Marie Roget stood gazing into the bathroom mirror. It was the only piece of furniture not
looted or vandalized in the condemned hotel.
The auburn haired, infantile-faced adolescent looking out of from the glass
was, she reflected, pure fiction. The
only part of Marie’s anatomy shown in the mirror that remained unchanged from
the fiend of hell, where her dark eyes—the same black orbs that had beguiled
politicians, tycoons, and kings and had once mocked Christ.
Ironically, those same beacons that so often gave
her away were the only parts of her amorphous body she could not change. Marie was tempted to conjure up a pair of
colored contacts to hide her terrible stare.
She had not been certain how she should actually present herself to the
world. Her plain brown dress had seemed
appropriate enough, but she needed a fashionable wardrobe now. What bubbled inside her—the greatest
malevolent force ever brewed—could scarcely be contained, as she studied
herself in the mirror. For one brief
moment, her eyes flashed red with energy.
Her skin radiated an ethereal light.
The effect lasted during the sudden burst of thoughts racing through her
mind, dissipating as she looked beyond herself into the glass.
A notion, born of impatience and ambition, gripped
her as she stared into the mirror. In the
quiet of the room Marie Roget’s infernal heart hammered hard in her delicate
ribcage. Perspiration gathered on her
infantile brow. After turning from her
reflection, she paced around the room a moment as would a feline trapped in a
cage. Drawn to the door handle, she
opened the door finally and slipped down the hall. The sound of snoring in each room was interspersed with snorts
and fitful groans, reminding her that she was among alcoholics, drug addicts,
and the lowest riff-raff from the street.
After she left her temporary refuge, a notion filled her head.
…. In the hollows of Skid Row, it seemed no one knew
Satan was afoot. What if, she dared ask
herself, she gave them—the mainstream—a small inkling of things to come. What fun that would be? She thrilled
at the thought. The compulsion swelled
in Marie Roget’s inscrutable mind.
Walking softly down the rickety staircase, she drew her robe against her
bare skin until passing through the ramshackle lobby and emerging on the
street.
As a few wary tramps, who were
shuffling up and down the boulevard, looked on, Marie was tempted to throw her
robe aside and scamper naked down the boulevard, leaping gazelle like, humming
a Wagnerian aria, as she began her official debut. Instead, she paused in silence to reflect on her mission, drawing
her robe more tightly around her shivering frame. This was Skid Row…. Who but a handful of lecherous tramps would
find a naked woman bereft of her senses significant? In spite of her attempts at being discreet, she had been tempted
to give them a show…. But not this way.
She must have a logical plan.
Common sense returned momentarily to Marie Roget. She began jogging back to condemned
hotel. It was not time, she reminded
herself. She must not compromise her
goals with melodrama. There would be
plenty of time for theatrics later on the world stage…. More importantly for
Marie, was the unspeakable danger she would not admit to: the prophecies.
It was not merely John the Revelator and the
Apostles who prophesized her return.
Did not Jesus, himself, promise signs and portents in the Latter
Days? Marie had no intentions of
playing to a Biblical script, which was one reason why she chose her present
form: a young woman. And yet she must
not portray the Scarlet Woman of the Harlot Church, which scampering naked down
the street might convey. She must in
the future avoid all indications of geographical and political boundaries of
the one world government and church forecasted by prophets and apostles of the
Judeo-Christian faiths. Everything she
did from now on must be totally the opposite from doomsday forecasts. Without those outdated prophecies, there
could be no End Times chronology. She
would be writing the script!
As she stood under the marquee, however, her natural theatrical
impulse seemed stronger than her common sense.
If she’s going to debut, she reasoned, it must be subtle, unique, and be
shown to only a select. What would be the
harm? Looking up into the morning sky,
an idea and rationale took hold that made sound sense to her.
“I came up through the bowels of the
earth,” she exclaimed in a girlish voice. “That’s what everyone expects. So I’ll make my debut in the clouds,
appearing in the morning sky!”
