He woke up in a heavy sweat, the nude motionless body of a prostitute wrapped around his torso. Again there came a forceful knock at the door. This time it jolted his conscious mind into grim reality. "Get off me you Whore," the reverend's top lip trembled uncontrollably as he screamed. "Get in the bathroom and put some clothes on! Now! Your naked flesh repulses me." Again the knock. The preacher rolled off of the bed and quickly stood up. His fatty flesh quaked as he stumbled toward the terrified prostitute. The hot, humid Texas air pressed upon his mind like a starving predator. His eyes were wide with fright and confusion as he pushed his one-night-lover toward the bathroom. "Move it you bitch!" A large fist lashed out forcefully toward the woman's make-up covered face. Blood began rushing freely from above her left eye. Pain and fear and the sight of her own blood caused her legs to collapse beneath her. A sobbing scream escaped from her blood covered crimson lips. The reverend covered her mouth, and his hand became drenched with blood and tears. She thought to bite him and run, but she could barely hold herself up. He shoved her limp, frail body onto the cold bathroom tiles. His bare skin touching her naked flesh in that brief moment brought upon him a cascade of tormenting thoughts and emotions that nearly made him retch. Holding back his bile, a stench- filled scream came out of his mouth, "Shut up, and stay shut up, or I'll smash your foul body to a pulp." He kicked her in the stomach just to make his point. "Believe me, Whore, I'm not lying." Her blood and vomit swirled and steamed on the cold floor as the viscous liquid slowly spidered out through the cracks in the porcelain tiles. His stomach raged violently from the stress induced by his emotions, he became suddenly grateful that he had not eaten anything the night before when his body jerked forward in another dry heave. The knock again. "Reverend, we know you're in there. And we know who's with you. We'de like to ask you a few questions. Open the door." The Reverend froze. It seemed like hours before he dared breath again. Veins became visible on his forehead, his eyes bulged and his face turned brick-red. What am I going to do? I can't get caught. I won't get caught. I can get out of this. I just won't talk to them. How can they be sure that it's me in here. They can't have been watching me since last night. Who could they be? Suddenly the Reverend remembered who he'd been using to get him out of hard spots all of his life, "God, if you care about my ministry for You, you'll get me out of this. I won't do it again God. Really, I'm sorry. I repent." The preacher continued, not yet believing that he had fully convinced his Creator. "Honest God, I won't do it again--Please help me get out of this one." And then, thinking he could use his God's weakness--His compassion for others, "Lord, you know I don't want my Margaret to get hurt." His pants were finally on but his wrinkled yellow shirt hung open, buttoned only once, unevenly at his neck. The knocking had turned into a continuous, loud pounding. The preacher's nerves were coming undone. His lip trembled violently. Sweat poured from every gland in his body. Satan, he was sure, was at his very door, ready to strike him down. The preacher moved across the dingy, gold carpet, toward the door. His steps were forced and slow. Every thump on the door brought him closer to his seemingly unescapable doom. If only he could just wait it out. But he couldn't. Some indescribable force urged him onward to his unforseeable destiny. His oversized legs trembled within his polyester brown pants. He continued to move through the stagnant air, thick with the acrid sweat of passionate sin. He hoped that somewhere within that sin-fogged room there were threads of unconditional mercy to hold his life together. His hand crept toward the doorknob, and his heavy head flattened out on the door as his bulging eye neared closer and closer to the circular piece of glass in the peephole. The outside world came slowly into focus, but the distortion of life was overwhelming. He saw the long, ellipsoid faces on the other side of the glass silently creeping closer. Shifting about like a myriad of demons circling their prey. They seemed to jump through the glass into the room, grasping at his sin in order to expose it to the world, tainting his life, his precious, perfect life. Suddenly aware of who he was about to let into his room, his head jerked back from the peephole in a desperate attempt to escape his fate. He turned his back to the door. His knees too weak to support him unassisted, he fell back against the door and once again swallowed his acidic, unsettled bile. "Go