The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension Read Online Free PDF Page B

Earth before reaching the age of thirty-three? What about them?”
    Herod was genuinely impressed. “You’ve stated our big problem on your own! I knew you were the right man for the job!”
    “So what’s the answer?”
    “See for yourself. Look straight ahead!”
    Tennyson blinked. “What?”
    It was a huge capstan rising directly out of the white ground. The figures that worked it were bedraggled angels. Their feathers trailed in the dust. There was no need for overseer or whip for they were driven by blind obedience and extreme dedication. As they pushed the spokes of the massive machine, they wound a thick cable around a spool. This cable was connected to the horizon and vibrated with a menacing note. Pausing for a minute, Herod observed the toil with a slight grin. He was trying not to enjoy the suffering. He jabbed his heels into the donkey again and they cantered away, following the line of the cable, reaching out occasionally to touch it and absorb the low note, the music racing up their arms and into their hearts. Now there were other sounds. A vile scraping from ahead and above this a pulsing giggle that was monumental and completely mindless.
    Something emerged over the horizon and approached them more slowly than they moved toward it, but their combined velocities meant it was soon recognisable. A baby. Forty feet high at least. And as ugly as any infant viewed objectively. It was sitting but its feet had been bound together. This is what the angels were dragging across Heaven. It stopped giggling and began bawling instead. Huge globules of acidic spittle, many containing curls of warm milk like tortured flatworms, flew out and hit them or passed through the frame of the donkey, breaking apart on the edges of its bones, causing it to slip and kick and foam at the fleshless mouth by default, for some of this saliva was driven into its chattering jaw. Herod steered the beast away; and the magnified infant and its pointless tantrum slid past harmlessly.
    Tennyson asked simply, “Why?”
    Herod replied, “There’s a good reason for this operation. There are too many babies in the nurseries. They need to be segregated, dispersed around the celestial territories. Too much mass has been gathered in too small an area. It creates surplus gravitational fields. Angels in flight have reported difficulties in maintaining altitude. The babies are behind it and they may even destroy everything.”
    “And this is now my responsibility?”
    “Don’t panic. You’re not expected to settle in fast. You’re the first Heavenly Safety Officer we’ve ever had. There are no precedents for your behaviour. We have to make it up as you go along.”
    “How can I possibly deal with giant immortal babies?”
    “Wait until you see one of the nurseries.”
    “Is that where we’re going?”
    “Yes. And at this rate, we’ll be there for feeding time. That’s a sight, sure enough. Gross!”
    “What will those angels do with that particular child?”
    “When they have finished reeling it in, they will cut open the top layer of the surface of Heaven and push it under the fabric of spiritual spacetime. Then they will sew it up again.”
    “Is that what all those irregular bumps are? Massive babies trapped inside the floor of Heaven?”
    “Yes, between the dimensions. In Limbo!”
    Tennyson thought he felt sick, but it was just a trapped laugh, an immense, bitter laugh, a laugh bigger than his utter mouth.
     
    It appeared that Heaven was creating itself around them, but they were simply moving closer into the finished regions. There were more towers and towns, roads and a few trees. The capital city was still a long way off, but a green glow on the horizon betrayed its existence, somewhere close to infinity. Healthy angels soared overhead. There were many other capstans, some in motion, a few abandoned. The moving hills also became more frequent; one knocked down a town as they passed. There were people too, all thirty-three