There used to be these animals that were fifteen feet tall.  They were called giraffes.  I remember when I was very young my mother took me to a traveling show in a big tent and we saw one of the last giraffes still living.  I never saw another one after that but I still remember how I felt when I tried to look up and find its head at the end of its long neck.  That was such a long time ago and now there aren’t hardly any animals left.  The traveling shows still bring the last remaining creatures to each small town.  How they keep them alive and breeding I still don’t know.  A couple of years ago I went to Abe’s Showcase Bigtop and paid two hundred dollars for a ticket to see an animal called an alligator.  It was about ten feet long, covered in blackish-green scales.  It just looked like a flattened dog with hard skin.  We still had the rare dogs around but the most abundant animal is still the cat.  Abe’s Showcase Bigtop also had a few other unusual animals on display.  It cost another hundred dollars to go into the smaller tent to see something called an armadillo, a vampire bat, and a squirrel.  I didn’t pay to go in there even though I wanted to see those animals because my wife, Marfy, was so freaked out after seeing the alligator.  Creatures scared her and after seeing pictures of the armadillo I didn’t think she wanted to be scared any more.  Besides the sign said that the vampire bat drank the blood of people. 

I tried to tell Marfy about the tall giraffe I had seen when I was a little boy but she said that I was making it up.  I tried to explain that it sort of looked like a long legged dog with a stretched out neck and yellow and brown spotted skin.  She laughed at me and said, “you’re just trying to scare me with a tall tale.”

The only tall tales she and I knew were in the new books that were just printed two years ago.  Now that was a day I will never forget.  The day the first book was printed and sold at the county fairs.  You could buy a copy for only two thousand dollars and I ran out and got one of the first in our area.  It was called Earth.  It had stories and pictures made up by this man who was over eighty years old named, Jason Epedia.  He said he wanted to write down everything he could remember that his grandfather put on some scrolls that he had buried before the Seasonal Restructuring.  The book called Earth had about twenty pages and the text was hand written, a technique that no one knew how to do anymore.  Marfy and I stayed up all night reading and looking at hand drawn images in that book.  Since Earth there have been thirteen books printed and sold at the traveling stands each year during fair season.  Each book has gone up in price but at four thousand dollars they are still a bargain.  Marfy and I own all thirteen of them.  Jason Epedia wrote the first three books, but Arty Stein wrote the next five.  Arty’s cousin, Fred Wilson Stien, wrote the last five books and Marfy and I love those the best.  Our favorite is called, Sheep, Cows, Pigs, and Other Animals That We Used To Eat.

That book was scary and funny and crazy.  It had pictures of cows, animals with horns and long nipples hanging underneath, and sheep, fat white dog looking things, and my favorite, pigs, long fat sleek things with round chopped off looking snouts.  The animals were funny looking but it was freaky that it said people used to kill the animals and cook their guts and muscles in a fire and then, eat them!  Now that was a crazy book!  When it first came out the people could not stop talking about the crazy pictures of people cooking and eating the animals.  It was a crazy book all right and Marfy was freaked out when she first saw what it was about but after I told her it wasn’t true she realized it was supposed to be funny.  Sometimes people try to make up such crazy things to try to get you to believe that it was true back before the Seasonal Restructuring.  Just because no one knows what the United States of Brazil was like before Seasonal Restructuring doesn’t mean people are going to believe crazy fantasies and out right made up lies. 

One night Marfy and I were out at the Michigan Ocean, throwing rocks into the water, and an old man stumbled along the shore towards us.  We stopped throwing rocks and he stopped when he got close to us.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a map.  He showed it to us but it was too dark to really see anything on it.  The old man was bald and had a long white scraggly beard.  He muttered something and then raised his voice, saying, “They used to make cars here.  Machines made out of metal.  You could ride inside of them and travel farther and faster than a flea on a dog.  Somewhere under this ocean there are rusting factories of where people made cars.  Cars and trucks, and tractors and vans, metal vehicles to carry people all over the place!”

