So he listened to the voice, the voice that was old and young, and mean and good. He put all his faith in that voice. The voice said march, so he marched, surrounded by hobgoblins and sprites and evil faeries and wargs—aberrations like himself, fierce and untamed, who frolicked about him with hellish glee at his acceptance of his doomed, delicious fate, and he was happy, O so happy, as he cradled the gun in his hand like a cool phallus, happy for the first time in so, so many months, for he knew the voice would take care of him and teach him and save him, and there was feeling, full and ribald and dangerous, and he reveled in the sensation and whatever felt good, and he marched leading his devilish crew, listening for the commands of the one voice, the only voice, which said, Go, and he went, surrounded by fiends who quaffed strong ales as they marched along through the fields, who danced about on the tree limbs and on the surfaces of streams all by the light of the crescent moon and fornicated and let blood from one another in bouts more violent than cockfights, smearing excrement on one another, jerking and touching and biting, shouting profanity and blasphemies, all with cheers and loud laughter, and he smiled and joined in for this was his salvation, the way to final peace, and as he marched along aware of the gun that he held tight in his hand, glad to be free, if free was a word to describe what he felt, he began to wonder—though it was much, much too late—as he pranced along alone down the road, somewhere in the small bit of his mind yet sane, he pondered: Perhaps I should have used, instead of a kitten, a babe.

Black Necromancy

Black Necromancy

Whosoever will, let him come . . .

James Malachai Greene Confessions

James Malachai Greene

Confessions

One of my professors at seminary was a man named Schnider. Philip Schnider. We called him Rabbi. He got a kick out of it too, he being one of the rarest of birds, a Christian Jew. At the time it struck me as one of the most fascinating combinations in the world.

Sometimes I would ask him why and how—but mostly why—he had become a Christian. He would answer with great honesty, the way a man about to unfold a great tale does: “Why, Jimmy, it’s simple.”