eyes were practically crossed with pain, but he told us to go after Barry before he got himself killed. So we bounded up the stairs as fast as you can go when you’re in a daze and you can hardly hear. I never realized before how much it affects your motor skills when your eardrums don’t work.

We made it to the Boggises’ living room as Barry was driving his shoulder into the front door, trying to break it down. In his pilled-up excitement, he didn’t realize the doorknob worked. When he saw me, Dave, Mario and Brenda coming after him, he stepped back and blew a hole in the front door with the shotgun. He ducked and plowed through it, making it bigger with the size of his body.

The four of us followed him. I don't think any of us thought about it. We just rushed through the hole in the door. It was the middle of the night, but I forgot when I saw everything bathed in red from the barrier. Through the ringing in my ears I could somehow hear Barry’s crazy laughter, but not the humming and throbbing of the ship directly above us. There weren’t any potato gunners around this time to distract it. But even if there were, I think the aliens were determined to take somebody. When everything turned green, my muscles, my intestines, everything that made up my being was pierced with a thousand little pin pricks. I felt like a rubber band being stretched as I began to float.

It’s funny, how relieved I was to see Mario, Dave, Brenda and Barry (without the shotgun) being pulled up with me in the sick green light. It was such an agonizing and slow trip that I had time to feel bad for being happy that I wasn’t alone. I shouldn’t have been glad my friends were being abducted by aliens. I should have wished they were safe on the ground. You think the dumbest things during an alien invasion.

It turns out the inside of a spaceship looks pretty much like they do in the movies. At least this one did. Everything looked like it was made of chrome, with panels of blinking lights and buttons and dials, and there were clear wide tubes that went up and down from the ceiling, maybe fifty feet above us. The circular room we were in was huge, with lots of open space in the middle. Most of the gizmos and panels were connected to the walls. If the entire ship was the size of a mansion, this room was the fancy lobby.

I don’t think any of us were afraid or even shocked. Of course this was what the inside of the ship would look like. Being inside it now, after everything it had done to us, it felt like another why not? thing. We’d seen death lasers and abduction beams. We might as well see the inside, and see the alien beings who operated the ugly thing that destroyed our town. I just wished I’d said goodbye to Dad. I had plenty of chances when we were in the basement all that time. I could have just randomly said, any time I wanted, in case something happens to me, I love you. If there’s ever a reason to tell somebody you love them, it’s during an alien invasion.

Mario had the wherewithal to recite a Catholic thing (I think) while he gazed around at all the alien technology. “If ye have received power over me from the Lord, draw nigh and delay not, for I am ready for you. But if ye have come at the command of Satan, get ye back to your places and tarry not, for I am a servant of Jesus the Conqueror.”

I wished Mario hadn’t said all that, or at least that he'd said it in Spanish. The words rubbed off on me and I felt braver than I really was when the big tubes started glowing that familiar sick green, and twelve literal otherworldly beings slowly descended from someplace above. When their big reveal was through, the only thing that really jarred me was how much they looked just like the way the crackpots (at least they used to be crackpots) always said they did. They sure gave weight to Mario’s theory of a common creator, anyway. Humanoids about five-and-a-half feet tall, with two legs, two arms, a big head with two huge black eyes, a mouth where ours is, five fingers on both hands, and two short bare feet with five toes each. I counted.

They wore poshy red robes made of something that had a silver shimmery effect. The only thing that was different from the movies and the crackpots was their skin wasn’t green. It was a gross shade of gray, like old organs you see preserved in formaldehyde. Their skin wasn’t smooth or free of blemishes, either. That was what I noticed most. They had wrinkles, spots, ruts, even a light layer of fuzz.

Barry was the only one who was freaking out, but if he wasn’t high on pills he’d have been as collected as the rest of us. He wasn’t afraid or in awe at seeing an alien for the first time, but he was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, or somebody itching for a fight. It was a good thing he dropped the shotgun on the ground. He cussed and taunted the dozen gray beings about everything from their robes looking gay (his words, not mine) to how much of a coward it takes to zap people to death from a big impenetrable ship. I don’t know why the others didn’t tell him to shut up. I know the reason I didn’t was because everything he said was true, and these beings deserved to be told they were cowards in ridiculous costumes. Even if it came from the spitting wild version of Barry who I didn’t know and didn’t like.

When his rant hit a peak, he screamed and rushed at the aliens. The rest of us shouted at him to stop. It went as well as it could have. One of the twelve intercepted him (with average human strength, not magical powers or by manipulating gravity), and without uttering a sound or changing their expressions they held Barry in place while one of them reached into its robe and took out a syringe full of yellow liquid. As Barry shouted every vulgar sixth grade insult that came to his brain, the alien gently put the needle in his neck.

They didn’t let him fall to the chrome floor. They just lifted him as gingerly as paramedics would lift somebody with a broken neck and placed him on a gurney. I hadn’t even noticed two of the aliens wheeling it around the moment Barry rushed at them.

Me, Mario, Dave and Brenda all clutched at one another’s arms as if to keep the other from fainting or going after the gray things. When we realized Barry was breathing, then snoring, we relaxed our stance a little.

So far, everybody, human and humanoid both, had played it cool, except Barry, and he looked like he was fine, all things considered. He could have easily been zapped to ashes with some space weapon instead of knocked out with space drugs. The atmosphere was so quiet, the hum of the ship almost comforting from the inside, that we weren’t taken aback when the alien with the syringe started talking, and in words we knew. Its voice wasn’t metallic and cold like the act prudently warning. It was like somebody being slow and overly careful with their words because they’re still trying to get a grasp of the language.

“We welcome you to our craft with charity and assurances of your safety. On behalf of those of us you see gathered before you, and on behalf of our commander, again we say welcome.”

Brenda would be the first one to get salty. “You’ve literally incinerated like a hundred people. I wouldn’t call that safe.”

The spokesman/spokeswoman tilted his or her head like it was thinking carefully about a good response. “We certainly understand your skepticism. We do not perceive it as a flaw on your part.”

“Oh, you don’t think I’m flawed! Greeeaaat!” Brenda glared.

The alien cocked its head again. It could apparently detect sarcasm, so it knew it had to formulate some really smooth words if it wanted to charm Brenda. “We assure you, you are perfectly welcome on our craft. We have no ill intent toward you.”

There was an awkward silence, just like we were all humans. Then Dave asked, “what did you put in Barry’s neck?”

The head alien put some extra sweetness in its voice. “It is the equivalent of a basic sedative on your planet. Our studies show it is closely related chemically to your Valium. Your companion will not be negatively affected by the serum unless he suffers from a natural allergy to it. Judging by his current state, this does not appear to be the case. You can certainly understand our reasoning for neutralizing him temporarily.”

Mario spoke up. He had the priestly tone in his voice, times ten. “I understand it. But I don’t understand why you’re sealing off our town and blowing it to pieces.”

