War Backstory: Finding God

Amanda watched as the men in crisp white coats and emerald green pants lined the streets. “Mom he’s really coming! The Divine Patriarch is coming!” she shouted.  Her mother looked down at her with a proud smile.

“Thank you God for this. I never dreamed in my life that I’d see this man come to our community. The papers said he cared for us but I never believed it.” Her mother said, Amanda could tell that her mother was half talking to her and half talking to God.

“Oh he doesn’t give a shit about us even now this is more bullshit to get free press.” Amanda’s father said.

Amanda’s mother had her face twist into a scowl. She was in her early forties but when she got angry you could really see the lines on her face that years of hard living had inflicted upon her. “You. You’ll get this whole family declared unredeemable with talk like that. I half think it’s your lack of belief that got poor Hector killed.” She snapped at her husband. Amanda hated it when Hector was brought up. His name made her heart ache. His horrible death was something she’d never forget. Hector had died two years ago during the Week of Fire. Riots had broken out after the death of the Chosen, the man the Church had declared to be God Incarnate on earth. The young man they gave the title to was a scion of a rich family as the Chosen had been since the founding of Utopia. Tragically that young man died less than three months into his reign as Chosen. Combined with the previous Chosen only living for nine months before dying in a horse riding accident the nation of Utopia had spiraled out of control in the belief God had rejected them.

 Paradise the capital of Utopia and the city Amanda lived in had been in the throes of violence for months and finally it came to a head with hundreds of people being killed each night. The following week the Church promised sweeping changes, not the least of which was the removal of the men who had placed the previous two Chosen into power. The face of those changes was the man walking to the center of a makeshift stage. Vincenzo Elacqua was a tall man, clad in flowing green ropes with white trim. His dark skin was atypical even for his fellow Southern Islanders and his hair was short and curly with white mixed in with the black. Amanda loved his smile and how cheerful his face looked as he stared out at the crowd of cheering townsfolk.

                “Citizens of Paradise. I came here today to make good on a promise I made when the Church declared me to be the Divine Patriarch. That promise was to conduct a fair and open search of the young children of Utopia to try to find the next Chosen. To seek out and truly locate the spirit of God made manifest in a human being.  I have had visions and they showed me this street and you people inside it. Here is where I shall find the next Chosen. One of you here is God Incarnate.”

                Vincenzo paused for a moment and when he did a voice cried out. “Deceiver! Betrayer! Servant of Gent! You seek to break the circle! To judge us all!” the heckler was attacked by the men in white coats and beaten. Amanda shuttered as she watched the man get punched.

                “Don’t be so rough on him!” Vincenzo yelled. “I was told not to come here. That I’d face dangers far worse than a misguided man yelling at me.” He said drawing a laugh from the crowd. “But I cannot be swayed from my vision. I know God is here, God is inside one of you.” As he finished speaking his hand began to sway in front of his face. Amanda watched as his eyes scanned the crowd. “That young boy with the blonde hair in the all green outfit, bring him up here.” Vincenzo said and his guards moved into action finding the boy and bringing him to the stage. Amanda thought the boy a few years younger than herself and he seemed scared as he got onto the stage with the Divine Patriarch. The crowd tried to quiet to hear the whispers Vincenzo gave to the boy before motioning him to a group of chairs on the other side of the stage.

                This process continued as the Divine Patriarch would describe a child to his men and his men would get the child up to the stage. Amanda so hoped her brother Pablo would be called up to the stage. She admired him as being smart and pious he was the one who spent nights reading both the White Book and the Green Book to her.  “That beautiful girl. The one with the flowing black hair and the white dress, bring her up here.” Vincenzo told his guards and the crowd gasped, some jeered. Amanda had no idea that the Divine Patriarch was speaking about her till a guard reached his hand out to her.

                “Come with me to the stage.” The guard said as he looked at her. Amanda’s throat tightened, she couldn’t believe that this was even possible.  She worried that she’d done something wrong and had somehow offended the Divine Patriarch. Was it her dress? Should she have worn green? She nervously placed her hand in the guard’s hand and was led to the stage. She could hear the catcalls and outrage of some of the crowd as she walked up to the Divine Patriarch.

