The Great Disappearance, Part VII
“So, what are we going to do now that the Jews are gone?”
Editor’s Note: Please see Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI of this ongoing satirical fiction series.
Thursday, April 5
Nothing to Say
Paul Hanson was out of sorts. He had a hard time getting out of bed in the days after his interview on the cable access show, which had gotten more than 100,000 views within the first 12 hours after it was uploaded. Hanson had spent the last few days listlessly hitting the refresh button to watch the numbers increase, but the increase brought him no joy. The sense of victory he had enjoyed after the Jews disappeared had given way to the doldrums. With the Jews gone he simply had nothing to say.
The news about Brother David’s being arrest and court appearance for harassing Catholics up in Boston provided something to write about in the upcoming issue of “Our Struggle,” the monthly magazine he produced, but his heart wasn’t in it. Whether Brother David was a Jew or not didn’t really matter. He was too pathetic a figure to have much of an impact on his audience.
“Don’t tell me I miss the Jews!” Hanson said to no one in particular as he sat before his computer. “Such irony! Who knew God had a sense of humor?”
Hanson sat down at his computer, checked social media and saw something about Martin Connelly appearing on a live stream later in the day with a Jewish Star of David tattooed on his forehead. The British newspapers mocked Connelly mercilessly for his shameless bid to stay relevant after the Great Disappearance.
Hanson opened the teleconferencing program a few minutes before his scheduled interview with Adam Clarke, a former D-list actor who started railing about the Jews who controlled Hollywood after his career ground to a halt.
After particularly ugly rant about gays and lesbians got him cancelled, he moved to Idaho to farm with his wife and two young children. In addition to farming, he did daily podcasts where he solicited donations in between rants about the moon landing being fake, the earth being flat and the Jews ruining everything. He relied on Hanson to give some intellectual heft to his rants.
“What’s going on,” Clarke said when Hanson’s angular face appeared on his screen next to his. “Are you ready to start?”
“Yeah,” Hanson said.
After Clarke gave a brief introduction to give latecomers a chance to log on, he asked the obvious question.
“So, what are we going to do now that the Jews are gone?”
“Oh, we got lots of work to do,” Hanson said. “The blade has been removed from the wound, but the wound itself remains.”
“What does that mean?” Clarke asked.
Hanson rambled on about the need to restore the moral order and to be on guard against elites who would take up the tools of oppression and societal control that the Jews had left behind. Clarke asked Hanson about the statements that Pope Joseph have made three days before.
“He’s hasn’t figured out that he’s a proxy warrior for a group that’s disappeared,” Hanson said. “He’ll come around.”
“So what about Brother David?”
Hanson felt the beginnings of a migraine hitting him at the mention of Brother David’s name, but he soldiered on.
“Ah, he’s an example of what exactly I was talking about before. “The Fraternity of Combat boys got it right. He’s a changeling. He’s attacking the Catholic church just as it’s on the verge of reasserting itself as the center of the moral order that it used to be. He’s seeking to stymie the forces of order. But he’s not really that much of a threat.”
As he spoke, a pain which began in the recesses of his head migrated forward until it coalesced into a spot on the center of his forehead.
“What’s that?” Clarke asked.
“What do you mean?” Hanson asked.
“Something weird is going on in your forehead,” Clarke said. “It’s like you got some funky vein action going on. Are you having a stroke?”
Hanson looked at his image on the computer screen before him and saw veins moving around above the bridge of his nose like a ball of snakes writhing on the ground. After a few moments they separated themselves into six parallel lines each about two inches in length. Then they quickly moved in unison to form an unmistakable Star of David.
“Holy shit,” Clarke said. “That’s messed up. But it’s gotta mean something.”
“He’s a changeling!” a viewer into the live chat taking place alongside the streaming video.
“Yep, he is!” another one posted.
Hanson’s right hand moved toward his forehead with its fingers bending at the knuckle closest to the palm. It looked like a paint scraper. Hanson tried to scratch the star off as he looked with horror at his image on the computer screen before him. The counter indicated that the video was being watched by almost 100,000 viewers and that its audience was increasing by the second. Someone had already posted a screen shot of his face with the Star of David on social media with the changeling hashtag.
“Dude, you gotta get that looked at,” Clarke said.
“This is not my doing!” Hanson yelled. The star had turned his comma shaped face into a semicolon; it was not a good look. “You don’t think this is a tattoo of my doing, do you?”
“I dunno,” Clarke said with a sympathetic look on his face. “But dude, I can’t have you on my show looking like that. It’s just too messed up.”
Hanson fold his laptop screen down onto its keyboard.
“Melissa, get me to the hospital.”
Christ Have Mercy
An hour later, Hanson was sitting on an examination table in a doctor’s office.
“Do I need to see a dermatologist?” Hanson asked On Chang, the general practitioner who agreed to see him on short notice. He was looking toward the ceiling to avoid eye contact with Chang as he looked intently at his forehead.
“Maybe,” Chang said. “Normally, I’d get you into see Dr. Weisman, but he has um, left the building so to speak.”
“Yeah, I know he’s not here,” Hanson said. “The one time I finally want a Jew, he’s not there. God have mercy.”
***
Martin Connelly sat in a pew of a sanctuary at an Anglican-run monastery outside of London. Reverend Roth sat next to him. It was after vespers.
“I must say it looks kind of fetching,” Roth said gesturing toward the star.
“Don’t mock me,” Connelly said. “I’ve suffered enough.”
“Have you?” Roth asked.
“Yes!” Connelly said.
“You told me yourself a few years ago that you didn’t believe most of what you said,” Roth said. “That was before the money and the infamy, which you seem to enjoy so well started to hit. It was right after they monetized your videos. You said it was a spoof. I hoped you’d grow out of it before it did permanent damage.”
“Yes, I know,” Connelly said. “It got away from me. It was just some fun, a diversion, a game. But then the money started coming in, and then the attacks came, so I dug in my heels. I felt important. I couldn’t give it up.”
“What now?” Roth asked.
I don’t know,” Connelly said. “I’ll probably stop podcasting. Get this thing removed,” he said, pointing at the star on his forehead. “Or maybe keep it. It’s just penance for my sins, I suppose. Be a target for the hatred I fueled.”
***
Brother David sat at table with Imam Masood and his family. Masood let him into his home, showed him a guest room and let him nap for a couple of hours before knocking on the door and inviting him down to dinner. When the table was set, the family prayed and then gestured for Brother David to sit next to the Imam’s son who was working to memorize the Koran, just as his father did in his youth.
Brother David looked at the food before him and the people in his presence. He hadn’t eaten at table with anyone since he had been kicked out of his religious community almost a decade previous.
“I am unworthy of the kindness you’ve shown me,” he said to the imam. “Thank you very much.”
“Look, daddy, the mark is gone,” the boy said. “It disappeared.”
And so it had, just as it had disappeared from the others.
