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    The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection
    The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection
    The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection

    By Kim Bond

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    About this ebook

    Over twenty stories appear in The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection by Kim Bond. Stories range in genre from speculative to literary. Kim Bond's fiction encompasses spiritual, paranormal, and sometimes absurd themes tempered with sarcastic humor and honest commentary about society and culture. Her writing appears in Residential Aliens, Full Armor Magazine, among other places. Cover photo by Ampersand Creative Co.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKim Bond
    Release dateMar 23, 2015
    ISBN9781310318092
    The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection
    Author

    Kim Bond

    Draw Near Publication Ministry provides forever free Christian ebooks. "Come near to God and he will come near to you...." —James 4:8

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      Book preview

      The Footstool - Kim Bond

      The Footstool: A Christian Short Story Collection

      By Kim Bond

      This short story collection is dedicated to our Lord Jesus Christ.

      …The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool… —Isaiah 66:1 (KJV)

      Copyright 2013 by Kim Bond, all rights reserved. Contact Kim Bond at k.bondofstl@yahoo.com with questions regarding permissions.

      IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS

      The works contained within this publication are purely fiction. They have not been written to teach Christian theology or doctrine.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: King James Version.

      Gumdrop Alley is based on true-life rescues by the International Crisis Aid organization. Learn more at www.crisisaid.org.

      Green Filter was first published in Torrid Literature Journal (October 2012).

      Annette’s Café was first published in Dead Mule School of Southern Literature (December 2008).

      The Other Me was first published in Foliate Oak (November 2010) and was later anthologized in Best of Foliate Oak (2010).

      The Van Table was first published in Midwest Literary Magazine (July 2010) and was later anthologized in Green (2010).

      Table of Contents

      Gumdrop Alley

      Old Kal’s Cave

      Mud Maker

      The Baths of Cadara

      Janine’s Condition

      The Fine Line

      Life’s Equation

      Skin Deep

      Green Filter

      Jerusalem Happened

      Annette’s Café

      Good Deed Collector

      American Balloon

      The Van Table

      Pesky Specters

      What I Saw

      The Other Me

      Food-o-phobia

      The Collector

      Death’s Countdown

      Petition

      Fickle Humans

      The Sinner’s Prayer

      A Christmas Gift

      Note to Readers

      Gumdrop Alley

      We lived on the east side of Peru. Mother would send me to the market on account of her sick leg. I went frequently and became friendly with a man named Pedunk. He seemed genuinely interested in me—asking all kinds of questions. Later, I understood he was only calculating how much I would be missed, if my family would search for me, and with whom he must contend if he was caught.

      I guess my answers made me a good kidnapping candidate. He offered me a piece of gum; I do not remember much after that. When I awoke, my body was being lifted by unfamiliar arms from an old pickup truck to a hut in Gumdrop Alley. I never knew the exact location. I only knew it was where a mountain curved into a slope. We were hidden away in thatched huts shaped like gumdrops.

      Pedunk and the Missus kept a close eye on us from the windows of their stone house. The Missus concerned herself with our cleanliness, food, and clothing. At times, I got the impression she viewed the twelve of us girls as her children in some twisted way. Pedunk considered only our behavior toward the clients to be of any weighty significance.

      The clients were part of an underground ring. Men from all over Peru came to see us. They saw us greet them at the doorway with long black hair cascaded over one shoulder. They saw us remove bright colored skirts and lay down with them on mattresses.

      The guard sat in a chair outside of Pedunk’s home day and night. The machine gun’s strap was draped around his neck, his hand always on the trigger. He paid little attention to us. He was paid to watch over the clients—not to protect us girls. They did not fear us leaving either. We were too scared to flee, and the village was too isolated for us to travel to any town on foot.

      All the girls lined up every morning to be inspected by his wife.

      We held out our hands for inspection—palms down. The Missus walked down the line, scrunching her freckled nose now and then. At the end, she turned around. We flipped our hands in unison—palms up. She inspected them again. If we had clean hands and nails, she gave us a small ration of rice and fruit, usually a pawpaw. If a girl’s hands appeared dirty to her, she denied that girl’s daily food ration. She approved my hands daily—almost smiling as she handed me the food.

      That is every day until March. It started when I laid in bed half asleep and heard the crunching of leaves underfoot. I assumed one of Pedunk’s clients had come to receive my service, but it was Pedunk himself. His familiar silhouette stood in my doorway, lit up by the moon like a ghost.

      At first, I felt relieved to see him. Maybe he wanted to ask me to fetch an extra jar of water from the well by the road because Mara was sick again. But the way he leaned against the wall and stared for so long gave me an uneasy feeling. He said nothing as he began unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his jeans.

      I treated him as I would any client, laying still and spacing out. My thoughts drifted away from my usual hope of returning home and turned to a new, more desperate hope: one of the clients might haggle with Pedunk to take me away and make me his wife. Together, we would have children, and I would never let them out of my sight. Ever. I envisioned this so fully that I only snapped back to reality as Pedunk walked out the doorway of my hut.

      The following morning, I scrubbed my hands same as always. However, the Missus shook her head as she walked past for inspection. As she walked past the second time (palms up), she smacked them down and said, Put those filthy things away. No food today.

      It was then I realized the girls who failed inspection in the past did not fail because their hands were literally dirty. And I had not passed inspection prior to this moment because I scrubbed my hands so adequately. All this time, she had been punishing us for Pedunk’s wandering.

      Still, her cruelty was kindness compared to that of Pedunk’s behavior, especially in the company of his guard. Together, the two men behaved inhumane. I discovered just how humane the following night.

      I laid in bed and listened to my stomach growl after not having eaten all day. I clutched the handmade doll I had stitched together. Salwa’s face was shaped like a pancake with black thread stitched in the shape of X’s for the eyes, and the shape of a minus sign for a nose, and a smiling mouth. She was made of old material—dull brown coffee color for the face and a floral print for her undersized torso, floppy arms, and understuffed legs. I had been careful to stitch a belly button right where a belly button would go. It made her more lifelike. I needed Salwa to be lifelike and sweet. The girls seemed too coarse for my liking, too callous for a best friend anyway.

      Mara’s hut was beside mine, so I heard everything perfectly. Pedunk yelled something about how long she had known she was pregnant and kept it secret. I considered how well she had hidden it under baggy dresses because I never noticed. Pedunk said his customer requested a new girl since he had accidentally chosen the pregnant one.

      I hugged Salwa tighter and slid further under my cover as the first smack echoed in my ears. Pedunk demanded to see her belly.

      Oh man, oh man. What have you done? Six months. You have to be six months pregnant, Mara. I might have been able to fix this for you. I could have made it disappear painlessly, but now….The next sound was more thuddish like a punch. Though my whole body trembled, I commanded myself to get out of bed.

      I stood there wanting to go next door and defend Mara but either out of cowardice or honest prediction, I convinced myself I would only make things worse for her.

      Pedunk’s voice started again. The baby’s too strong now to go easily. Might as well shoot her.

      Another voice cackled. That is when I realized the guard was in there with them. I imagined him taking aim at that moment. I jumped back in bed and covered my head completely with blankets. Under there, Salwa and I hid and listened to Mara try to explain.

      I just wanted to keep my baby. I want someone for my very own, someone to love. You do not understand how it is to feel the baby grow inside you.

      Afterwards I heard a loud crack as if the gun had slammed against her head or something else. I did not hear Mara’s voice any more that night.

      For the next two weeks, I thought she was dead. Then one morning Mara appeared at lineup. The Missus said her hands looked extra clean and gave her more food than usual.

      That is when we heard a baby’s cries from

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