Marie’s alter ego replied quickly “This is madness. How can you be subtle with such a grand
scheme?” But it was too late, the transformation of her amorphous body had
already began. Her robe fill onto the
sidewalk as if she had suddenly disappeared.
For a moment, as she hovered excitedly down the boulevard, she created a
ghostly imprint on the surrounding scene.
She appeared as smog and moved as engine exhaust, causing eye
irritation, offending noses and, at several points, startling drivers half out
of their wits. Yet she remained just
outside of visual range and never once made a sound.
Soaring high into the sky, changing
through various will-o’the-wisp forms into something that would be apparent
that to Abaddon, the Gate Master’s eyes, Satan again reinvented herself over a
range of evolutionary themes. As a
primordial mist, blown by the wind, she remained airborne awhile. After transforming into a translucent
Precambrian glob, her body took on gradual pigmentation and design. Her primitive blob-like shape became a fish
swimming through the air, then a tadpole, salamander, and flying reptile with a
great wingspan and a monstrous beak.
Flying experimentally a moment, then rising majestically in the sky, she
disappeared prudently into the clouds.
When she had broken through the other
side, Lucifer had been reborn, rising up, as would the Phoenix, amid fire and
smoke, flapping her devilish wings and rolling her cat-like eyes. As the stereotype devil of hell, this
creature signaled to Abaddon, now looking up through the Porthole of Man, her
reign on earth. And yet, it was
witnessed by only a small audience on the topside of the clouds, beyond the
view of earth. Not a soul had seen her
yet, except the Gate Master of Hell and the passengers, flight crew, and
attendants aboard Flight 127 from Paris France.
While this indicated satanic power, it
also signaled her war with God.
Although it was a new beginning, Abaddon, who sat now on the Throne of
Hell, wondered if it might not just be the beginning of the end of Satan or
God. He was not sure….Nor was Mare
Roget, whose foolish impulse had shown her hand.
A great dread filled the serpent as he
sat on the Throne of Hell. This was not
a game or exercise to while away infernal time. Where the master had been content with the status quo before, she
now had a grand plan in mind. Where her
minions on earth had harvested most of the souls, she would take charge up
there in a way never dreamed of before.
Where she had frequently appeared topside to tempt a random soul, she
now had the entire earth in mind, and she would not come back down until she
had won the war… or lost.
******
For the flight personnel and some of
the passengers aboard Flight 127 to Los Angeles, the miracle filtered through
both human skepticism and atmospheric conditions. Of the few on the sunlit side of the plane witnessing this
bizarre formation, not all of them had seen it clearly and/or long enough to
venture an opinion. It had been several
hundred feet away from the plane when it surfaced and it lasted for barely a few
moments before sinking back into the clouds.
The brightness of the sun shining on the plane as well as the rapid
movements of the mirage also distracted from the show. Nevertheless, a chosen few aboard Flight
127, would become the first to witness Satan’s debut.
Among those who would later come forth as witnesses
to this event were the captain, himself, his copilot, two stewardesses, and two
Roman Catholic clerics, who would take snapshots and capture the event, they
hoped would turn out, from their cell phones.
As the pilot gave his before
landing speech, he found his attention quickly drawn to the apparition
ahead, but it registered slowly in his skeptical mind.
“This is your captain speaking.” he
began cheerily. “We are now in a flight path for LAX. We should be landing shortly and breaking through this lovely
mantle of clouds. For those of you who
have never seen the city’s smog, ‘no there hasn’t been a nuclear exchange.’ According to the tower, it’s only a second
stage alert and rather pleasant for this time of year. The tower has cleared Flight 127 to
land. Many years ago, pilots would have
to tell passengers to douse their cigarettes.
Now I must ask you to douse your cell phones and laptops, since this
interferes with communications. Please
fasten your seat belts and please remain seated and secured in your seats until
we land. Thank you for flying Allied
Air!”
“Fasten your safety belts,” Flight
attendant Sondra Largo reminded the clerics preoccupied with the view.
“Please remain seated,” Ashley Dumas,
her co-worker told them, as they began fumbling with the camera in the young
priests hands.
