Fiction
Clapper
(Part 1)
Monica Cheru-Mpambawashe
M
iriam clutched the specially
branded little exercise book
that all church members used
to record the day’s lesson in sweaty palms
as she watched the prophet walk towards
her. She just knew that he was coming
straight to where she was standing. Today
was her day and as the spiritual father
had promised, all would be well. Amen.
The prophet’s helpers cleared a path
through the clamoring congregation to
ensure that the man of God reached the
lucky faithful who were destined to be
saved that day. Their menacing bulk
ensured that no inopportune supplicants
interfered with the prophet’s walk.
Heretic opponents suggested that the
real purpose of the phalanx was to ensure
that the prophet only dealt with planted
acolytes and not random people whose
ID numbers and stories he had not had a
chance to memorize.
Everyone was hoping, praying that it
would be in front of them that the man of
God would stop. For when he singled you
out for the personalized application of his
divine powers then all your troubles were
over.
This was the church of instant miracles.
The prophet had declared that the days of
waiting for God to answer through snail
mail were long gone. Those times had
been discarded into the dustbin of history
along with the missives written on guava
paper and dictated to rural teachers by
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illiterate peasants wishing to beg for
some money from their sons in town.
The God that the prophet served
communicated at fast Internet speeds
and provided instant answers. And he
constantly proved it as each week he
worked miracles. It was his job to deliver
miracles. The ever swelling crowd of the
faithful had lost count of the number of
desperate people who had received their
miracles right in front of the congregation.
Gone were the days when people
labored on Earth, blindly hoping for just
rewards in heaven. Jesus’ claim to being
the only way to the father for Christians
had been discredited. The new teaching
was that if anyone went to the Father
through the prophet, they would receive
their rewards here and now.
What was the point of being promised
a place in heaven in the afterlife when
currently your needs and wants were
all of an earthly variety? In this church
blessings were parceled out in immediate
measurable material success. For the
prophet’s God was a God of abundance
and instant miracles. Alleluia!
There was the man who came in on
an ambulance stretcher escorted by a
frantic doctor who kept on insisting that
the patient really needed to be returned
to the life support system in the ICU of a
private hospital.
The prophet invited the doctor to walk
up to the podium and tell the gathering
what ailment the bedridden man was
suffering from.
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It took the doctor a full ten minutes
to list the man’s debilitating afflictions.
And at the end the doctor emphatically
stated that there was no hope of the man
ever becoming ambulatory. The best he
could hope for was continued expert and
expensive medical attention.
The prophet calmly walked to the
patient. There was a deathly silence in
the congregation when the prophet raised
his hand. He stood in silent prayer for
endless minutes. Against the doctor’s
loud protests, the man of God unstrapped
the dying man.
The gathering held its combined
breath when the prophet lay his hand
on the man’s forehead and in loud voice
proclaimed, “In the name of God I order
you evil spirit to vacate this temple of the
Lord. Go now, I bid you!”
For a full minute the prophet and
the patient were joined in an apparent
struggle against the evil spirit. They
prophet stood firm while the patient
seemed to be going into convulsions.
The doctor made a half-hearted attempt
to reach his patient and was deftly
stopped by the prophet’s hefty helpers.
Their bouncer-like looks and behavior
had led to unkind observations among
the unholy that the man with a direct line
to God appeared to harbor an inexplicable
fear of his earthly brethren.
Of course none of the faithful were
swayed by such blatant blasphemy. It
was just yet another manifestation of the
devil’s determination to destroy the faith
April 2013