Written by RF Wilson – The phone rang. They looked at each other. After the second ring, he got up. The name of the caller shown in the ID window was “Unknown.” He didn’t answer it. When he returned to the living room, she didn’t look at him but shook her head, as if in disgust.
The calls had begun the day after his letter had appeared in the paper.
I can’t believe you wrote that,” she had said. “Did you not have any idea that this kind of thing might happen?”
“I thought the paper might get some nasty letters.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me before you sent it in? Were you afraid I’d say, ‘don’t do it?’” When he said nothing, she added, “This isn’t only about you. I am really fearful for the time when they figure out that I’m your wife.”
It was now day three.
“You do know how insensitive the timing of this was, don’t you?”
“That was the whole point. People hang onto these superstitions, their belief that there’s a special place for them in some imagined heaven. That’s what leads to the kind of thing that just happened in Paris. The whole, ‘my god is better than your god’ thing. It begins with thinking that we humans are special. When, in fact, we are all here as a matter of chance! It’s biology! A fluke in the DNA.”
“I need a drink,” she said. “Want one?”
“Scotch.”
When she returned, she said, “Let me see if I get this. You think that if there were no religion, there’d be no war. Like John Lennon. Well, wasn’t it the atheist Nikita Khrushchev who said, ‘we will bury you?’ That had nothing to do with religion.”
“Oh, yes it did. Communism’s a very rigid religious doctrine.”
“Religious without God? Stalin tried to get rid of the churches.”
“Yes. But, they, too, believed their way was special. And they were ordained to take over the world. Another form of us versus them.”
“You lost me there. I thought the problem was that people believed in superstitions about how the universe was created, how humans are created. Ideas about God and the right way to think of God. I don’t see how godless-Communism fits in that.”
A crash, as the plate glass window shattered, stopped them. A scribbled note taped to a brick read, “This is what God thinks of you.”
“Oh my God,” she cried. “Oh my God.”
At least it wasn’t a bomb, he thought but was afraid to say, afraid she might lose it altogether.
“We’re going to have to move, aren’t we?” she asked.
“It’s not going to be that bad.”
“How can you say that? You’re talking about the awful things people do to each other in the name of God. They can do those things to us, too.”
“I’ll clean this up,” Herb said, “and call the police. And the insurance people. And, I guess a glass repair outfit.”
He came back into the room with a broom and dust pan.
She said, “Why don’t you let the glass people deal with that.”
She went back to the bar in the dining room. Herb swept glass away from the middle of the room, out of the walkway.
When she returned she said, “Really, Herb What did you expect? Telling people, this is what you get when you believe in God.”
“Well, it is.”
“You cannot go around saying these things, putting these ideas in a local newspaper in the middle of the Bible Belt. My, gosh, Herb. You are doing just what you are accusing other people of. Accusing them of being responsible for all the problems. So, they get back.”
“Because I don’t believe the right way.”
“Yes. Exactly. I mean, couldn’t you have reviewed that damn book for the newspaper or something. Made it clear these were this other guy’s, what’s his name . . .?
“Monod. Jaques Monod.”
“This Monod guy’s ideas.”
“But I agree with him.”
“I get that. And, apparently it’s more important for you to be right than for us to be safe.” She took a deep breath. “Do you expect people to just give up what they believe in because you write a letter to the editor?”
“Of course not. But we can’t be afraid to speak our truth, either.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. I am afraid. If that’s what they wanted to happen, they succeeded.”
She sipped her drink. “You know I love you, Herb. But sometimes you have very bad judgment about how and when to share your beliefs.”
Herb saw the lights turn into the driveway, turned the outside lights on. It was a sheriff’s car.
They showed him the rock and the note.
“And you think they did this why?” the deputy asked.
“Because of a letter I wrote to the newspaper.”
“A letter?” He looked at the note again.
“Oh. You’re the one doesn’t believe in God, huh?”
Herb turned to his wife and rolled his eyes.
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RF Wilson writes in Asheville, NC, where he lives with his wife, Beth Gage. He is the author of the novel, “Killer Weed,” recently published by Pisgah Press. His short story, “Accident Prone,” appears in the anthology “Carolina Crimes” published by Wildside Press, which has been nominated for an Anthony Award as Best Mystery Anthology of the Year.
