Code Cain - a take-a-turn story with Jon - he's in blue

A man of about thirty years saunters through the gilded doors of an LDS temple and stands before the reception desk, immobile and silent.

“Good morning, brother,” the temple worker says with a smile. He is holding out his ancient hand out for the recommend he expects the young man to proffer.

He does not.

Instead, the young man turns and walks around the desk towards the garment bay in back.

“Sir! Your recommend!” the white-haired man shouts feebly. He tries to get up, but falters. The thousand-year-old woman sitting next to him is alarmed too, but her only physical capacity to show it manifests itself in a couple of raised, wrinkly eyebrows and a pitiful gasp.

When the young man reaches the garment desk, he looks left, then right, then leaps over the desk, seizing a pair of large garments and dashing down the hall into an empty sealing room. The garment workers had only enough time to register his arrival and wonder at the audacity of it.

In the sealing room, the man undresses in a flurry and dons the white frock and pants, stuffing his black pinstripe suit and tie behind the small podium in the corner. Slowly, and with deep breaths, he exits. He peers down the hall, looking for any who might have pursued him, but he is alone.

He closes his eyes, conjuring the temple’s blueprints in his head, and works out his much-planned path to the celestial room once more. When he opens them, he sees a pair of temple workers ambling down the hall toward him, shuffling their malformed feet across the thick, clean carpet.

As if nothing were amiss, he approaches them.

“Are you two looking for that man who ran inside the temple without a recommend?”

The crippled couple nod slowly at him. “Did you see where he went?” one croaks.

The young man points behind himself, down the hall towards what he knows is the terrestrial room. “He ran that way. He was in a black pinstripe suit and muttering apostate madness! I hope you can find him and show him out.”

The workers look at each other with earnest eyes. “We will try.”

Then the young man leaves them to their search and continues on his way, deeper inside the temple.

When he reaches the doors to the celestial room, he finds no ancient ushers there. They must have left in search of the intruder. Thankful of this, he puts his ear up to the door for a better listen. Hearing the muffled mumble of the ceremony inside, he takes a step to the side and cross his hands in front of him. For the moment, he will pretend to be an usher.

The young man’s heartbeat slows as he stands in silence, interrupted only by the sound of his breathing and the quiet shuffled footsteps that betrayed the occasional passerby. He reviews the lines that he had written and rewritten, reciting them to himself silently. After what seemed like ages, the doors next to him glide open on well-oiled hinges and an elderly couple walks past him with a fleeting smile. The young man steels himself. This signifies the ending of the ceremony.

Intermittently, patrons begin to file out of the room, walking in a hushed and solemn march down the hall and toward the dressing room. He carefully studies each person as they walk past him, yet his expression remains a practiced mixture of somber and bored.

“How many people are in this group,” he thinks to himself as yet another couple, young and cheery, pass him through the grand white and golden doors. There can’t be many more people left, and she still hadn’t exited. His query is interrupted by the approach of the two ancient temple workers, hunched over by age in their slow approach. He grins inwardly and wonders what became of the search. As they approach, the young man puts on what he hopes is a compassionate expression and raises a hand in greeting.

“…still remember my first time,” one of the workers looks away from her companion, slowly, toward him and his raised hand. She seems flustered to the young man, but he puts the thought out of his mind for the moment.

“Was the intruder found?” He keeps his voice at a hushed and reverent tone.

The old woman’s companion—the young man assumed he was her husband—grins a yellowed smile. “Oh yes,” his bullfrog voice croaks. His wife reaches out and grips her husband’s hand in a tight squeeze and her knuckles crack.

The young man’s throat tightens in surprise and his next words come out in a squeak. “You did?” He quickly recomposes himself. “Well, that is a relief.”

The elderly lady gestures toward him with her gaudy painted nails: “Brother, what are you waiting here for? The session ended ten minutes ago and the next one won’t be passing through for another hour.”

“I,” he grasps for words as his mind races. Where was she? “…I was just waiting for any stragglers,” he finishes lamely.

The old man flashes another disheveled and discolored smile. “Why don’t we just pop in for a moment and make sure the room has been emptied?”

Before the young man knows what to say, a surprisingly strong hand grasps his shoulders and he is steered through the door and into a totally empty Celestial Room.

