The Pillar Woman
Dyanna Cope, Short Fiction, Vol 3 Issue 1
Posted: February 1st, 2010 Track comments on this item via RSS
Abilene looked back.
From the hill it was nothing but a deep, black smudge, like God dragged a thick piece of charcoal across the land. The city was still coughing up clouds of oily smoke and, if she looked closely, she could see points of red flame beckoning for her to return.
She felt a hand press the small of her back. Her husband looked down at her sternly.
“Keep your eyes forward.”
Many accusations, appeals, persuasions rose up in Abilene’s smoke-scarred throat. Painfully, she swallowed her words. They would do no good.
Her daughters, with faces pinched from weariness and lips dry from thirst, walked alongside her. Their sandals had kicked up so much of the dusty red soil that the bottom halves of their once fine blue and green robes were saturated in it. Just yesterday that fact would have irritated Abilene to no end but after last night, after the angels, clean clothes migth never matter again.
***
There were two of them. They looked like men. Beautiful men, but something was unsettling about them. Their skin was flawless and beardless as a young child’s. Their wavy hair had that gleaming vibrancy as if the sun shone upon them day and night. Their robes appeared untouched, with no wrinkle, or fray, or speck of dust. Everything about them looked too perfect, too new. Yes, that was the problem. They did not need wings to stand out.
Lot met them at the city gate and had asked them to stay the night. They had insisted the streets were fine but not even angels could abate the man’s stubbornness. Abilene had no say in it but she didn’t really mind. The angels fascinated her.
***
Abilene looked at Lot and wondered for just a brief moment if he had other reasons for asking the angels to stay, reasons that had nothing to do with charity and everything to do with greed and lust. She pushed that thought as far back as possible. She would never know and did not want to think about it.
As they ascended another hill, the gentle morning sun began to give way to noon. She could feel sweat trickling down her spine, beneath her robes. The sound of their feet was all she had heard for a long time. She was quite certain the animals of the plains were not being shy but that humans were not the only ones that had met their death that morning by flame. And, the silence made it all the easier for Abilene to pick up the sound of shuffling from a few yards behind them. Her heart beat faster, as she listened to the rhythm of the steps and resisted the urge to turn around. After a few minutes of this she was certain it belonged to a human. What if it’s someone I know?
Abilene fell a couple paces behind her husband and turned her head just enough for a quick glance. A hot breeze danced along the ground, scattering dry soil and playing with the robes of a small, dark traveller.
“Abilene!” cried Lot. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and spun her around. “You know they said not to turn around. Are you stupid?”
Her heart beat roughly against her chest. “I saw someone.”
Lot tilted his head to one side and listened. “There is no one there. We need to keep moving.”
Abilene’s daughters kept their heads down and followed their father. Briefly, she felt a twinge of jealousy. They would follow you to Hell, Lot. Even after you offered them up to something worse than death.
***
Abilene had made a large dinner that night and invited her daughters and their husbands over. It was intended to be a celebration and sign of good will but it ended up being a grave affair. The angels would touch nothing but water or wine and spoke as little as possible. Her sons-in-law tried to quiz the angels about heaven and the afterlife but were not blessed with even a look from the mysterious creatures. The atmosphere in the house was far from cheerful, and when Abilene could respectfully excuse herself to wash the dishes with her daughters, she did so. They had barely started when the sound of fists pounding on the door began.
“Bring them out! Bring your guests out!”
The cries came from many voices, rough from carousing and drinking. Abilene, her family, and their guests remained quiet as Lot barred the door with its wood plank. The pounding grew harder and the door shook on its hinges.
The screamed demands became a chant in time with the beating of the door. The thunk of an axe began and the angels stood up.
“Open your door,” the angels said.
Lot was about to protest when the plank of wood slid out from its metal hooks. The door flew open.
The mob spilled in, filling the room with the sour smell of liquor and unwashed bodies. Abilene and her family slowly inched to the back of the room and watch with surprise as the men drew quiet, their lustful eyes busy caressing the angels. The angels did not seem bothered by this but instead seemed to be studying the men with a cold curiosity.
One man, pick axe in hand, peeled his eyes away and spoke. “Lot Hiranson. How rude it is to not share your guests with the rest of us.”
“My guests are no business of yours or anyone else, Mikloth.”