away! Leave me alone," he said in a poorly disguised voice, too much like his own. "Give it up Reverend, it's all over. We know what you've been doing. We have your voice on tape. We have pictures of you entering this room last night." "What are you talking about?" the preacher continued, still attempting to mask his voice, "Go away, I'm trying to rest. Listen guys, if you don't leave, I'll call the police." "The police?" Another voice from the other side of the looking glass slowly crawled, mumbled and distorted, into the preacher's ears. "Don't bother, we already called them when we heard the screams. They should be here soon. I hope you haven't ruffled the pretty lady up too much. Now open up. The cops might go easier on you if they see a bunch of us on the scene already." The preacher's head was spinning; he didn't know what to do. "God help me," he prayed again, "please help me to get out of this one." The preacher closed his eyes to escape the moment, but burned into his retina were the men pressing on the other side of the door. Their cameras, tape recorders, and notebooks were the very weapons that could slay his ministry. Their voices, like a prophet's, insisting his life be cleansed by fire. They would wait patiently until he succumbed to their beckoning. Their malformed faces were to him as the very demons of hell, trying to drag him down to the mire of Hades. "Open up, Reverend. You're nothing but a deceiving, lying, hypocritical tramp. We're tired of what you've been selling this community for so long. You can't hide in the shadows any more. You're finished." The preacher turned around again. His hand moved closer to the knob and with tears in his eyes he began unwillingly to turn it. Something within him told him that this was what he had to do. He couldn't stop himself. He tried. He tried. He knew that if he would just ignore them, he might be safe this time. Then they would never catch him, for he would never do it again. Never. He told his arm to move away from the flaking gold-colored doorknob. It did not obey. His hand was in full contact with the knob. Applying the weight of his large body as leverage, he began to twist his arm, slowly pulling open the gates of Hell to let the forces of evil into the room and into his life. Then, in a moment of miraculous reprieve, his hand, drenched with sweat, slipped off of the moist doorknob. Stumbling, his body went crashing against the concrete wall next to the door. Sweat exploded from his body in every direction. A smile and a very slight chuckle of relief swept across the preacher's face. God had delivered him from his unavoidable doom. He recovered from the jolt against the concrete and wiped his soaking hand on his cotton shirt. But he was not saved. The smile turned downward and the preacher's body staggered forward, still being pulled by the incessant pounding of the men on the other side. Again, uncontrollably, and against every wish in his heart, he grasped firmly on the knob. This time it turned swiftly. An ear-breaking shriek.

Swiftly came the pain. Sharp and agonizing, deep into the preacher's back. He screamed in bewilderment and excruciating anguish. His body jerked forward and slammed into the door now being forced open by the reporters. His head, eyes bulging wide with pain, cracked against the swiftly moving door leaving a spray of blood on the door and wall. His huge frame flew backwards. His back crashed to the floor causing the eruption from his chest, of a blood- covered silver point, rising an inch out of his sternum. A stream of blood followed the metal scissors tip, and the blood pooled and ran along the creases of his fat, trickling down his body in crimson waterfalls. Cameras flashed like lightning, purging as with fire, the dark portrait of sin in the humid, sweat-stenched room. The abuser lay lifeless at the frail assailants feet. The nude, wire-like frame of the murderer crouched in cat- like vengeance over her prey. Her teeth were bared and drooling. Her thumbs pushed deep into the reverend's eye sockets. Her sweat-drenched brown hair, wild and matted with terror, barely concealed the face of the avenger. The lifeless body. The reddened scissors. The blood- sprinkled face. A shrine of hate erected by the form of a woman not stripped of mere clothes, but stripped of life and dignity, as a child, by a man void of love. A shrine erected by a life that had been repeatedly stripped, suffocated, and violated beyond emotional limits by the preachers fattened body. Stooping above her victim, the woman cried hysterically. What have I done? One moment of fury had destroyed her life. One moment of fury had set herself free from the nightmare of their community.

By Chris Powers