Speaking In Tongues

Bob and Donna don't quite know what to make of her. She's not Christian which makes them nervous and wary. That's the first thing they ask her as they gather round the oak dining table for breakfast. Ella arrived unannounced with Casey late the night before. Casey was a troubled young man when they first met him at the week-long retreat. Filled with demons, broken and in need of healing. A tragedy, really. Bob and Donna felt it was their divine responsibility, nay right, to lead him back to Jesus Christ, their holy saviour. Donna took him aside two days in and told Casey he was cursed, his whole family were cursed and destined to live out a life of great suffering and punishments unless he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour and learned to atone for his many sins, sins he wasn't even aware he had committed but which were cast upon him by the shortcomings and failings of his family; godless, adulterous, thieving heathens. That's how curses work, she explained. Casey was young, far from home, lonely and vulnerable. He felt abandoned and abused by his own parents and found surrogates in the fundamentalist ravings of this middle aged, middle class couple with their own dysfunctional brood from Olympia, Washington. Casey prayed. He washed himself in the freezing cold waters of a late August river. He learned to channel the spirit and began speaking in tongues. When he drove back up the coast he sold every possession he owned except his '86 Civic and Cannondale road bike. He packed up his car with the essentials, moved to the mountains of Burnaby and joined a Christian Reform fundamentalist church. His family disowned him. He met Ella at the supermarket shopping for bananas and mangos. A long coffee, a short walk, and three weeks later he finally broke down and said they could no longer be lovers. It was against his religion. Ella, being Ella, said it was nice while it lasted, lock the door on your way out and lose my number. He reappeared the next night with a bouquet of gerberas. She let him in against better judgement; the flowers really were spectacular. She woke at 4 am to the stillness of empty space beside her. Her phone vibrated on the floor. Casey's car had given up the ghost on his way to Long Point. How did she feel about a road trip.  It was 6 am. She drove through rush hour traffic, across the border, down the coast and found Casey stranded in a roadside truck stop with a carny crew parked in the back half of the lot. Ella drove them to Bob and Donna's hoping to find some respite; for his car, for Casey. Ella knows this is the end of the road. The damage is too far gone and she has no room for saving anyone else these days. As conversation stalled over stale store bought doughnuts and instant coffee, Ella excused herself from the room. Only when they heard the click of the door and Ella's car reverse from the drive did the three of them lift their heads from prayer and take in the room. As it was before, as it will be forever more, they were on their own now, living in the light of their lord.