A Basilican Communion

We walked cautiously into the Roman basilica for refuge, treading carefully as a giant bit of stone crumbled and shattered on the floor beside us. The Fazi air raid last night caused more damage than they could ever comprehend.

“Feckin’ Fazis!” O’Shea screamed, his booming voice echoing off the walls.

It was a quiet dawn, for the most part. The main sounds we heard came from distant Gauss cannons (presumably the new Fazi issued designs, just over 50 meters in length) and birds flying in fright from the offensive decibels they created. The sun crept, shyly at first, into the basilica’s main room before boldly storming through stained glass of notorious saints wielding laser rifles circa 300 C.E.

No matter where I stood, St. Grace, ever beautiful in stained glass-form, seemed to be glaring at me with her one good eye, the other obstructed by her cy-patch. I could not tell if she was smiling or frowning in this windowed depiction of herself. She held a laser pistol, one of the ones from around the time the Savior was born. She was aiming it at a skeleton on the ground, most likely representing dissent toward the Roman centurion army, so often portrayed in art from the time as skeletal. It was a strange feeling being physically attracted to a woman who allegedly lived roughly 1700 years ago, but St. Grace was the first woman, current or historical, that I’ve ever felt physical affection towards. I wonder if her soul in Heaven is flattered or upset by my carnal, futile desire. Her blonde mullet appeared to slowly flow in the quaint morning glow, as if the wind was blowing it in slow motion, the way stucco on the ceiling seems to glide when you wake up and stare straight at it.

“Quinn!” O’Shea woke me from my daze.

“Sorry, O’Shea,” I replied, shaking my head to force myself out of my sleep-deprived, battle-weary stupor, “I think I just need a quick rest.”

I sat on the nearest pew and found myself lying down on it, almost against my own better judgement.

“This is no time for rest, you louse,” he retorted, “but I’ll make an exception. This once.”

He nicked a copy of St. Frickker’s Bible and set it under my head as a pillow. I know I shouldn’t feel so grateful to be in his custody, especially for desertion, but surely there are less compassionate commanding officers to get caught by.

O’Shea lit a cigar as he sat beside me. I looked up at him, the oil glinting off his copper beard and wondered when our last showers were. That’s the thing about war– it doesn’t matter how technologically advanced one’s nation is during peacetime. When you are on the front, you’re like your animal ancestors again, waiting for the war to end, not for international security and the well-being of your countrymen, but for your own selfish return to those daily creature comforts. Or maybe that’s how my mind is wired. Maybe most people are patriots and I’m just a savage wearing clothes.

“You think we’ll have another one?” O’Shea asked me.

“Another World War?...” I thought about it, “when I was a boy of about nine or ten, my granda told me about World War III back in the 1850s. None of us would have expected a fourth or fifth one, but here we are… a goddamn sixth and it’s only 1971… so I think… there’s no doubt. So long as there are resources to fight over, and human nature prevails, which it most certainly will, we’ll keep fighting until we’re back to square one, only this time with no chance of procuring technology since we’ve used up all the Earth’s gifts to play army.”

We heard a sound from behind the dais. Initially, I thought nothing of it. Maybe it was loose rubble finding a new home, or a rat scampering back to its makeshift abode. I sat straight up when I saw O’Shea aim his weapon at something.

“Don’t move!” he shouted.

Sure enough, there was something– someone rather– skulking cautiously from behind the dais, trembling with his hands up as he said something in West Baltic.

“A feckin’ Prussian!” O’Shea was irate, “You speak Anglo?”

“Please, I no like!” said the timid soldier, “I not like Prussians! I no like!”

“What’s he saying?” O’Shea mused, “Is he saying he does not or is not like his kin?”

“Does it matter?” I retorted, “Aren’t those close enough?”

“You hiding any of your comrades? Any Nipponese? Italicus?” O’Shea started walking toward the soldier, his weapon fixated on his head.

“Please, I no like! I no like bad!” the Prussian kept repeating variations of this.

O’Shea seemed uncertain as to what he should do. He looked at the statue above and behind the dais. It was a statue of Savior, writhing in an electric chair. He was still, being made of marble, stuck posing in a perfect representation of one being surged with inhuman amounts of electricity.

I, having been raised devout, also wore a necklace of the electric chair, but without the Savior in it. And I often pondered how the Savior would have been sacrificed if he was born centuries later, when more humane executions were devised. I’ve spent many nights since childhood wondering if the universal sign for our religion would have differed based on the way his soul was communed.

After a long stand-off between O’Shea and the Prussian, O’Shea finally broke the silence.

“Do you believe?” he asked, gesturing to the Savior’s statue.

After a long pause, the Prussian gulped and replied.

“What answer give me live?”