Well, of course, Marfy and I knew he was insane so we nodded towards him, glanced at his map, and left the shore of Michigan Ocean.  Marfy giggled as soon as we were away from the crazy man.  Marfy was my youngest wife and also my most playful.  Cicily was my middle wife and she was more serious. Ellen, my eldest wife, was nineteen, very mature and full of sensibilities.  Marfy and I had only been married three years but she was fifteen and got along well with Cicily and Ellen.  Most men had as many as twenty wives but I felt blessed and happy with three.  There weren’t as many children in my household but the community still respected my family.  In three months I would be twenty-one, and eligible for Government retirement but I think I still felt that I should continue my career in the U. S. B. labs.  I was saving money for our future and also I had set aside a deduction to a special savings.  The special savings was to be used someday for purchasing a dog.  Out in the Wilds dogs lived and bred and were very dangerous but the Government controlled dog program trained and farmed dogs for family usage.  My wives and kids had always expressed interest in owning a dog and each Festival Season a dog was always on their lists.  This year I think I might just surprise the family and buy one.  I had a hundred thousand dollars in that account and I thought maybe with a Government rebate that I could afford a dog.  I knew a good one usually cost more like two hundred thousand but with the rebate I still thought maybe I could get a good deal.

Marfy and Cicily held my hands as we walked past the borders of the Detroit forest.  Ellen was doing her wife chores today and had to stay behind to manage the household and the children.  Last night Marfy and I had laughed at the crazy old bald man on the shores of Michigan Ocean.  Today in the bright sunlight that old man with the map really seemed ridiculous.  We told Cicily about what he had been saying, metal things that people rode in buried under the ground.  Cicily got a good chuckle too.  We walked past other people all gathering and preparing their supplies for their households.  We saw the corn vender on the corner and both women began tugging on my sleeves begging me, “Please, oh please, can we get a corn on a stick?”

Of course, I could never refuse them anything, and I said, “Sure thing beauties, anything your heart’s desire.”

The fat man at the corn stand smiled a toothless smile and greeted us, saying, “Good day to you.  Corn on a stick?”

Cicily exclaimed, “Hi there, yes please.  I’ll take vanilla corn on a stick.”

The man smiled again and produced an ear of corn on a stick as Marfy squealed, “Oh, that looks good but I want strawberry flavor.”

The corn vender man replied, “Well that happens to be my best seller.”

I produced my leather pouch and took out a wad of bills.  The fat man smiled and said, “That’ll be sixty dollars, even.”

I paid the man and said, “Have a good day.”

We left the busy place and headed towards Carnival Square.  Today The Bill Cherokee Wampus Troupe would be starting up.  Both of my wives were munching on their corn on a stick, smiling and enjoying the pretty sunshine, looking forward to The Bill Cherokee Wampus Troupe.  We had never before seen this traveling show but I had always heard it was the biggest and best of the traveling shows.  I said to the girls, “Hey, I heard that this show has more creatures than any other.  Animals nobody has seen anywhere else.  I also heard they have other strange things, secret things, and scary things.  I guess Marfy might be too afraid to go in those tents.”

Cicily said, “I’ll go in them with you if Marfy is too scared.”

Marfy chewed her corn and replied, “I am not that afraid.  I’ll go see whatever they have in those tents.”

So we walked, hand in hand, my tall blonde wife, Cicily, on my left and my short compact brunette wife, Marfy, on my right, into Carnival Square.  There must have been two hundred people in the Square.  The Bill Cherokee Wampus Troupe had about a dozen huge tents set up with long flags of every state blowing in the wind.  We tried to name each state’s flag but could only remember a few of them, like, Ohidaho, Califexico, Coloklabraska, Venuzperuador, and Montisconsin.  The air was filled with music from the street players and the colors of the tents and flags dazzled our eyes.  I loved the bagpipes and the pianotones and I hummed along with the show music.  We walked through the temporary gates and I bought tickets, which were very reasonable with my Government discount, at a thousand dollars each.  Of course, the tickets only got us into the main area; we would have to pay extra at each tent.  In the center of the place there was a big circular ring set up and five nude young men were jumping up and down on a burning log.  As they jumped and the fire burned their feet, they each tossed long knives to each other.  The naked men juggled them while jumping up and down on the flames.  Musicians played quirky dancing music to give the performers something to jump about.  We watched, amazed, and laughed too as some of the jugglers shouted and whooped, obviously having the time of their lives.

