Speculative Stephen

The following story was submitted to Mormon Lit Blitz, a writing contest with simple requirements: “Submitted works may be in any genre so long as they are under 1,000 words and designed to resonate in some way with a Latter-day Saint audience.” I didn’t make it as a finalist, but having read past submissions, I’m not surprised. There’s some stiff competition. But I’m proud of my story and want to share it.

A little word on the inspiration. There are some weird details in the Bible. This started as an exercise with my writing group. I got intrigued by it and expanded it into something slightly longer. I believe that we lose focus on the point of the Bible if we focus too much on trying to explain the extraneous parts of its stories, but it can also be enlightening to explore them. Enjoy!

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Even the cattle are wicked, the preacher thought as he pushed himself up from the pile of dung. The beasts lowed behind him, joining the laughter of the cow-herder. He trudged on, the city walls towering over the fields ahead. Fellow travelers avoided him. Two weeks on the road, then that dung-pile. Would anyone listen to him in this state?

He passed through the city gate. The soldiers glared but let him through. The noise of a market filled the air. “Figs!” “Jewelry!” “Linen!”

Then a scream, and a deep voice cursing, “Vermin. Stealing from me!”The preacher looked toward the cry and saw a fruit-seller toss a girl into the street. Those who didn’t step around glared at her, as if she were the dung that clung so persistently to the preacher’s tunic. He stepped up to the stall and offered a coin. The fruit-seller sneered but took it, replacing it with figs. The preacher turned but the girl was gone. He sighed, continuing on.

The preacher looked toward the cry and saw a fruit-seller toss a girl into the street. Those who didn’t step around glared at her, as if she were the dung that clung so persistently to the preacher’s tunic. He stepped up to the stall and offered a coin. The fruit-seller sneered but took it, replacing it with figs. The preacher turned but the girl was gone. He sighed, continuing on.

There were plenty more in need. Those unfortunates who drifted out of the shadows earned only kicks and spittle. The preacher handed out his figs, ignoring his rumbling stomach.

The city stretched on, full of temples, homes, palaces, markets. Eventually, the homes turned to tenements, the plaster crumbling, the streets narrowing. Bits of sunlight fought through the small gaps between buildings, casting long shadows from the crowds. It was time to stop. Finding an empty corner, despite the sweat, the dirt, and the dung, he declared: “In forty days, this great city will be destroyed! God went to immense length to deliver you this message. Heed it!” He didn’t mention how much he’d contributed to that length.

The few onlookers who bothered to stop scoffed. “By who? Your God? You’re just a dung-covered hill-dweller. Our city is vast! The world comes here to trade. Why would any attack it?”

He closed his eyes, holding back his anger. Even in this poor quarter of the city, the people held such pride! This is why he had run. No one here would listen. Yet his anger cowered as he remembered the storm and the belly of the fish.

He gestured to his tunic, “This dung is from your cattle. The same fills your souls. The cruelty of this city will be visited back upon it!”

Most walked away laughing, but a wizened woman approached. “I’m not sure where the filth ends and the man begins. Come, let’s clean you up.”

She turned and he followed. She had little, but he was able to wash and change his clothes. He preached to her and her friends. They shook their heads at his warnings, but the next morning she walked with him to the market, and he noticed she handed a coin to a beggar.  He smiled.

He was no longer smiling when he walked back to her home that evening. The woman took one look at him and gasped. “Oh, your eye!” Hurrying him inside, she nursed his bruises before turning back to dinner.

“Your kindliness will do no good. God will destroy this city.”

She smiled. “If so, why are you here?”

He sighed, “God wouldn’t let me be anywhere else.”

She chuckled, then lifted the curtain in the doorframe. “Listen.”

The neighborhood was livelier than it had been the first night. A few people gathered outside their homes, sharing a meal and laughing.

“Something is changing,” she said.

The next morning it was time to move on. He blessed her home, and she gave him a few morsels of food.

After a couple hours, he stopped near a temple, on a street busy with servants carrying water to rooftop gardens. He delivered the same warning: “God has decreed this city will be destroyed!”

“Is God jealous of its beauty?” one of the servants laughed. “Let him come down and enjoy these gardens.”

“Even they will burn,” the preacher replied.

Passing soldiers approached, grabbing his arms. “We can’t have you threatening your betters.”

He was thrown in a cell. When the jailer asked what for, the preacher warned of God’s wrath. The jailer frowned and nodded. He asked to hear more. Several days later, the jailer opened the cell and sent the preacher with a perfumed servant.

They walked to a nearby mansion, passing through a door and up to a rooftop garden. There a group of bejeweled aristocrats dined.

“You dine here while people rot in jail and starve in the streets!”

One man stood, his bracelets and necklaces jangling. “You were preaching in the southwestern quarter, weren’t you? Something strange is happening there. Fewer thefts, fewer brawls, fewer murders. Is this your whole message?”

The preacher held back his anger and began. “The Lord God sent me to declare that your city will be destroyed.”

“Why?” the bejeweled aristocrat asked

“For your wickedness,” the preacher said.

“And what is our wickedness?”

“You have not heard the people in their affliction.”

“What must we do?”

The preacher was dumbfounded. He had expected mockery, anger, dismissal. Not receptiveness.

After hearing more of his God, the aristocrat dressed in sackcloth, then said, “Come.”

They walked to the prison. There the aristocrat declared to the jailer, “Release the prisoners and give them these.”

“Sir?” the jailer said in shock as he took the bracelets the aristocrat pulled off his arms.

“These people have paid the price for their sins; it is time for me to pay for mine. This is a beginning. Tell them to go and sin no more.”

The day of the destruction of the city came and went. The city walls still stood. The preacher walked on the road home, his anger battling with God’s word from the hill: “Why should I not spare that great city?”

He approached a familiar bend in the road and heard the cattle lowing. He looked up and saw that they were wearing sackcloth. The preacher began to laugh, feeling his anger finally evaporate. Even the cattle repented.