                Vincenzo placed his hands on her face, his hands felt softer than she expected. He knelt so that he was at eye level with her. “I see God in you my child.” He said with a grin that made her relax and feel at peace with what was happening.

                Amanda sat in one of the chairs with the other kids. “Why are you here? You’re a girl!” one of the boys shouted at her. It was the blonde boy who was first to be selected.

                “He picked me, same as you.” Amanda said.

                “Well it’s still wrong. No woman could ever be the Chosen. God isn’t a woman.” The boy sneered at her.

                Another boy and then another came up on the stage. Amanda could still hear some in the crowd insulting her and being disgusted at her being on the stage. She ignored them as best she could and she scanned the crowd. After a few moments she found her mother and father looking back at her, her mother practically being held up by her father. Her mother’s body shaking with sobs as she buried her face in her husband’s chest. Amanda felt so proud that she could make her mom so happy. Pablo waved to her and she waved back and then stopped wondering if waving wasn’t very Godlike or not. The Divine Patriarch had said he’d seen God in her and if he said it then maybe it was true and she really was the Chosen.

                “Please my friends can we have some cheers for these beautiful children who represent our great capital and our wonderful nation?” A loud wave of cheering came from the crowd yet Amanda could still hear people demanding she be removed from the stage. “Now my friends, I would like to bring these children over to me to have each of them talk to me about their favorite parables from the White Book.” Vincenzo gestured to the blonde boy behind Amanda and the boy walked over to him.

                Amanda watched as the two of them talked quietly, the crowd went silent as the stranded to hear the conversation.  She wondered which of the two parables she’d talk to the Divine Patriarch about. Hector’s favorite was the brave solider it was the one she and Pablo had read whenever they thought about him. Her favorite was the beaten runner because she loved the message of serving God no matter what. The blonde boy walked back to his seat and then the next child was called and then another.

                “Now I’ve heard many of you shouting your disproval with this wonderful young girl up here.” Vincenzo told the crowd. Jeers and catcalls were the response of some but the majority of the crowd tried to drown them out with cheers. “Young lady, please come here and talk to me.” The Divine Patriarch told Amanda and she walked to him. “What parable would you like to talk about?” he asked her.

                “I’d like to talk about the beaten runner.” Amanda replied, her voice as loud as she could make it since she wanted the crowd to hear what she was saying. “It is the story of the man who tries as best he can but he loses the race to another runner. He asks God why he was defeated when he’d dedicated his all his training and all his hard work to the service of God. Then an old man who was watching the race comes to him and consoles him. The runner begs the old man to help him understand why he was denied victory and the old man tells him that God does not reward one man with victory while all others are shamed with defeat. God does not play favorites when people enter into competition God merely watches us compete and is made proud by us giving our all in His name. I love this parable because it reminds me that God loves me even when I falter and fail, that God will always support me and watch over me as long as I try my best and do I call to honor Him. Nothing will ever allow me to stray from Him and to Him I pledge my life in service.” Amanda finished speaking and could feel tears pouring down her cheeks as she did. Vincenzo pulled her close and hugged her and she could hear much of the crowd cheering.

                “Blasphemer! Servant of Gent! Breaker of the Circle! Die! A voice shouted and Amanda heard what sounded like fire crackers. People started screaming and then she realized that somebody was shooting at the stage. One of the guards on the stage was sprawled out on his side, blood staining his white coat. Amanda dropped to her knees as she kept hearing more gunshots coming from all directions the panic made it hard for her to breath. She begged God to stop the violence, to make the people stop shooting.

                Then she was floating, she didn’t remember landing or how she ended up on her back. The world was now silent to her and everything was moving in slow motion it seemed. As she sat up she saw the Divine Patriarch laying on his back, three of the other children were also on the ground, and a guard near-by with his arm hanging limp from his side, as if he was about to fall off at any moment. In the middle of the five of them was a grenade laying on the stage.

                Amanda remembered the night Hector died, that grenade had been thrown into the house, she remembered the glass of their window breaking, her mother and father screaming out for Hector not to go towards it, but he didn’t listen, he’d tried to grab it and throw it back out of the house. He’d tried to save his family and died in the attempt. Mother had never let Amanda see Hector’s body, she kept everyone out of the room and father wrapped up Hector’s body as best he could. Hector died trying to save them. Amanda always remembered the smell of the room, of charred meat and gunpowder and it sickened her. She could smell it in the air now.