People clapped when one of the naked jugglers jumped up high and did a back flip, landing safely on the burning log again.  In the sparse crowd around the jugglers I saw Montego Butler with four of his wives applauding the jugglers.  I nodded to him as he caught my eye and began coming in our direction.  Montego was fairly old, at thirty-two, and a successful trader of lettuce and celery crops.  I knew him because my uncle did business with him.  Growing up, Montego, and my uncle, Gorgo, would take me on long hikes up in the Coors Mountains.  Since I never knew my father, he died when I was born of radiation poisoning, Montego and uncle Gorgo were like fathers to me.  Montego had sixteen wives and most of them treated me like a son except for the newer wives. 

As Montego approached I yelled, “Hello Montego!  How are you today?  Isn’t this Troupe the greatest?”

He smiled broadly and twitched his long waxed handlebar mustache, as he yelled back in his deep voice, “Stark!  Stark, my boy, how the heck are you?  It has been too long, a month since I saw you or your lovely wives!”

I grinned, shaking his hand as soon as he reached out.  He pulled my handshake in and hugged me tight.  Montego said, “You look invigorated and happy as a damn grapevine crawling all over Ohidaho Valley.  Cicily!  Marfy!  You both look as beautiful as cherry roses in the snow!”

I moved back from his hug as he embraced my wives and I embraced Didi, Olive, and two of his new wives, Rafee’ and Farlene.  Montego stepped back from hugging Marfy and exclaimed, “Let’s all go get us a drink.  I’m buying!”

A long counter top bar was setup near the smallest tent that was flying the red and gold flag of Venuzperuador.  Business was booming and we had to wait quite a few minutes to get past the line of people buying drinks.  Montego got us all FrothAle Swigs in commemorative mugs with The Bill Cherokee Wampus Troupe engraved on the side.  I took a long slug from my FrothAle Swig and decided nothing was any better than a cold FrothAle Swig on a pretty day at the Carnival Square.  We all drank and laughed as we walked around the square watching different skits and performances.  We saw the Alskins, weird people from across the Bearink Strait, demonstrating how they could eat glass and spit fire.  They were interesting but they also sort of scared Marfy.  We also stopped for a while and watched the Tejuns cracking coconuts with their heads and their kicks and even with one finger.  The Tejun people were very white skinned and had no hair on their bodies.  They liked to paint their skin different colors to protect it from the sun or just to be weird, I never really knew the truth behind it.  My mother used to tell me the Tejun people used to eat dogs but I think she just said that to scare me.  A man with a painted red face and a big round white nose screamed at us, wearing clothes that looked like tattered sheets of rainbow colors, “Over here!  Over here, come inside and see the miracle of metamorphosis! Don’t miss it!  Just a five hundred dollar bill and you get to see the miracle!”

Montego elbowed me and said, “Come on Stark, that’s a bargain!”

We all bought tickets from the shouting red-faced man and went inside the tent with the flag of Ohidaho on top. 

Chairs were set in a circle around the stage and a tall black man stood like a statue in a long black coat in the center.  There was a spotlight shining down on him and the rest of the stage was dark.  We all sat together and sipped our FrothAle Swigs and waited for the performance.  After a few minutes of watching the motionless tall black man in the long coat a thin bald man in a red suit walked slowly out on the stage playing a tuba.  The tuba blasted one note, over and over, slowly.  Other men in red coats began coming onto the stage playing other tubas.  The sounds grew extremely loud and Marfy covered her ears.  As suddenly as the tubas began playing loud all of them stopped and a silence filled the tent.  The tall black man swished his long coat and shouted to the crowd, “Ladies and Men of Michigan, we present an exciting show of the Metamorphosis!”

The tubas started playing again, joined by women in red dresses playing flutes.  The music was strange and exciting.  The tall black man stood off to one side of the stage as a ten-foot tall tank of water was wheeled out in the center.  The tall black man shouted again, “Welcome friends, I am the Great and Awesome Ulrichard Sambooney, Master of the Black Arts.  I invite you to witness my power in this uncanny demonstration of Metamorphosis!”