“Well, there are more of us who want to know them than you and yours so we demand it.”
Mikloth and his men made for the angels. Lot stepped in the way, his eyes wide and face ashen.
“No!” He looked around the room frantically before resting on his daughters that were hidden behind their husbands. “Have my daughters instead.”
Abilene let out a small scream of surprise and rage. Lot looked at his wife with defiance in his eyes. Their husbands had already ushered the young girls toward the stairs and claimed makeshift weapons for protection. Abilene spotted a large knife and took it in hand. She kept her eyes on Lot.
***
She heard the footsteps again. Defiantly, she stopped all together and spun around. The figure was closer this time. It appeared thin and short, like a woman. It smiled, and waved to her and she knew who it was.
“It’s Serah, my sister! She made it!”
Lot cursed loudly. Pinching the base of his nose, he spoke slowly, “Abilene, you have had too much sun. You are seeing things that are not there.”
Abilene glowered at Lot and her quiet, docile daughters. “She is real, she is right there! Why will you not look?”
“The angels said no man, animal, or plant in this sinful valley would survive. We are the only ones and we are not to look back!”
Abilene screamed, “How can a plant be sinful? Or a child, or my family?”
“Mother,” said her eldest daughter and placed a hand hesitantly on her arm.
Lot’s face turned red with anger. “You or I do not have the right to judge the actions of God.”
“Please, let us leave this place, I can’t stand it,” begged her youngest daughter, eyes rimmed red. Abilene could not stand to see such pain.
She squeezed both her daughters’ hands and continued, but her ears still followed the footsteps behind her.
***
When the men said they would not accept her daughters in replacement of the angels, Abilene felt a relief so intense that she fell to her knees.
“If not your guests, then we will have you, Lot,” said Mikloth, a slow smile spreading on his wide mouth.
Lot choked on the words that rose in his throat.
“Enough.” The room shook with that one word. The room grew silent, all eyes on the angels.
They still looked the same, perfect and untouched, cold and expressionless. But, at that moment, something about them terrified Abilene more than anything she had ever experienced or witnessed in her life. It did not feel like the fear a gazelle stares at the teeth of the leopard. It was a deeper fear she could feel in her soul. There would be no escape, no forgiveness, and no peace after death. There would only be eternal suffering.
Abilene heard a muffled whimper. She turned in time to see the men, eyes hollowed, cheeks streaked with tears, weapons hanging from slackened hands, shuffle out. She knew, without really knowing why, that they would go home, kiss their families goodbye and sit and wait.
“For what?” She asked and realized, with surprise, she was addressing the angels.
“The end of sin,” they both answered.
They turned to Lot. “By morning the cities of the plain and all life within it will burn,” said one of the angels. “Take your family and head for the mountains. Do not look back.”
***
But how could they not? Abilene had begged Lot to let her go and get her mother and sister.
“We have time!” She had cried as he tossed food in a sack and, for the first time in their long marriage, he had struck her.
She pressed a hand on her still swollen cheek and let the pain feed her anger.
Shock and fear had kept her silent as Lot pulled his daughters away from their husbands. He called them sinners but Abilene knew better. Lot was not from Sodom as she and their sons-in-law were. She understood why the boys would remain. How could they simply allow something to destroy their homes, their livelihoods, and their families? Her sons would do what they could to appease God’s fury or, if they failed, salvage what they could.
But she did not.
Abilene felt a wave of sickness as guilt reached its cold hand into her stomach and squeezed mercilessly. She gasped loudly and choked as she tried to hold back her tears.
There was a sharp crack behind her and, her heart rising, she turned around.
Two dark figures small and slouched and hazy from the ripples of heat along the sand, trudged up the hill toward them. One she still recoqnized as Serah and the other…
“Mother,” Abilene whispered. She could tell her family had stopped walking, as well but paid them no mind.
“Abilene,” Lot said. “If you do not turn around immediately we are leaving you here.”
Abilene said nothing.
“Then you’re no better than the rest of them.”
“Mother…,” whispered one of her girls.
“It’s okay,” Abilene said simply.
She could hear the sound of their feet scraping rock and sand ascending higher and higher into the mountains, further from their place of sin.
Abilene waited, tears thick with salt running down her sun-darkened cheeks, limbs grown stiff. She waited.