IV.
Bibleopolis looked incredible from above. Cleaner. Quieter. The people
looked peaceful from up there.
They hovered in place above the exile site. Luke expected to fall, but
they stayed suspended. The puppet scanned the crowd.
“Jesus Loves You,” the puppet read from a billboard.
“God’s way is the only way,” he read from another.
Luke’s hand shook no.
“You people have a messed-up sense of my Father’s word,” the puppet said.
“It wasn’t me,” Luke replied.
“Yeah, but you fucking follow this shit,” the puppet said.
They descended. Luke grew more nervous the closer they got. No one would
believe the puppet was real. They’d call him a heretic or liberal.
He didn’t want to be exiled. He’d never been outside Bibleopolis. He
pictured the country beyond as a liberal hellscape. Godless. Sex-crazed.
Their government helping the sick and poor. That should be the church’s
job, he’d been told.
The crowd was already large. Signs everywhere. Better signs than his.
He saw the dark truck. It held the exile. He remembered cheering during
past exiles. Watching people walk the long road in shame.
He’d been told their belongings were always burned.