jethro’s daughter: “(mess)iah”
by Allison Nelson
This is quite lovely, she thinks, and I could burn, she thinks, but I would burn for Him.
The Daughter of Zion has no name you would recognize, just another small- town girl, another Sarah or Rachel or Mary, one of millions, and she goes to an all- girl’s college, one of the Seven Sisters.
She has never known the touch of Man, but oh, has she known His touch, oh sweet lips like dates, and arms as thick as oak, her Messenger, her Intercessor before the Lord.
Him, she draws in the margins of her Intro to Biology textbook. Messenger, she thinks, before she comes home to His arms in the field outside her school where the sycamores grow thick and moss hangs from stones in a kind of springy carpet. He makes her a crown of early spring daffodils to match His halo, and he says, ALL IS WELL WITH YOU, MY PROPHETESS.
A bush on fire speaks to her in the tongue of the Lord on her way to afternoon statistics. She gives no pause and sends Him straight to voicemail. She does not like these long chats with God. She is only nineteen, and she can barely handle alcohol, much less the Cosmos Given Voice.
She’s with her sorority sisters, out on the town, when the purest white dove Creation has ever seen lands upon her palm. The dove says: “Sweetest Miriam, you should be readying for the End Times, not killing time in the arms of cheap liquor and wandering eyes.” Her sisters do not notice, do not hear the divinity right in front of her. Miriam, or Rachel, or Sarah, or Elizabeth, or Mary – she laughs and says “Sweet God, I am but a girl, let me have my fun!” and succinctly flips God off.
“You are no child, you have duty,” the dove coos, shits on her, and the shit is gold coins, and she uses it to tip the hazel-eyed bartender.
She comes home drunk and stoned to her hipster school. Michael, or Gabriel, or Raphael, or is he Uriel? he is waiting. Her angel of umber skin and blue eyes and radiant platinum-white hair.
YOU ARE NOT READY, MY LOVE. SOON THE DEVIL WILL SWARM SARAH LAWRENCE. SOON BEELZEBUB WILL BREAK INTO BARNARD. SOON MEPHISTOPHELES MARCHES ON MOUNT HOLYOKE.
“Stop shouting, Mess, I’m high as a kite.”
He puts on human skin, her Messenger, her angel who knows no sin, but sins with her. “Is this better, my love? I was here to deliver a reprimand from dearest Father, but all I want is a beer and the taste of your young mouth on mine.”
She gives him an expired Corona, hidden in a crate under her bed. “Being a prophet fucking sucks, Mess,” she says. “I’d much rather be a stripper, at least they get paid for whoring themselves out, and to men. I’m a whore for the Lord, a one-way ticket to Heaven for the masses, and a slap on the face for those bound for Hell. Hey, let’s dance to the Smiths. I could really use some Morrissey.”
Her angel smiles as he sips his stale beer. He cues up her old record player. Bigmouth Strikes Again. The Lord is her Bigmouth, so bossy, so annoying. He’s her Father, and he has a shotgun, so no human boy is holy enough for his Daughter. Only his most esteemed angelic Messenger comes even close to cutting it.
They dance, and they sing along badly, and they are both just nineteen but immortal, as old as Precambrian fossils, no, older than the Big Bang, when all that was, well, it was gaping silence.
God sends the Ark of the Covenant abreast on cherub wings to their bedside after they are done fucking. “Refresh yourself, Magdalene,” reads the note from their Father. “Read the Book, study the Covenant, be a Lady of Letters, Leader of the Lord, Holy Holy Holy-“
She tears the note in two and burns it on her angel’s halo.
“Maybe we can wait another decade before I start with this prophet stuff?” she asks Mess.
Mess smiles with burning teeth and a mouthful of violent violets. “Father will not like that, which means I think it’s a wonderful plan.”
“Perfect, Mess! Now let’s go to a coffee shop and read some Proust. I’m Jethro’s daughter, through and through.”
*Stay tuned for Allister Nelson’s next installment of Jethro’s Daughter next week.