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Crows

A pair of door-to-door missionaries knock at the home of an old man. He says that he practices sacred hospitality, and not only welcomes them in but also offers them a meal, penne with delicious homemade pesto with basil from his own garden.

They ask him if he has considered welcoming Jesus. The old man tells them about a day like this, twenty years before, when a homeless Semitic guy with long matted hair, wrapped in a blanket and wearing mismatched beach sandals, came into his home. So, he offered him a meal, but also a shower and a spare pair of pants and overalls and socks. The man washed himself, put the clothes on, ate voraciously, thanked the man, and left. "Have I not already welcomed your Jesus?"

The missionaries answer that this man may have looked like Jesus, and praise the man's generosity, but then point out that all our good deeds are filthy rags before the Lord and welcoming Jesus means making Him the lord of our life. Christ is King.

The man shows the missionaries a framed naturalization certificate. He says that he came from an Eastern European dictatorship to the United States, applied for a professional visa, was granted it, and eventually became a citizen. "I came here to be a free citizen of a free republic. No kings, no generalissimos, no supreme leaders."

The missionaries compliment the old man on his English, finish the meal, and politely refuse a small glass of red wine. One of them asks the old man, what will you tell God at the Judgment? The man thinks about it. "Not much, being as I'll be dead. The dead don't have much to say. I'll probably listen."

The missionaries are getting ready to leave. They thank the old man for the meal. "We'll pray for you", the other missionary says to the man. The man smiles. "I appreciate that."

The missionaries return to their church. It's one of those very dodgy megachurches; an assistant pastor listens to their story about the nice old guy, and gets angry at them for not selling the religion hard enough. Niceness doesn't get butts in pews or bills in the collection plate.

A month or so later, the missionaries return to the old man's house. He's feeding homemade fries to a small murder of crows in his garden. He invites them in, and apologizes for not having food ready, unless they count the fries, and he personally just makes those for the birds.

Heeding the warning of their church superior, the missionaries try the hard sell. Surely the old man is old; surely he's worried about death; surely he doesn't want to go to Hell. The old man listens. He knows he's old; he's as worried about death as anyone else his age and general health; he's seen people who had been in Hell before, by which he means people in a political prison in his country of origin. He tells the missionaries of people in conditions almost as bad as rescued Auschwiz prisoners. "My mother took two of them in, instantly raising the suspicion of the secret police upon our family."

The old man raises his voice only when the missionaries insist that Hell is worse and that the old man is bound there if he doesn't convert. "You tell me that you come here to give me the good news of your God, and then you turn around and accuse Him of mass torture?"

A little taken aback by the sudden shift in tone, the crows stop eating. Rather than staring at the old man, they stare at the missionaries.

The missionaries are volunteer; they aren't really prepared for a philosophical discussion about theodicy. Instead, they pivot to the subject of heaven. The old man says that he is a free man in a free country, his sons are grown and happy, and he has earned enough for a house and a garden. A few times a year, he's still fit to go fishing or hunting. What does Heaven have to give him that he doesn't already have?

The missionaries reply that he could have a mansion, like their pastor does; a whole estate, like their pastor does; the warm comfort of being right with God, which both their pastor and they do. The old man asks about the pastor; like most megachurch pastors he's extremely rich, has written a number of books, runs a TV programme, and so on. The old man thinks for a moment. "I should like to listen to this pastor of yours." They tell him when the TV program is on. "No, no, in person. When is his next sermon?" They tell him, in two weeks; next week he is at a spiritual retreat. He asks if they would accept a gift for the pastor. It's worth about a thousand dollars. "Uh, sure" one of the missionaries says. The old man looks down, and carefully takes out his glass eye. "A gift from the secret police, before I crossed the ocean. And now a gift from me to him."

Confused by the gesture, but figuring that it has significance, the missionaries take the prosthesis. The old man doesn't hurry them out of the door, but doesn't seem to have much else to tell them. They watch him start peeling potatoes to make another batch of fries, make small talk, and even end up spending a few minutes helping him with the peeling as he hands them two knives.

When the missionaries report back, the glass eye is thoroughly washed and put in an envelope, just in case. The assistant pastor compliments them for having made an impression, briefly muses about whether the prosthetic contains a microphone or a camera -- it doesn't, it's simply a well-made piece of jewelry in a rubber casing -- and more or less forgets about the incident. If the church has made one more convert, excellent; people like the old man who mostly live frugally but afford themselves the occasional luxury tend to have very full bank accounts and, eventually, be very open to making donations.

Services at this megachurch are an elaborate affair, with music, singing, a homily delivered through a projector featuring videos and sometimes a powerpoint presentation. The head pastor is good looking in an impeccable custom-tailored suit. The two missionaries, sitting in a back pew, are a little sad that the old man didn't show up after all. One of them wonders to the other if they should give him a call, see if he's ill or indisposed, but the other notices that they never got any contact info out of him. They decide to go check on him at his home after the service.