“This is your captain again,” the
pilot’s voice returned suddenly. “I’ve just sighted an interesting cloud
formation directly to my left. Some of you
may already have noticed. It looks sort
of like the devil, although my copilot sees old Neptune surfacing from the
sea. For those of you on the sunlit
side it should already be visible as we continue our turn.”
A science fiction and UFO buff, herself,
Sondra’s dark eyes flashed with excitement as she took the window side and
strapped herself in.
“Look, Ashley, it does look like the
devil,” she pointed out of the porthole.
“It looks like a cloud to me,” Ashley
indifferently replied.
In truth, though, Ashley’s green eyes
had grown slightly myopic since attending night school this year. Without her new glasses, which were still in
her purse, the apparition in the clouds might just as well have been the
Pillsbury Dough Boy. As she pulled her
spectacles finally out and placed them on her freckled nose, she was able to
see just enough of the apparition to cause her to gasp.
As the plane began a wide arc, the
apparition came closer and closer, but then began disappearing below the
clouds. It had lasted, the priest
clocked it with his watch, only three and one half minutes.
“What do you suppose that was?” Ashley
asked her friend.
“I’m not sure,” Sondra replied
breathlessly, her small nose pressed against the glass, “but it was not a UFO!”
“It’s a sign from God!” the young nun
looked back from her seat. “Father Dominick and I’ve taken pictures of it to
show our bishop and maybe the Pope!”
“It’s him, the
devil! It’s beginning right before
our eyes!” Father Dominick now responded, his gazed transfixed on the sight.
“I’ve seen the dragon!” he whispered to himself.
“...
Where now is the beast?”
In
his mind now, the priest remembered the passage from the Book of Revelations
that introduced this event. For the
first time in his long, uneventful career as a priest, he felt the breath of
God at his neck and knew what his mission was on earth.
Rejoice, O heavens and you
who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and
the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing
that he has only a short time.
******
After its prelude, Satan sank through the clouds, descending as
a malevolent vapor down to earth. For
one brief moment, captured in the minds of several onlookers below, the vapor
was visible, appearing to many eyewitnesses as a small tornado or, more simply,
as an ominous mist that disappeared completely several hundred feet in the
air.
As Father Dominic La Farge and Sister Monique Clausin exited
Flight 127, they could hear the excited murmurs of passengers and flight
attendants who had seen the formation in the clouds. Father Dominic, always impulsive with his religious fervor, had
decided, against the good sister’s advice, to talk to some of the eyewitnesses
before heading back to Saint Joseph’s rectory in town. He wanted to bolster his documented evidence
and he and Monique’s account with like-minded opinions of this event.
Most of his short question and answer interviews
occurred during the several moments that the passengers disembarked from the
plane into the terminal. Using the
small recorder in his coat, he captured their acknowledgements and brief
comments on tape. Bowing to the nun’s
wishes, he promised to limit his inquisitiveness from the flight crew to only
the two flight attendants they met on the plane. This would round off his list of eyewitnesses when he played the
tape for the Bishop that day. Captured
on both his digital camera and camcorder slung around his neck, he believed,
was the greatest evidence of all: graphic proof of the dragon, which was
forever imprinted in the priest’s crowded mind.
His articulate and excellent English, with only a
hint of a French accent struck the two airline stewardesses, Sondra Largo and
Ashley Dumas, as amusing, but caused an eyebrow to raise faintly on the nun’s
haggard face. Monique knew how foolish
this all sounded to anyone else who had not seen the cloud formation. A few of the exiting passengers had
snickered at the “deranged priest.” She
was not certain that the flight attendants, themselves, would not make fun of
Dominic too. The sound of his tiny
cassette recorder was barely audible as he engaged the women on the gangplank
entering the terminal. A look of
determination, often interpreted as fanaticism, now glowed in his piercing dark
eyes.