The alien wasn’t cowed. “We assure you we had no malicious or violent intent when we traveled to Earth. The unfortunate destruction that ensued is regrettable. We hope all hostilities will cease as soon as possible.”

Mario: “Why did you come here in the first place?”

Alien: “That question can best be answered by our commander, who will join us presently.”

Dave: “What are you, like the number two?”

Alien: “I am, in fact, second in command of this vessel. Perhaps you would like to think of me as the equivalent to the character Riker on your episodic Star Trek television series.”

Dave: “I don’t watch Star Trek.”

Alien: “My apologies. When we were gathering information about Earth and its cultures, we discovered your species has an affinity for fiction which addresses space travel and communication with planets, galaxies and civilizations beyond your own. We found this fact could help us to illustrate our mission. Thus, my comparison of myself to this Riker.”

Dave: “He sounds like you, Mario.”

Alien: “Which of you is called Mario?”

Mario raised his hand.

Alien: “And which of you is called Brenda Boggis?”
Brenda: “How do you know my name?”

Dave: “They literally know about Star Trek...”

Alien: “We have your mother and father figures in an isolation unit elsewhere on this vessel. They are both unharmed and in good health.”

Brenda’s face turned pale and her eyes got wide. No matter how many times I’d seen her do it in the past couple days, it was still jarring to see her face not set to scowl. Believe it or not, it was the first time I ever noticed she has blue eyes.

“What did they tell you?” she croaked.

Me, Mario and Dave couldn’t help looking at Brenda. That wasn’t the normal first question to ask when you find out your parents are alive after they were abducted by aliens.

Alien: “That, too, is a question best answered by our commander. Tiran is here now, in fact.”

The giant tube in the middle glowed green and another being descended from somewhere above. It looked just like the rest, except its robe was yellow, with a hood over its big head. I figured only commanders were allowed to wear hoods.

“Greetings, inhabitants of Earth.”

(It really said that.)

I said hi.

Commander: “I hope you do not find it condescending if I ask about your well-being.”

The commander’s voice was more pleasant than the others, but it still spoke awkwardly and stiffly. The four of us glanced at each other, trying to decide among ourselves if it was condescending for the alien to ask about our well-being.

I finally said, “you know. A lot going on.”

Commander: “Certainly so. I trust Sila, my second, has conveyed our deepest regret for the chaos that has ensued upon our arrival. It was never our goal to destroy.”

Me: “Yeah, he said that.”

Commander: “That is pleasurable. I am Tiran. I was chosen by the elders of our home planet to lead this expedition.”

Mario: “Where is your home planet?”

Tiran: “In view of current circumstances, we do not find it prudent to reveal its name or location.”

Dave: “But you find it prudent to start a war on another planet?”

Tiran: “We do not agree with your sentiment that a war is taking place. We simply found it necessary to defend ourselves, as we were attacked.”

Dave started an angry retort but Brenda interrupted him. “Can I see my parents?”

Tiran: “Your mother and father figures have been most cooperative in our examinations. They have been, in short, a delight with which to work.”

The commander sounded more and more like it was using Chat GPT to help it talk.

Brenda’s voice broke and rose at the same time. “What do you mean cooperative? Did you cut them open?”

Tiran: “We did not perform surgery on those two particular humans. We must add that we regret that our knowledge of surgical study on the human brain fell short of our aspirations. You surely understand our limitations, having no subjects on our planet with which to work. We regret that we consequently had no choice but to destroy the five humans on whom we operated previously.”

Dave: “So, you get how that looked like straight-up murder. You killed all my uncles in two seconds.”

Brenda was shaking and her fists were balled up at her sides. “Did you operate on my parents?”

Tiran: “We had no need to do so. We have been able to study subsequent subjects with a noninvasive ray that gives us abundant insight into the mind of the human species. We rejoice, as this insight will be of great value to our own race, who are, as you may have observed, somewhat similar to your own in form and biology.”

Mario: “Why do you want to study the human mind?”

I felt detached from the whole scene, like I was just an observer watching it on TV. I tried to think of something to say, some important question, but I was afraid whatever I said would sound pointless. As funny as it sounds, I wanted to be able to make an impression on these things.

Tiran: “The inhabitants of our planet have recently become sluggish, unable to concentrate on their work. Many have developed an apathy concerning their very existence. It is a completely new phenomenon. So we turned to the nearest, most biologically similar civilization in our search for answers and insight. This happened to be yours.”

Mario: “Do you mean you’re only now discovering depression on your planet?”

Tiran: “We do not have many of the things on our planet which we have observed on Earth. For example, we do not know war or poverty in the way you know them. We saw these phenomena in extremes throughout Earth. However, situations in certain places on this planet proved so extreme we believed the humans in those places would prove too dissimilar from our own cases of behavioral malfunction. It seems evident that the plague which has swept our home is not as severe as the one which ravages the more violent and impoverished parts of your planet. For which we are grateful.”

Mario: “Who are you grateful to? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Tiran: “We anticipated a question of this nature. In studying your planet, we found a great number of your inhabitants yearn to know if there is an intelligent being responsible for the existence of all life. You may feel an affinity with us if we share that we, too, seek the same answers on our own planet. Thus far, we have discovered no definitive proof of such a creator, and the elders of our planet long ago put these findings into our planet’s creeds and laws. However, our inhabitants are free to continue seeking such answers, as long as they do so as individuals, rather than as any corporate body.”

Mario: “Oh. That’s...interesting.”

Tiran went on. “We searched other parts of your world where melancholy, as we found it termed in your literature, was on a level of severity similar to our own. By this we refer to a condition that is disabling, but without the violent chaos and social instability that accompanies other places on Earth where the phenomenon of sorrow is prevalent.”

Pay no attention to the smoking city below, I thought.

“We chose the place called Berlitz, Missouri because the malady that affects you is of the same acute form and character of our own, as, like you, we have not descended into societal chaos. We are much like you. We hope this raises your level of trust that we will take the utmost care during these examinations.”

“Why don’t you just study the...the things on your own planet?” Dave asked.

“The elders of our planet have established a strict but morally pure code of secrecy as it pertains to exploring and curing this plague,” Tiran said. “If our planet’s inhabitants knew we found the situation so alarming it required such extremes, the emotional malady would only become worse. This is but one example of the vast wisdom and foresight our elders possess.”

“You mean you can’t just snatch one guy and chloroform him so he doesn’t tell anybody what happened?” Dave pressed.

“Such deceit would be contrary to our integrity,” Sila the Second put in. “We do not lie to our inhabitants, as none have asked if there is a search for a cure.”

I finally spoke up. “What if somebody did ask?” I kind of dreaded the answer.

“There is, on our planet, what you might equate to a proverb,” Sila said. “‘It is only where there are questions that one will find lies.’”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” (Dave).

