In that moment the inexplicable grace of God shook my world. My right leg was growing, with twelve witnesses gathered around me. The leg stretched outward, longer than the left, as if to make a point, so that there would be no doubt as to what we’d seen. Then it moved back, perfectly even with the left.
Tag : Humor Fiction
Chapter 18
Kids from screwed up families become all kinds of things. We hide ourselves behind silence, heavy make-up, sexual promiscuity, rebellion, performance. Our school, like all schools, was full of girls like this; we are a sorority with different chapters. The Mean Girls chapter was the one no one wanted to mess with; their raccoon eyes, thick with black eye liner, relayed stories of abuse and rage. No one was listening.
Chapter 19
Knees knocking, I bent down to retrieve my belongings. I saw the girl with the knife as she hit the pavement, her head snapped against the concrete. She didn’t get up. The Dragon girl kicked the switch blade over to me with her boot, “Pick it up,” she said. The metal handle was still hot from the Mean girl’s grip only seconds before. It felt good in my hands. A sudden rush of confidence swept through me.
Chapter 20
The tiny Episcopal mission of my choosing had a congregation of less than a hundred. It was the summer of 1969. No one wore choir robes like in the Baptist church. No one spewed out hell and damnation messages. No one seemed to care that I was an ugly misfit with a nose that swallowed my whole face.
The Vicar sat in the center isle of the tiny chapel and shared stories about the life of Jesus. Shame based at my very core, Baptist preaching had always stirred the hornets’ nest. But in the summer of 1969 I forgot all about religion and fell in love with the Real Jesus. The Vicar’s stories transformed Christ from some historical distant figure to a living, breathing man who struggled and hurt and had been rejected. I could relate to that! Sundays couldn’t come fast enough. The little red-brick light-filled chapel became an ethereal realm where I felt safe and accepted.
Chapter 22
Before the full effects of dark vortex I had just stepped through could take hold Charles Manson entered our lives. His cult's brutal murder of Sharon Tate sent a shock wave that was to rip me from the arms of my tiny Episcopal safe house.
Chapter 24
He drove south toward his office. I distracted myself by counting traffic signals, praying one of them would turn yellow or red so I could jump out. It was green lights all the way.
When he passed his office, I became dazed and confused. Hold it together, I said to myself. If he was taking me to the woods on his lake property for a beating where no one could hear me scream, I was sure I could outrun him.
Just then he turned into the driveway of a two-story red-brick building and pulled into the parking lot. He turned off the engine. “Get out,” he said with a voice of steel, “I’ll show you what real power is.”