Perpetua
1.
Only Perpetua understood what happened to the hog. The deafening rumble of the Harley disturbed the quiet contemplation of the nuns in the Benedictine convent house. Sister Perpetua alone embraced the hog. She knew it seemed wrong to ignore part of her monastic vocation — to revere silence. Instead, she cherished the motorbike’s chanting cadence, the thrill that burned through her body. To Perpetua, the Harley’s voice came from God. What else could explain her burning desire to seek it out, feel the wave of mercy it bestowed. She felt blessed by the Savior, so never confessed her peculiar interpretation of God’s transcendent calling.
When the summer heat shimmered, she boldly took another risk. Alone in her room, she removed the oppressive nun’ s habit and waited quietly by her window — chastely clad in demure, virginal underclothes — alert to every sound in the neighborhood that surrounded the convent.
Late one night she fell asleep in her chair until the distant sound of the Harley woke her. She strained to see through the darkness, hear its approach. That night the hog throbbed softly, and as it neared the convent it began to slow, coming to a stop not far from her window.
She could see the helmeted rider was looking directly at her. She silently left her room, glided out the front door, and slipped across the front lawn, ready to be embraced by the Savior. In the dim streetlight, she saw her face reflected in the rider’s black visor.
Perpetua ached to see the rider’s face, but knew she couldn’t ask. Would God answer her prayers? When the rider’s face was revealed at last, Perpetua shivered in ecstasy. The rider handed her the helmet and motioned to her to take a seat.
2.
Sister Perpetua held the helmet for a long time, her hands shaking slightly and then handed it back to the rider and said in a whisper, “Who are you?”
Standing before her was a woman — not that the Lord can’t be a woman, Perpetua knew. But why did her face look so familiar?
The rider got off her machine, took Perpetua’s hand, and led her to the nearest streetlight. She situated them so their faces were brightly lit, then positioned the helmet’s visor to act as a mirror. Perpetua glanced at the rider who was gazing at the mirror. The woman appeared to be close to Perpetua’s present age of 33.
“Behold,” the rider inaudibly conveyed through a series of pleasurable waves sent ripping through Perpetua. The nun looked in the mirror, and saw a single face — hers — until the rider made a slight adjustment to the angle of the visor. Then two identical faces came into view, and Perpetua wondered at the optical illusion, like the kind created in a carnival’s hall of mirrors.
Unlike the other nuns, Perpetua loved the crowds, dust, and noise of the county fair. She quickly slipped away from the fair’s multi-denominational chapel to head to the funhouse. The perpetuating visions were sinfully intoxicating, even though they were sometimes grotesque. The carneys let her stay as long as she liked. Her habitual appearance became part of the attraction they luridly pitched, drawing in customers who crept by Perpetua with shrieks and giggles.
Was her experience of the Savior nothing more than a funhouse maze of mirrors? What was the Messiah trying to tell her with this curious vision?
Just then one face in the mirror turned to the side, while the other looked straight ahead. Perpetua gasped.
The Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was her twin.
3.
But not a twin. For there was one difference between her and the Biker — an irreverence for silence. The Biker tossed her helmet aside, mounted her Harley, and gunned the engine. An apocalyptic din reverberated through the neighborhood, broadcasting lusty echoes off the nearby cathedral.
The Biker glanced at her discarded helmet and then eyed Perpetua with a challenging look. The Rider announced her imminent departure with another loud howl from her machine.
Lights flickered on inside the convent house and began to throw damning omens onto the lawn. Shadowy figures gathered behind the windows.
The convent door creaked open.
The Biker pulled her machine away from the curb. A moment later, Perpetua snatched the helmet and leapt onto the Harley, clinging tightly to her Savior. They fled into the darkness, the bike accelerating when they left the town.
They sped across the roller-coaster countryside, thrilling nausea accenting every transition from descent to ascent. They entered a narrow, twisted river valley as dawn curved through the coulees and lit the river bluffs and the towns. The bike swiftly stitched the winding seam of land and shimmering river.
At last, the Harley slowed and came to a stop along the main street of a tiny riverside village.
“Come, Sister,” the Biker said, taking Perpetua’s hand and leading her inside a cottage. Stilts held the back half of the house above a steep embankment. Just below the house, railroad tracks edged the riverbank; a wide expanse of water mirrored the empty blue sky.
“Put these on,” the Biker commanded, handing Perpetua duplicate sets of the clothing she wore. Perpetua shed her chaste lingerie and clad herself in biker gear. “Now go,” the Biker said, pushing her out the door and handing her the keys to the place.
4.
On the horizon stood every single sister from the convent armed to the teeth. In their alabaster hands they brandished clubs, bicycle chains, crucifixes ripped from the walls and sharpened on all points.
