HE WAS DEHYDRATED FROM DEPRIVATION of drinking water by the guards. Doran sat on the sand and used the wooden crate as a backrest, and he dozed off in the tormenting heatwave. His eyes were shut, his hand trembled — and the homemade, pebbled-strung rosary fell to his side on the sand...

His fevered mind travelled back to the dark side of the sun — back into his solace, darken comfort zone of the menthol bulb lighted, padded cell-room in the solitary. He lay there wrapped in his straitjacket, just as before two voices — one younger and the other older — echoed out his name...

Doran compelled his eyes to open slowly...

He saw two blurry images presences in the cell room. He saw himself epitomized in the two splitting figures — on his left, was himself as the twelve-year-old bald monk in a blood-spattered robe, holding a smoking thurible — and on his right, was the seven-year-old child in torn clothes, covered with coal soot from his mother's basement.

The twelve-year-old boy spoke out...

"Wake up Doran — it is time to complete God's mission! You have to lead the people out of this cast-off dungeon — and crush the oppressors in God's name if they try to stop you!"

"Please don't — if you do it, you will get everyone killed!"

The smaller boy voiced out to him. The older monk-boy was chafed at the youngster...

"Shut up you weakling! Our Lord and God is with you, Doran — in spirit, body and mind! Trust the Lord and stand up for Him — for the time is now!"

The child pleaded again...

"No please, no — Doran, don't believe that — that is the Devil's will to lust for blood spill — God brings love and not war, Doran!"

"Shut up! Don't interfere in God's plan, you miserable wuss!"

The monk swung the chained flaming thurible and the undersized boy backed away...

Doran then witnessed the presence of a third spectre — pulling the tiny boy to the ground and pulverizing the scrawny figure with foot stomps — Doran makes out the image of his gorgon burnt mother — beating the seven-year-old with a cane until the skin of the boy's back tore — the mother screeched...

"You cursed abomination! Spawn of Satan! How dare you defy the Will of God — leave this body, you unclean spirit!"

The twelve-year-old faced back to the older Doran who was wavering in dreaded trembles, with his eyes shut in tears — trying to reel back into the reality of a cage with a tin roof in the scorching desert heat. The monk-boy's loud voice then halted his fleeting mind that was about to double-back...

"Wake up Doran — don't sleep with the dead — the time is now to be the leader because you are an indestructible eternal weapon of God!

"Did you not make a promise to Sister Lisa Marie that you will lead millions to God?"

The mention of the nun's name made the older Doran cry even harder. He opened his eyes to see her beside him — the apoplexy woman was now whole — not as the gunshot defaced appearance, that he used to dread to recall.

The innocent old nun touched his cheek with rolling tears...

"Doran, my special boy — you will be the Pope someday."

"Sister Lisa, you are alive! Did you come to take me to God? Please take me with you — I only want to be with you!"

He whispered — while he then felt something cling to his left ankle — he peered below to see the bleeding seven-year-old of himself who had grovelled over — and the child was pleading in hurt...

"Wake up Doran! Sister Lisa is dead — and she does not want you to kill anyone either. She wants you to spread the love of God — not spill the blood of the lamb for more human sufferings."

"Shut up, don't let me come there and kill you!"

The exasperating blood-thirsting twelve-year-old monk hollered back — but the persuading small boy kept defying...

"If it is truly the Work of God, then you must speak in tongues — it is God's voice — you can do it, Doran!"

The older Intersexual youth shook his head...

"I can't — I can't!"

Even the monk-boy from the monastery heartened the encouragement...

"You must Doran — proof yourself — you must speak it!"

The oldest of the Doran in the straitjacket began to pound his head on the padded wall — screaming in tears...

"Arrrrr!!! Get out of my head — all of you!"

"Speak in tongues Doran — speak in God's language!" the youngest called out — while his mother too appended...

"Speak, you abomination — speak it!"

"Speak now, Doran, and proof to the unbelievers that you truly are the chosen Preacher!" disclosed the twelve-year-old monk-boy again.

"Do it for The Church of God, Doran," the old nun of the Convent implied.

Doran yelled back in total abnegation...

"I can't, please go away you all — Arrrr!!!"

The four apparitions stood in a row...

The twelve-year-old monk-boy, the seven-year-old child, his disfigured mother, and the Convent nun — they initiated to speak and sing in-tongues together...

Their singing heads detached from their bodies — and drifted around the screaming Doran — while they praised in the language of angels — before the floating heads burst into balls of anointed flames — and zipped into his bellowing mouth...

Doran now began to utter the heavenly glossolalia language by himself — until his own face soon ruptured — into an éclat flaring blaze of enlightenment fire like the sun.

**

The ball of blazing hot summer sun above Tombscradle was penetrating humid heat onto the metal roof of Doran's cage. The guards were instructed by Capt. Olsen to feed him less water as a punishment — but the guards have gone drastic, to the extreme in their 'dry-cell' maltreatment — by denying him a drink for the past six hours in the scorching weather condition...

