12.

The altar boys came swinging censers, making a straight line through the isle of the Catholic church with a deacon walking at their front. The deacon held a golden crucifix before him, at the end of a long gilded pole. They made their way to the front of the church as the congregation sat in silence.

Joshua did not quite notice where the altar boys and deacon had gone, but now they had disappeared. There was a profound silence over everything--Joshua did not even hear the presence of silence, silence normally being accompanied by the sounds of shifting feet, throats clearing, pages rustling. No--he heard not even this, and he was sure that should he use his voice there would be no sound, nothing but deafness packed close against his ears.

And this was how he knew he was deaf--for the congregation had all stood, and he with them--their throats were wide, letting air out the mouth--their chests were well into the work of singing. But there was no sound, nothing. He stood with them and gazed down at the hymnal, then up to the post-board at front to get the number of the hymn. He plucked the hymnal from the slot on the back of the next pew, turned to the hymn that they were singing, read it silently. It seemed odd to him--to be reading what was being silently sung--he felt somehow deprived of some mystery of the human experience, and privy to another.

But now they had sat, and he sat with them. The priest was an old man with flesh that looked pink and clean. He was gesturing, moving his tongue in contortions, his jowls quivering with a speech Joshua did not hear. Presently Joshua leaned back, listening to the void that packed itself about him, the silence that pressed into even his skin. Soon he was asleep.

But now there was a man standing over him, and he wondered if this were the sleep or the reality. "You okay?" the man was asking. He was middle aged, with generous eyes, a smile of not joy but of concern on his face. His face was bleeding, raw with red slits and gashes.

"Yes," said Joshua. "I think so. I couldn't hear for a while--it seemed I couldn't hear."

"You passed out from the pain there," said the man, and Joshua looked about him at the warm orange walls, saw white people everywhere slicing their faces slowly with razor blades. Basins of blood stood all about, and some were wiping their slit and bleeding faces with wet towels and ringing the bloody towels into the basins, only to cut some more when they were done.

"Why . . . why are these people cutting themselves?" asked Joshua.

"For the same reason you were," said the man. "For the glory of God."

"I was . . ." Joshua reached up to his face and felt a sting. There were gashes there, cuts, blood.

"What in hell is going on? Are you people crazy?"

The man smiled. "Tell me, what ought a man to do if he knows some go to heaven, some go to hell; that if none go to hell none can go to heaven?"

"Try to get into heaven?" said Joshua.

"We live for others--we pray for evildoers. We willingly go to hell so that evildoers may enjoy heaven. Could we truly be called good if it were any other way? Did Jesus command us to pray for our enemies but secretly hope they are punished and defeated? No, he meant that the saint, the child of God will go to hell, and forever--suffer these cuts were are gashing ourselves with--so that others, even wicked murderers, may get away with their crimes and not suffer for them."

Joshua gazed at the profusion of blood coming from all these people. The basement room--yes, it must be basement, there were no windows--the basement room was a scene from some horror movie. He stood. "You people--you're fucked up! This is some fucked up shit! I've had enough--I--"

"Relax," said the man who had awoken Joshua. "You're just having a dream--a proper Christian dream. A dream of God and a dream of Christ--a dream of truth. But dreams of truth are still just dreams."

It seemed music was coming to Joshua's ears now--choral music. He felt something hard at the back of his head, then realized it was his pew. He sat up and looked about him. There was a chorus singing before the church. He was back in that pew in the Catholic church. He'd lost his deafness. He sat up and looked at his hands, felt his unscathed face. It was a dream, just a dream. He listened to the sublime sound of the chorus. He knew incomprehensible nightmares awaited every newborn babe, and pitied each and everyone. But there were beautiful things in this world after all.