John the Revelator by Peter Murphy

great granite archangel, chuckling to myself. A shadow fell across the stone.
    â€˜I’m watching you.’
    Mrs Nagle loomed, ten feet tall. Her feet seemed to hover clear inches over the grass, and her finger was extended, the nail overgrown and twisted like a briar. She retracted her arm and receded from me, taking her shadow with her, moving backwards as if on wires, an optical trick, before gliding through the chapel’s open mouth.
    Â 
    â€˜Who said Mass?’ my mother asked when she heard me come in.
    â€˜Father Quinn.’
    â€˜Did he preach?’
    â€˜For about a week.’
    â€˜What was he saying?’
    â€˜Something about life being like a mini-marathon. Couldn’t make out the half of it. That man talks like he has a toothache.’
    â€˜That priest. Not that man.’
    â€˜Is a priest not a man?’
    She considered answering, thought the better of it.
    â€˜Don’t be a smart alec.’
    Ever since her operation my mother tried to quit the fags every few months, but the cravings always got the better of her. Her mood got worse each day she was off them, and didn’t improve a whole lot when she relapsed. I made for the stairs.
    â€˜Hold on. Sit down here a second.’
    Reluctantly I pulled out a chair as my mother jerked the table drawer open, removed a book and sent it skidding across the surface.
    â€˜I found that in your room.’
    I looked at the book. It was only
Harper’s Compendium.
    â€˜What’s the big deal?’ I said. ‘I’ve had that for years.’
    She took out a cigarette, tapped it against the box and jabbed it in the direction of the book.
    â€˜I know, and I don’t want you reading it any more. You’re a young man nearly and you’ve still got worms on the brain. It can’t be good.’
    â€˜You’re not serious.’
    â€˜I am.’
    I made a grab for the book, but my mother was quicker. She snatched it from my fingertips and let me have it across the jaw.
    I yelped, more surprised than hurt.
    â€˜What was that for?’
    â€˜Impudence, that’s what.’
    Smoke trailed from her fag-hand as she crossed the room and picked up the Bible from under her armchair and slapped it on the table before me.
    â€˜You’d be better off reading this.’
    I grabbed the wireless from off the kitchen counter and stormed out of the kitchen.
    â€˜It wouldn’t do you any harm,’ she yelled after me as I stomped upstairs to my bedroom. I turned the radio on so loud the loose bits rattled. The racket soon brought my mother upstairs, the door flying open, her face making a face. Her eyes roamed over the stacks of books, the heaped comics, the sheaves of papers and drawings, and she shook her head, as though denying permission for something I hadn’t asked for.
    â€˜You need to tidy up this room,’ she yelled over the blaring radio. ‘It’s a
disaster.
’
    She shut the door and her boots thumped down the steps. Soon after that, the front door slammed.
    When I’d cooled off a bit I sloped downstairs. The Bible was where she’d left it on the table. I made a bread-and-butter sandwich and a cup of tea and used it as a tray and crept back up to my room. Belly down on the bed, I opened the Bible at random. Words glowed from the page.
    How much less man, that is a worm? And the son of man, which is a worm?
    Â 
    Over the next few days I repeatedly asked my mother what she’d done with my book. Eventually she admitted to throwing it out. I stormed from the house and stalked off into the village. I made enquiries at the library to see if they could find me a copy, but when the librarian went through her files, she could find no record of such a book. It was as though it never existed.
    Outside, tarmac bubbled and blistered on the road. The ground was so hot I could feel it radiating through the rubber soles of my runners. I set off for the dump on the outskirts of