You Will Pay Homage

Today I was given the role of school chaperone.

‘Cultural exchange’, whatever that means.

These guys, and they were all guys, were fundamentalists. Fanatically praying and openly worshipping their God with an continuous and obscure chant.

That kind of devotion just isn’t done here.

As I walked through their section, a masked teacher covered head to foot in religious paraphernalia started walking in step with me. We passed an icon, basically a thumb sized stone button covered with exotic symbols.

It looked cursed.

“You will pay homage”

Like hell I will.

This teacher, our guest, in my school wanted me to worship his God. I flat out refused. With an iron grip he seized my hand and began forcing my thumb onto the icon.

A fight ensued. 

His gaze trapped me. My movements were weak and stinted. The fight devolved into a stalemate, his hands on mine, with me vehemently refusing to touch my thumb to the stone.

“You will comply. It is commanded of you”

Never.

We were locked together, staring and straining. Neither moving. Where his eyes should have been sat black husks, smoke protruding towards me like tentacles. They grasped me, pulling me in. Forcing my consciousness into his.

Resistance was futile. I fell into his abyss. A kaleidoscopic nightmare of sharp fracturing shapes, violently moving around and through me. Eventually there was silence. I watches as shapes resolved themselves into a large queer symbol. My vision went dull and I became stuck in place.

Then there was nothing, nothing but intermittent chanting followed by the occasional all-encompassing vision of a thumb print.