Faith

by Gerald Rivard 

The bomb must have gone off after all, because Rajiv al Fazir came to consciousness in a martyr’s heaven.

He was nestled inside a cocoon of moving flesh.  He could feel the warm touch of soft skin everywhere on his naked body.  Hands and fingers caressed, lips and tongues probed, long hair and a tapestry of breasts draped and dangled.  The room seemed to spin, though there were no walls or ceiling.  Distant stars floated through the dark sky, providing a dim ambient light, and the voices of the virgins as they lauded his courage seemed to swim in circles all around him.  He could not have begun to count the number of hands or lips ministering to his body or the number of voices singing his praises.

“Rajiv, you are my hero,” said one virgin as she kissed along his chest.

“You are so brave and so strong,” said another as she stroked his thigh.

An olive-skinned virgin with the striking green eyes of a Persian cat kissed him on his mouth, her tongue brushing his lips. “We are your reward, Rajiv,” she said as she pressed her face against his left cheek.

A dark-haired virgin brought her face to his right cheek at the same time and whispered in his ear. “You gave your life for Allah,” she said. “And so Allah has given us to you.”

He felt himself being enveloped, then, as another of the virgins straddled him. He ran his hands from her thighs to her waist, then slowly up toward her shoulders as she moved against him. He pulled her toward him, and the other women moved out of their way. A short time later, the girl climbed off of him as another virgin took her place. One after another, the virgins shed their purity to him while others, virgin or not, found untended areas of his body to worship.

Later, satisfied, he lay entangled with them all. Gradually their breathing quieted and movement of flesh against flesh became almost imperceptible, until the silence and stillness was benign enough to be broken.

“Did you know Yasin Khumar?” asked the cat-eyed woman at his side as she stroked his cheek with her finger.

“Yasin? He is here?”

“Yes,” the dark-haired one said, kissing his upper thigh.  “He is a brave jihadist, just like you. All brave jihadists are here.”

He had trained with Yasin at a camp in the Sudan. After the training, Rajiv was sent to the United States to await his assignment. He never saw Yasin, or any of his jihad brothers, again. He had hoped to see their names in the newspapers, to learn how they had died, to understand how his own death would fit into Allah’s great plan. But in all his time of waiting, he had learned nothing.

“Did you know him well?” she asked, her eyes shining in the darkness, her breasts pressed cozily into his arm.

Rajiv said nothing, just stared up at the stars. The women took his cue and remained quiet as well, gently caressing and kissing his body. Their touch was just as erotic as it had been before, but now that he was satisfied, its intensity was no longer sufficient to overshadow his own thoughts.

He had expected to hear the explosion in the instant before it blew through him. He had expected to feel his body being torn apart, just for a brief flicker of time before his death. But when he shouted “Allah Akbar!” and pressed the button, nothing seemed to happen. The last thing he remembered was wondering why the bomb didn’t explode.

But it had gone off, because he was here. Perhaps Allah had spared him the pain of being torn to pieces. Perhaps it was enough that he demonstrated the will to suffer for his faith, so that Allah had brought him straight to heaven before the explosion.

It was Rajiv who broke the silence. “Take me to Yasin,” he said. He sat up, but the room with no walls or ceiling seemed to spin again. The cat-eyed woman who was no longer a virgin gently eased him back down, with help from at least three other hands behind him.

“In time,” she said. “There will be time for everything.” The pulse of the room slowed and its movement stilled until all was calm again.

“Sleep now,” she said as she kissed him again. “There are more rewards for you, and all the time you will need.”

* * *

Rajiv woke up alone in his bed; the women were gone. He wondered why there was a bed, but no walls or ceiling, and no floor that he could see, but before he could give it much thought, the prophet Mohammad appeared in a flash of white light and smoke.

Awestruck, Rajiv scrambled from the bed and dropped to his knees. It turned out that there was a floor, or at least a carpet. He put his face to it and waited for the prophet to speak.

Mohammad’s voice was soft, but clear and commanding. “Yasin speaks highly of you, Rajiv,” he said. “I understand you would like to see him.”

“Yes,” Rajiv answered, “I would very much like to see Yasin. And Khalif, too, and Mahmud. Did they fulfill their assignments for Allah? Are they here?”

“You may see whomever you wish, if they are here. I will arrange for you to see your friends, all of them. But first, I have been asked to let you know that Allah is very pleased with your performance.”

At the thought of having pleased Allah, Rajiv was filled up with a joy that seemed much too big for his heart to hold. Tears flooded his eyes, and he began to sob so heavily he could barely breathe.

