Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

“Etymologically,” he said, clearing that part of his throat that hadn’t been cleared by the arrack, “a prophet is somebody who ‘speaks for’ somebody else, so I take prophecy (from the Greek, proph?et?es) with about the same amount of salt as I take press releases from a corporate shill. A prophet is just a self-proclaimed mouthpiece for invisible taciturn forces that allegedly control our destiny, and prophecy buffs tend to be either neurotically absorbed with their own salvation or morbidly fascinated by the prospect of impending catastrophe. Or both. A death wish on the one hand, a desperate, unrealistic hope for some kind of supernatural rescue operation on the other.”

As he undid the clasp on the envelope, she informed him that the roots of the word notwithstanding, the prophet in this case was not speaking on behalf of a higher power, was hardly God’s publicist but rather, in a sense, a whistleblower, warning her beloved humanity what the Almighty had in store for it if it didn’t shape up. Our Lady of Fatima, then, was a kind of spy, a mole, an operative, working behind the scenes to delay if not forestall divine retribution, scheming to buy more time for her earthly brood. Domino thought that Agent Switters, of all people, would be sympathetic.

He responded that any feeling of occupational bond with the Virgin Mary was regrettably beyond him at the moment, but he promised to keep his mind as open to Marian ideas as a convenience store was to hold-up men. Nevertheless, he believed it only fair to advise her up front that he was as leery of those who predicted the future as he was disdainful of those for whom the future always promised to be real in ways that the present was not. “It’s here. Today. Right now,” he said.

“What is?”

“All of it.”

“Today is tomorrow?”

“There you go.” He flashed her a grin that could housebreak a walrus. Then, he opened the envelope.

Inside the envelope were not one but four sheets of paper. On two of them, Domino had provided complete English translations of the first and second Fatima prophecies. The crowning item, obviously, was the page of personal papal stationery, now dog-eared and yellowed, upon which Cardinal Thiry had written down his French version of the controversial third prophecy nearly forty years earlier. In addition, there was included an English translation—rendered, presumably, by Domino—of the third prophecy.

Since he had read them largely in bits and pieces or paraphrase, while assisting Suzy and Masked Beauty with their individual research projects, and since Domino was of the opinion that the trio of predictions was ultimately inseparable, Switters decided to refamiliarize himself with One and Two before tackling the piece de resistance.

the first prophecy

You have seen Hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end soon, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given to you by God that He is about to punish the World for its crimes, by means of war, famine and persecutions of the Church and the Holy Father.

Okay, then. And next—

the second prophecy

To prevent World punishment, I have come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the first Saturdays (of each month). If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the World, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated.

Already sedated by dinner, arrack, and the act of love most naughty, Switters could barely read those prognostications without yawning. They struck him as vague, bland, generalized, incongruous, and overly concerned with the fate of the Church, its dogma, and its leader. Had he heard them related by a starry-eyed ten-year-old Portuguese peasant girl in 1917, they might possibly have spun the propeller on his intellectual beanie, but now he just stretched and sighed like a hockey coach at a tea dance before proceeding to the ballyhooed main event: that legendary ultrasecret time-release pope onion,

the third prophecy of fatima

Before this century draws to a close, there are to be unimaginable advances in all sciences. These achievements will bring about a great physical ease but little intelligence or happiness. Everywhere, communication and education will flourish, yet men, deprived of My Immaculate Heart, will sink ever further into stupidity. Anguish and violence will increase apace with material wealth, and many will be lost to fiery death and sickness of spirit. In the century after this one, however, a certain unexpected wisdom and joy will come upon a segment of the population that has survived the earlier sorrows, but, alas, the Word that brings about this healing will be delivered to mankind neither from Rome’s basilica nor from a converted Russia, but from the direction of a pyramid. Whether it is by design of God or the Evil One, even I do not know, yet the World must not fail to pay it close attention, for Heaven and Hell hang in the balance.

That was how it went. Switters read both the English and French versions, and as far as his sleepy mind could tell, they were in perfect agreement. In the next to last sentence, the French mot had been translated as “word” when he supposed it could have been rendered, as it often was in French, as “cue” (something said or signed in order to elicit a particular action onstage), but the meaning here was virtually the same, and he was scarcely in a mood to quibble. In fact, he yawned like a pigeonhole before conceding that “This little augury is more intriguing than the first two. Definitely more intriguing. But I honestly can’t see what all the furor is about, why you’d find it so horrifying or ol’ John the Twenty-third would go through a ream and a half of Kleenex.”

“You don’t see why?”

“No, sister love, I don’t. I mean, it’s hardly headline news that the corporate state and its media are using the latest gadget-com and gimmick-tech to dumb us down as steadily as if they were standing on a stool and pounding our brains with a frozen ham. Or that an abundance of information can exacerbate ignorance, if the information is of poor quality. Or that people can be lavishly entertained right around the clock and still feel empty and disconnected. Fatima slam-dunked the crystal ball in that regard, I have to give her credit, whoever she was. All that stuff is on us like a bad suit, and she called it in 1917. But, hey, there’s a flip side to it, ways to profit from it, ways to get around it, and—”

“Yes, yes,” Domino broke in impatiently. “The remedy is Her Immaculate Heart. But what about the rest of the prophecy?”

“You mean the nice part about unexpected joy and wisdom heading our way in the next century? Sounds bloody jolly to me, to quote the late Potney Smithe, Esquire. Bloody jolly. Assuming that you and I will be among the survivors.”

“Yes, but this so-called wisdom and joy, this healing, will not be brought about by the Church.”

“So? Who gives a damn whether the Church brings it about as long as it’s brought about?”

She frowned so hard her cheeks nearly doubled. “Don’t you see? The enlightening doctrine is to come from the direction of the pyramids. From the Middle East. That means Islam. Mary’s inference is that Islam will succeed where Christianity has failed. Who gives a damn? Everyone in the Western world ought to give a damn! The implications are almost too disturbing to be contemplated.”

“Well now, this wouldn’t happen to be the whining of a poor loser, would it?” A herd of sarcastic remarks was set to stampede out of his voice box, but he bit his tongue and turned them back. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he was too drowsy to covet prolonged conversation. “Listen,” he said, “these prophecies leave a lot of room for interpretation, and there’s a possibility you may have missed—”

“Don’t you think we haven’t—”

“Yeah, I know you and Masked Beauty have been kicking this gong around for years, but you still may have misinterpreted some point or other. Isn’t that why you wanted me to cast my unflinching bloodshot beam on it? I, who have left speechless entire roomfuls of itinerant journalists and shadowy international entrepreneurs with my unprecedented unravelings of certain passages of Finnegans Wake? Just let me sleep on it, sister love. Do please let me sleep on it.”

With that, he blew out the closest candle, kissed the disappointed nun, and snuggled down between the rugs.