Free In the Image of Grace by Charlotte Ann Schlobohm Page A

his thumb
across my cheek. “You can do this,” he reassured me.
    When they were done signing everyone clapped and then
Pastor Dave introduced Dr. Carl Williams. People cheered, a few
whistled. He walked out wearing jeans with a thin black belt and a
blue and white striped collared shirt tucked in. He was carrying a
cordless microphone. He gave a wave. “Hello children,” he said.
    “Hello Dr. Williams,” everyone responded.
    “Tonight is a special evening, but before we get to
anything too exciting I wanted to talk a little about why we’re all
here,” he paused and bobbed his head a little. “We are here because
the Xtials put us here.”
    “Yes, yes,” people cried out.
    “They cloned themselves and placed us on this Earth
for a reason and that is to carry on their life, their likeness,”
he walked to the left across the stage and stood at the edge.
“People talk of intelligent design, but many skip out that it
wasn’t God. They forget to say that an alien race put us on this
planet. People talk of evolution, but that is not true. We did not
evolve from anything. We were born from the Xtials.” He pointed up
towards the sky.
    Many raised their hands in the air, they clapped, and
said “Yes, yes” again.
    “But we started getting messy. We’ve gotten away from
their image of perfection. We’ve let disease run wild. We’ve
accepted people to look undesirable. We’ve gotten away from what
the image of the Xtials is supposed to be. That’s why they sent us
Grace. She is exactly what we are supposed to be.” He turned and
looked at the picture of my mother up on the screen. “This is what
the Xtials look like. They are a beautiful healthy people with no
suffering from disease. They are Grace and we are her
children.”
    An explosion of sound rang through the warehouse.
People stomped their feet and clapped, hooted, hollered and cheered
and screamed, “Yes, yes.”
    “Now,” Mr. Carl said walking back to the middle of
the stage. “I will like to present our leader, The Giver of Grace.”
He twirled his arm to his side and walked off the stage.
    Onto the stage walked a tall sturdy man. His hair was
a dark brown with sprinkles of gray. A clean cut beard covered his
face. Deep set wrinkles were at the corners of his eyes, lines of
distinction as he called them. His lips were thin and tight and his
teeth seemed fake, being way to white. He wore brown corduroys with
a sweater vest. The uproar began again. My face was frozen in
place. My eyes couldn’t even blink.
    I grabbed Jeremy’s arm again.
    “You okay?”
    I shook my head no.
    “Should we go?” He whispered.
    I shook my head no again, stood up on my tip toes and
whispered the quietest I could into his ear. “That’s my
father.”
    “Oh shit,” he responded.
    This can’t be true, this can’t be true, kept running
through my head. My father was a cult leader, this so called Giver
of Grace. How could he not have told us about any of it? How could
he not allow us to talk about our mother and yet he had a whole
cult dedicated to her? He was crazy. He had to be certifiably
insane. It was the only explanation I could have thought of.
    “All right, all right,” he said slowly shaking his
head back and forth. “Yes, yes.” He looked upwards, perhaps looking
up to Pluto, with a big grin on his face showing all his fake white
teeth. “Tonight is a big night, a big night.” He slowly sauntered
up to the front of the stage and rested a foot up on a speaker box.
“We are all here for one reason and that’s the Xtails.” He pressed
his lips together and closed his eyes and moved his head around
like he was listening to some soft sweet music.
    I heard some yes, yes’s from the crowd. A couple next
to us closed their eyes too. I felt so sad looking at that young
couple. They were college aged. The girl had her hair cut short,
almost like a little boys, and was wearing red lipstick and the guy
was short and stocky with large thick sideburns. They