Communion

The Reverend Lon Whiteside stepped out of his car to stretch his legs at the Chevron station while waiting for his gas tank to be filled. he happened to notice that his neighbor, Franklin Skefield, one of his parishioners, was at the pump in front of him. The Reverend casually approached the open window of Mr. Skefield's car with a smile of friendly recognition and then opened his mouth to speak, bit it was birdsong that came out; precisely the call of the Maine yellow breasted thrush warbler.

The two men looked at each other in a startled awkwardness. The Reverend opened his mouth again and found himself articulating the high-pitched thrill of excitement he had experienced the previous night as his wife's hand had touched the tip of his penis. the sound of his rushing orgasm leaped toward his frightened parishioner. The shaken Reverend tipped his head politely toward Mr. Skefield and weakly escorted himself back to his own car. His small king of consciousness shook on its tiny island.

He pulled out of the gas station hurriedly and headed toward his church, intending to go over his notes for the next sermon, but he couldn't get away from what had happened. He didn't know what to tell himself. He frantically leafed through the index cards from his left hemisphere for a rational explanation, but could find nothing that reduced his anxiety, the terrifying suspicion that he was having a nervous breakdown, that he would begin hearing that dreaded phrase, 'Mental problem' whispered politely among the congregation. The Reverend turned on the car radio and scanned for the network news to distract himself. There was a presidential address about to begin, “...and the President has just entered the room flanked by his Secretary of State and is approaching the podium.”

There was a short silence and then he heard, “ladies and gentleman, the President of the United States.” Reverend Whiteside listened through another short silence and then heard the slight but unmistakable sound of a chuckle come through the radio. It continued and slowly grew into a louder, somewhat awkward sustained giggle, which then turned into a deep, uncontrolled, bizarre laughter, which grew in pitch and intensity into something maniacal. It had a quality about it that recalled something distant but familiar to the Reverend's startled mind. Then it struck him. It was the throated malicious laughter of the hyena. The radio interrupted with a message about experiencing technical difficulties, and then there was the sound of soothing background music.

The Reverend drove right past his church and headed home. He just wanted to crawl into bed with his wife's familiar body. When he arrived home, the lights were out and he quietly let himself in and then gratefully headed upstairs to their bedroom. He went inside and felt a rush of relief and then excitement at the sight of her laying on her right side, peacefully asleep. He took off his clothes, eased himself under the covers next to her, and placed his arm reassuringly over her, letting his hand fall onto her breast. A sound rose slowly out of his wife, a harsh, rumbling growl, a fiercely muted, threatening hiss,
feral, savage and wild.