The long journey from Paris’s noisy and crowded
airport had seemed to take its toll on Sister Monique Clausen, and yet she
managed to straighten her habit and spruce herself up in the tiny restroom
offered in the plane. Not so for the
dedicated, fact-gathering priest. His
priestly garb looked as if he had slept in it, which in fact he had. His hair, always mussed, stuck out in all
directions and his shoes had not been polished in months. Monique’s only desire was to retreat into her
quarters at the rectory, however simple, shower, eat a simple meal and sleep
until noon tomorrow. The good Father,
who was already worn-out from his sleepless energy would simply crash
somewhere, perhaps at the refectory on the nearest couch. In his present frame of mind, he had no
desire for sleep or even proper sustenance.
She had never seen him so utterly driven before nor so bereft of his
common sense.
Eyeing their nametags carefully, he at first struck
the stewardesses as quizzical and eccentric.
Monique had experienced the priest’s impulsiveness before, but had never
gotten used to the momentary difficulties it caused them. So far in their short careers together it
appeared as if the Lord watched over and even approved of the priest’s recklessness. Today, this hour, she sensed, with a feeling
of uneasiness, that he was about to launch them on his greatest spiritual
detour.
“Pardon me mademoiselles Largo and Dumas,” he called
out to the stewardesses as they continued on their way, “what did you think of
this phenomenon outside the plane? Was
that not one for the books, eh?”
Monique cringed.
“Well,” Sondra said with a titter, “at first I
thought it might be a close encounter of some sort, but now I think it’s sort
of a religious thing.”
“Sort of a religious thing, eh?” Dominic said
cagily. “Yes-yes mon amé that is what sister Monique and I believe.”
“Really? So
we weren’t hallucinating.” Ashley giggled foolishly, her exhaustion displaying
itself in an expansive yawn. “Just what was that suppose to be out there
Padre—the devil?”
“Ah, ouí, mademoiselle,” he nodded reflectively,
“but padre is Spanish, is it not? I am
French-American. Your name, Dumas, is French too, is it not? Are you from this city?”
The question seemed irrelevant to the women, but
Sister Monique, who wanted no part of this conversation, understood perfectly
well. The priest wanted to know whether
or not these two bimbos were locals in case he wanted to talk to them again.
“French-Canadian,” Ashley corrected the beaming
Dominic gently, “but I was born in Garden Grove.”
“Garden Grove?” he murmured, rolling the unfamiliar
name over and over in this mouth. “Garden Grove, Garden Grove...Where is this
Garden Grove?”
“Orange County,” Ashley looked at him in disbelief.
As if that just explained everything, the stewardess
looked dully into space, but Sondra studied the pushy priest as he went on with
what really interested him now.
“So you both saw the dragon?” his heart quickened.
“You truly saw it in the clouds!”
“Oh, it wasn’t a dragon,” Sondra frowned
thoughtfully, “I think Ashley was right.
It definitely had horns like a devil.
When I heard the captain announce it, I was hoping it might be a UFO.”
“I think I understand,” it was his turn to frown
thoughtfully, “you are—how do they say it?—a science fiction buff. Is this not correct mademoiselle?”
“Yes, I guess so,” Sondra was growing irritated now.
“This is all very interesting father, what did you say your name was?”
“Very interesting, indeed,” he persisted, his eyes
moving abstractedly to her nametag. “You, like many of your countrymen, prefer
a scientific explanation when confronted with the unknown. But this is not science fiction mademoiselle
Largo. Your name—Largo—sounds Latin
too, eh? Are you perhaps a Catholic?”
“Italian-American,” she said flatly, “born a
Catholic. I’m not sure what I am now.”
“You belong to the true church my daughter,” he
spoke now as a priest.
At this point, with the two stewardesses
verifications on tape, he realized he had intruded enough. They had all seen a cloud formation that
looked like Satan. What more could one
say?
“Please call my cell phone,” he quickly passed his
business card to each one of them, “if you wish to talk more about this
matter. I know you are both tired as
sister Monique and myself. With Sister
Monique’s help, I plan on investigating this event. I believe that we were all blessed in seeing the dragon. I am certain that we live in momentous
times... perhaps the last
days.”
With that ominous note, he and Sister Monique bid
the two stewardesses adieu and, elbowing their way through the press of people,
made their way to the baggage counter.
