Hammerport

The senator had met his wife at one of the churches on the election rounds two years earlier. He had spoken to the congregation, putting forward his personal opinions on the role of faith in political leadership. Although he was experienced in the art of public speaking and was as usual engaging every face in the audience, he felt that his focus had been on just one special lady. He had been hypnotised by her hungry eyes whose pupils blossomed with gorgeous intensity whenever he spoke, seemingly feeding on his tireless, impassioned oration; her appetite for his words was voracious. The effervescent chemistry that bubbled in the church that day could only have one conclusion. When God brings two perfectly matched people together, resistance is blasphemy, the senator joked at the wedding three months later.

“I will go with whatever you decide because I am here for you not for your career,” she said, beside him in the bed. “Just be sure that what you decide is what your heart truly wishes.” She laid her head on his shoulder.

He never wanted to be without this understanding, patient woman whose dark hair was a warm forest of delight. Snow White might be lost in this forest too, he thought, but she would never have cause to leave and Prince Charming would be in tears. It always smelt inviting; he kissed it with marital expertise. “I love you so, so much.”

He had watched Warren Beatty’s senator in Bulworth suffer a nervous breakdown and throw his career away just to say, for one exciting and subversive day, all of the truthful words that had been bottled up inside him. He had found the film amusing back then, despite its uncomfortable leanings to the left, but he did not find it amusing any more. He found it sad. “Honey, why don’t you turn the light out?” he asked.

His wife turned away to switch off the bedside lamp. The senator saw her breasts hang freely within her loose nightdress and felt not only pangs of tired lust but other, more important emotions. Gratitude. Humility. Responsibility. He wanted to be happy to enjoy her and start the family of five they had talked about. He needed to get off this doomed senatorial train permanently; the two of them rarely stopped at the same stations anymore.

In the darkness, the senator began a silent prayer. He wanted to ask for forgiveness for thinking the unthinkable thought and also, if God was not too upset with him already, for some guidance, a way out, a solution to his distress. Fitting the conversational trend of the evening, his prayer was also left unfinished – halfway through his mental recital he began to snore.

At 3:19 am, Elvis appeared in the bedroom.

Ten minutes later, the senator was roused from sleep by the sensation of being watched, but he thought he was dreaming when he saw the black silhouette of someone hunched over in the bedroom corner. In his semi-conscious state, he was unperturbed by this discovery and asked in a hoarse voice, “Who’s there?”

The silhouette did not move and the senator thought it might be a statue until the statue spoke. “It risssesss,” it whispered in an unnerving voice that sounded like the words were sculpted from white noise; a random, hissing, growling madness.

“What rises? Who are you?”

“You are Paragon!” it hissed. “Beeee my commandment!”

The senator slipped back into slumber unaware that Elvis continued to observe him for a full hour before taking his leave.