Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

Which was okay, because Quinton Gauld’s purpose was to put things back in order. Even his own inconsistencies, some of which betrayed themselves just now, were on the mend with this work. He was a work in progress of perfection.

Bless me, Father, bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

He walked from his bedroom, scanning his apartment with a studied eye. Rules and order brought a symmetry to life that allowed for balance and joy. This was why he’d given himself a manicure an hour earlier. This was why each red throw pillow on his peach-velvet-covered sofa wasn’t thrown at all, but carefully placed with attention to balance and beauty.

Not a spot on the walls-he painted each every three months with the non-odorous paint now available at Home Depot. Each wall featured a large mirror, which allowed him to see himself from all highly trafficked regions.

He bent and picked up a piece of lint, a fluffy white feather that must have squeezed through one of the pillows’ tiniest, fraying seams. Was it time to replace the pillows? The stuff that was made these days was cheap junk, mostly from China. Or Washington, DC.

Quinton dropped the piece of lint into a large urn that he’d used as a depository for all such random offerings. The lunatics in the mental ward had suggested he suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. They were liars, and he’d taken their drugs only to outwit them. Truth was, he could outwit them with his mind tied behind his back.

He crossed into the kitchen, seven steps. He wondered how little Joshie from the restaurant was feeling, having learned such a valuable life lesson from Uncle Quinton. Fortunate little punk. Better now than on the streets, where it might be a sledgehammer to the head rather than the soft side of a hand doing the teaching.

But the real winner now would be Melissa, the flight attendant who would discover her true purpose in… he glanced at the clock on the wall… two hours and twenty-one minutes, when the clock struck 2:00 AM.

His nerves sent a shiver of anticipation through his tailbone, then up his spine. For a moment he felt like he was standing on the edge of a bridge with a bungee cord strapped to his ankles, ready to launch himself fearlessly into the void. But he had found a better way to fly.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

The rules. Always the rules. Beauty is defined by God, who determines the most beautiful. True, so true.

But there was more. There was another rule, rule two. Because what Quinton had learned only recently was that God had favorites. God loved some more than others. He was passionate about his creation and would bend over backward to impress those that he favored.

Even more than that, there was a favorite. A single human who was so favored, in fact, that by comparison the rest didn’t even rate on God’s list of things worthy of his attention.

The Creator was fixated on one.

Quinton opened the door to a pantry lined with precise rows of canned baked beans made by Hornish, his favorite because of all the sugary syrup. Brain food.

He withdrew the Hitachi electric drill case, then closed the door. He’d boiled the half-inch bit in water to sanitize it for Melissa. Not a germ to be found around its twisting edges.

Yes, God was obsessed with one, like he’d once been fixated on Lucifer. All of heaven and hell had peered down from their lofty, unobstructed view and watched the one courted by God. The rest of creation had existed only as a stage for his courtship. All other humans were extras.

Heaven and hell wanted to know: Would the chosen one love God in return?

He placed the drill in a black suitcase next to the sedative. The rest of what he would need was already neatly packed. He clasped it shut and looked around the room. How long before he returned depended on how cooperative Melissa was. A day, maybe three days.

Satisfied that all was in order, Quinton turned off the lights and headed down to the garage where the green Chevy pickup waited.

He slid onto the seat and grinned at the inaudible debate raging inside him, between himself and an unseen adversary.

Imagine that, you insane freak. Imagine for a second (and I know this is difficult because your intelligence is less than mine) but imagine for even a few moments that it’s all about you.

You’re at the center of it all. Your choices are the only ones that count. Like Neo from The Matrix, Quinton’s favorite movie, you wake up one day and learn that you are the chosen one.

Insane, but so true. You are his bride. God’s favorite.

But here’s what’ll really tweak your gourd, Neo. You blithering idiot. This is rule two: In God’s infinite character he can have more than one favorite without any of the others losing their status.

That’s right, Neo. You are the favorite one, the chosen one. But so am I.

And so is every living soul to walk this cursed earth.

And the rules are the same for all of them. Unfortunately, most are too insane to realize just how critical they are in the game called life.

Until recently, Quinton had hated all humans because of their utter worthlessness. Then he’d learned that the exact opposite was true. That to a man, woman, and child they were all infinitely valuable. This had caused him to immediately hate them for being as important as him.

But now he no longer had to dwell on such mysteries. He had a role to play. He was God’s angel. A messiah sent to help those whom God loved the most join him in eternal bliss.

Because every human was the most beautiful in God’s infinite capacity for affection, Quinton was allowed to select seven, God’s holy number. He would deliver seven to God, a symbolic gesture of service for which he would be richly rewarded. At the end of it all, he would be given the capacity to procreate again. His body, now at rest like a bear in hibernation, would rise from a deep slumber and join with his own bride.

He’d lost one bride when she rejected him. He would right that wrong, and never allow it to happen again.

Quinton whistled as he drove the green Chevy out of the parking lot. His sense of sheer purpose and self-worth at the moment was almost overwhelming. He was soaring. He waved at Mary, a single mother who lived two apartment buildings from his. He’d helped her with her groceries once, wondering if she might be a suitable bride.

In the end, it all came down to the seventh one, the most beautiful of them all, and he knew her like he knew how to breathe. But the first six, being the number of man, were his to choose at random. His to drain of all humanity so that God could accept them as his brides.

Melissa, the beautiful young woman, was about to become a bride, the fifth choice. If she knew what Quinton knew, she might also be giddy with joy and anticipation.

A part of Quinton knew that most flawed humans would find his reasoning slightly off. They might even think he was insane, and he was okay with that. Humans had an extraordinary capacity for stupidity. They had once sworn that the earth was flat, that the polar ice caps would soon be gone, that Quinton was ill in the head.

All were equally fallacious. Ignorant, childish, gullible, manipulated, foolish, STUPID, all caps.

Sometimes Quinton wondered at God’s capacity to love them all. His heart was indeed as big as the ocean. Were it left up to Quinton, he would have taken a handgun with six billion rounds, neatly laid in the world’s largest clip, and laid them all to rest, one by one.

The thought made his hands tremble on the steering wheel. He struggled to focus past a momentary blurring of his sight and bring himself into submission.

It took him an hour to reach the blue house. He parked the pickup in a vacant lot at the end of a greenbelt behind the structure and turned off the engine. Seven checks of his mirror assured him that he was alone, and at 1:00 AM he expected no less. He’d spent a total of six hours behind the house, stepping behind each tree, around each bush, lying and scooting on his belly, feeling the terrain, relishing the anticipation of this night.