The Bible is Five People in a Trench Coat

Original short fiction

The Bible isn’t one person, you know. It's five people in a trench coat.

The trench coat itself is the giveaway, especially in the middle of the summer. “Hey! Hey you, Bible!” I shouted the last time I saw him. “Bible, you son of a bitch, you trench-coat-wearing son of a bitch! Who do you think you’re fooling with that piece of shit outfit, piece of shit ugly trench coat? You think anyone believes that crap?”

Bible froze then, but the arms and legs each freeze in different awkward positions. Gotcha again, I think. I mean, if you didn’t know before, right? “Hahaha, serves you right, you fraud,” I jeer. “What, you’re trying to get into the movies for 20% of the price? Don’t want to buy a minivan? How’s that thing gonna get you through an airport x-ray machine, idiot?”

By this point Bible has regained himself. “It’s a freaking condition, asshole,” he shouts. “You never heard of polychromaticism? Multiple Authorial Disease?” He’s right: I am an asshole. But I also love seeing Bible get upset. He’s at his best when he’s upset.

“The only thing I’ve heard about is your mother,” I state, matter-of-fact like. Bible’s head part narrows his eyes and sets his jaw. I’m thinking: eight more eyes and four more jaws just did the same under that stupid coat.

“You want this? Because if you want this I’ll give you some, I’ll give you some right now,” he says, but something is wrong because the voice is coming from inside the jacket. He’s starting to get confused.

“Shut the fuck up, Dee,” growls the head one, touching his chin to his chest so he can see down his front.

“Nah, Jay, I’m done with this guy’s mouth, I’m at him,” says the coat voice again, and now something is trying to get out of Bible’s coat, trying to pop off the buttons, like that stomach thing in Alien. “I’m done, I’m fucking done,” Dee says. “Didn’t want to be here in the first place and don’t want to be here now. Let me at this asshole, I swear I’ll get this guy, I swear it on us, on us I swear it,” and with that he suddenly bursts out, the trench coat unrolls, and Dee tumbles out onto the sidewalk, and he starts running at me, I mean running at me, this little guy with a sweaty red face, a face that looks to all the world like it’s been a literal trench coat all day. I should be scared but I’m laughing, laughing at this little tiny man, little tiny man with a—

oh! he has a rock in his hand and he looks like he’s going to throw it, but he doesn’t, he shoves it…in my mouth?!?! And all of a sudden there’s a rock in my mouth and I’m so confused that I don’t notice him dragging me, dragging me with surprising power back to the four others into that goddamn trench coat. “Where the hell are you taking me, asshole?” I want to say, but all I have left is the tone of my shouting voice, and all of a sudden the trench coat unravels, up, up, to the size of a mansion filled with light, an illuminated universe, and I’m inside it, inside it all, inside Bible, and then there are a thousand people around me, and most of them have rocks in their mouth, too, and they lift me off me feet and I’m surfing over a sea of hands, all the way to the heart, the heart of the Bible, and just in time I turn my head and watch again as the trench coat rolls itself back up, sealing off the world, and suddenly it’s all clear.

“You’re insane,” I say, and I’m laughing again, but I’m smiling this time, too. “You’re insane, you dummy.” The rock is gone; did I swallow it? Did I eat it? I pause and look around. “Also, where in the hell exactly are we?”

“We’re in the beginning,” says Bible. “So let’s begin, ok?”

And we do.