Life of a Vice Patron Saint

Autumn, a girl from a village in post-World War 3 Forgiven Land, she comes face-to-face with the Savior, but the Savior isn't what she expected.

Prologue

I remember walking into those doors thinking, “What do I have to lose?”

It’s ironic, because I gained so much that year, and I ended up losing almost all of it, and never have I regretted one thing after I walked into those doors, because that is how I learned. In the end, I didn’t get the perfect life, I didn’t get the guy, or the lovable personality, or the revenge. It turned out, I didn’t need any of those things, all I needed was myself. And I truly believe, the only reason I got to keep myself was because I walked through those doors that late summer afternoon.

Chapter 1: Forgiven Land

“Stop doing that Autumn, you’ll get acne if you keep touching your chin, stop,” my Mother said, pulling my hand away from my chin.

“Okay Mother,” I said.

“It’s a good thing God doesn’t judge on looks, like everyone else, for your sake at least,” my Mother said.

“Okay Mother,” I repeated.

I looked at my Mother, why did she think I was so freaking unattractive? She wasn’t exactly a glorious beauty herself, she looked like she hadn’t slept for days most of the time. The perfect Christian daughter my Mother wants is something she will never get, unless she adopts Emily as her new daughter.

“You know, Autumn, I always thought you were… well, but now you are a beloved servant of God, I love you, and I am so proud,” my Mother said, “Mary Rosemont can stick up this up her, and her fake daughter’s, a*s. She ain’t going to met Deus.”

I laughed; it was so funny when my Mother acted like this. She had this made-up competition in her mind between Mrs. Rosemont and her. She hated Mary Rosemont ever since they were school girls, and she hated her sixteen year old Daughter, Anne, because Anne got to play one of the lead Angels in the Church Christmas pageant each year, instead of me. I couldn’t care less about being an angel in the play, but for some reason, it was a big deal to my Mother, and she was looking for someone to blame. Personally, I thought Anne was okay.

And yes, I was going to met Deus. Deus, the grand and holy Leader of the Forgiven Land. And I was summoned to meet her; to meet her was the most amazing honor. For meeting Deus was the closest thing to meeting God himself, because Deus was the Virgin Mary reborn, she came to Earth with God’s word. After hell was about to swallow the whole world, because of all the sins of Atheists, technology, and materialism, God changed his mind, and decided to give humans another chance, so he sent Deus to us. Deus brought God back to us, us the sinners. And not only that, she still keeps the Demons of the rest of the world from us, us the saved ones.

I probably heard that ten times a day, my Mother, my teachers, my friends, even my little Brother repeated that to me. Secretly, I doubted it, I doubted Deus, I doubted the whole bible, and I even doubted God. I was smarter than to tell anyone that, no one else had doubts, they all prayed, worked, and gossiped, that was everyone’s life. That was it, that was life, and it killed me.

My so-called friends, Emily and Ayla, were so different from me. Emily was my Mother’s favorite thing in the whole world; Emily was a small girl with beautiful flowing brunette hair, and bright blue eyes, she was slightly below average in brains, slightly above average in looks, loved to blab about stuff like weight and boys, and was a good Christian girl. And my Mother adored her. Ayla was small as well, with straight brunette hair, and gray eyes, she was about average in brains (average isn’t very high where I come from, just saying), about average in looks, and was always surrounded by boys. Both Emily and Ayla were planning they’re future families, in fact; Ayla was sixteen and already engaged. Sixteen was the average age to get engaged. Ayla’s fiancé’s name was Liam, and he was probably the stupidest and laziest person I knew.

Emily and Ayla made me miss Tabitha tremendously. Tabitha was my childhood best friend; we were probably closer than best friends. Tabitha was smart, but best of all; she was an outcast like me. She always kept her light brown hair in a braid, she had sharp blue eyes, and she was skinny and tall. Then she was summoned to Deus’s Grand City like me, that was a year and a half ago, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since. Ever had a time where you missed and hated someone? That was how I felt about Tabitha.

I wished that Deus was summoning me because she sensed that I was miserable, and that she was going to put me to some mission that I could start a new hospital. It was my dream to be a doctor, and to go further in medical science. It was my dream to help that old man living next door to the church with his severe arthritis, to tell the woman living down the street that her daughter’s cough isn’t just a harmless cough, to examine to the man next door why he’s getting migraines. As much as I despised the life I had, I wanted to help the people that I knew, maybe just to help them, or maybe to prove I wasn’t as useless as they thought. The thought of proving them wrong, was the happiest thought I could muster.

The reason that I spent all my time learning about health was another thing that made people stay away from me. That, my nature of being aloof, my Father, and my somewhat obvious disconnect to God was why people stayed away from me. People made to sure to say: “Just because your Father went straight to hell, doesn’t mean you have to too” to me all the time.