He was hyperventilating, snapping in and out from his paranoid delusions — almost suffered from a heat stroke. Doran looked at his hands which were still trembling — he picked up the Rosary from the sand to kiss it with his chapped lips.

The open-aired urinal shed nearby was twenty feet away from Doran's cage — it also had a tin roof — Guard Gina was on duty in the shade, assigned to prevent any Intersexuals from approaching the Preacher.

The bored gazer was checking on a White Intersexual boy beside her, who was peeing in the urinal. Gina then grumbled to another guard in the watchtower — bitching about her boredom through her walkie-talkie radio...

"It is freakin' bitch-hot and it is killing me in here — and what am I doing here in the gashouse all day? Fuck! Am getting paid here for just watching some ugly uncircumcised dicks peeing?"

The parched prison guard glanced into her hand, holding up an empty water bottle — she continued to radio...

"Damn it Preslie, I am so wanting an ice-cold lemonade Monster soda — yes fuck, it may taste like some fizzy she-boys' pee, but with this shitty heatwave — that what I fucking want...

"Hey champ, keep an eye on the base for me — will ya? Be right back."

Guard Gina missed her once habituate duty inside the building — it had gone well until things went afoul when the martinet Capt. Olsen caught her recently shirking on her duties — in siesta, during a surprise inspection — Olsen next threw the fainéant guard to perform outdoor duties in the blazing summer sun...

She waved to the guard in the watchtower — who Okayed-back. Gina walked away passing the cage — ignoring Doran's similar need for a drink of water.

The White Guard in the watchtower was Preslie Baker, in her mid-forties — she was sitting and peering through a binocular at the yard — she eagle-eyed Gina walking away from her gashouse post, making her way towards a side entrance of C-block — Preslie went on back reading an eighteen-year-old tattered sports magazine...

'London Olympics in 2012.'

It had Preslie Baker's younger face on one of the pages of the magazine — when she was an Olympian champion before the Medusa Virus outbreak. Her iPod was hooked to the small speakers — where the archaic recording of a male commentator hyperbole of her achievements during the past pre-Medusa world's sporting event — with the crowd cheering in the Royal Artillery Barracks, back in 2012.

On the wall of the watchtower was her personal shrine with some photos of her on the podium receiving the gold medal — for the Olympic women trap shooting competition in London, which happened eighteen years ago.

The well-polished shining champion gold medal hung nearby her photos — and her winner double-barrel Beretta DT10 shotgun...

It was packed on the rifle rack, of the Tombcradle's best sharpshooting sniper.

*

Reeves observed Guard Gina walking away, entering a side door of the prison block building. He walked away from Troy and True Bob at the bleacher and headed towards the urinal...

He unzipped and was peeing — while he peered at Doran nearby, who was lying still on the sand in the small cage, in the arid heat. Reeves knew the dehydration was killing him — he then approached the Preacher's confine with his small plastic drink bottle...

"Come, Doran — drink this."

Doran finished the entire content — he painfully adjusted himself to sit up straight, with his hand holding on his loin — listening to the dark-haired youth — the first intersexual who got this close to him, since he was caged...

"Are you alright, dude? How are you healing?"

The Preacher nodded with a weak smile, the concerned Reeves added — while recalling his first-hand incident that night, in the Infirmary during his pox quarantine — when Doran attempted his castration...

"Why in the world did you do it, man? Why do you keep hurting yourself? Have you given up your hope to live?"

"No brother, my will to live is stronger each day — and now, I have the utmost inner peace and clarity — the voices have spoken to me."

Now, this was the neurotic part that led Reeves to disbelieve Doran in the past — when Doran spoke of being in touch with heavenly voices that were invisible to him — it got Reeves cynical since...

"Now did that God of yours tell you to cut yourself up, Doran? Hey dumb-ass, stop acting-up this illing shit to yourself — your abandoned monk-brothers are depending on you in here, with Olsen roughening them up — the very fucking least, stay alive for their sake, dammit — you are all they got."

Doran closed his eyes and chuckled softly...

"Yes, I am alive for them, Brother — and also to fulfil God's mission — as my body is His vessel. Each moment, my mind and thoughts are consistently walking with Him in His garden — and we even dine together at His table. It is such breathtaking enlightenment, Brother Reeves — the rewards of being in His presences for His supper."

Reeves was getting more annoyed with the illusory talks of his death...

"Wake the fuck-up — you always have given hope to many inmates in here with your sermons — and the next thing you do is self-sabotage yourself by ending up in the hole again. Listen to me good, Doran, they may cheer out for you today in the yard — but sooner or later, your followers will scorn you for desolating them with empty promises of freedom, which you have given them since we got here in T.C."

Doran responded with more emblematic words...

"True freedom has no bounds in the free mind — and everyone should go there to make peace with himself first."