“No stragglers here,” the old woman says as she scans the room with sharp and intelligent eyes. The young man senses something is off. The older couple stand straighter somehow, their age no longer apparent. Their hunched posture disappears entirely, as they both finish their sweeping search at the same time, their eyes coming to rest on him. The older woman heads quickly, in long confident strides toward the door, which she closes swiftly. A bead of sweat trickles down the young man’s forehead as she snaps the lock in place with a loud “click.”

“Listen here you little cunt,” she begins. “MaryBeth wants nothing to do with you anymore. Give it up.” She stands, arms akimbo, facing him. The lights of the celestial room seem to dim as if the outside sky has suddenly turned to night.

The young man is frozen in place. He can only watch as the aged couple approach him on either side. Wonderfully and terrifyingly, the decades of time built into their frail bodies slowly dissipate, leaving behind the youthful visages of a man and woman no older than he. The irises of their eyes are a cobalt blue unlike anything he has ever seen, and their once-grey hair glows golden like the pre-dusk sun. Their rosy cheeks, hot with vitality and vigor, color their faces. Ceramic white teeth glisten behind their snarling lips.

“That’s not what she said in her letter,” the young man says.

Fiery anger swells in the temple workers’ chests. Their statures seem to grow before him. Thunder rolls somewhere far away, but it is the young man’s beating heart, threatening to leap out of him.

The temple workers take a measured step closer.

The young man takes a fearful step back. The workers are just far enough apart from one another that he can’t keep his focus on both of them, so his eyes have to dart between the two. It is like a deadly game of whack-a-mole, but in reverse.

In that moment of heated silence, the young man farts.

The workers, startled, look at each other and then back at the young man.

Another moment of heated silences passes.

The young man farts again. By this time, a raucous odor has billowed out and away from him and reached the temple workers’ noses. They are disgusted, but they do not show it.

“You putrid little man,” the woman says, finally wrinkling up her nose. “No wonder MaryBeth left you.”

The young man begins to weep. He crumbles, inconsolable, onto the floor. Despite the smell, the temple workers go to him and prop him up. Their eternal souls aren’t quite moved to pity, but it’s enough.

On the wall, the green light illuminates and the celestial room doors open. A new throng of temple-goers files in.

The young man looks up.

The temple worker’s eyes have returned to the stone grey and green they were before. Their hair, no longer yellow, are matted messes of black-specked steel. Their strong hands on his arms and shoulders are back to being crooked claws with cracking nails. They stand, falteringly, at the approach of the white-clad, green-aproned gaggle. The young man stands too. He wipes his face.

MaryBeth has entered the room. She casts a dainty glance over the room, her auburn curled hair bouncing gently about her shoulders as she does so. When her eyes reach him, they narrow to slits as her face contorts with anger.

The young man rubs his eyes, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Was this some religious trick? He surveys the eaves of the room, searching for a projector, cameras, lights, anything to explain what he had just seen. Bewildered, he straightens his clothes before casting a sheepish feeble wave in her direction.

She pauses momentarily, as if considering the gesture, before turning to face the doorway through which she had passed. Her outstretched hand is clasped by the much larger tanned hand of a very handsome gentleman before she turns back and starts toward the young man.

“Paul!” She spits the name venomously.

A whisper directly into his ear nearly makes Paul jump. “We will be waiting by the exit, please maintain a quiet and somber atmosphere so that others may feel the spirit.” Paul doesn’t turn—his eyes are glued to the approaching couple—as the two celestial creatures hobble away from him.

“Paul, what in goodness name are you doing here? How did you get in here? What…” she trails off.

Paul can’t help but appreciate her charming beauty, even as she fumes before him. He shakes himself, takes a breath and begins to recite his written apology and profession. He barely manages more than a few words before the tan man beside MaryBeth sticks a finger out to Paul’s lips and shushes him gently.

“Not in here, brother. People have come to worship. We must allow them that right.” As he finishes speaking his nose crinkles in disgust. He glances at MaryBeth who scowls at him before returning his gaze to Paul. “Did you fart?”

Paul, still dumbstruck from being shushed by a grown man in a white toga, does not answer.

The tan man glances at the elderly celestials, who sit in oversized cream colored pocket chairs adjacent to the door, pretending to doze. They nod, an imperceptible motion to any in the room apart from the tan man, and he throws his muscular arms around both Paul and MaryBeth, and begins to lead them toward the exit.

