Excerpt: No Time For Play.

Father Tim walked along the sidewalk to his church, saying a hello to the many people he'd known since becoming a priest. They said a hello back, and he was on his way again. Father Tim felt good today, he had come back from home where he’d beaten the devil out of his son, he felt his son would be happy too, knowing that he had not a single sin to deal with. His son had gone to school the day before, done his work, written down his homework, and had felt the need to play when he got home. The nine year old had taken out his cars and was making “vroom” noises as Tim walked through the door. When asked about his homework, the boy had said he’d forgotten to do it, which was something Tim could relate to, but he set his son to go to his room immediately after cleaning up and to start on his homework. He said to have it done by dinner or he’d have none. The boy ran up the stairs in a frenzy, anxious to finish because he knew they were going to have spaghetti, the boy’s favourite meal.
At supper time, the boy came down to the good old smell of cooking tomato sauce, but he was scared. He had forgotten his English workbook at school, Power 10, and when his father asked about his homework, he said he’d done it all.
Later, his father had looked through what he'd done and what he'd written down that he was supposed to do. He saw the half erased English homework and turned to his son, shoving the book at him.
“What is this?” he asked, his tone of voice sounded slightly angry.
“The teacher said that the homework wasn’t homework today, she said that it was too much and she let us not have homework, she said it like that.”
The boy lied, putting a hand on the back of his neck, giving it away clearly.
“You shouldn’t lie son, especially in the face of one who carries God’s word. You will be punished.”
“No, daddy, I’m not lying, the teacher said. She said it, daddy, she told me not to do it.”
Tim was already taking off his belt, it wouldn’t matter what his son said now; he didn’t care. What mattered was that the boy had lied, he was therefore going to be punished.
“You hath lied in the face of your father and the Father. Thou shall not lie again.”
And if not for the house party going on two doors down, music blaring… if the world was quiet for that moment, you would have heard the boy’s screams of pain. You could probably have heard the sound of each strike, the belt making a clap sound as it left welts on the young boy’s back. The only thing you would definitely not have heard was the curses the son had put on his father. The wishes for death. The curse of evil for the rest of his life, for sin to take over.
Lucifer heard these cries, and put the Goddess of Discord and Chaos on the job. Leaving the father to deal with what was to come.
Father Tim did not know of this. So as he stepped up the stairs of his church, the briefcase he held in his hands fell, and when it hit the ground, papers of events and schedules and a bible fell from it, spreading all around him as a gust of wind came by.
The wind swept the pages round and round, settling them in a circle around the priest, he, all the while, standing petrified as the devil spoke to him, and in the process ruptured a small portion of his brain, contaminating it.
“He who has sinned and thought not of it but as right, is wrong. He who is wrong and lies to God about the wrong as right, is evil. You are evil, Tim, you are no more Father Tim, but sinner Tim. You shall do my bidding, and I shall force you if thee considers disobeying, with vast pain. Thou shall ruin the life of many; you shall listen to Eris, the Goddess of Discord and Chaos. You will do her bidding and suffer all through, but suffer more if the does disobey.”
Then cracks formed in the ground, in the middle of the circle, tracing out the devil’s sign. A crack, large and thick as a crowbar streaks right in the middle and an explosion of sound screams in Tim’s ear, the screams of the damned. They did not stop, they continued and will stay until the end of his time, then he himself will be the one uttering those sounds in hell. He looked down, the cracks were gone.
Tim glanced at the church and thought he may yet be able to repent himself, but as he grabbed the handle of the church doors, his hand burned and sent pain far into his head. He took his hand away swiftly like one who thought the dog they pet would bite them. On his hand, was an upside-down cross when he looked at his hand, fingers pointing upwards. When he turned his hand to pint downwards, the sign flipped, making it show an upside-down cross when looking at his hand in that way as well.
He looked in the opposite direction of the church, seeing that no one but him has seen what happened. Then, as he stepped out of the circle that his papers made, Eris took over him, and while he screamed in a small room at the back of his mind, Eris walked towards the library in the priests body. When she reached it, walked in, her intent was written clearly in Tim’s mind, and he cried to a God which no longer heard him.