No.3 Matilda’s Tale

My name is Matilda Arbuckle. I am a 34 year old house wife living in The Garden of Eden. We are a secret people, that is we do not let outsiders enter our town. Our founder and leader Bryon McFilter, has said that we are “god’s Chosen” and has told us that God said to him that outsiders will only poison our family trees. If we are to bring ourselves to salvation within the next life, we must preserve the beauty of the nearby forest that God has given us. It has become increasingly hard for us, due to Father Bryon’s need for creating industrial machinery. Our factories have destroyed a bit of our forest. We need them, however to build our houses, bring us electricity, and have pure running water. They are a necessity to live, but I worry if we anger God by this. Treating God’s creations with tenderness and love is just as important as treating ourselves with the same equality. We have a tendency to grow things, not just crops, but flowers for our orchards. We live by the law of God and God alone. The bible is our constitution. Anybody caught breaking God’s law is punished severely. Punishment can range from a whipping and in some cases death, but we have never had a travesty like that come our way yet, and may the good lord let it not happen. Our golden rule, of course, is to attend the early sunday mass. This is the day of the week, we devote entirely to worshipping God. It is our way of communicating with God, about our needs, our problems with the community. Once mass has ended, Father Bryon goes into the enchanted garden into the woods to talk with God and he comes back to tell us what is to be our focus for the week. If God is pleased with what we have done, our week will be filled with abundance. Lately, my husband and I, however, are concerned with the word of God. Not with God himself, just with Father Bryon’s judgment. Our crops are dying, even though Father Bryon has said that God is pleased with what we have done in the previous weeks. I am beginning to worry, that God has turned his back on Father Bryon’s judgment. This does not consist with just me and my husband, but with everyone in town. We worry that the cost of the forest for industrialization has angered God with us. My husband and I have spoken with our neighbors and we believe that we are being tested by the good lord himself, just like Abraham was with his son Isaac. We have decided to sacrifice at least one of our factories as an offering to God. Maybe, here God will know that he is first in our lives and that we do care about the earth. My husband speaks with Father Bryon tonight. My only hope is that he approves of our idea so that our crops will flourish as they have always done.

~ by tfruge on October 11, 2007.