The vestal virgin apocalypse — their smothering cloaks flying and menacing weapons raised high — closed in around Perpetua. Mother Superior shot through their ranks, her black habit spreading behind her like expended rocket fuel from a missile.
Perpetua’s head dropped in customary obeisance until the animal smell of the black leather snapped her to. Her Savior stepped out clad in Perpetua’s demure former self as the nuns tightened their ranks. Suffocating darkness and stern faces blocked any escape.
The Rider clutched Perpetua’s arm and transferred the Savior’s supernatural power through Perpetua, shocking her heart and soul. Perpetua staggered back — the earth threatening to swallow her — as the mystical current hotly purified her being.
Dazzling light radiated through her every pore.
“Back you sinners!” Perpetua roared at the nuns. She sheltered her twin and withdrew a slender silver dagger from her boot, holding it high in the light emanating from her. Its brilliant reflection sliced first across Mother Superior’s throat and then spread its threat across the rest of the nuns’ throats.
The squadron of holy women fell back at the sight of the armed, vengeful woman with the otherworldly voice. All knew of the long line at daily confession. Even Mother Superior was impure: her online gambling had nearly bankrupted the convent house, her cover-up had almost cost her high position, but her appetite for dominance knew no bounds. She used her knowledge of the high cardinal’s undisclosed sex crimes to keep her power.
“The heretic must die!” Mother Superior cried, spinning her weaponized rosary to signal the charge.
5.
And die she did, but with each death followed a resurrection until the angels rolled the moon in front of the sun. The woman in white dropped to her martyred twin’s side, pressed her lips against her sister’s bloodied mouth, and inhaled her last breath. She wailed, her sorrow multiplying and transecting the wide river valley.
The warrior nuns — struck dumb by an eerie midday night and the resounding grief — littered the street with their dropped weapons. They collapsed like disgraced telescopes with shoddy lenses, shoved and pushed and fought with each other to climb aboard a fleet of awaiting school busses. Once inside, they clutched rosary beads and mumbled marian prayers to justify what they’d just done. The chorus lapsed into another recitation of holy excuses, their ugly victory yielding another vulgarity to deny.
Vengeful spirits flew in on the wings of innumerable birds of prey. Claws and beaks lifted the crimson-stained weapons and released them to bomb the departing vehicles. Even when the busses were well out of town, the punishing din of metal and stone hitting the busses, the war cries of the birds, and the beseeching screams of the nuns could be heard. At last the birds returned, circling the moon until it released the sun.
Inside the cottage, the twin removed Perpetua’s bloodied clothing, washed her body gently, and wrapped her with a pair of gossamer curtain sheers. After pulling her sister’s torn riding gear on, the Rider fastened an ironing board to the back of the Harley, and secured the lifeless Perpetua to it by wrapping several more translucent curtains around her and the ironing board until only Perpetua’s blood-drained face could be seen.
And then there was nothing left to do but douse the inside of the cottage with lighter fluid, toss in a match, and drive off as it exploded in flames.
6.
But the story of Perpetua spread, quiet as a church mouse, from convent to convent until one-by-one, nuns began to lose their composure, began straining to hear the sound of a single Harley prowling the neighborhood late at night. Their desires were answered by sleepless nights of seemingly eternal silence.
A search for the Rider commenced. Wanted posters bearing the photo of Perpetua’s face — the Rider’s twin — were tacked to church bulletin boards, printed in Sunday circulars. Every sermon ended with an order to parishioners to hunt her down. Church authorities claimed they wanted the anti-Christ brought to justice. Schools of study began to form under the auspices of the bishops and cardinals, new chapters were revealed in holy books.
While the debates flared, the nuns remained uninvolved. Should there be a following, they wondered? With no sign of the Rider, no one could answer the question. Who exactly was Perpetua? Had she been the chosen one at the time of her death, the Rider’s supernatural powers having transformed her? If that was so, perhaps Perpetua lived on in the form of the Rider.
Only Perpetua understood what happened to the hog.
Throaty thrumming — a cadence of basal moans — emerged from the convent rooms. This singing chorused first into a hymn of loss: the suppressed promise of unwitnessed women. Gradually it built, spilled into the hallways, out of the windows. Passers-by stood bewitched by the eerie music. The raw song swelled, echoed against the churches and cathedrals, disrupted services. Its persistent Harley heart-beat overpowered the sound of church bells, resounding through towns, frightening some, enraging others, but empowering many to join the call.
Nuns began to leave convents, suit themselves in leather, drive Harleys.
It was the only way to understand Perpetua, to understand what happened to the hog. Their one real chance to be embraced by the grace of the Savior meant being witnessed, witnessing. Salvation was in that empowering roar you owned atop a Harley.
