The Last Prayer (silo) Read online

  “God will honor Lonni’s and Hanna’s sacrifice. Their future is with him—”

  “What about our future, Samuel? What about our hopes and dreams?” Adin gnashed his teeth and hissed, “What about the uprising you promised?”

  -4-

  The Previous Year

  It took them two days to walk down-silo for the funeral of Lonni Tate. The wizened priest could manage no more than twenty floors at a time so Samuel made arrangements for an overnight stay on nineteen before they continued on to one of the sweeper’s residences on thirty-eight.

  There was no rush. The family would wait; their daughter was already gone. Lonni’s body had been ported to the dirt farms for decomposition as soon as the sheriff had finished his hurried investigation. Her nutrients would soon feed the plants that grew in the agricultural floors which in turn would feed the people of the community itself. Her death, unfortunate as it was, would serve some higher purpose in the end.

  A much higher purpose, Samuel was confident.

  When the accident was first reported, he suggested to the priest that he, being younger of course, accompany Alston almost a third of the way down the silo to comfort the family while the sheriff made formal inquiries. Elias readily agreed; he’d stay behind and prepare for the memorial service to come.

  This was not unique. Over the years Samuel had found many sensible reasons to visit the sweepers—and other common workers—while carrying out his duties as the elder’s secretary. He’d one day be the upper-levels chief priest after all. Didn’t everyone plant seeds for a future harvest?

  On that quick down-and-up the week before, Samuel took the opportunity to cultivate. Sheriff Alston had discovered that Lonni died sweeping with her father Adin Tate, a middling man in their caste. At ten, she was too young to shadow and the sheriff had wanted to make an arrest. “The sweepers are making noise,” Jedediah said. “A good cleaning will let off some steam. Haven’t had one in ten years.”

  “Eleven,” Samuel responded automatically, always accurate. The longest the silo’s gone without one since the last uprising. And just a tad too soon to release the pressure. “Sheriff, might I suggest another course of action?”

  And within the hour Alston closed the case, declaring the accident ‘unpreventable.’ He left soon afterward while Samuel had stayed an extra day to plant a very important seed….

  When he and Elias finally arrived on thirty-eight for the funeral, Ester greeted them warmly on the small landing, a gathering of sweepers stacked up behind her. There was sadness in their eyes, but compassion and faith as well. Samuel could see that the pain of the previous week was slowly abating. Small strands of hope were being spun, suggesting they might one day become strong enough to mend the tear in their lives.

  “Father, Brother Sam, thank you for coming,” she said. Adin stood behind her, brooding. “And thank you again for…helping clear my husband. He wasn’t…it wasn’t…his fault.” There were general murmurs of agreement and sympathy as the grieving mother choked back new found tears.

  “Ester, that’s enough.” Adin turned and the crowd gave way, allowing the small group through, then following them to the floor’s humble chapel.

  “Of course not,” Samuel said, walking beside her. “Adin was not to blame. I simply pointed out to the sheriff that some things were best left to rest.” Certain things, like a few of the sheriff’s past indiscretions. Samuel had mentioned these confidential matters to Jedediah who, rather quickly, saw the wisdom in letting them remain where they were.

  Adin, too, had responded, albeit reluctantly, to Samuel’s rather persuasive liaise. All men have secrets better left unexposed. The art and craft was in the ability to leverage those momentary lapses into service for the greater good. Some called such measures surreptitious; Samuel preferred to call it diplomacy.

  Elias, in his own way, was a diplomat and Samuel was impressed as the elder statesman took charge, confident and competent in his priestly role among the residents of the upper levels. Too bad his days were numbered. As the sweepers filed into the chapel, God’s man took his position at the front. Everyone remained standing, as was tradition, but the sheer numbers present to support the anguished family demanded it as well.

  “We gather here, O Lord,” the priest began, “to honor the life of Lenora Tate and pray that thy glorious angels might usher her soul into thine heaven….”