The crowd was quiet, awaiting his next move.  Ulrichard moved like a ghost across the stage and stood next to the tank of water.  He waved his arms and produced a heavy jar from within his coat, saying, “Partake of the jar containing only powder, a powder of suspicious origin and from this powder I will create the Metamorphosis.  Watch carefully as the powder mixes with the water of the tank and before your very eyes you will witness the miracle of the Metamorphosis!”

The music played quietly and mysteriously as Ulrichard slowly poured the contents of the jar into the water.  The tank became cloudy and then Ulrichard pulled a large curtain over the tank.  The tank was covered for only a few seconds but suddenly Ulrichard removed the curtain to reveal something inside the tank of water.  The crowd was amazed as they watched a nude woman swimming in the water of the tank.  Ulrichard shouted excitedly, “You see!  Once again the Great and Awesome power of Ulrichard Sambooney, Master of the Black Arts has wrought the miracle of the Metamorphosis.  From strange powder to Amphuman, aquatic human species found only in the far southern waters of the Austraffrica Sea.”

  The strange woman peered out from the tank with wide lidless eyes and webbed fingers and toes.  Her mouthed opened and closed as she gulped in water and pumped it out through her gills below her jaw line.  Her eyes were the whitest white and stared at all the people like she was lost and had no soul.  Ulrichard let the crowd gaze freely upon his Amphuman female for several minutes, getting their moneys worth, and then clapped his hands as the music blasted through the tubas again.  He covered the tank and it was rolled off stage.  Ulrichard followed it and the musicians exited behind him.  We waited for an encore but the lights inside the tent came on, signaling the end of that performance, so we applauded once more as Ulrichard returned and took one last bow.

Outside of the tent we talked about how bizarre the Amphuman was and tried to figure out how he made her appear with powder and water.  It was a very good performance for such a low admittance price.  The Bill Cherokee Wampus Troupe show was starting off wonderfully and I thought that I should probably bring Ellen up here one night so she would not miss out.  Montego’s wives, Didi and Farleen, were hungry so Montego bid us goodbye as they went in search of sustenance.  Cicily tugged Marfy and I towards the next tent with the flag of Califexico, blue, gold and red, flying on a tall pole above it.  This was a special show tent featuring an assortment of preserved creatures and sometimes many faked creatures that never existed.  They usually had weird animals made from dog fur or cat fur and molded to look like they were preserved taxidermist creations.  Most of the traveling shows I had seen the animals were usually fake.  I had heard that The Bill Cherokee Wampus Troupe had real specimens and I was anxious to see them.  I paid the midget woman, with mounds of cleavage bursting from her top, and she gave us three tickets as we entered the maze inside the tent.

Marfy squeezed my hand as we entered and I knew she was probably nervous about seeing weird creatures, even if they were not alive.  The first display was a big glass container of clear liquid with some gray squishy looking thing.  It had long squiggly things that looked like roots coming from it and big black eyes in its big head.  The sign read: White Sea Squid.  Marfy said, her fingers partially covering her eyes, “It looks like a wet turnip.”

Cicily agreed and after a few seconds of looking at the White Sea Squid we turned a corner in the tent maze and saw another display.  We stopped as soon as we saw it.  It was huge and startled us because it looked so realistic.  Cicily gasped and Marfy almost turned and ran.  I was even gasping because I had never before seen anything like it and it was terrifying.  The creature was not alive but it sure did look like it could be alive.  This thing was about ten feet tall and covered in shaggy dark hair.  It stood on two legs like a man but it had massive paws with six-inch long claws.  The things head was as large as a pumpkin with giant teeth and black gums.  I read the sign below it and whispered aloud, “Grizzly Bear.”

Marfy said, “Was this thing ever alive?  Because if it was I would be afraid to ever go outside.”

The other traveling shows did not have creatures like this.  I thought that maybe this thing might be real but if it was then I was pretty happy that there were no more like it around.  The exhibit around the next bend was small and we approached slowly.  Cicily said, “At least we don’t have to look at that giant monster anymore.”