“What if we refuse to do it?” I asked. “These exams, I mean.”

Tiran’s voice was different now. I can’t call it urgent, but he spoke faster, and definitely more firm. “The elders of our planet have insisted this expedition, undertaken for the sake of knowledge and exploration, must not be in vain. They would be extremely displeased if we returned with no information of value. They are well aware of the difficulty we have encountered thus far on this mission, and have expressed much dissatisfaction. We ask you, humbly, for your assistance.”

"Things Blowing Up" - A Novel - Chapter 3

Things Blowing Up is a young adult novel about a small town that's dubbed "the most depressing town in Missouri." The town is subsequently invaded by aliens seeking to study depression in order to cure an epidemic on their home planet. The story follows a group of teens and their troubled families as they struggle to survive the invasion. Things Blowing Up will be available July 21, 2025, from lulu.com. 

Chapter 3: The Mincer Meeting, Part Two

I still can’t decide if my reason for dropping out was a dumb one or not. Brenda said it was, because of course she did. Living next door, she was usually the first one I told anything, even before the Mincers got it. The boys didn’t know that, and I think they would have been salty if they did, because Brenda wasn’t a member of the Mincer Meeting. Just a “satellite member” (Mario’s phrase).

After Barry dropped out, the idea started floating around my own head, with visions of Miranda mixed in. Brenda saw me moping around my backyard one Saturday morning and came over to ask what was wrong (probably hoping there was a chance to roast me). In one big mumble-sigh I told her how I felt, and she replied, “that’s just moronic, Quigley! You can’t put the brakes on your entire life. Miranda wouldn’t want that. If she was here, she’d say you’re being moronic too.”

The way Miranda died didn’t help Brenda’s case. She was a closet drinker. One night, the week before school started, she drank too much and died in her sleep. By herself, in her room, alone. I existed, so she had no reason to be alone.

I went through all the things you go through when you lose somebody to demons you didn’t know they had. I said she doesn’t drink, I never saw her drunk, I never saw any alcohol in her room, and that somehow proved she couldn’t have been an alcoholic. Before I got crazy enough to start blaming a government conspiracy, her parents told me Miranda had been seeing a drug and alcohol abuse counselor in Springfield for six months. She never told me anything about it.

When Brenda told me what Miranda would tell me from the grave or the great beyond, I shot back, “if she was going through something so terrible she needed to numb herself to death, you can’t tell me she’d be encouraging me to put some pep in my step!”

Brenda glared at me, but there was something off about it, like she was taken aback. Just a little. Normally I’d have been happy to get one over on her, but I was too surprised to see that steely look of hers go just a little soft. Plus, I don’t think I really believed what I said about Miranda, and what she would and wouldn’t say if she could. I knew she’d tell me to live my life. But she was gone forever, and she couldn’t.

Even with all her hard looks and logic, Brenda couldn’t get it in my head that Miranda wouldn’t want me to give up. She eventually just gave up trying to convince me, and said, “if you argue with a brick wall, the brick wall isn’t the one wasting its time.”

If Brenda wasn’t so tough it would be hard to take her seriously when she chews you out or goes on a rant. She wears this steel dental device on her upper teeth that makes her S’s sound slobbery and kind of gross. But when she’s standing her ground and not giving an inch, you (almost) can’t hear that weird slurping noise her words make.

Right around the time Mario’s family came to America, Brenda’s family moved in next door to me, all the way from Duluth, Minnesota. Me and Dad imitated Mr. and Mrs. Boggis’ Yankee way of saying “Minna-soooda” for a week straight (but only at home). It was weird to have neighbors, because their house had been empty for three years, and on the other side of us there was a weed-ridden lot that had been vacant since before I was born. When I was a kid, I’d go over and examine the remains of the concrete foundation of a house that was there thirty years ago, like I was an archaeologist looking for clues about whoever once lived there.

The Boggises showed up just before the start of freshman year, so for the first couple weeks of high school I didn’t realize the new girl lived right next door. The first time I saw Brenda outside of school was a blustery day, one of those days where the sky is brown and everything looks like you’re trying to wake up from a weird dream. I was in the front yard, trying to dig the broken mailbox post out of the ground and take it inside so it didn’t blow away and go through somebody’s window. I’d noticed the new neighbors had one of those big old style Buicks, but I hadn’t seen who drove it yet. That day, when the huge puke-yellow thing pulled into the Boggises’ driveway, I saw a pair of knitted eyebrows and glaring eyes just above the steering wheel.

This big moose of a guy in a sleeveless shirt, with huge biceps, was working on a more modern car in the driveway. He’d just scooted underneath it when the Buick lurched up behind it. The door flew open and I instantly recognized the short new girl I’d seen at school. Her strawberry blonde hair was blowing all over the place, but I knew it was her from her hunchback posture. She marched right up to the guy’s legs sticking out under the other car. Even with the wind, I could hear the girl go off.

“Leslie! You left your stupid weed in the glove box!” the girl shouted. Not screamed, like a girl, but shouted, like a drill sergeant. “What if I’d been pulled over? I’m not going to jail like white trash!”

Geez. Harsh, I thought.

The big guy scooted out from under the car and sat up. He looked up at the girl, then up at the sky, and let out a big breath. “I’m incredibly sorry, Brenda,” he said. “This is completely on me.”

I had to strain to hear him, not just for the wind, but he was talking so slowly and using words that aren’t suited for noisy, windy weather, like incredibly and completely.

“That was inconsiderate and muddleheaded of me. I just forgot it was there.”

For a moment the girl just glared and didn’t say anything back. I wouldn’t either, if the person I was so furious with had such a calm response. But the girl decided she didn’t need words, pulled a Ziploc bag of green-brown gunk out of her pocket, and opened it up in the path of the wind. The big dude stood up, cool and collected, and wiped his hands on a rag. He just watched his weed scatter in the wind and disappear. I was kind of dumbstruck by the guy’s composure, more than the girl’s rage. People who like weed really, really like it, and seeing his little stash disintegrate like that must have been a bummer.

But he just shook his head and said, “I deserved that. Well...are we even?” He made a fist and held it out in front of him.

The girl groaned, but she bumped his fist and turned to go inside. When she opened the door she happened to turn and see me standing there gawking. I was too amazed by the whole scene to just go right back to digging up the mailbox. When the girl saw me she formed an awkward half smile, gave a quick wave, and disappeared inside.

Over the next little while I’d catch little pieces of things going on next door. Like how Brenda would call her parents Mark and Tisha in this emphasized tone. And how sometimes Mark and Tisha would literally flinch when she said something really blunt on the way to the car, like she’d made a fist and reared back with it.

After I talked to Brenda a few times, I looked up the population of Duluth, Minnesota, and it was something like 80,000. I just figured she resented having to leave the big city for a little town of 5,000.