The stewardesses walked at a much slower rate as the rush of
disembarking passengers passed them by.
“The last days? What did
he mean by that Ashley?” Sondra’s dark eyes seemed troubled now. “... I’ve
heard my boyfriend mention those words, but Brad’s parents are Bible-thumping
Protestants. I’ve never heard a priest
talk like that before!”
“I don’t know anything about religion,” Ashley
yawned widely again, “but that man gave me the creeps! He was too pushy. I think he was taping us too.
The nerve of that guy!”
“Perhaps, he was a little pushy,” Sondra replied,
watching the priest and nun disappear completely in the crowd. “... But I have
this strange feeling we’ll see that man again!”
It was as if a drumbeat had begun in Sondra’s head;
suddenly, inexplicably she sensed that her life would never be the same.
******
Straight ahead as they hunted for the
baggage counter, Dominic could see a newsmen interviewing travelers waiting in
line. Next to the shorter man, stood a
tall, handsome black man panning his camera up and down the line.
“Don’t even think of it, father,”
Monique spoke quickly in French.
“Sacré bleu!” Dominic cried, heading
directly for the men.
“This is not a good idea,” she
muttered with concern.
“Excuse me please,” he motioned to the
chubby, balding reporter holding a mike. “I have a much better story for you
right here!” He pointed to his carrying case.
“Father, we’re doing a report for
On-the-Spot News,” the report explained dully.
“But if you have some scenic tape to show us, mail it to the
station. We’re quite busy now!”
“It is about the dragon in the sky,”
Dominic blurted quickly as the reporter turned away. “Surely, you’ve heard
passengers talking about this on their way out.”
“No, I haven’t,” replied the reporter,
folding his arms and tapping his remote microphone abstractedly on his arm.
“All I’ve heard is a lot of bellyaching about airport security delays and
congestion.” “You about anything about dragons, Cole?” he turned to his partner
now. “Did I miss something somewhere?”
“Matter of fact, Stubby, you did,” his
cameraman said, letting the camera dangle in its sling. “I heard a bunch of them
who just come out thatta-way,” he pointed to the disembarkation point they had
just exited.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cole asked
with a flicker of irritation. “Anything would be better than this.” “So you took some video shots,”
he looked at Dominic with mounting interest in his eyes.
“Please, Father Dominic, this will not
sit well with the Bishop,” Monique begged.
“She’s right, she’s always right,” the
Father tapped his carrying case longingly, this is too public and
circus-like. I don’t want this to be
another human interest feature on the news.”
“All right, fine” Waldo shrugged
lightly, “we’ll look at your tape.
Dominic looked at his proffered hand
in horror. Monique was shaking her head
emphatically and motioning for him to move on.
Doing the next best thing now, he did what he had done for the
stewardesses and handed him his card, with his cell phone number but this time
he jotted the address of Saint Catherine’s Roman Catholic church hastily
on its back. With little more fanfare,
Waldo thanked him briefly and turned back to his interviews with the passengers
in line. Dominic bowed politely to the
newsmen and retreated in step with the nun.
******
After locating their luggage on the
conveyer belt, they hailed the first porter in sight.
The
priest and nun followed the porter with their many suitcases and parcels to the
pickup zone outside the main entrance of the terminal, exhaustion plainly
evident on their haggard faces. In
spite of his fatigue, Sister Monique could see a familiar radiance in the
priest’s face, magnified many times this day by dragon in the sky.
“That was potentially very stupid,”
she scolded him now.
“Perhaps,” he sighed wistfully, “but
the fact is I want the world to know!”
“Father, you don’t have to convince me
of this miracle,” she argued with him gently, as he waved impatiently at the
nearest cab. “The Bishop is quite another matter, however. He may not be interested in your
diversion. He would be furious if he
saw this story on the news. His
holiness is a tired old man. He will be
interested in our notes from the Paris Convocation, that is all. Wait and show this first to the monsignor
before giving it to the world.”
“That convocation was a waste of time
and church business,” he made a disparaging gesture with his hand. “All these
arguments about whether or not the church should condone certain forms of
capital punishment and all those other tired social issues are decided in most
countries by the division of church and state.