The sky outside is grey, and it's drizzling. The church's speakers sometimes pick up a little bit of static when a lightning bolt comes down a few miles away. The pastor's homily is going well; he is energized and quickly establishes a rapport with his congregation. The sermon covered one of Paul's epistles; he's given it a couple times in the other two churches that he runs, and wont' reuse it. His tone is confident and his words well-rehearsed. At this point, assistants will begin passing out the collection plates; compared to donations in the form of checks and direct deposits it's nothing, but it's important for the look of the thing. Even when the power goes out, it's only for a half second -- the building has a backup diesel generator, so all anyone sees are the lights dimming for a moment and a momentary glitch on the projector screen.

A bolt of lightning comes down close enough to the church building that the thunderclap drowns the speakers for a moment. The front door of the church cracks open; it's the old man. His beard and long hair is unkempt from two weeks of not being washed. He smells of alcohol and fry oil and ozone. He's wearing traditional hunting garb, leather boots, and a worn brown blanket.

"The storm is upon us, and I can't make it home. I seek refuge." he says. His accent is much more noticeable than it was before.

The ushers quickly intercept him, assuming he's a homeless person, and curtly tell him to get out. The two missionaries are relieved to see that the old man is well, but what's happened to him? Was he evicted? But there are other people here, and they aren't sure what their role in this interaction would be, and they do nothing.

The head pastor doesn't quite react to this; he's well into his script, it's the third and last time he has to give this sermon, and when he was told about the unusual gift from a prospective parishioner he mentally filed it under "weird guy, I'll talk to him when I have time." So, he continues his exhortation, maybe a little louder to avoid losing his audience. The ushers begin pushing the old man out. One of the missionaries stands up, to tell them that this man was expected, but the ushers have their own standing orders, and don't listen.

The ushers grab the old man. He pushes them off, revealing an outdoorsman's strength despite his age. They grab him again. Two stun guns crackle in the old man's hands, and he uses them on the ushers' shoulders, throwing them back. The old man strides forward and lets his cloak drop; he looks at the head pastor. A bright purple LED, stuck behind the old man's glasses on the missing-eye side, lights up and hits the head pastor right in the face, temporarily blinding him; the sermon stops, with the congregation staring in bewilderment. The old man throws a few fries on the ground, and with that, dozens, maybe a hundred of crows fly in from the open church door and flood the chamber. The old man says something in a Nordic language.

The head pastor is still disoriented by the laser light, but recovers his footing. "This is the house of the Lord! We're calling the police! Get out of here!"

The crows are pecking at anything edible or shiny in the room. Thunderclaps ominously come close to the building, and the open door makes them even more audible.

The old man points at the pastor. "Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be gods in disguise."

He then turns and leaves. Another usher tries to grab him, but is repelled with a stun gun zap. Even as the old man leaves, the crows continue their rampage. Two of the ushers have the presence of spirit to open the emergency exit, and people begin evacuating. The first ones out see the old man leave atop an ancient motorcycle.

The only serious injury from this strange display is to the head pastor himself -- one of the crows pecked his eye out.

When the police finally arrive to take a statement, they're skeptical. From the parishioners' accounts, it sounds like Odin himself dropped the spear on this particular church. The congregants speak of a demon, a terrorist, a Russian spy, all sort of confused accounts. The surveillance cameras show little more than a flash of purple light and a flurry of crow feathers.

The only two people with half an idea of what happened are the two missionaries; as soon as they are able, they get to the old man's house. Two crows are picking at hash browns in his little garden. He's wearing overalls, a little sweaty from a bit of gardening he was doing, but clean. He welcomes them in.

They ask him if it was him at the church. Instead of answering, he shows them something that he claims one of his nephews made for him -- a little LED light for his spare glass eye. Rather than purple and piercing, it's red and barely lights up, something that a clever kid with an electronics kit might have built. "It itches a little, but I'll wear it until I get a proper replacement made. Or at least until we can take a picture together."

The old man asks the missionaries what got them in such an agitation, and listens intently to their narration. He then tries to calm them down, and even offers to go to the police, if it'll help them not panic -- he went hunting with family, and only made it back earlier in the day, hence why his little garden needed extra tending. Of course he has some of the receipts from the trip; he's old-fashioned, prefers to not use cards, and wouldn't know where to start balancing his checkbook online.

"So, your pastor got his eye pecked out, eh? Given the circumstances, he may keep my prosthesis, then. Seems to me he needs it more than I. But I won't come calling at your church -- no offense, but a man who doesn't get along with animals is not a man I care to meet."

A day or so later, in a hospital bed in the best clinic money can buy, the megachurch pastor is staring out of his remaining eye. He drops the old man's prosthetic eye in an empty glass. He has done this many times now. The eye falls into the glass, moves around a little, and then stops.

When it stops moving, the sapphire pupil always stares at him.