  Samuel smiled at the familiar liturgy and glanced sideways at the forgotten member of the family, young Hanna. Favored by God. Appropriate name for this surviving twin. Her eyes, he noticed, began to sparkle whenever the old man spoke of heaven.

  He’d been sure to plant that seed on his fortuitous visit the week before. Hanna had been inconsolable and her parents distraught over the death of Lonni; but the assurance that she was alive and ‘just beyond the silo’s hill’—he’d couched his words so carefully—gave them all comfort.

  When Ester and Adin played for him a degraded audio of their sweet Lenora’s performance at school and how Hanna lit up at the sound of her sister’s voice, Samuel knew the remaining daughter was aptly named.

  Could I borrow the recording, he’d asked. There might be a way to restore the quality of the audio. The parents readily agreed, it being one of the few remaining links to their precious child.

  The priest’s concluding words, with another expected reference to the life that awaits the faithful in heaven, brought Samuel into the present. After the funeral, as Elias mingled and ministered among his flock, he pulled Adin aside and they quietly returned to the family’s residence.

  “Are you sure this will work?” Adin pressed when they were alone.

  “The sweepers are discontent, you’ve said so yourself. They’ve been whispering for change, or am I mistaken?” Adin shook his head. “If you play your part, they’ll rise up within the year. Hanna’s innocent conversations will simply give voice to their own dreams of freedom.”

  “But are you certain this poses no threat to Hanna?”

  Samuel lifted his palms, as if in supplication. “Nothing is certain. But I’ve looked into our history quite thoroughly. No child has ever been sent to a cleaning. It’s unlikely she’ll even be brought to trial. All we need is an arrest and the sweepers will march up top and demand the changes they long for.”

  We all long for.

  It seemed Adin could read his thoughts. “And you’ll have a ready-made excuse in your pocket to discredit Elias as chief priest so you can make your move.”

  Close. More like a ready-made army to overthrow the priesthood and politicians both.

  Samuel pursed his lips. “Tread lightly, Adin. Your place in the new hierarchy is not yet established. If you are not the man I’m looking for, I’m certain…other arrangements can be made.” Diplomacy at work.

  The grieving father bowed his head and grumbled, “I’m your man.”

  “Good.” Producing a small bag from an inner pocket, Samuel instructed, “Simply give Hanna one pill at bedtime—to calm her fears, tell her—and when she’s entered her first deep sleep place this in her ear.” He held up a tiny globe that connected to an audio device by a thin wire. “Then turn it on.”

  Adin took the gifts, pocketing the pills but putting the earpiece in place. He pressed a button. His face clouded a few moments later.

  Although Samuel couldn’t hear the words, he knew them by heart. Words manipulated from snatches of Lonni’s voice prints from the recording he’d been given the week before.

  “Heaven’s real. It’s just outside. Clean the window so all can see.”

  -5-

  Present Time

  “What of your promises?” Adin repeated, his eyes bulging. He whipped out the audio player hidden in his work-vest and threw it at his visitor.

  Samuel caught the small device and stared in steely silence at the man who had lost one daughter and might soon lose another. His eyes softened when they took in Ester.

  After a moment he replied, simply, “Have patience.”r />
  “Patience!” Adin spat. “It’s been a year since you traipsed in here with your plans and assurances. And yet Hanna is a day away from cleaning.” Ester gasped and turned away. Adin continued in a choked passion. “Why haven’t the sweepers come to our defense? Where is the outrage? Patience, you say!”

  It was true. The sweepers had not responded immediately to the arrest as anticipated. When the young girl was sentenced, they still had not acted. Puzzling. Adin had played his part, secretly alerting the sheriff to Hanna’s forbidden words, pretending to be a concerned and cooperative member of the silo. Yet the expected uprising had not occurred. Samuel, always planning, was not yet alarmed. But with nothing to show for his betrayal except a condemned daughter, the man in front of him was near breaking point and very much a concern to the priestly secretary.

