THE THREE LIVES OF CHRISTINA THE ASTONISHING (#29)

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

How I came to live under the bay, and what I decided there

By dawn I’d reached the eastern edge of the bay, where the ruins of a great bridge cast a darker shadow over dark waters.  Looking like some creature had bit it in two, the causeway broke off just short of a little island. Under the bridge’s rusty ramparts a group of makeshift tents with corrugated tin roofs huddled where the water lapped the shoreline.

As I approached the settlement, I sensed a female animal wake up and sense me in turn. From inside the nearest tent came the sound of angry barking as her savage fear-thoughts swamped my system. A pit bull with chewed-up ears charged through the open flap. She sprang from five feet away, knocking me over, then clamped her jaws around my throat. I fought and fought. The dog wouldn’t let go. A skinny middle-aged bearded man in rags crawled out of the tent. “Down, Daisy, down!” he shouted. The pit bull let go of my throat and sat back on her haunches, thumping her tail. Both of us were drenched in my blood. As the man bent over me, trying to staunch the flow, I heard him cry, “I’m sorry, young woman, I’m sorry!” Then I lost consciousness, more from his foul odor than from loss of blood.

When I came to a few moments later, he was squatting next to the dog and sobbing, his raggedy clothes now also soaked with my blood. When I sat up, coughing loudly, he looked over and screamed at the sight of me. Daisy started to charge again, but the man grabbed her collar.  Just like the dog, the man flipped from fear straight into terror-fueled rage. “What the Sam Hill are you, sittin’ there with your goddamn throat torn out?”

(to be continued tomorrow)