Instead of being riled and walking away from his ambiguous preaching — Reeves stood and queried him more...

"Now get your head outta your ass, the kind of freedom your followers want here is to walk out from these prison walls — and not them having chow with Jesus once they are fucking dead — so, are you still keeping that promise that are you gonna lead them out here — or — are you going to ding-out like you are doing now in your Warden's cage — and put an end to everyone's hope in you here?"

Ever since Reeves 'ear-hustled' the nurses' conversation that his mother was in Washington, his aspiration to escape had swelled — and he was more motivated. He was having much more self-belief than he once did while he was at Wesleyan University...

He was more determined to escape this time.

His eyes were still closed by the sun's glare and the Preacher just smiled — he gesticulated to the mentioned gravity by Reeves, as he replied with a composed exemplary...

"The ending is just the beginning, and once you know the outcome — the rest will follow. Yes my Brother Reeves, we will then walk out of these walls here with God."

Reeves glanced at him like he was a deluded fool — voicing out heatedly at him...

"Walk where to — to our graves, is it? (Hah, yeah, to the Potter's Field over the wall), So it is status quo then for everyone for now as we go 'Code 21' in here in the hot desert — and hope someday, we dry out of semen to populate any more bitches during our 'old head' golden-age — before those women then deem us useless, and they put us out of our miseries like broken animals, and bury us there in those unmarked graves — ain't that right, Preacher-Man?"

Finally, Doran opened his eyes and sensed Reeves in signified hostility...

"Do you still wish to walk out of here, Reeves?"

"Hah, of course! That's what every inmate in here wants, (you ass-hole)."

"We shall walk out of here then."

"When? That is what everyone is talking about here now, Doran — when?"

"Soon Brother, just be patient."

He closed his eyes again — Reeves kicked the iron bar cage...

"Hah! There you go again with your bullshit promises — and the next thing you do, is disappearing again on everyone into that isolation hole of yours for another month or so — it seems to be a repeated routine of your life — you seem to like being there, don't you Doran?"

Reeves was still chafed — and he continued to rant his hubris somaesthesia...

"But I have got my own means to follow — and I am getting out of here soon, Doran — I am gonna rabbit that fucking wall, and soon I will be long gone from here — while you sit alone in that hole and grow a new pair of balls!"

Doran grinned back at him...

"I bless and will pray earnestly for your wishes to come true, my Brother Reeves — but I have to warn you that, you should not die in your attempt out there in the open desert — and then, you will surely end up in limbo, because your mind right now is not in peace with your body.

"So if you ever were to die today in the wilderness — remember, your soul will still be roaming in these entrapped four walls of Tombscradle for the rest of eternity."

Now Reeves sunk into the Preacher's gravamen, despite his speaking in some-heavenly riddles — but he was making sense to Reeves own self-denials — the wilderness and limbo from the Preacher's reference was the pragmatic situation that the penitentiary was smacked in a desert in Texas — and the many consequences Reeves would face once he jumped the wall...

Other than following the tarmac desert road and getting caught before dawn, it would be next to impossible to find a safe direction to civilization by foot — and let alone that it was either surviving the baking heat of the desert crossing or get shot in a chopper manhunt when ambushed.

Other than being encumbered of the various outcomes, Reeves' own tracking and survival life-skills were nugatory — he too was a product of a lifetime of being institutionalized as a protected orphan living in sheltered abode all his life in the herd — living by following a set of rules as his mere existence as a research subject in Wesleyan.

Escaping from Tombscradle was no longer an option for him at the moment — having those freedom desires alone was simply useless now with the stacked-up odds...

He would never be alive to see Laura Jensen once he was out there.

Reeves now felt very angry with himself — but, he took it out on the impassive Doran — by getting hostile by the monk's homily wisdom...

"You 'lop' loser, an eternity in limbo, my ass! Did the fucking '5150' voices in your bug-mind tell you that shit too?"

"Yes, Brother Reeves, and many other things too. The heavenly voices even taught me how to sing praises."

The scar-faced Doran sang in-tongues — the heavenly gift that he recently acquired, while he was healing in solitary. Reeves looked baffled, at the inscrutable gibberish which the Preacher was uttering in a melodic tune. He backed away slowly at the same time, from the peculiarity that he was witnessing...

Guard Gina came over with a bottle of soda, seeing Reeves near the cage — she yelled out...

"Hey you, dog-fucker — you get away from him, you bitch!"

Every Intersexual who was nearby heard her screeched out — they stared over at the dilapidated looking Doran who was now speaking aloud in tongues — and seeing the guard slammed her baton at the iron bar cage to shut him up.

Reeves paced away towards Troy and True Bob who were taking shelter from the sweltering temperature. Troy spoke up...

"What is he saying? What is wrong with the Preacher?"

The frustrated Reeves responded with chafe...

"Fuck him — he is not making any sense any more. He has lost both his nuts and his marbles."

True Bob looked up at the baking sun...

"It is probably the heat."