800 Words: Testimony of an American Assassin Chapter 1

The Final Testimony of The Reverend Shaw Alexei Saint-Simon:
A Messenger and Warrior from Christ on Earth as He Shall Be Thereafter in Heaven

It was at the end of that Sunday Night dinner when my grandfather made the most astonishing admission we’d ever heard him make. Perhaps it was nothing more than the offhanded way which he said it. But to hear my grandfather - the Very Reverend Vergerus Zosima Saint-Simon, Christ’s anointed Apostle on Earth and the Messiah whom the Prophets Isaiah and Elijah long awaited - casually mention that he could understand why Muslims hated America... Had we even thought of an insight so brilliant, none of us would dare make such an admission. But to hear it from my grandfather, The Prophet himself, was earth-shaking as though he had declared Judas to sit at the Left Hand of God.

As he did every Sunday, Grandfather had opened my eyes. But every gem of wisdom that poured from him now seemed like mere preparation for this one off-handed musing. Everything I knew I knew no longer. I wandered through the compound, and Christ in all His splendor followed me, trailed himself by the entire Kingdom of Heaven. The Holy Spirit had cleaved my heart from out my chest and in its place had rendered a sacred fire. Like a frightened eagle’s eyes, mine were open wide with God’s Will, and everything of the world once hidden was open before me. Christ, through his infinite mercy and the infinite wisdom of His Anointed on Earth, had deigned to give me the prophecy I had so long despaired that I would never receive. And the prophecy was this:

Muslims are the same as us. They see, hear, breathe, eat, drink, feel and love as we do. Through their veins course the same blood. Through their mouths is heard the same laughter. Through their organs is perpetuated the same life. And through their consciences are perceived the same wrongs. And as their consciences have been injured that much more greatly than ours, and by the same forces, so shall they pursue vengeance upon our enemies with so much greater a passion than can we summon.

We - the Descendants of Abraham, Believers in the One True God, in the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Prophecies of Christ our Redeemer - we must make peace because we are brothers-in-arms. Both our faiths see the terrible future that awaits a world gone rampant with fornication. We both see a world gone off the rails by those who would seat mankind in the Throne where only God may rest. We see a world torn asunder by the judgements of Man. Man, with his animal instincts and capacity for untold destruction. This ugly bag of dust, water and filth now presumes himself the King of All Creation; capable of deciding his own conduct when he cannot even control his urges to spread chaos. It is left to us, the keepers of the Mosaic Faiths, to create the path for Mankind’s redemption where Secular Man can never never hope to take us. If we do not stand united, we shall fall divided, hanging separately because we did not hang together - be compelled to love one another, or die.

Knowing I must wait for the proper moment to unfold my prophecy to the compound folk, I knew that there was one person to whom I must confide this blessed revelation if I hoped to stand in the winds I knew would blow back. Only my sister Agnes could be my general in our Army of Peace. There are only three years between us, yet I am as much her father as brother, and she my rock and my redeemer. When I was twelve, I had to leave public school to work in the mineshaft. No one told me I had to. But because I did, my poor mother knew that Agnes would always have enough to eat.

My poorest dearest Ma. I write this knowing fully well that merely the act of reading this will be yet another way I have caused you more suffering in a life that has known no joy. But you must know this, dear mother. No one. Not I, not Grandfather the Prophet, nor Christ himself shall be rewarded as you will in the world that is yet to come. You are the daughter of God’s Anointed Prophet, and the mother of Christ’s Messenger. You have born your trials with the patience of Christ Himself. And the humility by which you so often submitted to a fate only Satan could have planned shall be an example to all who follow us in our sacred pilgrimage. The entire world shall one day know you as the intercessor for all women who suffer as you have for so long.

Even in exile, it is the memory of you both which sustains me to do the hard labor which our loving Father demands. No matter how far apart we remain, I shall always love you. And I know that even if neither of you realize, you love me now more than ever.

Because I know that neither of you betrayed me on that fateful Easter weekend. You were mere Peters, forced to deny me so as to spare yourselves from the hands of those who demand we always say our Shibboleths correctly. But I know the strength of marrow that flows within your bones. And one day, your voices shall joyfully ring out the truth like Lionesses of Judah.

No, it was not you Ma, nor you Agnes. It was that ravening wolf in sheep’s clothing. How many times had I warned you both that an apostate could never be trusted? From the moment Charles Newton and I went our separate ways, I knew he had no better purpose on earth than to test your faith, and mine. Yet I love him, as I love all of God’s creation. He is a latter-day Judas, without which I could not be sent into the world to do the sacred work for which I was meant.