The glass cube was about five feet across and a creature was inside.  I looked inside the glass and said, “Hey, its Marfy’s brother, Julio.”

We all laughed because Marfy’s brother had a long nose.  The creature stuffed inside the cube had a long nose and front feet with terrible claws.  The creature was called a “Giant Anteater.”

We all knew that this creature had to be fake, made up from stuff, because there could not be anything so weird walking around ever.  The last corner we came around there was a big stage. On the stage was the biggest creature yet.  It also looked like maybe they made it from some kind of hard plastic.  The hard skin didn’t look real.  The creature was taller than a man at the shoulder and twice as long with four fat legs and hide that looked like hard armor.  The creature had a big long horn on its nose.  The information on the sign described it as a “Rhinoceros.”

Even the name sounded like they had made it up.  We knew this creature never existed.  I told my wives, “Well at least the Grizzly Bear looked real.  This Rhinoceros is evidently a fake.  Let’s go girls.”

We left the tent and wandered around watching midgets perform acrobatics on piles of broken glass.  I thought maybe the glass wasn’t real because they never cut their feet but then one of the midgets passed some of the glass around and people touched it to verify its validity.  The midgets were funny and my wives laughed more than they usually did, and with Marfy that was usually a lot.  It was getting late and I wanted to see the live creatures tent so we headed in that direction.  That was when the old bald man suddenly walked right up to us.  He held out the map and shouted at me, “Just look at this map!  Just look at it!  They nailed Jesus to a cross and then started building cars out of Satan’s metal to kill people!”

I tried to ignore him and go around but he cut us off.  The old man shoved the map in my face and I could see it also had written words on it.  How did this old man have written words on paper?  I looked closer at his papers and the map.  He held them out to me, saying, “Yes, Stark, look closely. Read the truth!”

I read the paper and Cicily and Marfy tried to see what was written on it too.  The old man’s eyes were blazing like a lunatic.  The paper was written in a bold handwriting very different than the books we had.  The large printed words at the top read, “Jesus Garcia, Gets Death Sentence.”

The words beneath the headline read, “Jesus Garcia, proclaimed seer and holy man was tortured and put to death today by crucifixion for crimes against the Government.  Before he died he swore retribution and forgave his torturers, promising them everlasting life if they would only repent their acts of cruelty.  Jesus screamed from the platform that he would not die but rise again to lead the people against the secret society of Devils.  He swore to the Government Task Force that there were Devils secretly devising machines in the Wilds that would kill people.  He also proclaimed that the world would end if people did not repent and follow his map into the Wilds to a “promised land” called Purgatory.  As he was tortured and slowly died he promised that death could not stop him and that he would “rise again like a Phoenix and return to save the souls of the people.”  Jesus Garcia died and about fifty of his loyal followers were allowed to take his body away with them.  The funeral was a secret affair and Government people were not present.  Jesus Garcia was convicted of the crimes of Treason against the United States of Brazil, Theft of Government Documents, and Sexual Deviance of the Third Kind.”

Of course I had heard of Jesus Garcia.  The paper and map seemed strange but real, even though I didn’t know what to believe.  “Devils making machines in the Wilds to kill people,” I didn’t think that was true.  As I pondered what I had just read I asked the old man, as the thought hit me, “How did you know my name?”

The old bald man stared deep into my eyes like he was trying to analyze my soul and replied, “Jesus told me.”

He rolled his map and paper up and stepped away from me, backing up, saying, “You figure it out.  You will and you will know what to do.”

He turned and disappeared into the crowds.  Cicily said, out loud, what I was thinking; “Now that was weird.”

Marfy mirrored the thought, saying, “weirder than the fake creatures.”

I didn’t know what to say and so I shook my head and said, “Hey, he’s crazy, remember, somebody told him my name, okay.  Come on, the live creature tent is over there.”

