Gods Go Begging by Alfredo Vea Read Free Book Online

too high. They had overreached. The women had erected an amazing fortification to fend off attacks of loneliness, pessimism, and failure.
    “You can’t tempt God like that,” they said. “You can’t raise a temple that high.”
    “Fire from heaven will strike you down,” said an old retired minister. “His fire will strike you down.”
    Theirs had been a castle. All the local serfs could build their homes next to it, find comfort in its presence. Yet this grand, imposing fortress had been so easily breached. the people on the hill would shiver for months at the very thought of the two lovely women, torn and sundered by a mysterious God. They would avert their eyes whenever they passed by the Amazon Luncheonette. They would shoo away the memory the way they shooed away a house cat that has brought home a suffering bird.
    “Rock breaks scissors,” the dumbfounded would say. “Stupid kills beautiful.”
    “You see”—a mother would wave a finger at her two young daughters—“you can’t go getting above your raising. You can’t go being what you ain’t.”
    No one on the hill would admit it, but what they resented was the death of hope.

    “There is evidence of trauma about the vaginal opening of Jane Doe 36. I note some tearing and a small laceration just above the perineum. There is marked swelling and redness of both the labia majora and minora. I see no evidence of semen or any other fluid; however, I am swabbing the vault now for testing. ”
    After a few minutes of labeling plastic bags, the chief examiner returned to his microphone to sum up.

    “Evidence of sexual assault is present. Cause of death: penetrating gunshot wound to the head. Conclusion: homicide by criminal agency. ”
    The chief examiner turned off the overhead light and the microphone and mechanically removed his gloves and mask. He used his lab coat to wipe his brow. This had not been a good day. He had shared a secret with someone whom he had never even bothered to know, and the fact embarrassed him. On days like this, his days in the military seemed idyllic. As captain of the graves detail in Da Nang, he had gone for whole months at a time without speaking with a subordinate.
    He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a large tube of Super Glue that his assistant would use to close all the openings and replace all the reflected body parts on both cadavers. The mortician would do the rest, unless, of course, there was to be a cremation.

    “There is no evidence of sexual assault in or about the vaginal vault of Jane Doe 37. ”
    The assistant turned off the microphone at his station. After he had weighed the brain and entered its weight on his protocol, a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “You know,” he said in a strange tone, “consciousness is a weird thing. People who are blind, deaf, and dumb are most certainly conscious. There is self-awareness even when physical sensation ceases. Even dreamers with no external stimuli are aware of themselves as an embodied being.”
    It was a continuation of an ongoing conversation he’d been having with the chief examiner. It was always a very one-sided conversation. The chief medical examiner wasn’t much for small talk.
    “I’ve read somewhere that the basic level of self-awareness might be sustained by as few as five neurons firing in harmony within the cortex or the corticothalamic net.” He looked closely at the folds of the brain as he spoke.
    “Out of billions, just five neurons are enough to keep the pilot light on! Is that what conscious life is, just five harmonizing sparks? Is it possible they could be listening? Could they be watching us cut them up?”
    The assistant looked around for a response, but the chief medical examiner had already discarded his gloves and left the room. He was on his way to the parking lot and dreading the drive home. His wife would he sitting in the front room, waiting up for him. He had heard the assistant’s question, but he had long ago