Ch 19: Seeing His Prophet

~
(David

I haven’t been to Prophet Henrietta’s office in a while. When I enter the waiting room, I’m immediately struck by the interior upgrades. The chairs are plush velvet on what look like gold-leafed legs. The floor is some kind of polished wood inlaid with gold designs. Water is cascading down one wall. The wall is a waterfall. Gold-framed pictures of Prophet Henrietta standing with various corporate and administration Leaders surround me. I check in with the attendant who seems to have been waiting for me and asks me to take a seat.

The waiting room is already mostly full of nervous-looking people, Infotechs, of various stations in life. No one is talking or looking at anyone else. Some appear to be silently reciting whatever it is they plan to say or ask of the Prophet. One young man is standing in front of the full-length mirror on one wall, primping himself. A couple of people look happy and excited, but overall the prevailing feeling in the room is dread or outright fear. I’m last in line, so I expect I’ll be here for a while.

Suddenly Henrietta’s office door bursts open with a not-unpleasant perfume smell. She greets me with the volume and expression of a theatre actor. “David! Oh dear David, my Godly man of Prophetic discernment! Come, David, come! I’ve been feeling a strong sense of the Prophetic all around me today. And now here you are!”

Henrietta is a striking woman, perhaps in her late forties, with hair dyed a shocking shade of violet that hangs in a poker-straight side-parted bob. She’s wearing a sheer robe of shimmering gold and black fabric over a skin-tight bright pink jumpsuit kind of thing, like athletic wear, and strappy high-heeled shoes. Heavy makeup. Her look is what I would consider severe. But what do I know about fashion? I just know that if you saw her out on the street, you’d wonder what she was doing there or what was happening, like, where are the cameras, is this a show on the feed?

She looks to the others in the room. “He interprets the Prophecies of the Holy Supreme Council!” One young guy quickly stands up, like he thinks he’s supposed to stand up.

“Hi. Yeah.” I give an awkward little wave to the others now staring at me. “I think these people were here before me, Prophet Henrietta.”

“Come in David! Enlighten me with your words of knowledge!” She grabs me by one hand and pulls me out of my chair and now we’re walking into her inner sanctum. Her other hand is arguably on my ass. We glide past the attendant who smiles at me and closes the heavy door behind us.

Henrietta walks around a massive, curved wooden desk and sits down. There is nowhere for me to sit. I recall that she has a habit of looking people up and down, ogling their bodies while talking to them. I always thought it was just a quirky nervous habit. But now her eyes travel up from my knees, and they pause on the area just below my belt buckle. Her eyes stay locked on my crotch as she addresses me.

“Yes David, please, share your knowledge with me!” Eyes on crotch.

I stand straight and look serious – I’m a scholarly professional, I’m presenting a serious request about a serious research project. Start talking David.

“Oh, uh, yes, Prophet Henrietta, thank you for seeing me on short notice. As I mentioned to Seth, I feel called, uh, by God, to start a research project that I’m sure will strengthen the Administration by fighting heresy and untruth.”

I outline my cover story about researching and debunking conspiracy theories, detailing the three-month timeline Seth tentatively agreed to pending her agreement.

As I’m still talking, her eyes finally break away from my crotch as she discreetly turns to her display, apparently scrolling through information. Is she reading her messages?

“Hallelujah!” she suddenly shouts, turning to look up at my eyes. “You have tithed so generously to my ministry David! She’s pointing at her display. You are truly a Godly servant of the Manifested Ones!”

“Oh, uh yes I try to do my part. As I was hopefully, uh, as I was saying..”

“Sabbatical! Amen! Yes, yes! Absolutely! I love it! Let’s do that David! Let’s fight for the Manifested Gods! Oh, praise them, David! I want to give you a Word of Knowledge now David, I want to anoint you for this new calling!”

She moves quickly from behind her desk and she’s on me. She grabs me by my hips. She is pulling me toward her while leaning back and looking up and down my body.

“I can feel the power David! Do you feel that? You are powerful! You are a god in the making! Declare it! Tell it to God so He obeys! I’m a god in the making!”

“I’m a god in the making,” I say. I’m instinctively pulling away from her but my hands are still at my sides. She grips my hips tighter and keeps pulling. she’s definitely rubbing herself against me.

“Prophet Henrietta, I…”

“Shhhh….can you feel the anointing now? Feel it, it’s flowing!” Her eyes are rolling back and she’s speaking in tongues.

My hands are on her hands now and involuntarily they’re gently trying to hint her hands off me, and I’m saying “thank you Prophet, thank you, praise the Manifested Gods…”

There’s a small knock on the door. I expect Henrietta to let go of me but she just says “Yes, come in” and continues pulling me to her and speaking in tongues.

An assistant pokes his head in and says, “Uh, sorry to interrupt, Prophet Henrietta, but you have a scheduled meeting with Logistics Hub in um, three minutes? I waited as long as I could, sorry…”

He looks at me. “Oh! David! Hi, I’m Julian, don’t know if you remember me, you guest-lectured in my theopolitics class…”

“Oh, yeah right Julian, hi, how are you, alright?” I feel my face light up red with embarrassment as I continue, ridiculously, to wrestle with Henrietta who is still pulling on my hips and muttering with her head thrown back.

Suddenly Henrietta lets go of my hips and I stumble backward, catching myself against the wall.

Julian and Henrietta laugh, so I laugh too while straightening my trousers.

“Well, it’s nice to see you Julian, I hope things are going well for you.”

“Yes, very well, thank you David, hope to see you again.”

“Bye David!” Henrietta bounds out of her office, following Julian as she tells him in a completely professional monotone that my request is approved.

Everyone in the waiting room looks disappointed as Henrietta leaves, and the office attendant shows me out the door.

Standing in front of the lift, I exhale hard. I’m trying to shake off the physical sensation of what just occurred. It’s no big deal.

It’s all set. I can just send Seth a note and he’ll get final approval. And then I start my work. This whole situation is insane. Is it even real? It’s too late to second guess it now. Have I just quit my job? But with pay, for now?

Harrington

A message from one of my Administration assistants. Informing me that Seth at the Central Data Hub has approved a request for a sabbatical from their Senior Prophecy Analyst. It requires my approval as a formality. Oh, this is David, corrupter of my loyal servant, Kade. David is taking a sabbatical to work on a research project. Debunking conspiracy theories. Sounds strange and wonderful. Some kind of survival gambit as things fall apart at work. The clever ones always squirm around like this without getting themselves in trouble, for a while.

Oh, it’s Prophet Henrietta! I see she’s approved it. She’s a real treat. The poor man.

I would not have even have looked at this request normally.

To interfere in any way would be a corruption of the Protocol, which does not exist and about which I know nothing.