The Monster's Daughter by Michelle Pretorius Page B

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Benjamin now for sure. Benjamin struggled to straighten up, holding on to the side of the table. He jabbed at the lamp, slowly pushing it to the edge of the table. He stood on the tips of his toes, gripping the lamp’s copper base between his small pudgy hands. He would bring the light. God would see that he was in the light. That he was a good boy. The lamp perched, suspended between table and nothing. Benjamin reached up to grab its handle, but it was heavy, too heavy for him to hold, and it fell.
    Flames somersaulted over shattered glass, bounding up, clasping the tablecloth. Benjamin tried to get up, get away, kerosene wet on his nightshirt. He tried to push himself up. A sharp pain shot up from his palm. When he looked, he saw a shard of glass that stuck out of his hand, reflecting the fire, as if it was growing out of him, as if he was the fire. He stared at it, mesmerized, as blood spiraled down his arm in thick black vines. Heat radiated from his left foot where the firegnawed on it. He became the light as flames crawled up his left leg. Benjamin tried to stand up, to show the others, but his lungs burned, the pain suddenly excruciating. He didn’t want to be the light. “Make it stop make it stop make it stop,” he screamed. There was a commotion somewhere far off. Someone ran toward him and covered him with something rough and heavy, bearing down on his body, and suddenly he existed in in a world of nothing.
    â€œBennie?”
Matrone
Jansen sat at his bedside, her hands clutching the rails. “You’re awake.” Her lip quivered, her eyes shining in a way Benjamin had never seen before. He fought the numbness, the fog pushing against raw pain.
    Two rows of beds lined the long colorless room. Grown-up heads with cotton-candy hair peeked above starched sheets, few of them showing any signs of life. A nurse pushed a steel cart down the middle, stopping at all the beds, forcing something down every occupant’s throat.
    â€œIt’s time to change your bandage.”
Matrone
Jansen pulled the sheets back, exposing Benjamin’s thin body, amber pus seeping through a thick bandage on his leg. He felt something hollow and tingling in his tummy when he looked at it.
    â€œYou are a brave boy.”
Matrone
Jansen unwound the gauze, revealing raw flesh. She ripped at the last piece of gauze.
    â€œ
Eina!
”
    â€œThere, now. The worst is over. God has spared you.”
    Benjamin’s eyes teared up. He whispered the words he had been thinking. “I didn’t want Him to.”
    Matrone
Jansen wrapped her hard bony hands around his face, bringing it close to hers until their foreheads almost touched. “It is not for you to decide, son. Earthly pain is nothing. Your soul will burn like this for eternity if you refuse Him.” She let go. “And if you keep talking like that, I can’t look after you anymore. I’ll never see you again. Is that what you want?”
    Benjamin felt a pain worse than his legs in his insides.
    â€œYou should rejoice, Bennie. You have been purified with fire. You are His now.”
    Benjamin didn’t understand God, didn’t understand why God had chosen him or burned him. To Benjamin, God was even scarier than Satan.
    Matrone
Jansen ran her hand over his hair. She resumed changing his bandage, her mood lifted, jovial even. “I have talked to the new administrator. He said, when you are better, you can come with me to my house. Maybe for a while.”
    Benjamin stared silently at her, not trusting his words.
    Matrone
Jansen stopped fussing with his bandage. She looked unsure of herself. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
    Benjamin nodded.
Matrone
Jansen kissed him on the forehead. He felt warm inside, light. He wondered if this was why people did all these things for God, so they could maybe get to go to an eternal home in Heaven.

3
Friday
DECEMBER 10, 2010
    Alet canvassed the Terblanche