Mohammad reached out to Rajiv then, and being comforted by the prophet did not diminish his tears. They flowed more freely, washing away all of his fear, all of his doubt, all of his sin.

Afterwards, when he had been cleansed, Rajiv asked about his brothers in jihad, and learned from the prophet all that he wished to know. Khalif al Rawi blew up a bus in Chicago, killing forty-one infidels. Mahmud Jalil and Mohammad Sayf Mashhadami simultaneously set off bombs in New York subway cars, derailing the train and killing over three hundred infidels between them.  And Latif Hassan crashed a plane into a nuclear power station, killing dozens immediately and thousands over time.

Rajiv also learned that his own bomb, which at first he thought had failed to explode, was responsible for the deaths of eighty-seven. He was but a small cog in Allah’s wheel, but that wheel was turning according to the plan, crushing the infidels and preparing the world for Islam.

Heaven was surely a wonderful, wonderful place.

* * *

Special Agent Wendell Grimes of Homeland Security reviewed the files on the three would-be terrorists who had arrived that morning. Their names had been obtained through Rajiv al Fazir, who had since been sent to Israel for final interrogation and disposal.  The files bore the Operation Blind Faith insignia, a scarf-drawn face with a turban pulled over its eyes.

All three of these men—Khalif al Rawi, Latif Hassan, and Mahmud Jalil—had been contacted by undercover field agents and given false suicide bombing assignments. And like Rajiv al Fazir and others before them, they had been given a non-explosive compound fabricated to look like C4 and loaded with a powerful and fast-acting tranquilizer. The carefully chosen locations had been sealed from public access once the subject had entered and filled with agents in plain clothes who provided the expected screams, convincing the bombers that they had successfully completed their missions.

A cocktail of LSD, sodium thiopental, and MDMA had been administered to Mahmud Jalil, and the prostitutes were in position for his awakening in Heaven Room 3.

The other two, Khalif al Rawi and Latif Hassan, had already awakened, and Special Agent Jacob Weinberg, decked out in his flowing robes, was having a conversation with al Rawi in Heaven Room 1. Grimes pushed a button to listen in.

“What about Mullah bin Majid?” al Rawi asked in Arabic. Grimes wrote the name on a pad as Weinberg, posing as Mohammad, informed al Rawi of bin Majid’s success in destroying the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac, killing over three hundred including many Washington officials. Grimes chuckled to himself, knowing that Weinberg had blamed heavy traffic on that very bridge for his own lateness that morning.

Enemies speak so much more freely when they believe they are among friends.

* * *

Gerald Rivard began writing before Kindergarten, and his strange tales entertained his classmates throughout most of his school years.  After a long hiatus, he is back in the swivel chair, crafting short stories at a pace he considers far too slow as he prepares for his first novel.  You can learn more about him and his writing at www.geraldrivard.com.

A Christmas Eve Story

by Milan Smith

Thank you, thank you, if I can just sit here a few minutes, I’ll feel much better. Yes, please, the more light the better.

“Do you want a drink?”

Yes, please. Something to calm me down. Whiskey if you have it. Thank you. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, David, on Christmas Eve, but I was sure it was over for me if I stayed home. I hope I didn’t disturb your family?

“They’re sleeping soundly. ‘Becca always sleeps hard, and the kids won’t be up before morning. Of course, it’s Christmas, so morning may be four o’clock. But maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll let me sleep in ‘til five.”

Well, it’s good of you to see me like this, this late at night. But, you’ve always been good to me. You and my wife are – were – the two closest to me in the world. I miss her, even after all this time. It’s been a year now. It’s hard to be alone, especially on Christmas.

“I know, Phil. So tell me, does this have anything to do with the ‘feelings’ you’ve gotten over the last two weeks?”

It’s all about that. But there’s more I haven’t told you, or anyone else. Mostly because I know how people think of me. You know, this here. I admit I drink too much, my wife tells me – used to tell me – every day. But I’ve never seen things before, so I don’t know why I would now.

“So tell me what happened. All of it.”

I don’t want to end up in the funny house, David.

“You won’t. Tell me what happened, then you can stay on the couch tonight.”

Well, if you really want to hear it? Well alright, it started a few weeks ago, when I put up the Christmas lights. Have you seen them yet? Oh. Well, it took me about a week, I spent days just stringing up the trees out front. Then I bought one of those lighted Santa Clauses with a sled and reindeer, and I even put up lights around the house and windows, all reds and greens everywhere. It’s my big project for the year. Been doing it since the kids were small, you know.

“I know.”