The night Brenda decided she could tolerate the Mincer Meeting (we didn’t have that name yet) was the night the doomsday comet passed by Earth. It was March 15^th. I remember the exact date because everybody in town was half joking that the world was going to end March 15^th, so everybody should throw their Saint Patrick’s Day parties early. Maybe that should have told me something. The news said it could be seen from our particular spot on Earth for only an hour late that night.

Brenda had been my neighbor for eight months by then. Usually if you’ve lived next to somebody that long you get to be at least friendly, even if you’re not friends. But Brenda still had an unimpressed look when she waved at me, in the yard or at school. But she waved, and she didn’t have to, so there was that.

The Mincers were on my roof with Mario’s telescope (of course he had a telescope) so we could get a good look at the comet. Mario wasn’t concerned about it crashing into Earth because he said that’s not how the Bible says the world is going to end. In between our chattering we heard a crunching, pounding noise that got closer and closer. We realized it was somebody walking (stomping, really) down the gravel alley behind the house. Barry shined his flashlight on the alley, and we saw it was Brenda.

The second her face was illuminated, Barry yelped and switched off the light.

“What are you doing up there?” she called.

“The end of the world!” I called back. If anything can bring people together, it’s the end of the world. So I took a chance and said, “you should come up!”

Dave elbowed me and whispered, “she’s gonna shank us!”

Barry turned his flashlight back on and we saw Brenda’s scowl had disappeared. She looked like she was thinking it over, if she really wanted to spend her last moments alive with the group of dudes she always eyeballed at school like we owed her money.

“It’s a beautiful view up here!” Mario called.

“Don’t say it like that!” Barry said. “It sounds like we’re looking through her windows or something!”

“We would never look through your windows!” Mario assured her.

Brenda rolled her eyes and walked into my backyard. She started climbing the ladder, extra gingerly. I thought she was afraid it would fall, so I knelt down and held it where it wasn’t shaking. I swear her face was almost friendly when she looked up.

“I have to be careful,” she said. “I fell off a ladder and broke my pelvis two summers ago.”

Barry screwed up his face. “Chicks don’t have pelvises.”

Halfway up the ladder, Brenda looked up in total disgust. “I know Amish people who know more about female anatomy!”

“Yeesh!” Barry exclaimed. “Big knock on Amish people out of nowhere!”

Dave chimed in. “Name one Amish person you know.”

Brenda froze when she got to the top of the ladder, before she had to make that awkward step from the rungs to the roof. Me and Mario went over and we both took her by a hand (we asked first). I think that was it. The moment she realized we weren’t complete slobs.

She had to say something, though, to make us forget we’d just seen her so nervous, and that we’d just held her hands.

“So, do you guys always make out up here?”

Barry wasn’t bothered. “It would be a privilege to make out with these dudes. If I was gay.”

“I’m kidding,” Brenda muttered. She carefully walked up the A-frame of the roof and looked into the telescope. “So, when are we gonna die?”

“The comet is supposed to be visible between 10:15 and 11:15,” Mario said. “So you have ten minutes to repent.”

Brenda looked at him and raised her eyebrow.

“I’m kidding.” Mario turned away and pretended to adjust the telescope.

I got up the nerve to ask Brenda what she was doing walking in the alley so late.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are you sure?” Mario asked. “You have some red puffiness around your eyes.”

Brenda looked like she could have killed him.

Dave didn’t see the icy look, and said, “just keep the story under five minutes. If I wanted to die listening to a woman yap about her problems I’d call my aunt Jo.”

Brenda turned and glared a dozen daggers.

“Easy. I’m kidding. Really. What’s up?”

“It’s not important.”

I said, “if it’s important enough to make you walk in a dark alley at night, it’s important enough to talk about.” I was trying to come up with something encouraging, and that was the best I could do.

Then, Barry kicked the ladder over. The clang it made when it landed probably woke up the neighborhood. I thought it was a little overkill.

“Now. You’re stuck up here, so you might as well tell us what’s wrong.”

Before we could yell at Barry for trapping us on the roof, Brenda did it for us. “That was retarded!”

Mario scrunched up his face like he was mulling something over. “Maybe we shouldn’t use that word,” he said.

“We?” Brenda snapped.

“Well, we...the four of us...we’ve been kind of debating about it for a week,” Mario said meekly.

(We really had, for some reason I don’t remember.)

“I don’t mean to tell you what to do,” he murmured. “We’re almost strangers, after all.”

“Yes we are, and you want me to tell you about my problems.”

“I don’t wanna be a PC snowflake,” Barry grumbled. “‘Retarded’ is fine, as long as you’re not talking about a special needs kid. It should be okay to say it because now it means dumb, not disabled. It’s irrelevant to disabled people.”

Dave took a tin container of Altoid mints out of his pocket and popped one. “How about ‘Altoided’?” he said.

“What?”

“Instead of retarded. We can say Altoided. Like a compromise word. And if anybody overhears us say it in public, they won’t know what it means, and we won’t get waffle-stomped by somebody who’s got a special needs kid.”

Barry: “But then you’d be saying anybody who eats Altoids is a moron. You’d be making ‘Altoid’ a slur against people who like mints.”

Dave: “Now who sounds like a PC snowflake?”

Brenda: “What...the...?”

Me: “So, Brenda, what brings you out this late?”

Barry and Dave stopped their bickering. All four of us were staring at Brenda now, so she pretty much had to tell us what was wrong. She made this low growl and took a deep breath. “Do you know Jake Kenyon and Lindsey Brown?”

We all did. They were known around school for being big fans of inhalants.

“Well, they invited me to Lindsey’s house so I could finish The Last of Us. I never got to see the finale because we were busy moving.”

Mario: “They watch The Last of Us?”

Brenda: “Yeah.”

Mario: “Hm. Seems like kind of a highbrow show for those two...no, I shouldn’t say that. That’s mean.”

Barry: “No it’s not. Those two are duuummmb.”

Brenda: “Yes. Yes they are. So I get there, and they take me into the garage and start huffing glue. I didn’t even know people really do that! Like licking toads. You hear about it, but you think it’s just an urban legend. Do people really do that in these tiny towns?!”

Dave: “I have an uncle who literally stole a toad from a pet shop so he could lick it.”

Brenda: “Well, anyway, they tried to get me to do it, and I said it was...Altoided...and they got offended and told me to get lost. They said I was being ‘holier-than-thou.’”

Me: “Yikes. That sucks. So...I know this isn’t the most important thing, but what made you want to hang out with those two goons anyway?”

Barry: “Yeah, I mean, you seem way too smart to be hanging around with those two.”

Brenda made a sour face. “I do?”

Mario: “I heard you’re in the AP bio class.”

Me: “We have English Lit the same period. You finished To Kill a Mockingbird in two days, and Mr. Simonson got mad at you for it.”