Paul glances sideways and studies the man. He is tall, at least six and a half feet. He has broad muscular shoulders and large arms that can’t be hidden under his loose ceremonial clothing. His chiseled jaw-line is clean-shaven and he has a dashing smile with perfectly aligned porcelain teeth. A short growth of chestnut brown hair is gelled flat to his dome-like head.

When he speaks his voice is deep and somehow makes Paul feel warm. “MaryBeth, it seems as though you will not be passing through The Trial alone today.” MaryBeth’s visage becomes glasslike and imperceptible.

“And thus it comes to pass.” Her monotone syllables make Paul’s skin crawl.

As they begin toward the exit, the elderly couple stir, rising slowly from their chairs to open the door for the entourage.

“Right this way Brother and Sister,” they say in unison.

“Where are we going?” the young man asks.

“Don’t you worry your little mind about that, boy,” says the female temple worker.

The young man and MaryBeth exchange quick glances.

The four of them make their way towards an unmarked door at the far end of the hall. The tan man has MaryBeth and temple workers have Paul, each on an arm. When they reach the door, the tan man takes a hand off MaryBeth in order to open it. When he does, MaryBeth wrenches free and breaks into a run. She takes off at a hot clip down the hall, turning down a corridor and out of sight.

Seeing this, and visibly annoyed, the male temple worker sticks his hand in his pocket and pulls out a black walkie-talkie. Ksh-“Code Cain. I repeat, code Cain.”

All around the temple, doors close and latches lock, trapping everyone inside. Ushers in every room begin the work of guiding everyone out the back entrance towards the parking lot. Many are still dressed in their temple garb, and more than a few protest at the prospect of walking out of the temple in their hats, aprons, and slippers.

Meanwhile, the temple workers take Paul through the unmarked door and the tan man leaves in pursuit of MaryBeth.

At first, Paul thinks they have entered a medieval dungeon, but as his eyes adjust to the din, he sees that they are in a stairwell. The air is frigid. Wrought, rusting metal coils against stone down a musty chute no wider than a sewer manhole. The air is wet, earthy, and metallic. Raw granite lines the walls. They are affixed with deep red lightbulbs here and there, giving the space an ominous glow. It is the starkest contrast from the rest of the temple and he is now well and truly afraid.

“What’s down there?”

The temple workers chuckle softly. There is menace in the sound of it. “Move it,” the male worker says,” before jabbing a bony finger into Paul’s back.

Paul has to clutch the black and brown iron frame to stop himself from falling down the steep, winding steps. He hesitates.

“Let’s go!” The worker jabs him again, this time much harder.

Paul looks back at them, hoping madly that this is all a terrible joke.

It is not. The workers’ eyes glow a reddish amber, like the lightbulbs, and where a huff of hot steam issues from Paul’s mouth as he breathes, no such sign is apparent in the temple workers. Ice-white fear shoots through him. They are not breathing.

The young man turns back to the spiral staircase. The sounds of dripping water mingles with the rush of blood through his ears. With a deep breath, he descends, the temple workers in tow.

Step after step, they descend into the blackness. The red lamps are fewer and farther between now. Several minutes pass in the inky darkness before another red glow greets them on their hellish journey. It passes and they continue on in darkness. Paul doesn’t speak. He has a feeling that it would be rebuffed anyways. He wonders about MaryBeth and if she got away. Unlikely.

After what feels like an hour the staircase chamber begins to widen and a faint green glow begins to creep its way into his vision. The chamber continues to widen into a large dome-shaped underground cavern that is lined with cement. It is a large space, possibly the size of a football field. Paul cannot find a source for the green light. His footsteps now echo off the cold metal, and through the cavern. Combined with footsteps of his assailants, they finish their descent amidst a ghostly and ominous percussion.

The cavern is mostly empty, and Paul’s eyes are drawn to a single wooden booth that juts up, awkwardly alone, in the exact middle of the floor. The structure cannot be larger than a telephone booth and is covered in ratty wooden shingles. The side of the shack that faces the bottom of the staircase features a poorly fitted wooden door.

As he steps off the final step onto the concrete floor, Paul’s knees buckle and he collapses in a fit of panic, soreness and exhaustion. The couple continue, stepping nimbly over him without as much as a glance.

Paul pulls himself to his knees and stares at the rough pewter ground beneath his hands. Hundreds of minute golden symbols, unknown to Paul, are embossed into the roughened concrete floor. He follows the symbols which seem to follow a spiral pattern away from him and toward the wooden shack.