Hell, I must’ve spent $10,000 on decorations over the years. Kept at it even after the kids left. Habit, I suppose. Or an old man’s obsession.

Anyway, when it was all done, I found a string of lights lying around the kitchen. Now that wasn’t so odd, except that I always put away my spare lights in the garage. And I remember doing that this year. But three days later, there they were, under the table. Well, I thought, maybe I’d just forgotten them and not noticed. You know, with this stuff, the whiskey, even I wonder sometimes. But forgetting things isn’t the same as seeing them. Keep that in mind.

“Alright.”

Well, the next night, I got home from shopping – you know how cold it got last week, don’t you? Dropped 40 degrees in one day. Instead of sweating, I’m freezing. It’s so cold, I’ve got goose bumps all up and down my back. So I run in the house to get warm, carrying a buncha packages, when I fell down just inside the door. I cussed a little, got up and looked to see what I’d tripped over. Thought the weather stripping had got loose, but I found another string of those damn Christmas lights. It was odd, because I knew I’d gotten them all up. But I didn’t think too hard on it, I just put them away and went about wrapping the presents. That gave me something to do, it gets lonely when you’re all alone, especially when you’ve lived with someone for 35 years. I’d never been away from Doris more than a day or two since we were married, but it wasn’t so bad when I had something to do.

“I understand.”

Well, I’d pretty much forgotten the whole thing by the next day. I figured I’d dropped the lights, and in the rush of things, I simply didn’t notice. Not very odd, is it? Happens to a lot of people.

Then that night I started hearing things, like little rustling sounds. It was hard to tell what it was, but lying there in the dark, in the quiet, I thought I heard it coming from the kitchen. But I was tired, so I ignored it and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning, and just to be sure, I checked out the kitchen, looking inside the cabinets to see if anything was chewed on, like a mouse woulda done. Didn’t find nothing, even checked the stack of newspapers by the couch. But not a thing.

“Maybe you have a squirrel between the walls. It’s an old house.”

Yeah, could be. Anyway, I forgot about it and did my errands for the day. But every day after that it was the same, a string of lights showed up in a closet or under a chair, and even under the bed, though I never once took the lights to my bedroom. And of course, every night I’d hear things moving. Sometimes I got up and looked around, but couldn’t ever find anything.

Anyway, a whole week goes by like that, then last night, things went south. I was getting ready for bed, and went to take a shower. And when I was done, I turned off the water, and as I pulled back the curtain, I saw a string of lights dangling over the side of the tub, as if someone had put them there. Nothing special about them, they were just lying there like they’d been dropped. I picked them up and followed the string with my eyes, and I saw it was plugged in the outlet by the mirror. I tell ya David, I was shaking as the last of the water ran down the drain with that long sucking sound. I knew if that string a lights had hit water, I woulda been fried like a catfish.

Well after I got out, I sat and spent a lot of time trying to figure what to do. I know I hadn’t put the lights there. Something had happened, or someone was playing games. But what could I tell people? They’d just laugh and ignore me. So I carried the lights out to the garage and dumped them off.

I was still shook up, so I went to the kitchen to, um, get something to settle myself. Well, I reached up to open the cabinet and get my spare bottle when, can you believe it, dozens of them lights just fell on me! I screamed and hollered and tore at them, and they were blinking red and green and white, and they had me like a net. I clawed at them screaming and yelling and rolling around in my long johns, and it took me ten minutes to get away from them. Then I sat there on the floor, staring at them. The lights had gone out by then, and they lay there like a bunch of dead snakes. It was strange.

The first thing I thought was that maybe the drinking had gotten to me more than I knew. I’d hate to think I was hallucinating, but what else would you think? Spooks? I never believed much in them, but unless I’m crazy – Do I seem crazy to you David?

“No, no you don’t.”

Good, good. That’s something. Well, I was shaking again and my teeth were rattling, and I figured I needed to sleep off whatever was going on with me. I mean, maybe something with this, the drinking, had gotten to me. So I went right to bed and left the lights on in the living room. The overhead lights, I mean. I pulled the plug on the Christmas tree too, just to be safe. I mean, you know, I was shook up, David.

“I understand.”

Well, I went to bed, pulled up the covers, and lay there kinda stiff, listening for sounds, movements, anything. I heard the wind outside, it’d picked up and was whistling kinda long and slow, but that was it. I just lay there, trying not to move, looking around every few minutes, and at some point I fell off asleep.

When I did, I had a dream I was in a box, somewhere dark, all alone, and little bugs were crawling all over me. I tried to slap them away, but they kept coming. Then I felt like someone was trying to burn me with a cigarette, all over my arms and legs. Then I felt it, the strangling feeling, like someone had their hands around my neck and was squeezing. I woke up and screamed.

