The Modern Seer (excerpt from my novel)
Author's note: This is ther very begining of my novel, and I would really appreciate some feedback about how it serves to kick of a novel and if it creates any real interest.
“The world is ending,” said Peter, standing at the deacon’s door.
Deacon Abner, the mayor’s older brother, looked up in confusion. He knew that he had been fairly engrossed in his paperwork, but the rapture was just the kind of thing he expected himself to notice. Still, he wanted to double check, so he went to the window.
It appeared to be a typical, frozen October day. The simple white sun hanging over the mountains that surrounded two sides of the valley held no hint of ominous demonism and the cracked asphalt of the street appeared to be completely devoid of rapturous horsemen. There were, however, the Protestants returning from mass in nearby Lutherton, the cars’ tailpipes giving off plumes of transient smoke reminiscent of a horse’s breath in a wintery Scottish highland or Grimm’s kingdoms from fairy tales. But both of these places were as far away from Luckless, Colorado as the ancient world of Jesus and his apostles, of whom the Deacon gave homilies about each weekend or Mexico, a location which’s remoteness they were reminded of daily by the tide of “dark-skinned foreigners”. The locals even found Denver to be an exceedingly distant place, and a frightening reminder of the threat of Godlessness and Liberalness.
Still, the Deacon checked one last time to make sure that no one was ascending to heaven without him. Convinced, he turned back Peter and smiled. Peter did not seem at all assuaged. In fact, he now furrowed his brow with greater fervency.
Peter was under the impression that he had been named after Jesus’ closest apostle and the First Bishop of Rome. He thought he had been named as such to remind him to live with faith and selflessness. He had in fact been named after his grandfather, a miner, who had died when a tunnel collapsed, trapping him without food or water for three days. The world continued.
Every time Deacon Abner saw that man, he always felt the same vague surprise. It was the same feeling as he got when seeing an ageing actor in some old movie, the person suddenly becoming transformed into the person they were in their youth, yet keeping all of the reverence that comes with being a legend: the distant, untouchable quality being conferred onto someone too young to have yet earned it. It was enough to put Deacon Abner off ease, so he sat down and returned to his paperwork.
He knew that he would have to look back up at Peter’s shaggy face with the overgrown sideburns wrapping around his jaw and touching at the bottom of his chin. Back up at the honest, yet troubling eyes. Back up at the nose that focused all of the man’s questioning on a single point; the same nose that he stared up at every Sunday when this man asked him about God and the Church. He always thought the same thing: why would God overpower an honest face with such an obtrusive nose?
He finally looked back up. Peter stared at him. Deacon Abner cleared his throat. Peter blinked. “I don’t think that the world is ending,” whispered Deacon Abner.
Peter opened his mouth, but snapped it shut and turned his head violently, like a dog hearing a dog whistle or catching some far off scent. He took one glance around the room and unceremoniously left.
“How absurd,” muttered Deacon Abner
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