Frankly, I don’t agree with our president’s lackluster response to war
on terrorism and our narrow-minded approach to church unity. I agreed with that President Bush
fellow. On the subject of ecumenism, I like
diversity. Have you forgotten that my
brother is a Pentecostal missionary, Monique.
But these issues dodge the greater issue that the church can control: men’s souls, which is more
important than dogma. Dear Blessed
Mary, we both just saw the onslaught of the Dragon. Others did too. I’m a
priest, Sister Monique. It’s about time
I act like one, instead of a Vatican scribe.”
“You chose this path, father, we both
did,” she sighed, flicking her habit out of her face. “What greater way to have
an effect on the world than travel it?
You would not be able to do that stuck in a parish in some back woods
town.”
“I’m not talking about a parish,” he
found himself struggling with an idea.
“... . I will need to convince those myopic princes of the faith that
our church should be at the forefront of bringing about this message. I don’t want to be stuck in one place, but
neither do I want to waste time at anymore doctrinal conferences or
convocations on church matters.”
As Dominic assisted the porter placing
their luggage into the cab, the priest and nun continued to argue about the
logic of pressing the point at this particular time. The porter’s dark face broke into a wide grin as he listened to
the two clerics’ dispute.
Father Dominic clung stubbornly to what he felt was
his new mission from God but realized that Sister Monique was only concerned
about him getting into trouble again.
Last summer, when he and the good sister were attending a synod on
ecumenism in London, Dominic took a British Episcopal priest to task for his
support of gay ordination and female clerics and was rebuked by Monsignor
Carpel, a liberal Italian priest.
Though he often defended his fellow Christians in other denominations,
Father Dominic, who had merely tongue lashed the Englishman, nearly came to
blows with his superior in defense of the church. From that day forward, Dominic was known in church circles as the
warrior Jesuit priest. And yet, because
of his disdain for ecumenicalism, he was also considered to be a maverick by
many of superiors and peers. His
scholarly abilities and mastery of seven languages, including his native
French, added to his grasp of apologetics and knowledge of the scriptures, had
decided his career within the church.
Sister Monique Clausin, who had a similar background and had been an
interpreter at the Vatican, was a natural choice as he secretary and aide.
It had been several years since
Dominic had presided over a church service or even said mass and as many years
since Monique had functioned as a nun.
Both were considered prodigies in the church. A feeling of urgency to serve his church on behalf of all
Christendom had once again been ignited in the priest, but Sister Monique had
been quite happy acting as a goodwill ambassador, interpreter and secretary-assistant
for the prodigal priest. Why couldn’t he just leave things as they
were?
“You will wait until we speak to
Bishop Murphy?” she looked hopefully at his flushed face as they seated
themselves in the back seat of the cab.
“Yes-yes,” he said hoarsely, as he sat his laptop upon his knees.
“Now hush, be quiet I must prepare for this event. What was the words Mademoiselle Largo used? Ah yes, a close encounter. But we know what it was, eh Monique?”
“Yes, indeed,” the nun smiled wanly,
“the Sign of the Dragon.”
As an introduction to his rush of
thoughts, the priest typed:
Today, from the window of Flight 127, I have seen the Dragon. Where now is the Beast who cannot be far
away? All the Protestant
fundamentalists claim the devil will begin his work in Europe and that the False
Prophet and Antichrist will be found in the remnants of the Roman Empire, which
is in Italy, Germany or perhaps France.
But I wonder now if the Dragon will not straightaway seek out the Beast. There is something strange and inconsistent
with what we have seen, almost theatrical, flying in the face of eschatological
and Apocalyptical tradition. I sense—no
I believe--that a different interpretation of Saint John’s Revelations is in
order that will upset traditional eschatology.
Perhaps it will even make me a heretic in many Christians’ eyes.
We the passengers of Flight 127 have seen the devil’s debut in Los
Angeles—the City of the Angels. This, I
believe, must be where it all begins, and it is to my eyes, a Jesuit priest,
among all clerics, that God allowed this to be first seen!