Bats in the Belfry

Martin bent his head and seemed to meld with his weapon. He pressed the rifle butt tighter into his shoulder. He closed his left eye, and with his right, sighted through the 16x44 mm tactical scope. His short graying whiskers tickled with static electricity against the hard-plastic stock.

The podium in the center of the newly constructed stage leaped into focus and appeared so near he felt he could reach out and run his thumb along its smooth wooden edge.

God's love was as strong at this moment as any Martin had ever known, and he felt like laughing, or dancing, or maybe just praying as the warmth of God's love spread through his lean body. He continued to breath slowly and carefully through his nose so as not to fog the rifle scope.

Now came the far away sound of thousands of syncopated, angry voices as the Lezbos marched with their signs and their banners along Lincoln Avenue. The sound rose from the square and Martin opened both eyes and looked south south-west where a gathering mass of highly-distressed women let it be known that they were far from happy about something or other, and weren't going to stand for whatever it was much longer.

Across the square at the elevated stage a fat woman walked quickly toward the podium. She gave the microphone a brief tap with her index finger.

She said, “Could I have your attention...” her words were high-pitched and tinny and warbled upwards from the street to the eighth floor abandoned shoe factory where Martin knelt by the window.

The woman said, “Thank you for your support...” and the crowd cheered and waved their signs higher.

The fat woman spoke rapidly in short bursts of quick sentences. She then turned with a dramatic sweep of her right arm directing attention to a young woman who was now marching in her man's clothes and her cowboy boots toward the microphones. The signs and the cheers of the crowd rose even higher from the crowd. Martin watched as the young woman thanked the fat one and took the microphone off the stand and held it in her hand.

Martin closed his left eye. He played the cross-hairs across the lesbian's forehead and then down over her face. He was shocked at how young she looked. How pretty.

Her voice rose and her words seemed to grab hold of him with her passion alone. She was saying something Martin could not hear, for he was no longer listening, but what she was saying was strong and defiant and musical. He didn't know why she had chosen to sin so fully, but sin was on her, and in her, and God wanted this pretty woman to die. Nothing goes unpunished for long.

Martin whispered, "'If now I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your own possession..'" He squeezed the trigger and the center of the pretty woman's forehead exploded into a red mist.

A quick duck of his head, and Martin was crawling beneath the window toward the door. At the door he stood to his feet. He removed his rubber gloves and put them in his pocket of his brown corduroy coat. He knew he had just changed the world for the better. What he had just done would not make everything right—but it would make everything less wrong. He knew this. It was The Truth and he knew it. And as he walked without hurry down the back stairs he heard the shrieking sounds of frightened people, and he continued to know it.

714 Words