Brenda: “It was easy to finish because it’s an overrated book. It’s a white woman’s fantasy about white people being progressive heroes.”

Barry coughed. “PC snowflake...”

Me: “Right...so yeah, what brought you together with those two?”

Brenda growled again. “I overheard Lindsey tell Jake she didn’t have any money for lunch, and he didn’t either. So I gave them ten dollars. Okay?” She ran all the words together like she was confessing to a sin. “Don’t tell anybody. I’m not a charity organization. So anyway, we started talking after that, and they seemed like...I don’t know. Like they could use a positive influence.”

The four of us snuck looks at each other, but didn’t say anything.

“So I was helping them with homework, stuff like that.”

(None of us said anything again.)

“That went on for like two weeks. Then they invited me over tonight and, yeah. Huffing glue.”

Mario: “Well, I’m sorry they treated you that way when you refused to partake. But you should be proud of yourself for turning it down.”

Dave: “You ever seen styrofoam melt in a microwave? That’s what glue does to your brain. Another two years, Jake and Lindsey are both gonna be eating through a straw. They already kind of drool when they smile. Didn’t you notice?”

Brenda looked just slightly embarrassed. “Yes. I noticed.”

She sat down on the pitch of the roof. “I guess I was just eager to have friends again. Like an idiot. I don’t really talk to my friends in Minnesota anymore.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, I guess it’s more that they don’t talk to me anymore. Everybody changed. It happens.”

Barry: “Wellllll there’s four of us, and we don’t sniff glue.”

Me: “I take a whiff of the air when I pass by the gas station. Gasoline just smells really good. But I don’t hang around like a troll and inhale the fumes. I keep going my way.”

Brenda’s shoulders kind of raised up like she was cringing. She growled again. “I just didn’t bother introducing myself or whatever, because you saw the whole thing with Leslie, my brother. The weed incident. I just thought, that guy definitely thinks I’m a psycho.”

I’d already told the boys about it, but they were savvy enough to keep quiet.

Me: “I don’t think you’re a psycho. If I thought that, I wouldn’t invite you up on my roof.”

Brenda: “Yeah, but you have protection. It’s four to one.”

Mario: “None of us would hit a lady.”

Brenda: “What, are you serious?”

Mario: “What kind of man puts his hands on a woman?”

Brenda stared at Mario like he’d just said the opposite and he’d gladly punch a woman. Whatever she would have said next was interrupted by the appearance of the doomsday comet. It looked like they do on TV. A tiny yellow-white ball of light with a glowing tail.

We knew it wasn’t really doomsday. But I think we all figured, just in case it was the end of the world, anything we said would be a dumb last thing to say, so we should just keep quiet.

That lasted about forty-five seconds until Brenda spoke up. “So, um...thank you guys for letting me hang out the last night of–”

Before she could finish a genuine, nice, heartwarming thank you (though I guess she could have been setting us up for a roasting) the comet disappeared. Just like that. We were promised an hour of this rare, amazing sight, and sixty seconds was all we got.

Brenda laughed. And her laugh was absolutely horrible. It was like a mix of a donkey and somebody’s drunk aunt. “HAAAWWW! HAW! HAW!”

When she saw how disappointed Mario was that he didn’t get a long look at the comet, and that the rest of us were so startled by that laugh, she tried to dry up and pretended to clear her throat. That’s when she knew she was stuck with us. We knew her secret, that she had the worst laugh in the world.

No sooner had I said it was a shame the world didn’t end because it meant we were stuck on the roof, we heard a shrill voice on the ground, shrieking Barry’s name. Adelia Barrymore, no more than six years old at the time, was running in the street in her pajamas. Her little flip-flops smacked the pavement and echoed down the street. This little girl had literally run a mile and a half from her and Barry’s house. She was crying like the world was really about to be decimated by a comet. When she got to my front yard she called up to Barry (she called him Christopher) and tried to tell him, between short gasping breaths, that she had a bad dream.

Barry hurried over to shimmy off the edge of the roof, but I stopped him. I stomped my feet a few times over the spot above Dad’s bedroom, and he came outside a minute or so later and put the ladder back up. I caught the look on Brenda’s face. She was beyond perplexed and her eyes were wide. She wrung her hands together like she didn’t know what to do (and what could she do?).

I wouldn’t see such a non-Brenda look on her face for two years.

It wasn’t easy getting Adelia calmed down, or anybody really, because all the power and electricity, even the phones (and the cell tower) went completely dead for twelve hours. Nobody could help pointing out that it started right after the comet passed, so it was just accepted all over town that the two must have been related. But when the power and the phones started working again late the next morning, it was like everybody forgot they ever lost it.

"The Angels Must Be British" - A Novella - Chapter 9

The Angels Must Be British - During the German invasion of Belgium in 1914, Jules Jaspar, a chaplain in the Belgian army, is assigned to protect three mentally ill soldiers deemed unfit for duty. After leading the soldiers through dangerous terrain to mighty Fort de Loncin, the Battle of Liège rages around and above them. Jaspar and "the madmen" struggle to keep their wits in the underground fort as the Germans launch shell after shell without mercy, punishing the Belgian 3rd Division as they refuse to surrender.

                                                                    Chapter IX

Jaspar had often read of Saint Agatha of Sicily, who once awoke in a prison to see the Apostle Peter and an angel tending to her wounds. He’d always suspected the tale to be apocryphal, but never shared so with parishioners. Now as he slowly emerged from the cocoon of laudanum, the maelstrom of sleep spitting him out, he saw a hazy figure at his bare feet, a glowing white cloth in its hand.

He felt water and cloth soak his raw flesh, bringing pinprick sensations that reminded him where he was and how he came to be there. Jaspar could do nothing but feel, and strain his eyes to see what he could. He couldn’t roll over or sit up, or lift his head from a rough pillow on which he was propped. He watched the shape gingerly soothe his feet with the brilliant cloth that glowed in the hands of his caretaker – there was no mistaking that it glowed.

His thoughts wound their way through a groggy maze to Saint Agatha in her prison cell, of the angel and the Apostle appearing to the abused martyr to comfort her in her distress. Aided by the remains of a dose of opiate, Jaspar settled it in his head that the Apostle Peter was there, cleaning his bloody feet. He wept more freely than he had when shells and men exploded around him.

A high-strung voice drifted into his epiphany. There was no trace of Galilean in the voice – it was quite Dutch in its inflection – and his dream slowly fell in pieces. “Are you waking, Jules Jaspar? Do you hear me?”

It wasn’t any ill feeling for Van Hove that made the fading of the illusion so devastating. King Albert himself could have been the one tending his feet, and the chill of the comfort being snatched from him so cruelly would have still reduced Jaspar to a blubbering lump. He wept bitterly now, his teeth clenched in anger.