  “I think it best you get some rest. One never knows what tomorrow might bring.” Samuel pocketed the recording and said to them both, “I’ll return in a few hours and accompany you to the cafeteria. We’ll want to arrive well before dawn.”

  Anger and anguish spent, Adin barely nodded in assent.

  #

  Elias pulled up a short stool and settled his weary body outside the holding cell of Hanna Tate. More than a few bars separated them. Hanna’s simple faith had put the old priest to shame; and he considered himself a true believer!

  But he was old, his time was past. Perhaps he should retire and let his shadow-turned-secretary take over. That just might assuage his feelings of guilt. If only he’d paid more attention to these proceedings, Hanna might not be standing before him now, a night away from her execution.

  The old priest sighed. If pressed, he’d have to admit that the demise of the priesthood occurred on his watch. Ever since the last uprising thirty years before, their influence had waned. They were thought responsible because of their failure to placate the masses. This he’d heard from the four sheriffs and two mayors he’d worked with over the years. Elias swallowed a bitter laugh. Sure, he’d outlasted a few politicians but their ilk had slowly taken over and he hadn’t even realized it. Samuel couldn’t do much worse.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Hanna’s meek voice caught him off guard.

  “What is, my child?” Elias looked at the screen that filled the back wall of the cell. It showed a dismal picture: a black and gray, poisonous world that existed just beyond their silo’s walls, just outside the yellow hatch door. A door just down the hall through which this poor soul would pass in a few short hours.

  “The view of heaven,” she replied.

  “But…it’s dark out there, child. The clouds are black, the winds are devilish….”

  “That’s why we have to clean. The window is just dirty. But there, and there—do you see?—light is shining through!”

  Elias looked closely at the pixelated view. He noticed a few scattered dots of white. To his discerning eye, these were simply burned out sensors, part of the visual array that had malfunctioned over the years and were no longer transmitting images from the outside. He couldn’t help but smile at the girl’s faith.

  But instead of correcting her, he asked, “And you’re not frightened to go outside and clean the…the windows?”

  Hanna shook her head, still captivated by the view. “The hill, I can’t quite see them, but it must be covered with flowers, don’t you think? And the buildings beyond, they must be castles like in the picture books at school.”

  Elias offered nothing in reply, bowing his head and praying instead for more faith.

  “So will you help me, Father? Will you help me clean so that everyone in the silo will know it’s true?”

  Such a thought roused him from his reverie. And it struck him. Would he? Would that make a difference? Could his life count for something once again? Hanna’s faith was rare, but could this be the beginning of a resurgence of belief? A revival?

  Down the hall, opposite the airlock, an office opened and Jedediah Alston stepped out. “Visiting hours are over, Father. I have to give Hanna her last meal soon. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Elias, alive now, maybe for the first time in years, came off his stool and faced the sheriff with an authority born of his long tenure as the upper levels chief priest.

  “No, young man. I’ll be staying all night.” Alston, about to object, closed his mouth when the priest held up his hand. “And in the morning I’m going to help Hanna clean.”

  -6-

  Elias looked into the surprised eyes of Samuel as the secretary approached his holding cell next to Hanna’s. Beside him quivered an emotional pair, clutching at each other, reaching for their daughter through the bars. Sheriff Alston stood behind the three visitors, giving them them a brief moment for their goodbyes.

  “Elias?” The question encompassed the whole of their relationship.

  “Yes, Samuel. It’s time.” A renewed sense of purpose filled and thrilled the old man. “It’s your time. The silo needs spiritual leadership. Bring about the change it longs for. Bring about a renewal of faith, a resurgence of belief. I leave the priesthood in your competent hands. You’ve earned it through your many years of faithful service.”

  “I… don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll take care of the workers, Samuel. The sweepers, especially. I know you will. You haven’t forgotten, have you? That they’re your family. That they belong to you and you belong to them. That you came from them…” …Orphaned in the last uprising.

