Munmun(77)

I glanced around for cover but it was a wideopen middlechurch, peered at escaperoutes but the only one that fit me was the streetfront, Puppyneck hovered there with his minimiddlegun, Warner if you try anything it’s a bloodbath, dead me and dead mom too.

Stupid stupid me, I really am in here to say goodbye.

For once in church I wasn’t fiddly and fidgety, wasn’t squirming and squinting and hating every second of the dry dusty slog through the goddesert.

No, I just sat there and tried to believe in a god who didn’t hate me, who could still have pity on me, in this life or the next.

The churchmeister heard my thoughts maybe. His sermon was God Loves Littles The Most.

“Who is the great Regent Master Emperor’s favorite on this earth,” he boomed. “Surely it’s the riches of Balustrade? The lumbering giants He seems to have blessed with ridiculous size? The great big hulks whom no animal can harm? No poison can kill and no virus can enter without getting lost and drowning in their giant blood? Are they the great King Boss’s favorite?”

Everyone hushed and murmured, we knew the answer.

“NOPE,” confirmed the churchmeister. “In His kind and cruel wisdom the merciless Top Executive has cursed them, cursed them double infact. He has cursed them with a terrible appetite numberone and numbertwo a horrible thirst, and the appetites and thirsts will never be satisfied, when you’re that big you have to eat and drink nonstop and it’s still not enough, your stomach is the size of a freaking house. No, God has no love for the bigs, the ones He has cursed to stomp the earth taking and taking, gulping and panting, mushing and smushing and crushing to fill the terrible emptiness inside themselves, and meanwhile they know that every housefull of food they take, God hates them that much more.”

“Stomach the size of a freaking house,” murmured Mom, shaking head and clucking teeth.

“So is it the middles?” continued the churchmeister. “Are they the favorites? Comfy middlecitizens who seem to fit the world so perfectly? Because afterall, they are small enough to love the shade of trees, but big enough to pick their fruits. Small enough to use a road, big enough to drive a car. Small enough to hug a dog, big enough to fight a cat! The middles must be the favorites of the Lord King God, right?”

Again murmuring from the churchgoers, again the churchmeister cried, “NOPE, AGAIN NOPE. God hates the comfortable. God hates the soft. God cursed them too, and here is how. God cursed the middles with the fear of getting little. The fear that is inside them every day of losing scale, shrinking lungs, shrinking stomach, getting robbed, getting pulped, the fear turns every bite of food to crap in their mouths, turns soft clothes to sandpaper on their skins, eats them alive every minute like a fire eats a forest.”

“Eat that forest,” muttered Mom, waving a littlefist. “Eat it.”

“No, God loves littles most,” whispered the churchmeister, dropping to a stagey hush, “and let me give you the proof. God loves littles because He can trust them to carry the heaviest burdens. Think about that a second, you know it’s true. The heaviest burdens in the world are worn on the littlest shoulders, we all know it. The cruelest sufferings, darkest bleakenings, the endless frights and terrors.”

Everyone shivered, sorrowed, but a crackly warm sorrow because we know what it means when the churchmeister goes to the stagey hush, guesswhat’s around the corner, joyous shouts and amens.

“But God loves those shoulders most,” said the churchmeister, climbing back up to a yell. “Because on God’s ballteam, the littles are the stars. What do you ask of the star of your ballteam, thatsright, you ask your star to carry the biggest load. And God has entrusted littles with what!”

“The biggest load!” yelled Mom and a churchfull of poors.

“Because who are the stars of the Lord King’s ballteam!” cried the churchmeister.

“Littles!” shrieked the littles.

“Glory be to the tiniest!” triumphed the churchmeister.

“Hallalooyah!” wept the littles.

And we rose, and sang, and I tried to believe in it, I really did, maybe I even got there.

Maybe I even did believe, God treats His favorites the worst, God gives nightmare lives to His most precious, just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not right or true.

He’s the genius god, I’m the idiot human, even if I think He made a screwedup world, whose judgment do you think really matters, a woozy kid who wrecked his only chance in life, or the freaking Eternal Architect And Landlord.

No, I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t. But I still tried.

If there is a God hopefully that’s enough for Him, if not, ohwell.

Service ended, last chance to run or duck out in the crowds, but Puppyneck was just a few feet away, escape was an impossible hope.

They’re taking you to the bank anyway, Warner, surely you can ask the bankers to protect you, call the cops or something, they won’t just hand you to your killers.

So I got up and said started to say goodbye to my little mom.

But she wasn’t done with church for the day, heckno, just the beginning, kiddo let’s march over to the Crisp New Church of God And Sons and try to make some converts, spread some knowledge, convince the godandsonsers as they walk out that hey, people, you’ve got the wrong church, don’t you know the Lord King God doesn’t have any sons, for one thing He didn’t bang anyone.