Migrate that church to Guyana. Call it a compound. Call it Paradise. Call it Jonestown. Say that members did not travel there of their own free will. Get other people to interfere. Intervene. Get shot at. Wait a moment while everything is ruined. While nine hundred men and women take cyanide to kill themselves. Let them poison their children.

Now you can call it a cult. And feel safe that you’re not one of them.

You.

Other people.

Take David Koresh. Take Waco. Tell the world he has several wives and fucks his kids. Set fire to buildings. Smoke him out. Kill twenty of those kids while you’re there.

Get involved.

Take the Manson Family. Take Scientology. Take any passage from any holy book out of context.

Take the unknown and drop in some fear and insecurity.

What have you done?

You.

The other people club.

You. At arm’s length. Outside looking in. With your judgement and your free choice and your safety. You don’t understand.

Not one of these people thought that they were part of a cult.

And you, you’re no different. You could be part of a cult right now and you don’t even realise. You think you have a choice.

So, put that rope around your neck.

Now wait.

Here come the other people.

THAT MORNING

3

225–226 – LOVERS

For the last week, they’ve been telling each other one thing they like about the other person, every day. And it seems to have been working.

They’re fucking when the first child walks in. It’s the same morning sex they used to love before kids came along. When he would lie on top of her and they’d look at each other, pretending that they didn’t care about his sweaty, clammy skin and her stale breath.

But it’s passionless now. Forced. And they don’t look at one another. And they don’t bother with foreplay or kissing or talking.

Or tenderness.

Or feeling.

They’re still spooning when that first kid walks in.

The little shit says, ‘Mummy’ in a half excited-by-a-new-day, half still-rubbing-his-eyes way. He toddles over to the bed and starts tugging at the covers that disguise his parents’ activity. They tell him that he has to stop. That they’re just having a cuddle. That he needs to go downstairs and put the television on.

But the little brat decides that he doesn’t want to go downstairs without mum and dad. That he wants to perch on the edge of the mattress, swinging his legs, until they get up with him.

They are trying.

Desperately trying to love each other.

Again, they push, telling him that they’ll only be a minute or so, smiling like everything is normal, ruining the moment even further. In their heads they tell themselves that it’s not the kids’ fault. It’s theirs.

And they are still linked together when another child dodders around the doorframe.