“Don’t weep, sir! You mustn’t weep!” Van Hove said earnestly as he washed Jaspar’s feet. “There are angels on the way. An entire legion! You’ll see, Jules Jaspar!”

Of course, words like these could only have the opposite effect.

It soon became clear what caused the white cloth to glow: stunning sunlight poured into the concrete room from a barred window above where Jaspar lay. It must have been late afternoon, the sun having claimed the west. True to the sky’s newly treacherous nature, the sun had tricked him.

The longing for the spirit of the Apostle to rescue him was interrupted further by a tall bearded man who, though of unimposing presence, had an air about him that insisted he was a competent, studious young fellow. His solemn green eyes conveyed wisdom, despite the man’s relative youth. Under a bloodied smock he wore a plain muslin shirt that had probably been pure white just days ago. It seemed he’d been snatched from an office or a café and told the army needed him right away.

The man’s voice matched his scholarly face: “is he lucid, Eduard?”

“He’s awake, Doctor,” Van Hove said quietly. “But he’s troubled. I hope he hasn’t lost his faith.”

The doctor approached the bedding on which the chaplain lay. “Let’s not worry about that for the moment, Eduard. Sir, can you hear me?”

Jaspar nodded. “Am I in the fort?”

“Yes, you are.”

A piece of Scripture came to Jaspar as naturally as the rumbling of the gut during hunger. As if prompted, he said in a faint whisper, “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man: Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.”

Van Hove, who’d put his ear close to Jaspar’s lips to hear, rose excitedly to his feet. “That’s from the Psalms, isn’t it? His faith remains!”

The doctor knelt beside him. “I’m Dr. Desmet. You’re the man who brought the stragglers here?”

“They’re not stragglers. They’re mad. Please don’t punish them, sir,” the chaplain replied wearily, rubbing his eyes. Van Hove handed him his spectacles, wearing an expression of pride at having kept them safe. He was apparently not offended at being called mad while in the room.

“Punish them? I don’t have the authority. But if I did, I wouldn’t think of such a thing, sir.” Desmet gripped Jaspar’s limp hand and squeezed it. A look came over his face that said clearly, I’ve only the nerve to say this once, so listen carefully:

“Thank you, sir. You’ve done a truly good deed.”

The gratitude of this stranger, some would insist the best kind of gratitude, was lost on Jaspar. Being more alert, his nerves were terribly aware of the damage to his flesh. “Is there an injection of some sort you can put in my feet?”

The doctor smiled as if caught doing something he shouldn’t. “I’m afraid I have only iodine, sir. And I don’t want to give you another dose of laudanum – you’ve slept fourteen hours.”

Jaspar sat up with as much of a start as his ragged form would allow. When he did, he realized he wasn’t in a small chamber illuminated by a lone window, but in a long, wide room packed with men on their backs, some on cots, some on beds of straw. Jaspar lay on the latter, and was glad – he’d have died of shame if he’d been given a much more comfortable cot. Some men cried out, others bore their suffering in silence, either bravely, hopelessly, or grudgingly. Jaspar’s senses returned, the last of the precious opiate’s magic leaving him, and the shouts and groans were joined by guns and shells. They weren’t muffled by the walls of the fort, but neither were they unbearable; they were like a pianissimo accompaniment to every other sound and word.

His last, strongest sense to return was smell: human waste, sweat, and the more industrial stenches of smoke and gunpowder reintroduced themselves.

“Fourteen hours, you say!”

The alarm in Jaspar’s voice moved the doctor to placate him the best way he could – by telling him all that had happened since he’d been put in a slumber, if for no other reason than to assure him the world hadn’t exploded or stopped turning while he slept:

“Liège has fallen,” Desmet said softly. “The city was occupied this morning.”

Jaspar shoved the doctor from his bedside, as courteously as one could, leaned over, and vomited.

Not particularly fazed, having obviously seen much worse, the floor already being painted with various human fluids, Desmet continued: “The general arrived here soon after.”

“The general?” Jaspar asked, catching his breath.

“General Leman.”

“Oh. I see.”

“He commands Third Division.”

“I know that,” the chaplain grumbled weakly.

“My apologies, sir. I only mean to fill you in. When he came, the officers gave him a big rally.” Desmet’s voice revealed bemusement. “One officer said, ‘General Leman has done us the great honor of taking refuge with us! Shall we give up the general?’ All the lads shouted No! So, it looks as though we’re all going to be here a while. Never surrender, and all that.”

Jaspar’s faculties were keen enough to detect the sardonic way in which the doctor spoke. He felt a touch of resentment for this perceived cynicism. So he replied in the childish hyperbole of one who hasn’t taken a breath to cool his temper: “Good! I myself would rather be crushed to powder than surrender. I say God bless General Leman, even if you won’t, sir.”

“Don’t say such things, Jules Jaspar!” Van Hove interjected. “None of us will be crushed. We’ll be delivered soon! You’ll see!”

Perhaps realizing the exchange might deteriorate into patriotism versus madness versus pessimism, Desmet moved the talk elsewhere: “Can you tell me about the men you brought here? I’d like to examine them, and you can tell me more, if you have the strength.”

Jaspar struggled to raise himself from his pile of straw. Desmet offered him a pair of crutches. “Take these, sir. They may be of some help.”

“And I’ve found you a pair of boots!” Van Hove announced excitedly. “They may be a bit loose. But I’ve stuffed them with as much cotton as I could find.”

Jaspar didn’t bother resisting as Van Hove fumbled to put the boots on his ragged feet. The clergyman winced and strove to keep his groans inside for fear of appearing weak to the doctor, incapable of bearing injury with dignity, like one who would rather surrender to the Germans.

He felt like Jonah being roused from an oblivious sleep while the crew of the ship frantically fought the weather; he’d been in an impenetrable slumber, while all around him men struggled to breathe, to move their limbs, or to simply keep from screaming.

Once vertical, Jaspar settled his tattered feet more firmly into the boots. They were about a size and a half too big, no doubt taken from a soldier who died in the meadows or the city, or one whose feet were somewhere in a pile of amputated members. They were crammed with cotton, just as Van Hove said. The boots were about as comfortable as a layer of iodine itself, but Jaspar was nonetheless sorely moved by the madman’s thoughtfulness. A bit of moisture welled in his eyes, but afraid of being again exhorted not to weep, or viewed by the doctor as one willing to capitulate, he dammed his tears as soon as they began.

He gripped the crutches and concentrated on regaining his mobility. He negotiated the pieces of wood stiffly and awkwardly at first, but soon found a tolerably swift stride. He alternated feet, using the crutches so that he walked with only one foot, until the sole begged for a rest, then switched to the other. His face was soon covered in sweat as he followed the doctor around a corner, Van Hove seeing to it he didn’t fall. The floor and walls tilted and threatened to turn upside down.

