The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

against my eyes. “Church as high adventure.”
    â€œThe workers and their families feel at home here,” she told me.
    â€œUndoubtedly,” I answered, and nervously began inching my way out above the abyss.
    In the altar chamber the pews were hewn from spire rock, and lining the walls were occasional statues that I slowly realized were more of the blue, hardened heroes. Large, white candles flickered here and there, dripping wax and infusing the scene with a dim shifting light that was like the last few moments before nightfall. The altar itself was also a large flat boulder, and behind it hung an immense portrait of God as a miner.
    â€œWhen Father Garland gives his sermons do they represent the release of methane gas?” I asked.
    She did not seem to understand that I was joking and answered in earnest, “Well, he does refer to sin as a cave-in of the soul.”
    As she went off down a dark corridor to search for Garland, I stood alone, staring at God. According to the portrait, the Almighty’s physiognomy suggested he might be well-suited for digging holes and little else. To start with, his face was dotted with all manner of fleshy wens. There were hairs protruding from the ears, and the eyes looked in two directions. I could not see his general physiognomy as being influenced by the animal kingdom, but there were certain breeds of dogs and an entire line of simians he might have influenced. He held an axe in one hand and a shovel in the other, and he flew upright, long, blue hair streaming behind, through a narrow underground tunnel. He came at the viewer out of the dark with an expression that suggested there had been a recent cave-in in his overalls. Obviously, this was a scene from the Creation.
    This was not my introduction to the odd religious practices of the territories. I had read of the existence of a church, out in the western reaches of the realm, built of corn husks. Their deity, Belius, takes the form of a man with a bull’s head. These strange Gods scrupulously watch the miserable lives of the outlanders and sit in judgment over them. The illusory guiding the ignorant to some appointed Heaven beyond life where their clothes fit and their spouses don’t drool. On the other hand, in the city, there was Below, a man, and the Physiognomy, an exacting science, a combination of reality and objectivity capable of rendering a perfect justice.
    I heard Arla and Garland approaching down the corridor behind the altar and was about to look away from the portrait when it struck me I had seen that face somewhere before. My mind raced to think, but already Arla was introducing me to the Father. Making sure the thought was filed away for later, I turned and found before me an exceedingly small man with white hair. He held out a doll-sized hand with tiny fingernails sharpened to points.
    He showed us to his study, a small cave at the back of the church, and offered us a liquid derivation of cremat. We kindly settled for a glass of something he said he had brewed himself—an amber-colored liquid that smelled like lilac and tasted like dirt. I couldn’t stop drinking it.
    Garland’s voice had a strange whistling sound behind it that was most irritating. Combining this with his freakish little face and his aphorisms—“When two become one, then three becomes none and zero is the beginning”—he was hopelessly less than adequate. Arla, on the other hand, stared at him with a certain reverence that bordered on the unseemly. I could see I would be forced to shatter her perception of this pretentious runt.
    â€œTell me, Father,” I said, after we were settled in and he had said a short prayer, “why you should not be my primary suspect.”
    He nodded as though it were a fair question. “I already know the way to Paradise,” he said.
    â€œWhat about the fruit?” I asked.
    â€œPlump and sweating sugar every minute. I touched it, and it