http://pureslush.webs.com/
Matt asked me to contribute a piece on the theme of Religion, up to 1000 words...I struggled. As many of you know, I'm a Christian, a member of the Mormon church. I didn't want my piece to be preachy. I just wanted it to be good writing. To this day I couldn't tell you where it came from, and it's still my favourite piece.
Happy Easter.
Pearls Before Swine
The
day had just begun when we found her. It
was barely light; Donnie was herding Baby and me to school. We were dragging
our feet, shoulders and ears hunched against the sharp crystal air. The ground was cold and hard from a late
spring thaw; deeper patches of snow still clung despite the warming days.
“What is it?” Baby whispered,
standing well away.
“It’s an angel,” I whispered
back, my fingers poking small wet flakes from her dark hair.
“That ain’t no angel,” Donnie
hissed. “Don’t touch her; you know what Dad says about strangers.”
“Strangers carry diseases.
Strangers can kill us.” Baby recited, sucking her thumb.
Donnie dropped his school bag in
the snow. “Cassie, I’m going to get the horse. We’ll take her up to Old Winston.
She might be worth something to him. Maybe he’ll cut us a break.”
It didn’t take a genius to know
we’d had a bad season last year. Money
was tight, the rent was months overdue. Mother and Dad thought we couldn’t hear
when they sat over the kitchen table at night, counting out the pennies and
fretting, but we knew.
Old Winston was our landlord. He
had the big farm house and hundreds of lush acres. We paid him four hundred a
month for a leaking, wind-rattled shack and twenty acres of the hardest soil in
the county. Father ploughed Winston’s land to earn steady money but it wasn’t a
lot, so we farmed our bit to make up the difference.
I didn’t like Old Winston.
“Get lost, you skinny little bastards,” he’d grumble,
snatching the brown rent envelope from Baby’s hands, swinging at her ankles
with his walking stick. He wasn’t very quick and Baby was always off the porch
fast, laughing as the wind blew his curses across the fields after us.
On top of that, he never fixed anything on the house, even
when the roof fell in over the kitchen. He smelled of sweat and old pipe smoke
and dirty socks. And when Father was away at market he’d come round and touch
Mother’s hair and find excuses.
I stamped my cold feet, and blew
on my cramping fingers, staring at her as she lay on the hard ground in nothing
but a thin dress. “You
can’t do that,” I choked. “He’ll hurt
her, and you know it.”
Donnie grabbed my wrist hard and
twisted. “What I know is mother’s got cancer, we got bills, and she’s going to Old
Winston.”
As soon as Donnie disappeared
down the hill, her eyes opened. They were the colour of dewdrops glinting on ferns
in the early light.
“Hello, Angel,” Baby cooed,
handing her a boiled sweet.
“Thank you Baby. I love Lemon Drops.”
The Angel’s voice sounded like old church bells ringing on a faraway hill.
“What’s your name? Are you really
an Angel?” I whispered, voice catching in my throat. She was glorious: her
eyes, her hair, her skin. They all had a glow that was nothing to do with the
frosty air. Every inch was beautiful.
“I’m whatever you need, Cassie. My name is Pearl. ”
“Like from the ocean?”
“Maybe, Cassie. Maybe.”
She put her arms around the
horse’s neck and climbed on, Donnie still too skittish to touch her. I reached
up and held her hand as we walked, down the hill, across two fields. Just to
make a point.
Old Winston grinned ear to ear,
the first smile I’d ever seen on him. He wrote Donnie a note, signed and dated.
All debts forgiven.
Abram Winston.
Pearl put her slender white hand
on his arm and smiled up at him. Underneath he added:
Plus two months’ rent free.
Pearl touched his cheek. He
crumpled up the note and started over.
All debts forgiven + three months’ rent free
Abram Winston.
Pearl
never uttered a single word, but her eyes said goodbye in a way that scared me. My heart shrank watching her beautiful pale
hand on his leathery wrist.
“You can go now children,” Old Winston grunted, shutting the
door firm behind us. It was the first time he’d ever addressed us without
swearing.
“But he’ll…” I stood rooted to the porch.
“Forget about it, Cassie. Pearl
said she’s whatever we need. You told
me that yourself.” He shoved the note
under my nose. “What we need is THIS. She can take care of herself.”
Donnie pulled me off the wooden
porch and threw me up onto the horse behind Baby. I cried all the way home. I
cried all through dinner, never answering Mother’s questions. I cried at
bedtime prayers. Each tear sliced through me. We left her there. We left her with him.
Sometime that night, a fire
started in Old Winston’s house. His bedroom and the side porch blazed,
scorching the ground, turning the remaining snow into steaming puddles that
iced over into a smooth glassy sheet by morning. But for the smell of smoke,
the rest of the house stood firm, as if it never happened.
The bank manager came a month
later. Old Winston had no kin. The whole place, main house and shack, was ours
if we’d take over the mortgage payments. Old Winston was paying the bank a
hundred less a month than he’d been charging us just for the shack.
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