His nurse’s watchful eye couldn’t predict the almighty blast that sent Jaspar to the floor. Everyone within the fort was stunned into a moment of neurological cringe. Then, the clamor of men and might within and without Loncin continued undeterred.

Van Hove hurried to assure Jaspar as he helped him delicately to his feet. “It’s one of ours being fired! Don’t worry, Jules Jaspar! No weapon formed against this fort will prosper!”

Jaspar’s left ear felt strange. He thought perhaps the firing of the gun had finally obliterated its function for good, but touching it, he found it had been bandaged and packed with some soft material. His fear gave way and he was now more annoyed by the blast than outraged.

An assistant to the doctor found his way through a throng of soldiers. He took a suddenly confused Van Hove by the arm and guided him into a small room nearby. Jaspar could see Roux and Magritte waiting in the whitewashed stone chamber to which their comrade was taken. They exchanged glances at one another, but the exchange ended there; Jaspar couldn’t wave, his hands gripping his crutches, and he thought it unseemly to call out hello, as if seeing a pair of friends at church. He didn’t know why.

“I’m going to examine these men for syphilis,” Desmet said quietly. “I’m sure you’d rather wait outside.” His demeanor was as modest as if he were the one to be examined. The closing of the heavy door might have been ominous had another man shut it behind him, but the doctor’s manner was so disarming that he almost seemed motherly. Though, still stewing over the doctor’s facetious words concerning Belgian perseverance, he decided not to share that compliment should the chance ever arise.

Jaspar looked about him and was disheartened as he noticed the comforting beige of the fort’s more orderly section had given way to bleak gray floors and roughly textured white walls. He recalled that the large room where he’d lain with the wounded had been sloppily painted brown, with gray and white spots visible throughout. Loncin was beginning to feel like the dungeon it should have felt like all along. Before he could dwell upon this, he noticed a familiar object of offense hanging from a large hook on the wall – a pail of water. It looked as if it had been placed there just for him, dangling there all by itself. He painfully maneuvered his way to it and, finding a ladle in the pail, scooped up a drink and brought it to his mouth.

As if rehearsed for a stage play, the First-Sergeant who’d days ago upbraided him for his liberal use of water appeared from a nearby corridor. When he recognized Jaspar, he abruptly halted his overly-rigid walk typical of non-commissioned officers. His eyes narrowed and fixed on the ladle of water approaching the wretched chaplain’s mouth.

The First-Sergeant stepped toward him, but stopped again. A great uncertainty washed over his face. He looked at the pail of water and back at his nemesis. Jaspar’s thoughts dared him to say something, even do something; he didn’t realize his face clearly expressed that dare. He caught his reflection in the water and saw, as through a glass darkly, a ghostly resemblance of what he’d once known to be his own face: there were deep crags around his eyes that he was sure hadn’t been there when he left Brussels, copious stubble covered his cheeks, light blonde as it may have been, and his jaw was clenched as if he was being led to a gallows.

Unremarkable Jaspar trumped the sergeant; the desperation for a drink of cool water was, understandably, misconstrued as a touch of maniac. The First-Sergeant, with whatever that rank entails, turned and took his assigned authority and duties elsewhere, leaving Jaspar to whisper praise to God for the water that satiated and cleansed his mouth. He pretended it washed away the soil and bits of blood and guts that had made their way inside, knowing he was pretending and not at all caring. 

He listened to the sound of guns and machinery outside the mighty haven. His left ear now sealed, his brain had delegated all his hearing to the right. Jaspar could hear more clearly this way, rather than straining to hear with one ear while distracted by the pain in the other.

When the door to the improvised examination room opened, the doctor’s assistant guided the madmen down the hall. Van Hove looked deflated, deprived of the buoyancy of his declaration of pending Divine aid; Magritte’s hands were shoved in his trousers pockets and he wore a look of disinterest and irritation; Roux trailed behind, turning once to look at Jaspar with a blank expression. The assistant’s eyes were leery as he walked alongside them.

“Where are they going?” Jaspar asked the doctor.

“Some of the men are about to take a sort of communal bath. I thought bathing with the other soldiers might remind these men they’re a part of...all this, too. I don’t want them to feel ostracized.”

“I suppose I could use a bath as well,” Jaspar mumbled modestly.

“Private Van Hove washed you while you slept,” Dr. Desmet said. “And, I removed a few bits of concrete from your feet.”

Jaspar’s knees felt weak upon both revelations, given his prudish disposition and the anguish in his flesh. Before he could ask questions one might naturally ask after learning these things had happened while he slept, the doctor volunteered his assessment of the madmen:

“There are no signs of syphilis, so at least there’s that. I believe Private Van Hove – Eduard, that is his name – has suffered a psychotic break of sorts. I doubt he’s been insane his entire life. When I pressed him to tell me more about his time before he was conscripted, he said two years ago, he and a friend traveled to Marseille. For a sort of adventure, I gathered. They were attacked and robbed there, and his friend was killed. I’m not a psychoanalyzer, but seeing such a thing must have contributed to his state. What was he like when he came into your acquaintance?”

“He spoke of summoning angels. As he still does.”

“Perhaps some kind of monomania,” Desmet mused aloud.

“He flew into a rage when Magritte mocked him. He hit himself in the face, and screamed horribly. I had to...we had to silence him, physically. We weren’t trying to hurt him, you understand. But we had to keep him quiet.”

“I see. Was he violent toward anyone else?”

For the first time, Jaspar noticed the red imprint of Van Hove’s teeth. “He bit my hand.”

“Mm.” Desmet paced the corridor, hands in his pockets as if waiting for a train. “Did he claim to see or hear things that weren’t there?”

Jaspar was at a loss. He was almost sure all of them had seen the dogs, freed them, was sure they’d all turned to children in the moment, had all seen each other do so; he was less sure, but sure enough, they’d all seen the Zeppelin, seen it rain hell, and that they’d all run away in unspoken, unanimous terror.

“If he did see or hear anything...anything only he could...” Jaspar said unsurely, “he didn’t say so.”

A brief silence fell before the chaplain whispered, not realizing he was speaking aloud, “Seeing so many men killed must be like witnessing the murder again, over and over. If I’d known, I’d have tried to take him to Holland...no...no, that’s ridiculous. Don’t listen to me...God help his poor soul...”

Dr. Desmet now seemed to be studying him. Jaspar didn’t like it. The doctor made it worse when he said, “Monsieur Jaspar, if only you were an officer.”

“Our officers are fine men,” the chaplain mumbled.

“I’m sure there are fine men among them. But you seem to me a compassionate fellow,” Desmet said, immovable in his belief in Jaspar’s kindness and the weakness of whatever veil behind which it hid.

The latter averted his eyes to the floor. “I’m not as compassionate as I ought to be – I almost struck poor Van Hove when he bit me.”

