THE THREE LIVES OF CHRISTINA THE ASTONISHING (#13)

As Told by the Holy Woman in Her Own Words
A Hundred or So Years after the End of the World

I wanted to find the Ladies’ Giver House the woman on the trail had mentioned, so I asked directions of a man passing by who carried his swollen testicles, discreetly covered with a hand towel, in a wheelbarrow before him. In Sequoia such a man would have been sent to the Hygiene Maintenance Facility never to be seen again. Without stopping, he nodded with his head toward a steep paved hill. I walked up the metal tracks that bisected the broad street to the top, where I found a plaza of white stone buildings. I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

On one a banner reading “OFFICIAL ORTHODOX HOLY GIVER HOUSE OF KINGDOM FRANCISCO: LADIES ONLY” hung over whatever words had originally been carved into the stone lintel. The giant carved wooden doors under it stood open, and I walked in.

(to be continued tomorrow)