They were there, those damn lights! They were around my neck David, strangling me, I gagged and wheezed and tried to pull them off, but I couldn’t get them loose. They were humming and vibrating and the bulbs were burning my skin. I swear I couldn’t get the damn things off me, and I thought I’d die right there in my own bed, when I remembered my hunting knife in the drawer of the whatcha call it – the night stand. I reached over, choking, my hands slapping though the drawer until I found it, and I pulled it loose from the sheath somehow and I began to cut and cut until they were off me.

But I didn’t stop there, I cut up all the damn lights on the bed too, I cut them two or three dozen times, taking a handful and slicing through them. That’s a damn good knife, I tell you. And after I stopped, I sat there on the bed, huffing and puffing and my heart thumping like it was ready to blow.

When I could think again, I got dressed and headed for the front door. When I ran through the living room, I could hear them, the lights from the tree, they were humming. Now, Christmas lights don’t hum, so I ran faster, then I tripped right in front of the door. I looked down, and they were wrapped around my legs! I screamed David, I screamed like a little girl until I crawled out that front door, feeling those things pulling on my leg even as I yanked the door shut and stumbled away. Then I drove here as fast as I could, all shook up, wondering if I’m nuts or what.

“That’s one hell of a story.”

Well, there you go. I don’t blame you for not believing me. You probably think I’m three sheets to the wind, and I’m seeing little pink elephants. But look at my neck. It’s all red, like someone wrapped wire around it, right?

“Yes.”

Well, I don’t know what else to say. I’m scared to go home, not knowing what to expect. Maybe with Doris gone, maybe I’m not all there anymore.

“Well, sleep here tonight, Phil, and in the morning, after the kids are done with the presents, we’ll drive over and take a look.”

Yeah, but then everything will be back to normal. It’s always late in the evenings that things seem to happen. I hate to ask you this, David, on Christmas Eve and all, but could you drive over and take a look? Just look around, see if everything’s as it should be? See if there’s cut-up lights in my bedroom. Just look?

“Tonight?”

I know it’s a hassle, David, but it’s only a couple miles away. You’ll be back in 20 minutes. If it’s me, I’ll quit this, the whiskey, I’ll go to rehab and get it out of me. But I can’t go back without knowing. Just see if there’s anything funny going on. Or if it’s me.

“Oh, Phil.”

I know, I’m sorry, but I need to know.

“Give me your keys, Phil.”

Alright. Now when you go in the front door, my room is straight back, on the left.

“I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Thank you, David. Thank you.

“Lay off the liquor until I get back.”

Sure, David, this’ll be it for tonight. And thanks.

#

“Hello?”

Hello? Oh, hi Rebecca.

“Is David gone?”

Just left. I see his tail lights. He stopped at the corner, now he’s turning, and yeah, he’s gone. I hope I didn’t wake the kids.

“No, they both sleep well.”

Good, good.

“So tell me what you’re up to. It seems this little joke is more involved than you let on. And on Christmas Eve, too.”

Well, did you hear my little story to David?

“Most of it. You have a wild imagination, Phil. I never knew.”

Yeah, well, I’ve been holding back all these years, and I decided to let it all out.

“So, what’d you do? What’s the joke?”

Well, I put up all the Christmas lights on the inside of the house, in the living room. I set up the elves and the Santa Claus and the reindeer, and made the place look like Santa’s workshop sorta.

“How many lights?”

All of them. $10,000 worth of lights in my living room. The walls are nothing but lights, floor to ceiling. I strung the tables and the chair legs and the couch and everything else. I saved a few for the special touch, of course.

“What special touch?”

I set a pressure plate in the middle of the living room – those are hard to find – and when David steps on it, every single light comes on at once! Oh, I’d love to see him then, love to see his face, while he’s surrounded by tens of thousands of lights and all of Santa’s elves and reindeer. But the best part is the lights that’ll fall from the ceiling like a fishnet. That’s the extra, just to give him a chill. It took three months to think it all up, and to make it work. It’s not so easy as you’d think, to get all those lights to come on at one time.

“And the story you told him was just to make him nervous, to make it easier to scare him?”

Yep, exactly. I know he don’t believe me, but back of his mind he can’t help but be a little scared, and that’s all I need.

“I see. And why exactly did you do all this? Why all that work for a ten-second scare?”