                She decided she would die then and there, to do as Hector had done before her and save others and the expense of her life. To die in the service of others is the greatest tribute to God one can make she reminded herself as she rushed to the grenade and threw herself on top of it. She waited for her life to end, to enter into the circle and be reborn, she hoped Hector would be in her new family and that they could live their new lives together.

                She lay on top of the grenade for some time without anything happening, she had accepted death but waiting to die was pure agony. “Child!” a voice cried “Child!” it cried again and she looked up and saw the Divine Patriarch sitting up looking at her, he had managed to get across the stage. “Come to me! Run!” he shouted. Amanda listened and ran to him. He pulled her down and held her close to him. “Guard! Throw that thing as far away from the Peabody as you can!”

                The closest guard took a deep breath and slowly crept upon the grenade and then grabbed it and threw it behind the stage away from the gathered crowd. It landed and then bounced before landing again. On impact the grenade exploded in the middle of the street, it’s shrapnel harmlessly bouncing off the walls of the buildings nearby.

                “Miracle!” one voice in the crowd cried out, and then another, then a chorus of them. “Sign from God!” “Ellaroth’s blessing!” and other shouts came from all parts of the crowd. Amanda looked into the crowd and saw them staring at her with worshipful gazes.

                “Tend to the injured” The Divine Patriarch called out to the crowd. “Even those who tried to kill me were our brothers no matter how misguided they were.” While some did heed his words too many in the crowd were still awestruck by the bravery of the little girl on the stage.

                It started as a rumble at first, only a few voices but then it grew louder and louder “Chosen! Chosen!” the mob shouted. The same crowd that had hissed and sneered at her only moments before now decreed Amanda to be God Incarnate. Amanda’s jaw dropped she felt numb inside as she tried to process what the crowd was saying. She turned towards the other kids on the stage a few of them had small wounds on their arms and legs from the first grenade that had gone off. The blonde child who had mocked her before now looked at her.

                “You are the Chosen.” He said his eyes red and tears streaming down his cheeks. “Forgive me for doubting you God. I’m so sorry, please don’t condemn me!” he said as he fell to her knees at her feet. Amanda turned and looked to the Divine Patriarch who was now standing behind her. She could tell by the look on his face that he was as startled and confused as she was by what was happening.

                The crowd’s chanting continued, Amanda continued to look at the Divine Patriarch. She felt something she had never felt before in her life. In this moment she had seized all the power in from the Divine Patriarch. If she desired it she could declare herself God and if he objected the mob would tear him to pieces. Her fear and nerves melted away and now her gaze upon Vincenzo was one of a leader looking at her subject and demanding him to answer her request.

                She could see the Divine Patriarch breathing hard, the moment was overwhelming him, and finally he looked to her and said. “What is your name, your full name my child?”

                “Amanda Panadero.” She told him. For the first time in what felt like ages she turned her head towards the crowd and they roared in approval.

               

The Divine Patriarch gestured for the crowd to quiet. “You cannot deny her!” one voice cried out before finally the crowd went silent.

“What we have seen today. This incredible act of selflessness and bravery by a young woman who risked her life to save me and so many others on this stage.” He paused as if overcome or unable to say what he needed to say. The crowd grew restless again with catcalls and shouts. Vincenzo spoke over them. “You all know what I say is the truth. This young lady, Amanda Panadero is the Ninth Incarnation of God on Earth. She is the Chosen!”

The crowd erupted in cheers and celebration. Her name echoed through the street as the people kept shouting. Amanda looked towards the heavens and hoped that Hector had been reborn and that she could meet him again someday and that he’d know that the example he’d set when he had given his life was what had turned his sister into God. The Divine Patriarch put his hand on her shoulder and she looked up towards him. “This is a troubled time, I fear the burden that will be placed upon you but I promise I shall do all I can to help.” He told her. The worry on his face troubled her greatly, but she turned away from him to look back at the cheering crowd and to let their cheer lift her spirits. She was God now and could afford to celebrate this day. The problems of Utopia and the world would have to wait for God to deal with them tomorrow.