Preteen Prophet

It suddenly all made sense. With my skorts bunched up around my newly-woolly ankles and worn elastic weakly hugging my knees, I gazed down wide-eyed at an unfamiliar bloody smudge marking out a cross upon already-stained Fruit-of-the-Looms.

A….prophecy.

The clarity was chilling. Of course God would choose his most valiant soldier. Only a two-time Pinellas County K-12 cartoon contest winner and Club Penguin magnate could vanquish Beelzebub and drive out the scourge of wickedness from the land. And now—just moments after throwing my sins (as represented by neon sticky-notes) into the camp prayer fire and being the most moved by the Holy Spirit in the under-14 girls bunks (even more than Meaghan Sanders)—here was a sign divinely transcribed: a cross in blood.

My prophethood was further confirmed on another toilet—this one housed within the bleached pink and green church where I lapped up fantastically saccharine, granular CountryTime lemonade at every Sunday service and Wednesday night Christian puppetry brigade practice. Every bathroom donned a portrait of the crucifixion above the foaming cherry soap and parched potpourri. A svelte brunette made a T shape, his head cocked down and right with lips slightly ajar. Kind eyes struggled to stay open. Limbs lay slack yet muscles were flexed and raw, saturated with sweat and congealed blood. Note: there tends to be direct positive correlation between the fundamentalism of a particular denomination and how absolutely shreeedddddded they paint their crucified Jesuses. Thus, the Jesus depicted in this bathroom wore lean obliques and bulging biceps, but lacked that low V slanting downwards into a low- hanging towel you might find at some more hardcore churches. In any church though you would see the same angry, bloody ovals punched through the center of his hands. Stigmata. Select monastic men and women throughout history got word of their saintly stature through pain appearing in the center of their hands in the same place Jesus was wounded with nails. Marks would appear or stinging pain would stir from the extremities. How they must have rubbed at those spots. I had been itching and scratching and tearing into the center of my palms since fourth grade.

Of course. The frantic scratching of the middle of each palm was not a nervous compulsion, but the mark of the millennial prophet. Or rather it was still a compulsion, but a compulsion to rip away the skin until the true marks of crucifixion forced their way through the flesh. The scratching always had a purpose, but now the purpose seemed grander. Itch it hard and fast three times and then two more sets of three if you really want to protect against harm. Feel the devil moving in your bedroom? Go to town on it with the back of your earring. Have a no- good very-bad thought? Scratch it roughly against your bedframe. Gnaw at the spot with your two front teeth like a badger if the thought is particularly persistent. When you get a little older, squeeze your hands too tightly with your boxing wrap so that when you jab-cross-hook, the cloth lacerates the skin in just the right spot. Maybe just use your sharpened nail and the gesture will be so imperceptible that no one will notice for years until you tell them about the scratching and how you once believed it was the sign of a prophet.

It turns out that same red marking would come every month, typically accompanied with an uptick in cystic acne and a hankering for pickled okra. The persistent terrors were no longer the forces of demons, but rather of people living in the walls or fears of leaving the house in the daylight. All the diseases and accidents and tragedies one could possibly conjure up in their mind have dethroned the devil. In its place, infinite universes of harm. I have lost my faith in subsequent years, but I have not lost the itch.