Well, to be honest, I’m plain sick of Christmas. With Doris gone, I’m now in the Halloween business. I only kept it up for her, you know, after the kids moved out. And I thought I should get some use outta those lights before I tossed them. But from now on, all my time goes into Halloween. By the way, I lied, I still have some lights left. I thought you might want to know.

“Why? What’d you do?”

Well, you know that present I got David?

“The tool box? Or that’s what you hinted.”

Yeah, but the toolbox is in my truck, under a blanket. What’s under the tree is the other lights, and when he opens it up, well, think of the world’s biggest jack-in-the-box.

“I see.”

I can’t wait to see him jump. First tonight, then tomorrow morning, still half-asleep, a thousand lights exploding in his face – God, what a Halloween this’ll be.

“Christmas, you mean.”

Yeah, that too.

* * *

Milan Smith has published 34 short stories in various magazines, including Pear Noir, Everyday Fiction, Jersey Devil Press, and Big Pulp. After he got his B.S. degree in business from the University of Florida, he worked in the business world for two years, and hated it. Then he got job as a reporter for a year, and hated that. Finally, he decided to try writing, and now works part-time at night and writes during the mornings, and he loves it.

Hippie Market
by Tom Mahony

The hippie market is next door to my office. I buy a sandwich there almost every day. There’s no other place nearby to get food, and I’m too lazy to make my own lunch. The deli at the market is excellent. The people are friendly, and though they prepare the sandwiches with a plodding slowness characteristic of devout stoners, they also maintain a stoner’s freakish attention to culinary detail. The tomato slices are works of art.

There’s only one problem: the granola woman who works the register is always inviting me to one rally or another. She’s really into rallies. She’s really pumped up on “causes.” I’m neither for nor against her causes. I just want to pay for my sandwich.

Today I stand in line behind several people. Today I will ask her to please refrain from soliciting me for future political rallies.

The line moves forward. I’m up next. I don’t want to alienate this woman—she seems nice enough, and sincere in her beliefs—but I have to say something, as the situation has become untenable. I dread purchasing my daily sandwich. But I must be careful in my technique. If things go wrong, I’ll have to face an even more awkward exchange on future sandwich runs.

I reach the register, preparing for the confrontation. But she doesn’t invite me to a rally. She seems subdued, just mutters a greeting and rings up my purchase. I wonder what happened. Has someone else complained about her pamphleteering? Has she become cynical and apathetic overnight?

“Everything okay?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I got laid off today. They’re cutting back on staff.”

I’m struck by the news. I feel bad for her, and tell her so. Though I can’t deny a certain relief, I regret my past irritation with her. She’s a thoroughly decent person. I almost feel nostalgic for her proselytizing.

“I hear they’re looking to hire a receptionist next door,” she says. “You work there, right?”

I hesitate. We are in fact hiring. “I’m not sure.”

“Not sure that you work there?”

“That we’re hiring.”

“There’s a big sign on the window advertising the position. I saw your name listed as the contact. I recognize it from your debit card.”

“Oh. Right.”

“What do you think? Do I have a chance at the job? I could really use the money.”

I clear my throat. “What are your skills?”

“I can do it all. I was a receptionist for five years before I started here.”

This is getting bad. “It’s dull work.”

She points at the cash register. “You think this is exciting?”

I start to panic. My mind races. I can’t think straight.

“We get along, right?” she says. “Other customers are so rude when I talk politics. You always seem interested, like we’re on the same wavelength.”

Same wavelength? I should’ve spoken up long ago, as apparently every other customer has. At least this woman is firm in her beliefs. I’m always weaseling out of confrontation and stand-taking. Who’s the kook here?

I have to come clean. I could not possibly work with her. Avoidance and apathy have cost me dearly throughout life. I either take a stand now or I never will.

The line stacks up behind me. I glance at the irritated faces. Everyone’s watching me. They know the score. One by one they’ve made peace with the woman by politely telling her to shut up. I envy them. As they glare at me, I can read the look on their faces: what kind of man are you?

What kind of man, indeed.

I turn back to the woman. “When can you start?”

* * *

Tom Mahony is a biological consultant in California with an M.S. degree from Humboldt State University. His fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in dozens of online and print publications, including Surfer Magazine, Flashquake, The Rose & Thorn, Pindeldyboz, In Posse Review, Boston Literary Magazine, 34^th Parallel, Diddledog, Foliate Oak, and Decomp. His short fiction collection, Slow Entropy, was published by Thumbscrews Press in 2009. He is looking for a publisher for several novels. Visit him at www.tommahony.net.

“Hippie Market” originally appeared in Bartleby Snopes and in Slow Entropy.

Stock image credit: Pioi

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