The Fifth Commandment

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Book excerpt

Chapter One 

     Christina didn’t like the sensation of freefalling from the sky. No visible threads were holding her above her parent’s suburban home in Normal, Illinois. The feeling reminded her of a roller coaster ride going haywire, except she had feathers lodged between her front teeth making her think maybe she had eaten the contents of her pillow and entered a disturbing nightmare. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a dream at all but some kind of spiritual journey. Guilt, made her think she deserved all of it and more. This wild shot through the sky had turned her into a freefalling piece of space junk or the embodiment of a twisted piece of penance as punishment for her transgressions and mild but slightly evil, teenage thoughts. Whatever it was, her current situation had her corporeal body whirling through the atmosphere at a horrific and unpleasant speed. Needless to say, no one heard her screams.

     As she fell, she tried making sense of the immense ordeal that had taken control of her life in the most unusual ways. Her everyday reality had become some kind of paranormal or existential situation that had evolved into recent encounters with strange people, new places, religious icons, angels-- possibly demons--intent on literally turning her world upside down. There were no fantasy castles, wizards, goblins or magical spells to make her think she read it in a book. There were no unicorns, rainbows and tiny trolls from fairytales that might have lodged into the crevices of her imagination. Nonetheless, screaming felt so much better than trying to figure things out. “Help…I’m sorry…for…everything….” As she gasped out the words, she began to remember how everything stemmed from that one day. The day she wore her ripped jeans and had a fight with her mom about how to dress for school. Thank goodness for friends, she had thought, punching in Molly’s number.

     “Oh my God, my parents are so weird. I just can’t take it anymore,” she had said to Mollie who lived like a spoiled princess in Bloomington with her poodles and ballet classes.

      “Yeah, I know how you feel,” she replied, trying to sound like she could relate. “Where’s your Mom from anyway? She has a cute accent.”

     “Cute? Blech. There’s nothing even vaguely cute about either one of them. I wish I had different parents. Normal ones like yours….” That was it. The moment she uttered those words her life had changed. All of her friends had told her they had wanted different parents, it was a typical conversation starter and something to text message or blog about. Meanwhile, her throat felt hoarse screaming and praying to different saints, while feathers lodged in her throat. Was this supposed to teach her a lesson? Had she learned anything? “I’ll be good…I promise….” The wind tore the words from her mouth as she clung to her purse above Redbird Arena and Epiphany Catholic Church. “Oh my God…can anyone hear me?” Panic filled her as she looked out over the foggy horizon dotted with tiny clouds. “Please…help…if anyone up there can hear me?” she yelled to no one in particular, as the Amtrak to Chicago drowned out her voice.

     The irony of living in a town called Normal seemed to be obvious to everyone but Christina’s ethnic parents. Everyone, even her whack-job of a drama coach knew that nothing was “normal” in Normal. The town was like a giant crossword puzzle with tricky question marks tossed in to keep everyone guessing the truth. How normal is Normal? No one knew all the hidden abnormalities, but the obvious things stood out like an infected and blistering boil. Most ‘normal’ towns with shops and taller buildings for example, called the central area, ‘downtown’ rather than ‘Uptown’ as in Normal. Weirder still, was that America’s only Mitsubishi manufacturing plant was turning out SUV’s with the help of Mollie’s rich mom. As if Mollie’s mom couldn’t just stay at home, playing with those spoiled, curly haired dogs, she had to go to work and flaunt her fashionable wardrobe all over town. And why would an Asian car company put a gigantic auto factory in a place where women outnumbered men? Do women like building cars better than men? Is it all part of some mysterious irony? Is that why they go to nursing school at the University of Illinois? And why do women in her town of Normal outnumber men anyway? On top of everything else, her family had to be Catholic, which made things even more bizarre.

     Why did her Mom think wearing thong underwear was a sin? Or the fact that she wanted fashionably cool, torn jeans that covered all the important parts of her anatomy. Allegedly, these strategic holes invited boys to think bad thoughts. Didn’t boys think bad thoughts anyway? Her hems were inches longer than Molly’s dresses and her jeans were looser. She never brought up anything regarding a school play or cheer tryouts because she already knew the answer. Where did her parents get this stuff? They should have locked her in a basement and thrown away the keys.

     Even more bewildering was the local paper called The Pantagraph.  Wasn’t it hard enough selling newspapers during the internet age just being the Times or the Post? Was Pantagraph Latin, or was everything in the world turning Greek? Being a kid in the United States meant learning and respecting other cultures while maintaining your own identity. Bad enough she heard her mother praying and singing in her wildly complicated native tongue and if she tried learning one of those tongue twisting words, her mother scolded her, telling her to speak English! With Christina’s recent religious encounter looming above, the next thing she expected were lessons in Aramaic.