Renaissance

Condensation dripped onto the gleaming black marble floor of the papal bathroom, sending ripples across a pool of sudsy bath water which shimmered in the reflected light of a thousand candles lining the similarly black marble walls of the cavernous chamber. Pope Danzig reclined in his sunken bath and gazed upwards at the clouds of steam and incense partially obscuring the bas relief frieze depicting The Fall of Man in, for dramatic effect, black marble against his bathroom ceiling, and sighed, allowing his eyelids to droop as he contemplated the recent demise of his foe.

Word of Beefheart's death had reached him within moments of the martyrdom of the entire VII Fleet at what would come to be known as the Holy Battle of Port Salut, and had come as something of a disappointment. That his arch enemy should die an ignomineous but swift death due to a mechanical failure rather than a slow, agonising death at the inquisitorial hands of Mother Church Inc. pained Danzig. Oh yes, he had spent many years yearning for the day he would get medieval upon Beefheart's wretched blasphemous self, but now that day would never come.

Instead, His Holiness would have to satisfy himself with the knowledge that even now Beefheart was being tormented by a screaming horde of flaming demons and would, as a blasphemer, suffer this fate for all eternity. Of this, Pope Danzig was absolutely certain. Contenting himself with this image Danzig allowed himself a smile as he reclined a little deeper into the perfumed waters of his bath and felt his right hand slip beneath the water of its own volition. As he closed his eyes and listened to the steady drip, drip, drip of moisture falling from the tip of a black marble serpent's tail over head, he thought back to the day the Holy Spirit had revealed the Real And Wonderous Truth Of God's Creation to him during his formative years at the Sacred Heart seminary on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in his native Free Democratic People's Republic Of Azerbaijan, on the outskirts of the Eastern Conurbation of Greater Moskva.

At the age of six, he had been a willful child, given more to thoughts of games with his fellow students and whether there might be goat sausage for dinner again that evening, than to instruction at the hands of Father Mallory in “The Evils Of Moral Relativism Within The Church”. On one fateful morning, an hour into his first class on what promised to be a particularly glorious spring day, Father Mallory had spied the young Danzig, seated at his desk by the window, gazing in wonder out to sea at the first tentative glimmers of sun edging their way over the horizon into a dawn sky of a breathtaking inky blue.

Without breaking pace with his dictation to the class as a whole, the good father strode silently toward young Danzig and, simultaneously siezing him by the collar with one calloused shovel of a hand while clapping the other over the startled young boy's mouth, he hoisted Danzig from his seat and carried him legs flailing over his classmates' heads to the rear of the class.

“We see from the decline of the Greeks how the profligate filth of homosexuality,” sneered Mallory, kicking open a wooden chest at the back of the class, “is an abomination to Our Lord Jesus Christ.” He dropped Danzig into the box, driving him down with both hands, forcing him into a foetal pose within the confines of the chest, while intoning, “and must therefore not be tolerated by the Church in attempt to appease the heathen politicos who wallow in their own wretched faeces.” He slammed the lid on the chest before, scarlet faced with spittle flying from his lips, concluding with a flourish, “For the sodomites shall be burned and shall have the flesh ripped from their bones for all eternity!” With this, Mallory freed a rusty iron padlock from the brass loop on the chest's front, flicked the lid's tag over the top of it then rethreaded the padlock and squeezed it shut.

Inside the box, Danzig lay frozen in silent terror. He heard the snick-snack of the padlock closing, followed in quick succession by the twin rifle shots of Mallory's knees as he rose arthriticly and continued his dictation while pacing the class. Fearful of making any noise and atracting his master's wrath further, Danzig gently pressed his shoulder against the lid of the box. A sliver of light appeared along the front edge and a tiny influx of air replenished the already depleted atmosphere within his wooden prison.

For seventeen hours, Danzig lay curled in near total darkness. For the first twelve hours, he had listened intently as the classes continued without him and tried desperately to follow lessons, lest he be tested upon his eventual release and found lacking. At 6:00pm, however, the class emptied for the final time that day as the students filed off to evensong and Danzig was left alone in the dark with his terror, his only comfort the dull boom of the seminary clock striking every quarter hour.

