George Hides from a Shark

The shark has promised that when George leaves the church, it will swallow him up.

George sits in one of the pews and tries to remember a prayer from childhood. He believes he knows the standard ones, but he’d like something more specific to his current situation. While he knows there is definitely not a prayer about being trapped in a church while a Great White Shark waits outside, he seems to recall a prayer about an enemy at the door. A long night of the soul. Suffering and sleeplessness.

It’s three o’clock in the morning, and George will not get any sleep.

While he cannot see through the stained glass, he senses the shark moving around the church. The shark does not have any feet, but it doesn’t seem to matter. It swims around the structure as though the air itself was water. It’s not flying, per se, but it has the elegance of it. George only saw a small bit of this before he ran into the building seeking sanctuary. He had no idea why a shark would want to harm him. He knew that outside of movies, sharks did not have any real desire to hunt humans. That being said, this shark was keenly focused on George. It taunted him as he ran, commenting on his stubby legs and the sweat that formed the moment he exerted himself.

“A little late to start exercising now, George,” the shark said, “Don’t you think?”

Who had taught the shark to talk? Could all sharks talk and simply…didn’t? These were things that George considered as he sat in the front pew staring up at Jesus. Jesus, who loved all creatures, great and small, but probably never imagined a talking shark who could swim through the air chasing after innocent men so it could devour them. If Jesus had known about a creature like that, it’s possible he would have chosen not to love it. Even Christ had his limits, didn’t he? George had tried to be a loving person his whole life. He had adopted stray dogs and cats. He had donated to animal charities. He had even volunteered once to clean up a local beach. Why was this shark tormenting him so?

A small nun named Sister Charlotte approaches him with a cup of tea. She sits down next to him in the pew, and begins to sing a song about salvation. George asks her to stop, because the song is soothing, and he’s afraid it will cause him to sleep. While he would like to sleep, and while he is sure the shark will not enter the church, he believes the rules of sanctuary dictate that if, at any point, the refugee falls asleep, they must be cast out of the church.

“I believe that’s right,” says Sister Charlotte, “Not every church has rules like that about sanctuary, but we’re very odd here. Very odd. You’d have been better off running into a more lenient church, dear.”

With that, she collects the empty teacup, pats him on the head, and retreats back to the convent. George wants to lie down on the pew. He tells himself it won’t be comfortable enough to put him to sleep, but he knows he can’t take any chances. The shark is waiting outside for the moment he’s cast out. He wishes he’d gotten more sleep the previous night, but his son had been experimenting with werewolf roleplay, and so there was a great deal of howling throughout the night. George wanted to ask the young man to stop, but his son had been through so much in his life, and pretending to be a werewolf made him so happy.

George didn’t want to take that away from him.

“You know what your problem is, George,” his wife said to him as they were laying in bed together, listening to their son howl, “Your problem is that when you were young, your father told you that you were a bad person, and then he walked out into the street and got hit by an ice cream truck. You don’t remember why he told you that you were a bad person, but you believed him, and you spent your whole life trying to prove him wrong. You were so young when he said it, George. You weren’t even ten-years-old. You could have misheard him. He could have been wrong. He was. He was wrong, George. What ten-year-old is a bad person? Ten-year-olds can’t be bad people. That’s impossible. That man sounds awful. I’m glad he got hit by an ice cream truck. I hope the truck kept right on going--delivering ice cream to little children on a summer’s day. You have to get over this, George, you really do.”

But George couldn’t. He knew what his father had said. He remembered it clear as day. The same way he remembered the bright song the ice cream truck was playing right as it struck his father. In the memory, there was the distinct smell of butter pecan.

George looks up at Jesus on the cross. He wonders if Jesus would welcome him into Paradise if the shark bit off his head and spit it out. Were there headless people in Heaven? How could one know true joy without a head? Or perhaps it didn’t work that way at all. Perhaps in Heaven we are all fully restored. This philosophizing was having a soporific effect on George. It was as though he had just eaten a turkey sandwich. He yawns, and the yawn reaches through his body and soaks up whatever energy is hiding from his exhaustion.

His head falls back against the top of the pew. His eyes look up at the paintings on the ceiling. The Virgin Mary is working at a cash register trying to get through an overtime shift so she can go home and cook dinner for her young son. Joseph is building an extension on a rich man’s house not knowing that the rich man will refuse to pay him, because he doesn’t like the way Joseph built the bay windows. St. Francis is sitting across from a shark at an Italian restaurant, and the shark is breaking up with him. He loves Francis, but sometimes love isn’t enough.

George gets an idea.

He goes to the door of the church and opens it. The shark is floating in midair. It’s chilly out. His spiracle is sending out puffs of steam. George doesn’t move. The shark is about to tease him, then stops. George looks up at the painting of St. Francis at the Italian restaurant. The shark looks up as well. A moment passes. Then, another.

The shark shakes its tail, then swims away.

George goes back inside, and lies down on the pew. Sister Charlotte emerges from the darkness to eject George from the church. Then, she notices the open door. She sees no shark waiting outside. This is no longer sanctuary.

It’s something else entirely.