The entrance was guarded by a huge man with yellow skin and slanted eyes; obviously from the Western Seattlia Volcano Tribe.  He wore suspenders and no shirt, revealing muscles bulging out like fat cantaloupes under his skin.  His hair was long and black in a pony-tail.  He held a long spear with a rag wrapped around the handle.  Next to the guard was a slim older man with a white mustache as thin as a pine needle.  He asked me, “Tickets to the Live Beasts of the World?”

I replied, glancing at the spear holding Volcano man, “Three please.”

The ticket man said, coughing, “Uh, four thousand five hundred dollars please.”

I pulled out my money again and counted out the bills, saying, “This must be the best tent if the price is right.”

Marfy squealed as Cicily pulled her forward into the tent behind me.  The first cage was huge and smelled like rotting grass.  We looked into the enclosure through the bars and saw a hairy thing reclining on a piece of log.  The thing let out a snort and moved around behind the log until it finally came around and we got a good look at it.  It looked like one of the pictures I had seen of pigs but it was different.  It had four long curving tusks sticking out of its slobbery mouth and it had a pig nose, except much longer and slimmer.  The sign read, “Warthog,” and we saw some little ones come running from inside of the log.  The little ones squealed and shuffled to get closer to the big one.  Cicily said, “They are so ugly that they are cute!”

Marfy replied, “Ugly, yes, cute, no, funny-looking, definitely.”

I laughed but I thought about the book where I had read that people used to eat pigs.  I was pretty horrified that someone could cut open these grunting little ugly creatures and actually dine on their guts.  I didn’t voice my words out loud, Marfy would’ve probably gotten sick and then Cicily would have reprimanded me by saying, “Would you please think before you speak!”

We were watching the little warthogs playing when all of a sudden I heard people screaming and loud noises.  I looked farther into the tent and saw Montego and his wives running towards us, yelling at us, “Get out for your lives.  It’s loose! It’s loose!  Get out of here before we are all killed!”

Montego and his wives ran past us and we heard more commotion from down the hallway of the tent.  A woman with pierced cheeks ran towards us and yelled, “The King Cobra is loose!  Get out of here!”

I didn’t know what a King Cobra was but it sounded dangerous so I grabbed Marfy and Cicily’s hands.  I was about to turn and follow the pierced woman when I saw something slithering down the hallway towards us.  Marfy screamed and Cicily tightened her grip in my hand.  I had seen pictures of this thing in one of the books by Arty Stein.  It was called The Serpent and it was known for evil and death.  Why would The Bill Cherokee Wampus Troupe have a dangerous, evil creature like this I am not sure but I guess it was a big attraction.  This was one creature I would rather have stuffed and propped up looking fake and not alive.  The big serpent must have been over eighteen feet long and as it neared us it reared its head up, hissing like steam escaping the kettle pot.  The King Cobra flattened out its hooded head and flicked a long forked tongue in and out.  I was amazed that a long shiny creature without legs could move so gracefully across the ground on its belly.  I turned and ran, pulling Marfy and Cicily, screaming with me.

We ran out of the tent and people were already exiting the grounds.  The huge yellow-skinned Volcano man was taking orders from Ulrichard Sambooney, Master of the Black Arts.  I heard him shout above the panicked people, “Brog!  Do not let the Cobra get away!  Do whatever it takes!  Capture it!  Kill it!  Do not let it get past you!”

We were behind the big Volcano man when the huge crawling serpent emerged from the tent.  Brog, the Volcano man, turned and faced the oncoming monster King Cobra with his long sharp spear.  We stood back behind Ulrichard Sambooney, Master of the Black Arts, and a small crowd of the Troupe, midgets, acrobats, Yo-Lo singers and pierced people.  The King Cobra immediately raised its head five or six feet off the ground and flattened its wide hood, hissing loudly, an airy sounding roar.  The yellow eyes gleamed like twin orbs of evil.  Brog charged slowly in with his spear. The King Cobra slithered forward with lightning speed past the lunging spear tip and struck out at Brog with an open mouth and extended fangs.  Brog tried to dodge the striking serpent but the cobra struck him in the right forearm.  He grabbed the King Cobra with his left hand and tried to pull its fangs out of his arm.  Brog dropped his spear and wrenched the serpent’s mouth away from his arm.  The snake was too quick and too strong and shot forward, striking its fangs into Brog’s right cheek.  Brog screamed and fell down to one knee.  Ulrichard Sambooney, Master of the Black Arts, yelled, “The serpent’s poison is killing him!”

