The Divine

Everybody dies. The rich, the poor, the prude, the wild, our loved ones and our enemies. Nature does not discriminate one holy man to that of which appears to have clawed its way out from the fiery pits of hell.

Mother can't recall when the world around her became so loveless, so bleak. She says it was a slow process, like a butterfly in metamorphosis finally escaping from its cocoon only to find out its wings never grew. She always spoke in metaphors. It was a way to avoid the use of prohibited language such as, “soul mate”, “religion”, or basically any word having to do with one’s own opinion. I believe it was her way of keeping the words "shit" and "damned" out of her mouth and away from my ten year old virgin ears.

Ten; The perfect number, a completion, the amount of lashes I had on my back from choosing to wear black cargo pants on my first day of 5th grade instead of the enforced pearl white skirts given to each girl. The skirts weren't all that bad. In fact, considering the excruciating summer heat the streets of downtown Phoenix emitted, they were preferable. The truth is I was afraid of the breakage. A bloody trail down my leg indicating that I was now a fertile woman ready to procreate and unable to control my fleshy desires. A breakage meant I'd be assigned an All Seeing Sister, as they called it, to accompany me on all of my endeavors, it meant a chip sliced into my hip to ensure excruciating pain if ever I dared participate in unlawful sexual activity, it meant a heart shaped locket screwed tightly around my neck only to be taken off at the time the man chosen to be my husband, by The Divine, inserted his purity key and prayed that it matched, or didn’t.

Divine; I think the term was once used to mean something beautiful like a loving God or an afternoon spent with delightful people. Unlike my mother, Father wasn’t always as careful about his vocabulary. I recall him on more than one occasion slipping up and using words in ways now edited or completely eliminated from our dictionary. The Divine were basically the dictators of our very being. They decided what we ate, when to wake, where to work, where to live, which activities to involve ourselves in, and sadly who to spend the rest of our lives with. They believe they were called to put an end to abortion, sexual assault, adultery, and divorce.

“I pledge allegiance to The Divine of the purest of nations. Above all we declare a perfect world, a perfect people. May we indulge not in sins of the flesh but in that to which we have been called, lawful and destined procreation. So that we may one day join those below us who bless our every waking step. Amen.”

“ You may now take your seats.”

I always hated that prayer. How strange I thought it was to recite these words every morning, palms facing downward right below the hips, head bowed, eyes closed. It was as if The Divine were demons kicked out of hell by Satan himself yet still convinced they could earn their way back in. Usually I would just mumble the words, sometimes I’d stay silent, every time I received ten lashes. By the eleventh grade I learned to layer up in tank tops underneath my polo to lessen the pain accompanied by the whips. For a while I thought why not just follow the laws and recite the damn thing, but then Mother died and things got personal.

Cause of death: suicide by overdose. As one can conclude every medication from children’s tylenol to oxycontin was carefully monitored to the the time, location site, and even how long it took the patient to ingest the medication. None of that mattered to The Divine though. They say she must have snuck out in the middle of the night, broken into a pharmacy, and gargled down at least 30 narcotics before the guards arrived to the sound of the alarm and Mother already laying at rest, forever.

I call bullshit.

Not only was my sweet and graceful Eleanor genuinely happy even in the midst of this upside down world and the untimely gruesome death of her funny and charismatic husband, my father, she couldn’t swallow an aspirin if you held a gun to her head. Her medicine consisted of herbal teas and long baths. So, Divine liars, why did you kill my parents?

Their deaths weren’t the first unsolved mysteries. On many occasions the stories of our now deceased never matched up. Beautiful innocent people leaving a terrible world nonetheless still too soon for any of us to fathom. The one thing they did have in common was their inability to further bare children due to sickness, age, or having become widowed. The Divine considered them useless, disposable.

January 7th, 2079

If the trees still dance and the sun still shines, maybe I too can find everlasting happiness in this life

The Divine are cruel, they steal and they lie

But maybe just maybe, when they convince some that destiny always leads to true love, they are actually right

This man I know, our time has come

He makes me dance, he lets me shine

A years gone by, in Divine’s time

He must now unlock my heart

Please, allow this one to be forever mine.

I never gave up searching for answers, but I did fall in love, Thomas. The law allows us to date once we turn 18, platonically of course. Sneaking even a kiss could mean a tooth yanked out of its cavity or vocal chords ripped out of one’s chest. Of course, with my All Seeing Sister always by my side, it was almost impossible to even have a private conversation. Some broke the law, Thomas and I didn’t have to. Being by each other’s side was more than enough, we were patient. We knew our time would come, and it did. Today was the day of the ritual. No one but three of The Divine and two guards were allowed in the room. This was to ensure a safe and quick separation from each other if the key were to not fit. The walls are empty, white, no furniture, no sunlight, nothing except the rapid beating of my heart and the beads of sweat across Thomas’ upper lip. We had already decided we would find a way to meet again if my locket were to malfunction. I use that term because there was no way he was not my forever.

He stands at the back of the room, I walk towards him almost like a bride on her wedding day. He gently grabs my necklace, whispers, “ I love you no matter what,” puts his purity key in and turns it one time to the left.

Nothing.

One time to the right. Still nothing. He turns and he pulls and he yanks. Again, my locket will not open.

The funny part about all of this is that The Divine already know whose key matches which locket the day each of us are born. Yet out of filthy pleasure, they allow pure and real love to manifest and this gut wrenching ritual to take place only to rip your actual heart right out of your chest. I would have preferred a tooth yanked out, an eyeball gauged, my limbs cut off. Anything would have hurt less than watching the guards grab Thomas by the arms and take him away forever. It was the wrong forever.

I lay down on the cold white tiles, I scream and I cry. The Divine pick me up, a wide demonic smile on their faces. I hear footsteps behind me, so many footsteps. I turn around and there I see a line of at least 100 men with keys in their hands. One by one they walk towards the end of the room, right where my Thomas and I last stood. I’m forced back into place, walking down the aisle this time the saddest of brides. Over and over again they each take their turn poking at this now meaningless heart shaped locket on my chest.