"Wen Spencer - Rituals for a New God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spencer Wen)

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Rituals for a New God
Wen Spencer
Madeline was working on her new sculpture, Struck by God, when she first sensed the prayer. It
spread a disquieting need through her, like hunger. She put down her acetylene torch, peeled off her
safety goggles and work gloves to wander out of her barn workshop and into the house.
Her husband looked up from his monitor as she meandered into the kitchen, hand tangled in his hair,
tugging absently as he studied manufacturing schematics of his newest patented invention. "What's up?"
"Don't know." She opened the refrigerator, frowned at the contents, closed the door again. "I think
I'm going to town."
She went out to her '52 Ford pickup, classic despite the many rust-through patches, parked beside
the cinderblocks on which it used to rest. On the first try, the engine groaned as if the battery was dying,
but she turned the key again, willing the truck to start. The engine caught, shuddered and settled down to
a rough purr.
The prayer was so faint, just a nagging urge to go someplace and perhaps eat, that she could have
ignored it if she'd known. It was her first time answering a prayer, though, and thus she didn't recognize it
for what it was. So, despite the fact she didn't have any money in her pockets, nor the desire to stand as
someone's deity, she went.
As she drove, she pondered her sculpture. What was wrong with it? She had struggled for days
now, trying to give form to her inner feelings. She conceived it as a massive gleaming bolt striking a small
fragile figure. Somehow it wasn't working; there was no inner identification to the whole or any part of it.
The road, the Ford, and the niggling prayer-borne desire took her south toward Pittsburgh with its
sprawling suburbia. Where the farms and stop signs gave way to red lights and custom homes, the burnt
offerings snared her tight.
The smoke traced "Please" across her senses. "Protect us" whispered the cooking meat. "Hurry,"
murmured the spilt wine. She paused overlong at a red light as it turned to green, recognition on her,
trying to resist. The blare of the angry horns behind her, and the call of the prayer, turned her off the main
road into the maze of artful turns and high priced cul-de-sacs.
When she arrived, however, she wasn't recognized.
She pulled the pickup up to a carefully manicured lawn of a contemporary ranch house. Frost
whited the grass to the winter-brown edge. In the asphalt driveway, before his open garage door, a man
stood grilling steaks, a bottle of her favorite brandy in hand. He eyed her battered pickup suspiciously.
She turned off the engine, and the old truck rattled and shook before settling down to rest. She sat,
listening to the ticking of the cooling engine, wondering what she was doing here. True, she wasn't the
most devote Presbyterian. She always viewed organized religions, their rites and rituals, as creations of
men, often more interested in controlling their flock than defining God. She believed, though, in the one
God, All Mighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. Believed it to her core. So why was she here? Why was
this happening to her?
It occurred to her that perhaps she had caught scent of the grilling meat, followed the smell, and
mentally twisted things in some crazed notion that she was summoned. Being crazy certainly was more
believable, a natural occurrence which occurred often, and didn't challenge the fabric of reality.
The man glanced in her direction, and poured a dribble of the expensive brandy onto the coals.
Flame woofed upwards, searing the beef. "Come!" it cried to her, and she was halfway out of the truck
before she realized that she was moving.
"Can I help you?" The thirty-something man, worn to premature gray, he seemed caught between
embarrassment and wistful hope.
 "I felt you calling." She waved a hand toward the grill, the spilt brandy, and the burnt offering. "I
think all this is meant for me. Do you need some kind of help?"