Brog staggered backwards and regained his feet with the eighteen-foot serpent hanging on to his face and coiling around his right leg.  Brog squeezed the thick snake’s body with both of his hands but the King Cobra pumped venom into Brog’s face as it bit him and dug in with it’s chewing jaws.  Brog weakened and fell backwards and began releasing his grip on the huge serpent.  The King Cobra let go of Brog’s face and uncoiled from his shaking body.  The serpent turned its attention towards us.  Before we could turn and run we heard someone shout, “Be gone, spawn of Satan, evil creature of Eden!”

A group of people dressed in white robes approached led by the old man with the papers and the map.  The old man’s eyes were blazing again and he looked more like a lunatic than before.  Marfy was shaking so badly I thought she might collapse from fear.  The snake reared its head before us and curved its body into an “S” shape.  The serpent seemed to be daring us to move.  The old man cried out, “Go back into your dark abyss, creature of evil and join your Devil god in the black pit!”

A white robed figure came forward and brought a large metal cross, three feet long, and handed it to the old man.  The old man held it aloft as the people in white robes stepped aside to reveal a short man with ink black hair down to his waist.  The smaller man had a gray beard twisted into two tornado-like curls extending down to his stomach.  He wore a robe of deep purple with a white neckline.  The short man walked forward purposely and took the metal cross from the old man, holding it like a sword before him.  I recognized the shorter man and I knew from the tattered yellowed picture my mother had kept in an old aluminum frame on the living room wall that he was my uncle, Jesus Garcia.  I had never met him but stories of his obsession with holy scrolls and his movement to overthrow the Government was known by all.  Now I knew how the old man had known my name. My uncle, Jesus Garcia, had known who I was all these years.  My uncle, the crazy man, who had been tortured and executed by the Government had kept track of me all these years.  He had come back from the dead or had he been killed at all?  The paper said he had promised to rise from death like a Phoenix and I guess he kept his promise.  Jesus Garcia stepped forward between the poised coils of the erect King Cobra and I.  He moved forward, slowly but deliberately, holding the cross like a weapon.  The gigantic serpent hissed like a roaring waterfall in the Wilds.  Jesus approached the big snake without fear, while my wives shook and trembled, dragging me back away from the snake and Jesus Garcia.

My uncle, turned towards me and said, “Stark, you know what to do.  You were born for this.” 

He reached into his robe and handed me the smallest black book I had ever seen.  He turned back to face the serpent and screamed, charging forward, “Back to Hell slithering foul creature of Satan!”

He swung the cross with tremendous force and the King Cobra attacked simultaneously, striking so quickly, that before the cross had been swung the entire arc, the serpent’s fangs were buried in my uncle’s neck.  Out of those clear skies a thundercloud rumbled and suddenly a flash of lightning shot down like fire.  The lightning charge struck Jesus Garcia holding the metal cross. The King Cobra injected deadly poison into his neck.  My uncle’s hair caught fire and the snake turned bright blue. The serpent was glowing and pulsating as electricity coursed through it.  The metal cross was thrown from my uncle’s hand and clattered on the stone walkway.  The lightning shock ended abruptly.  Jesus Garcia fell face down with a solid thump onto the stones, the big snake writhing and wrapping coils around his body.  Drifting wisps of smoke curled into the air from his body.  The snake stopped moving and a gasp of white smoke escaped from its open mouth.  I could see its wicked fangs, still dripping with yellow venom, as it died with its mouth open. 

People had returned and began circling around the dead man with the lifeless coiled snake, entwined around him.  I looked down at me feet and picked up the metal cross.  The metal was still warm from the electrical current that had run through it.  I looked at my uncle’s cross and the small black book I held.  My wives hugged tightly to me as the people in the white robes moved in a circle around us.  The old man came forward and said, “Stark?  You know?”

I glanced down at the black book and opened it to the first chapter and read it, “Genesis…”