Memories of Church
Days later after they had recovered from the ordeal they’d decided to go into Lubbock to celebrate. Lubbock hadn’t let the rain and the fog get it down. Everyone else might call it The End of The World as We Know It but most West Texans just called it Wednesday, they were used to bad weather.
While there Alvin and Julie had passed by an old church. They’d lost track of time and hadn’t realized that it was Sunday. Lubbock had a LOT of Churches. Julie recalled when she went to Church as a child and did NOT have a good time.
The preacher had ranted and raved about witchcraft and demons and the last days. He carried on for almost two hours. He’d been very emphatic about “suffer a witch not to live” and seemed anxious to relive the halcyon days of Salem. Julie had been scarred for life by the memory of that sermon. She was afraid that they meant it and she was afraid that she was a witch.
She had red hair...she was a ginger.
Alvin barely gave the church a glance. He was an agnostic. They went to a restaurant that served liquor. It had been a long grueling trip and they both felt a need for medicinal bourbon. They took their meal on the veranda. It was cooler out there and Alvin could smoke.
“You seemed some worked up” Alvin said “when we passed that old church. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Yup I do.” Julie leaned forward in her chair with her arms on the table. She made sure he got a look down the front of her dress. It was as game they played. She had all of the advantages and she cheated. She played to win.
“When I was a child I went to that church. One day a traveling preacher dropped by. He said that they’d caught someone in Abernathy practicing witchcraft” she said. “ he said there were dragons.”
Alvin nodded, took a sip from his bourbon and puffed on his Cigar. “Yup. The he asked for money....right?”.
“He said that they killed them.” Julie said ignoring the jibe. “It was God’s work. ‘Suffer not a Witch to live’. I got to thinking that if they knew what we could do, they’d think we were witches.”
Alvin choked a little and turned to look at Julie.
“I guess we’re glad that happened a while back?” he asked her.” I’m not done living yet.”
“Me neither” Julie agreed. “That’s what it must have been. You always do stuff yourself on Pecan Pie and Ice Cream before bedtime and get weird dreams because of it. That must have been what it was.”
Alvin didn’t say anything...he just looked at her...thinking about pecan pie and ice cream.
She didn’t say anything after that. They just sat, thought, and ate their supper.. Nope. That was in the past. That was then, this was now. Old superstitions were Not important today. The fact that they could pass for witches was a mere detail that no one needed to know. Being burned at the stake might hurt. Best to not go there.
So.
It HAD to have all been a hallucination. It had to . If it wasn’t then they could be called witches. Night riders had raided those folks in Abernathy, the preacher said. They’d killed the men then ‘tortured’ the women before they burned them all.
They’d had dragons, the mark of the devil the traveling preacher man had ranted. They were witches and witch burning was what the bible said to do. Alvin humored Julie and the two of them didn’t breathe a word about dragons after the ‘shared hallucination’. He remembered that when they got home that night they had proceeded to get stinking roaring drunk. The next day they each had monumental headaches and neither of them wanted to think about little dragons , preachers, witch burning or nightriders. The hallucinations must have been caused by the cold water.
It had to have been. They dared not think of dragons. The imaginary stench of the burned bodies of the witches was still fresh on their minds. The two dragons were GONE, neither one of them would think exactly how, and they would stay gone.
To Be Continued
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Disclaimer
The Hobo Picture is a Public Domain image from
Samantha at the Worlds Fair
by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
Illustrated by
Baron C. De Grimm published by
Funk and Wagnall's Company 1893
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