As the clock struck eleven, this small boy lay locked in a wooden chest in the darkness of an empty classroom; oxygen starved, terrified beyond words, in deep shock and unable to comprehend what purpose his punishment would serve or even what had brought such horror to befall him, his mind ended its struggle. Finally, as the last echoes of the seminary bell faded, a single tiny sob escaped from the confines of the box but went unheard in the empty room.

Reclining in his steaming sunken tub, Pope Danzig recalled how the Holy Spirit had come upon him during his imprisonment, how over the next seven hours God's Truth had been revealed to him in all Its majestic glory, and how he had Father Mallory to thank for being instrumental in his epiphany. Danzig relaxed further, sighing deeply as his eyes closed and he stretched his arms over the side of the bath, the familiar rush of warmth spreading upwards from the root of his being throughout his body. He felt the spark of holy light within his soul grow and rise within him and relished the sensation, knowing what would come and glorying in the anticipation until, unable to hold it within him any longer, the light exploded out of him and he felt his soul soar upwards into a brilliant blue sky. Barreling around as he rose, Danzig was filled with the unspeakable rapture of the true believer as he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. Wondering at the majesty of God's creation and his own part within His Ineffable Plan, Danzig flew upwards with arms outstretched as a cucifix, bathed in the radiance of the Holy Spirit's brilliance.

Then, in a voice as old as the Earth and as glorious as the sun, the Spirit came upon Danzig and spoke two words which so stunned him as to stop his ascent in its tracks.

HE LIVES

In a moment the full weight of these words fell upon Danzig and he realised how sinfully full of pride he had been to presume his enemy could be bested so easily, how negligent in attention to his duties as God's instrument upon Earth he had been to allow himself to be outsmarted by the wiles of the evil one. With this realisation the sky about him turned to fire and he plummeted downwards. Down, down into a yawning black pit from which rose screeching toward him a host of demons. With a bone splintering crash the first hurtled into him and still he fell. Demons swarmed about him, thrusting him from one to another while clawing at his flesh and screaming foul curses upon him, and still he fell. Clouds of sulphur billowed around him, the flesh on the soles of his feet began to char and still he fell, screaming and thrashing helplessly at his attackers until one dealt him a stunning blow to the back of the head and he was engulfed by darkness.

Danzig awoke to find his bath water cooled and his hair matted with congealed blood. A warm glow was spreading from his feet and up between his legs and, lifting his head gingerly from the marble surround of his bath, his gaze fell upon a young altar boy trembling at the taps, eyes averted from the papal nakedness.

From beneath heavy lids, Danzig watched as the figure knelt with cassock sleeves rolled up, one arm planted firmly on the edge of the bath for support, while swashing hot waves along the bath with the other. Intent on his task and yet eager to finish and leave as soon as protocol permitted,the boy frantically circulated the hot water along the length of the bath until, swashing a little too hastily, his hand brushed across something unexpectedly firm beneath the water's surface.

Horrified, the boy snatched his hand back and straightening looked agape at the pope for some indication of what might come next. Slowly, a smile formed across Danzig's lips. He tapped the talon like nail of his right index finger on the edge of the bath for a few moments before slowly rasing his hand and beckoning toward the boy. Fear rooted him to the spot but Danzig nodded, continued to smile and beckoned again. The boy inched forward hesitantly, all the while Danzig smiling at him beatifically and nodding with eyes glazed and half closed until, level with his chest, the boy stopped. Unsure what was expected of him, the boy lowered his gaze and so didn't see the muscled arm snake out and clamp a calloused, clawed hand around his throat, powerless to resist as it dragged his head beneath the water.

Danzig continued to nod dreamily but did not allow himself to relax until the struggling had ceased, and even then waited for another few seconds before tossing aside the limp young figure and leaning forward to spin the elegantly machined gold tap shut. As he reclined and water spilled across the floor of the bath chamber, Danzig allowed himself a satisfied smile.

Yes, we must all be brought to account for our failings, Beefheart, he thought, and this time there will be no escape.