The Reincarnation

Tracy Jones was an unhappy young woman. She had wandered through her sixteen years hopelessly searching for a sign. All her friends in her MCA Bible Study group had gotten their signs – or so they said. Why hadn’t she found hers? She was a good girl. She didn’t sin. She prayed. Why had God not chosen to reveal Himself to her?

The devil, that’s why, she thought. The devil and all his little imps. They circled her, trying to get her to do things. She heard them, but never gave in. She never listened to them, loud as they were, haunting her virgin ears. The things they said, the things they told her to do. I need to be saved from them, Tracy prayed to God each night. Why won’t You save me? Show me a sign?

Finally, this morning, Tracy thought she had gotten her sign. This morning she had woken up with a calling in her head. It wasn’t just in her head, though. She also felt a warm tickle in her chest, right between her virgin breasts, where a tiny silver crucifix dangled from a chain around her neck. She thought it was a sign from God to come to Him. Why God wanted her to take her parents’ car and drive to Him, she didn’t know. All she knew was that to get to the place where God wanted her to go, she had to drive herself.

God wouldn’t want her to hitchhike, would He?

Juliet Ward was a hugely fat woman. If she could be called a woman. She was only fourteen, but looked to be about thirty. She had rolled around her short life compelled to eat everything she saw. The sicknesses that followed her binges she hated. But they didn’t stop her when she was eyeing up some food.

Now, for what she thought was the first time in her life, she wasn’t hungry. She had even tried to eat out of habit, but couldn’t stomach anything she tempted her mouth with. Maybe it’s finally over, she thought. Maybe God was going to forgive her for eating His creatures. Chewing up His pigs, and swallowing His cows. Maybe God had something for her to do other than eat.

And all the money she stole. Maybe God was going to forgive her for that as well. It wasn’t easy getting meat these days, and to fund her habit she had to become a thief. Over the years she had stolen money from her father, from her mother, from baby sitters, from anybody she could. Yesterday was the worst, though, she thought, eating it raw right from the case at the supermarket.

She sneaked – what sneaking was possible for someone her size – down to the garage, and stood there staring at her father’s car. Her knees ached under her girth. She knew she should sit down, but where? She walked over to the driver side door and opened it. Her knees sighed with relief when she eased, more like plopped, into the driver seat. Now what? she thought.

Daddy had left the keys in it. Wasn’t that funny? This was his prized possession. Why would he do a thing like that? He had forgone college to buy the car, and it was still running all these years later. Juliet didn’t know how to drive, but she had seen her father do it enough times that she thought she could if she had to. Suddenly, she felt like she had to.

Under the layers of swaddled flesh that wrapped her frame, she felt something. A warm, ticklish feeling. It was talking to her, telling her to do it. To drive Daddy’s car.

She complied with its request.