Page 47 of Possibly Texas

I shrugged. Auggie watched me for a minute before a smile finally bloomed on his face.

“Weird’s good,” he said. “As long as it doesn’t try to convert you or harm you. We should all experience some weird every now and then.”

“I guess.”

“This isn’t a cult,” he said. “We don’t have a church in Possibly. The town, essentially, is against organized religion. It’s, like, in the charter or something. But this is just a way for us all to get together and meet our spiritual needs in a non-denominational way. That’s all.”

“Okay.”

“No one is going to ask you to eat a live chicken or sacrifice a goat or pledge your undying fealty to The Pueblo. Or some demon. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He nudged my arm playfully. “Just, maybe, instead of calling something weird, just express what is confusing you. Ask questions.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to say okay again?” He chuckled.

“No,” I said. “Sorry. I just…yeah. This is a different, uh, new experience for me, man. I don’t really know what to think about it.”

“That was perfect.”

“Huh?”

“Just saying this is new and different to you,” Auggie said. “Admitting that it feels uncomfortable because you’re not familiar with church or this town is cool. I can dig that.”

“You can dig that?” I laughed, a little too loudly.

Auggie laughed with me.

“Okay,” Auggie said. “That was weird.”

“Completely.”

He nudged me again and then his hand was grabbing at my arm once again. Without another word, he dragged me deeper into The Pueblo, pulling me to the center of the circular room towards the round patch of grass. As we approached, chuckling to each other, I noticed all of the other citizens of Possibly—at least the ones who had bothered to come for services—were standing around the circular patch of grass under the skylight. Auggie shoved me into place to stand on one of the floor tiles at the edge of the grassy area, then stepped into the spot next to me.

Wyatt, Sofia, Levi Lee, Starbuck, Grandy, and others I didn’t quite recognize were lined up around the circle, standing on their own floor tiles. It had escaped my notice when Auggie had pushed me towards the circular meeting space—probably because I had been too busy giggling at his insistent demeanor—but there was a basket in the grass, right in front of each tile a Possibilian was standing on. Each basket seemed to contain old fruit—most of it looking to be a day from becoming completely rotten. I turned my nose up at the sight at my feet.

When I looked around the circle at the other Possibilians standing on their floor tiles in front of baskets of half-rotten fruit, I realized that none of them seemed confused or disgusted. Everyone stood in their place, waiting for…whatever…to happen. I glanced over at Auggie, surely, with concern etched all over my face, not to mention confusion, and he gestured for me to just wait. So, I waited. I stood in front of my basket of fruit as golden late-morning sunlight shined down into the grassy area of The Pueblo, and waited.

It wasn’t long, the wait. After a few moments, footsteps on tiles sounded from one of the darkened corners of The Pueblo. My head whipped back and forth, looking for the source of the footsteps. None of the other people at the circle of grass looked around, they just stared towards the center of the patch of grass.

This has to be a cult. I thought to myself.

When a woman stepped out of the darkness behind the people on the edge of the circle across from me, dressed in a toga with a flower crown on her head, I thought about running for it. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that this was a sign that I was in danger. Even if Auggie didn’t like my use of the word “weird,” this was some weird crap. The woman, her bare feet making fleshy slaps on the tiles, walked towards the circle, her toga sweeping the floor behind her. When she reached the edge of the circle, stepping between Wyatt and Sofia, it was like her eyes specifically sought me out. Our eyes connected and the corners of her mouth turned up warmly for the briefest of moments.

Then she was looking straight ahead and walking out into the center of the grassy area, the sunlight shining off her white toga, practically turning it into a beacon. The woman stood at the center of the grassy area for a moment, her eyes straight ahead, then she took a deep breath. Slowly, her arms raised from her sides to jut out straight from her body.

Here it comes. I had thought. She’s going to shoot out lasers and hypnotize us all, indoctrinating us all into her cult.

Lasers didn’t emanate from the woman in a toga. She didn’t really do anything. What happened next didn’t come from the woman at the center of The Pueblo. Everyone in the circle—including Auggie—started to boo and scream at the woman. Shocked, I jumped back slightly at the cacophony of rude noises coming from the town’s citizens. When the first person—Sofia—reached into the basket at her feet, grabbed a rotten bunch of grapes and tossed them directly at the woman in the toga, I nearly screamed out.

The rest of the people in the circle followed Sofia’s lead and started maniacally reaching into the baskets at their feet to retrieve rotten fruit to throw at the woman. Old grapes, tomatoes, even apples and oranges, were hurled at the woman as the boos, hisses, and screams continued. The screaming and throwing built and built, the fruit leaving a dark rainbow of stains on the woman’s toga. But she did nothing. She stood there, her arms held out, as the citizens of Possibly violently chucked fruit at her. She didn’t even look upset. A beatific smile adorned her face.

Of their own accord, my hands slapped over my ears, trying to block out the sound of the people screaming and booing. I wanted to shut my eyes so that I didn’t have to look at the woman being angrily pelted with fruit, but I found that I couldn’t look away. The noise coming from my fellow church-goers swelled and fruit hit the woman quicker and quicker until I felt like I was in Willy Wonka’s tunnel with him at the wheel of his boat. Just when I thought I would scream out, demand that everyone stop whatever the hell they were doing—though the woman in the toga seemed to welcome it—the noise suddenly ceased and the fruit stopped flying.

No longer did anyone hiss or boo or scream angrily at the woman. No more did fruit slap against her to leave gooey stains that oozed juice down her toga and skin. Everyone around the circular patch of grass stood there, their hands at their sides, the flesh and juice of rotten fruit dripping from their fingers to the tile at their feet. The woman in the toga let her eyes close lazily as she continued to smile and hold her arms out to her sides.