The Devoted by Eric Shapiro

example, a leader may “confess” to often feeling guilty about not being able to help all the sick and starving people of the world, but this show of vulnerability is in fact false, leading as it does to a picture of the leader as a being of exceptional generosity and magnanimity.

Last Day – 1PM: LUNCH & THE WEDDING
    From the looks of all that food, I kind of hope we can hurry through the “wedding” part. This time, He’s gone beyond the fruit. There’s bread and ham and sauces overflowing. Five hours to go, I suppose we can risk some metabolic sluggishness.
    Jolie has donned a homemade headdress, its white cloth embedded with pink rose petals. Cathleen helped her make it while Beth smiled a certain way.
    The Leader’s flesh is red as He stands before us. We’re all around the table, occupying our assigned seats. My heart’s all rat-a-tat-tat, ‘cause I know I’ll be called up there with Jolie in just a second.
    “This is more than a lunch,” He says, “because we’re going to do something extraordinary.”
    Jolie and I not only trade smiles, we trade electrical currents.
    He says: “You know, when we all came here, I was filled with anger. I know that I don’t have a talent for sharing that side of myself, but I had a fire in my mind. Every institution that we all left behind made me angry. From the workforce to the military to the churches to the temples to the schools to the stores to the bars. All of it filled my blood with something harsh. But one institution escaped my wrath.”
    The creak to my left is Jolie rocking subtly back and forth.
    “It escaped my wrath because although it was never something that appealed to me personally, I truly never thought it to be so awful. In fact, if handled with consciousness, it can be quite whole. And on this day, I am delighted beyond belief to share that it appeals to two of our beloved. I am speaking, of course...”
    We are putty; He is hands.
    “Of marriage.”
    All our hands, now: raising and slapping together repeatedly.
    “And though I never saw a place for myself in marriage, our two young friends have informed me that there is indeed a place for me. Jolie and Matthew, can you please step up here and join me?”
    When we do so, we walk not only across the room, but across a silence that could shame the bottom of the ocean.
    Instinctively, when before Him, we join hands.
    “Well what do we have here?” The Leader yelps. “You two are naturals! I was just going to ask you to do that!”
    Beaming. Faces. Each. And. Every. One. Of. Us.
    “Now please look deep into each other’s eyes, and thus into each other’s souls.”
    His wish = our command.
    “Let it be known, in this life and the next, that Matthew and Jolie have found true love with one another. That in their bravery, they have discarded all things truthless.”
    “Truthless?” It’s me talking. Can’t help myself.
    “Yes,” He says.
    “Is that a word?” I ask. (More importantly, is that a smirk I’m wearing?)
    Laughter, fearful, from the audience. His hand drops on my shoulder like it’s His body part instead of mine.
    He whispers yet He’s loud and clear: “I didn’t have time to get my dictionary!”
    The whole group chuckles, myself and Him included.
    “They have abandoned,” He resumes, “all things without truth . They have abandoned all material trappings. They have released the poison of money, of calendars, of corruptible institutions from their lives. And in abandoning these things, they have come to find one another. And so we are gathered here today to unite these two lovers -- these two beautiful, bright souls -- Jolie and Matthew, in the holy, blessed, rapturous union of marriage--”

Last Day – 1:51PM
    I didn’t go on a honeymoon. I went to the shed.
    Surely He’s about to kill me. Maybe drop my head in Jolie’s lap after, then stand there stoic as the whole group screams.
    “This Is What You Get When You Defy Me!” would be His words.
    Fuck, I know He