  “Of course, Elias,” his secretary said, interrupting the reminisces. The sound of Ester’s sobs and the sheriff’s throat-clearings prompted him to say farewell to his mentor and friend. “I will do my best.” The two men grasped each other’s arms briefly and then stepped back. “May God grant you mercy.”

  Upon hearing Hanna tell her parents she would see them soon, Elias smiled at his protégé and said, “God has, my friend. God surely has.”

  In the silence that followed their departure, Elias allowed the tears to come.

  When Alston returned, he brought with him a woman lugging a child-sized body suit, boots, and helmet. The sheriff held the priest’s slightly larger version. He laid the bulky, white hazard suit over a stool, placed the gear on the floor, then unlocked both jail doors. The prisoners slowly exited their cells. The airlock was just down the hall.

  “This is Nina. She’ll help you suit up and tell you what to do.”

  Without a word, the woman assigned to strap the condemned pair into their suits began, stage by stage, to dress them. She took to her work in nervous spurts. First the leggings, then the boots. Then she wrapped the connections with insulating tape.

  “Straighten up, please. Take a step. Can you walk?” Both priest and child demonstrated that they could. “You’re lucky we had a suit your size, Father. We had to make Hanna’s special.”

  Yes, quite lucky. Elias caught an amused look from the sheriff standing behind her.

  Nina realized her mistake. “I mean to say, we….”

  “That’s quite all right, daughter. Please continue.”

  She resumed her frenetic tuggings, zippings, and tapings in embarrassed silence. Within a short time both of them were fully suited except for their helmets. They stood there awkwardly, awaiting the instructions they knew were next.

  “You see these colored pouches? Numbered so you can read them?” Elias looked down on his chest and nodded. “Take the spray from one and squirt the sensor twice. Take the wool from two and scrub the lens. Take the cloth from three and wipe it clean. Take a film from four and apply the protective layer.” She turned to the girl and said, more gently, “You got that Hanna?”

  “I think so,” Hanna said.

  “I will assist her,” assured the priest.

  Nina stepped back allowing the sheriff his official moment. Alston said gruffly, “Hanna Tate, Father Elias, you are hereby condemned to clean for endangering the silo. Do you have anything to say?”

  At first, Elias shook his
head then realized, “Hanna, I forgot to lead you in your last petition. Would you like to offer your final…”—somehow the word ‘penance’ didn’t quite fit—“…prayer?”

  “Yes, Father. My last prayer is that everyone will follow us to God’s heaven.”

  His heart, recently so weak and reticent, suddenly melted and was recast with a tensile strength that would last an eternity. He gripped both her hands through his thick gloves. “That is my confession as well.”

  After Nina provided some final instructions about quickly leaving the airlock before it resealed, trapping them in a fiery death, Sheriff Alston led them to the hatch. He unlocked the door with a key from the cluster at his belt and ushered them inside. Nina, apologetically, placed Hanna’s helmet on first, then the priest’s, snapping them both shut then wrapping the connecting seam with protective tape. The time for words had passed. But for Elias, they were no longer necessary. He had a job to perform and he did so willingly.

  Taking Hanna’s arm, Elias watched as Alston closed the hatch behind them. Together they sensed the vibration of the door slam shut, heard the klaxon horn blare out a warning, and felt the whoosh of pressure as the airlock matched the outdoors, form-fitting their suits around them. A flashing red light and the hiss of decompressed gas signaled the release of the outer door; the mix of gases and atmosphere produced a thick mist around them both.

  A pale glow beckoned them through the airlock and Hanna pulled on Elias’s hand as she made her way easily through the narrow opening. Elias, likewise, had no trouble exiting the underground silo. Side by side they ascended a long cement ramp toward a red and pink-colored sky.

  Arriving at the top of the path, Elias gasped. It was not quite sunrise, but the viewplate in his helmet revealed a palate of colors he hadn’t thought possible. The hill was indeed covered with flowers, deep yellow flowers on a field of dark green. And beyond the hill, castles! Beautiful and shimmering, high enough to catch the morning sun’s rays that would soon burst down upon their own bit of paradise.