“Get up brother,” the old man calls. His gravelly voice echoes strangely off the walls, reprimanding Paul over and over again.

“Ughh, where… where are we?” Paul groans as he pulls himself to his feet, still following the line of golden symbols with his eyes.

Movement at the corner of his eyes makes Paul jerk to his left. MaryBeth approaches him, escorted roughly by the tan man, who tightly grips her left bicep. Her face is pale, and cheeks red and splotched, as if she has been crying. She has a brave face.

“Where did you..?” Paul begins to ask but is cut off by the tan man.

“Many are the mansions and great is the glory of the Father,” he says in that deep baritone voice. “Come, let us approach and be judged worthy for The Trial, or let us be cast out into eternal darkness.”

The man grips Paul’s arm with his other hand and leads the two of them toward the shack. MaryBeth drags her feet and Paul glances up at the tan man in apprehension, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

As they reach the shack, the ancient woman, now crone-like in appearance from the ethereal green glow, reaches to the side of the shack and hefts an unwieldy mallet. She slams it one time against the door of the shack. Paul fully expects the entire shack to collapse but it remains.

A muffled voice emanates from inside the shack, “what is wanted?”

“Judgement for the trial,” the crone replies.

Silence. After a few nervous moments, the door slides open. From the illuminated interior, a shadowy figure emerges. He replaces the door and Paul and MaryBeth simultaneously gasp. Standing before them, easily recognizable despite the faint green light, is Joseph Smith.

TEN YEARS LATER

“What!?” The astonishment in the room is audible as several of Paul and MaryBeth’s dinner guests gasp.

“He was really there?”

“What did he say?”

“What happened?”

Paul revels in the joy of the story and he smiles wide. It is better than the dessert MaryBeth made, which is peach cobbler pie, his favorite. It steams in a sugary heap upon his plate. A scoop of ice cream melts around it in a pool of vanilla cream.

“Well,” Paul begins. “Once we realized that we were in the presence of Joseph Smith, we looked around and we were so relieved!”

“Oh, I’m sure,” one of the dinner guests comments. Old Mrs. Fletcher from 21B.

Paul nods. “Mm hmm! And as soon as we caught our breath, he smiled at us and put the temple workers at ease. Everyone was laughing. Even the lights came on. It felt like TV cameras were about to come out from behind the coffins.”

“There were coffins?” another guest asks, afraid. Poor Mr. Richards from 34C. Dementia.

“Yes, lots,” Paul answers. “Coffins with all the dead prophets in them. It was a frightening idea at first, but good ol’ Joe told us not to worry.”

“Wow, he let you call him that? That’s nice.” - Sad Mrs. Margaret, 13A.

“Well, no,” Paul says. “Calling him good ol’ Joe was Jon’s idea.”

“Oh. Who is Jon?”

“He’s the tan man. We didn’t learn his name until much later,” Paul says.

“Mmm.”

There is a murmur of understanding at the table. Several of the guests return to their pie, except Mrs. Fletcher. “Well, did he say anything? What happened after that?”

“He…” Paul looks at MaryBeth, then at his pie, then back at MaryBeth, before finally turning to Mrs. Fletcher and continuing. “He told us to read our scriptures, say our prayers, and observe the commandments.” He says it with a smile, and the dinner guests accept the answer completely. They all nod, enjoying MaryBeth’s sticky peach dessert. Paul, again, looks at MaryBeth. She returns his gaze with knowing eyes.

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Fletcher says. “I must visit the old ladies’ room.”

MaryBeth answers. “Of course! It’s just down the hall,” she points. “On the left.”

Mrs. Fletcher nods with a kind smile. She leaves the dining room, pushing her chair in. When she reaches the bathroom, she enters, closing the door, and gasps for air as if she’d been holding her breath for ten minutes. She grips the sink and looks at her image in the mirror.

After a moment of staring, and with great effort, Mrs. Fletcher sheds the years of her life from her body. Grey hair grows golden, wrinkles subside, teeth and back straighten. Stone eyes turn blue, pale cheeks turn pink, short and weak become tall and strong.

Once she is about the age of thirty, and full of vigor and strength, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a black walkie-talkie. ksh—she pushes the button. “Code Cain. I repeat, Code Cain.”