“That’s only normal, sir.”

“I suppose. In that case, I wish it had been Magritte who bit me...no, no, I shouldn’t say that.”

“That, too, is only normal. What was your own impression of Joseph Magritte?”

“A sour nitwit,” Jaspar answered readily. “And not because he thinks he’s a king. That’s only...incidental.” Jaspar was quick to add, for courtesy’s sake, “pardon my crude talk.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” the doctor said. “Actually, you and I are in perfect agreement on that. Was he violent at all?”

“No. Just insufferable.”

“Mm. He doesn’t seem overtly psychotic. He probably suffers from some general mood distemper, with delusions of grandeur. He tells me neither of his parents suffered from any bouts of madness. But, as you know, he insists his father was King Leopold. If he said his father was mad, the papers might get a hold of it. Bad publicity for a prince, you know.”

Desmet smiled and put his hands behind his back, pleased with his joke, though he could see Jaspar had slipped into deep thought.

“Is something wrong, Monsieur Jaspar?”

“Private Roux...he was the most...the most sane of the three. Maybe it’s only because he didn’t speak. You’ll pardon my saying so: I hope you don’t declare him crazy. I believe he simply took leave of his senses. I understand it’s not sane to cut one’s own throat, but I – and I know I’m less than a layman – I can’t bring myself to call him deranged. I hope you checked the wound for infection.”

The doctor’s expression was dubious. Jaspar meekly began to apologize for his presumptive psychiatric talk, but was interrupted by who he thought to be an officer (interrupted conversations, he’d by now learned, were a symptom of war he hadn’t read about in all those manuals and memoirs).

The First-Sergeant must have tattled, he supposed. The man was dressed ornately, in a double-breasted blue cloak that boasted a yellow embroidered cross on each side of the velvet stand-up collar. His uniform – an actual uniform, not a wool coat from a local shop – still showed signs of a proper starching, but was spattered with other men’s blood. This explained the metal flask he held in his hand. He wasn’t drunk, but his expression declared he had every intention of getting there. Despite his uniform, the man wasn’t a soldier, but a chaplain.

He spoke as one unashamed, or short of time: “Can you spare a good word for the men? Just a couple of regiments. What’s left of them. The Twelfth and the...Twenty-second? Thirty-second? Is there a Thirty-second Regiment? I can’t remember which...one of those mixed brigades, you know.”

As if seeking medical clearance, Jaspar turned to Desmet. The doctor was clearly troubled.

“Monsieur Jaspar!” The doctor’s voice was hushed but sharp and grave. “Sir, are you thinking clearly?”

Jaspar was taken aback by Desmet’s concern, and by the bewilderment on his face; perhaps the doctor saw the same glint of mad desperation that had driven off the First-Sergeant, and felt he wasn’t in the best condition to give any kind of sermon. Still, Jaspar stiffened and answered calmly but resolutely, “I can give a homily, sir. It’s what I volunteered for this army to do, to lift the spirits of others.”

Jaspar added a brusque “you’ll pardon me now,” feeling a bit guilty owing to Desmet’s gentle deportment, and hobbled away with his brother in clergy.

“I’ll be honest with you, sir,” the uniformed ecclesiastic said, as casually as to a familiar friend, “I’m simply at a loss for a good message this evening.”

“Evening? Is it nighttime?”

“It is.”

The other chaplain took a drink, clucked and smiled broadly. “Isn’t it funny? I said, ‘I’ll be honest with you.’ Of course I’ll be honest with you!” The man’s face was inches from Jaspar’s, as if to make perfectly sure he was comprehended. “How could I not be honest with you?”

He spat a hearty guffaw that filled the corridor, even rising above the grumbling and murmuring soldiers they passed. He abruptly choked his laughter when they came to a stairway leading to a level below.

“They’re making you out to be a hero,” the man suddenly mumbled.

“I doubt that,” Jaspar replied, straining on his crutches.

“Well, no, they’re really not. But there has been a lot of chatter about it – the man of the cloth, who rescued two lunatic soldiers.”

“There were three.”

The man in the starched, blood-stained uniform took a drink and smiled. “My error, sir.”

Jaspar bristled. “Nevermind. It’s not important how many there were. I didn’t save anyone,” he groused.

As if he hadn’t heard his colleague, the other chaplain said thoughtfully, “The way I see it, these men will accept a godly word from someone in as terrible a shape as they are, as opposed to me. If they were getting drunk, well, I’d speak to them...”

He paused and looked above him, holding out his arms as if to receive a gift from the heavens.

“...I’d speak freely! Free of all hypocrisy!” His expression fell somber. “Alas.” He held up his flask as if making a toast. “Thank you, sir. You’re a true gentleman and a true Christian.”

Without thinking to aid his substitute down the concrete stairwell, the wayward man of God went off to enjoy, or perhaps not enjoy, his tipple. Knowing the crutches would only be a danger to him, Jaspar braced his brain and slowly took the dozen or so steps into the further recess of the fort. He quieted his groans for fear the soldiers below, waiting for a message of encouragement, would hear him bellow and size him up to be useless.

When he reached the bottom and turned a corner, there sat a mess of a hundred men or more, crammed together in a wide square space not quite as big as an average gymnasium. It startled Jaspar to see all hundred-something heads go silent and turn at his appearance. The soldiers scrutinized him briefly before deciding his bandaged ear, damp face, and dreadful limp made him acceptable for admittance to their cramped, stinking, grim-faced meeting.

He suddenly realized he had no message prepared, that he hadn’t thought of something slapdash to say on the way to the dirty blue congregation. All the same, if he could have reached into his coat pocket to find a stack of old homilies and sermons had miraculously materialized, he wouldn’t have found any of them fitting, inspiring, or of any use at all in this pit. The only thing on his mind now was his feet and the concrete beneath them that couldn’t care less how difficult they made his preaching.

He thought of Jesus Christ, naturally, how He suffered. Aware the mass of soldiers was waiting to hear the chaplain’s good message so they could think of other things without guilt, Jaspar said, so clearly and fluently he surprised himself:

“We thank Thee, our Father in heaven, that Thy Son, for our sake, did not succumb to temptation in the wilderness and turn harsh desert stones to soft bread beneath His aching bare feet.”

Guns outside and above, ignorant of any good to be found in talk of stones and bread, rumbled for a moment or two before a chorus of amens in French and Flemish Dutch filled the stuffy room.

When the soldiers resumed the subdued chatter among themselves, Jaspar considered his job sufficiently done. He turned and faced the stairs, looking to the top as if it were a mountain summit. “I thank Thee, Father,” he whispered. He held the crutches over his shoulder like a pair of rifles and began his ascent. Short bursts of anguish escaped his mouth each time his boots made contact with concrete. He was not ashamed.

lulu.com/spotlight/budsturguess