So, after driving for about half an hour, they arrive at the rock quarry on the outskirts of town. He drives to the small ledge overlooking the nearby park where those evangelists built a giant crucifix out of unused pine. So, he pulls the Little Christ out of the car seat and hauls him up toward the cross. The crucifix isn’t very large. Maybe six feet tall at most. So, he positions the Little Christ against it – splaying his limbs out against the wood. The child struggles a little. He looks around confused, bands of drool collecting in the corners of his little mouth.

It’s now or never, he thinks to himself.

So, he reaches inside the rucksack he’s brought with him and he pulls out a hammer and a small nail. He presses the Little Christ’s hand against the arm of the cross and that’s when he starts to cry, as if the child somehow realizes what he’s about to do. Whether he knows his fate before it happens or not, it soon becomes clear to him when he swings the hammer down and smashes the nail through the palm of his little hand. He shrieks as if he were a wounded animal. It sounds almost – inhuman. Pitiful. Like the final pathetic cry of a dying species – a breed on the verge of being swallowed by oblivion.

He can’t stop now.

He’s already gone too far.

Blood’s leaking from the hole he’s opened in the Little Christ’s hand. So, he holds him up to keep him from falling and he rummages through his rucksack again until he finds another nail. He stretches his other hand along the other arm of the cross and smashes the hammer down until the nail disappears in a bubble of blood. He removes his hands from him, and he lets the child dangle there, his palms tearing gently under the weight of being held up by the small nails. The Little Christ hangs there, screaming until hoarse – like some sacred offering for an ancient deity. The noise is almost unbearable.

But he’s not finished yet.

So, he pulls out a small hunter’s knife his father had given him for his twelfth birthday. He slices the baby’s belly open until a thin line of blood creeps from the tiny hole he had opened there. It’s finished. He doesn’t have a crown of thorns to complete the likeness, but he thinks the Little Christ doesn’t deserve one.