My Father, John, killed himself when I was six, and my little brother, Andrew, was about a year old. My Father was an angry, pathetic man, at least when I knew him. Sometimes, I feel like we’re a lot better without his sad, angry-at-the-world attitude on life, but that’s only when I’m in a sad, angry-at-the-world, mood. It’s doesn’t help my case that I look almost exactly like him, I got his wavy blonde hair and his pale complexion, oval face, small nose, height (he was seven feet, 3 inches, and I was 6 feet, 11 inches by the time I turned sixteen) and since I have a bit of a melancholy personality, my Mother calls me “Little John” sometimes, and it’s probably the worst thing she could call me. I think the reason it bothers me so bad is because I know it’s true. Andrew feels like he got cheated out of a Father, but that’s only because he never really knew him, if he knew him, he probably wouldn’t feel that way.

The thing I am most appreciative for my Father is that he didn’t look like pretty much anyone else in the village, so I don’t either. Probably, 98% of the people in the village, had brown hair, grey or blue eyes, and a medium complexion, from years of inbreeding.

Andrew looks like my Mother, straight brown hair, tired grey eyes, and tan skin, except he also got my Father’s small nose. I’m glad no ever guesses that he’s my brother, because my little brother is one of the trouble-makers of the village. He’s the kind of kid who chases girls up and down the streets, steals, and doesn’t do his chores, but for some messed-up reason, it’s cute or something to adults. That’s because he’s a*s kisser, and he’s got an army of friends, my Mother wishes I could have more friends.

Something I had that no one else had, not even my dead Father, was my purple eyes. My purple eyes were my favorite part of my face; they made me believe that I was special, not special like the girl who sat by herself in a corner of a crowded room with her nose in a book about dangerous tumors, special like the girl who would make something of herself someday. I wished those two girls were the same person.

The rickety car shaking again brought me back to the present, and I looked out the window. I saw the green fields outside, and all the people harvesting what were probably strawberries. The teachers in school loved to brag about how the Forgiven Land was the last fertile land on earth, and how successful the agriculture was, but if that was true, why was everyone so poor?

The Priest at my Family’s church, would say, “God loves the humble and the poor.”

Was this God’s idea of a second chance? This didn’t seem like a chance at all to me. the Priest would say, “Deus protects us from sin, not suffering. God wants us to suffer, so that we can spend eternity in heaven, He is testing us.”

In school a few weeks ago, we had to write an essay about how we planned on glorifying God when we became adults. Emily and Ayla wrote about being a good Wife and a good Mother, and going to Church each Sunday. They both got As, like every other girl. There were female teachers, but they usually became teachers because they’re husband died, and it was expected once you were widowed to give daycare or be a teacher. The boys wrote about getting a wife, having kids, and working as a farm help, a builder, or even sometimes a doctor or teacher, and going to church on Sunday. I wrote about becoming a Doctor, and researching science more, nothing about a husband, kids, or church on Sunday. I got a D, and a talk with the teacher about how I should think about my priorities. He wanted me to rewrite my essay.

There were no choices and most teenagers where too stupid to question it. Tabitha wanted to be an artist, she was a great artist, she would draw over all of her papers, and she would draw pictures for just about anyone that asked. Shortly after my fourteenth birthday, she talked to me less and less, and then one day she told me that she had outgrown me, that I was stupid and childish, and that she didn’t need me. I cried for what felt like hours over it, and the next day I found out that she had gone to the Grand City. That didn’t make me feel any better; it just made me believe that she was better than me. My Mother made sure to inform me that she always knew that Tabitha was no good. That didn’t make me feel any better either. I’ve spent the year and a half wishing that wherever she is, she’s miserable, like me.

The car stopped suddenly, and I realized that we were at the gates of the Grand City. The gates definitely suggested that something breath-taking-ly grand was behind them. The kind of gate that made you feel really small. The only gates I saw on a daily basis, were short chicken fences.

A boy my age who lives on my street, his name was Philip, and he threw rocks at his Mother’s chickens. When I was little, we used to throw rocks at the chickens together, then my Father died, and he stopped talking to me. After that, I used to watch him throw rocks at the chickens, and I finally understand that when chickens make that crazy sound, it doesn’t mean that they’re having fun.

I still sometimes watch him throw rocks at the chickens; there was something about him that made it so easy to watch him. Maybe it was the way that he made absolutely no sudden movements. He usually just stood there for a long time, with no expression on his face. Then he would rub his eyes, and walk inside his house. He did this almost every day. He did this like a chore, like his Mother said, “Philip, it’s time to go out and throw rocks at the chickens!”

The way he acted seemed like something an old man who lost his wife and family would act, not a relatively handsome seventeen year old boy who lived in the wealthiest family on the street. At school, he would just sit there and look down, he never looked at anybody or anything, and he just sat there and looked at his hands. Philip and me aren’t that different actually. One day, on his Birthday, I brought him a rock; he looked at it, and then shoved it into his pocket. He said nothing.

“Oh my sweet Jesus, Autumn,” my Mother said, probably never seeing something so big in her life.

“Out you go,” the car Driver said, as he motioned me out.

My Mother gave me a long hug, and whispered in my ear, “Don’t stay away from me for too long, I love you, Autumn.”

I could’ve started crying right there, but I didn’t, “I love you too, Mother. Goodbye.”

I stepped out of the car and into the pleasant late summer air; my Mother always told me if she had another Daughter, she would have named her Summer. I think that would have been tacky.

The gate opened, and I was whisked away into the Grand City.