The Secret of The Nuns
[Note: This is a dream I had well over a week or two ago. It is technically a work of fiction. I don’t hate nuns, I don’t hate God, and I tolerate squirrels. I’m not writing this to offend anyone — Christians especially. I can’t stop you from being offended, but I can tell you right now — the nuns are the villains in this story. It’s going to get weird, fast. You’ve been warned, don’t write hate mail, Veronica likes nuns. Might be a Nichiren Buddhist, but sista likes just about anyone. With that being said…]
I laughed with my cousin when I recalled my dream: nuns burning squirrels. I questioned my sanity the day it originally happened, coining it up to COVID-19 nuttiness. I already stay indoors a lot as it is, but this whole virus thing keeps me even more indoors due to asthma. My hours were already strange, but COVID has added on to that. It was an odd, creepy dream about nuns and squirrels, and my cousin loved it. In fact, he called it “fluid and linear”.
When I think of nuns, I recall my early elementary school days. I attended St. Killian School in Chicago, from 1989 to the Fall of 1992. There, I met my first nun. She was old, didn’t take crap, but had a little warmth to her. There was nothing strange about her: she dressed moderately, she spoke softly, and she carried the hymnals during mass. She was an approachable woman who was just trying to get through her day. My classmates and I probably drove her crazy. I met other nuns during trips around Chicago, at school with my aunt, and finally in high school for retreats. I knew full well that nuns were people like anyone else, but were called as Brides of Christ. In college, I read a lot about nuns in stories. I found myself on Wikipedia at all times of the night looking up their lives and what happened to them. It was interesting. It still is. Again — nuns are pretty decent people. I’m sure some of them think I’m a heavin’ heathen, but I have nothing against them.
Of all the things to dream about, why the hell was I dreaming in POV vision about nuns burning squirrels? What had the squirrels done to the nuns?
I rushed to keep the story fresh in my mind. So many darlings have been lost to my slow-to-move self failing to record moments and scenes as soon as possible. I’ve been left with traces of poems, stories, and essays for days because of this. I could not let the strangeness of the squirrel-burning nuns get away. Why couldn’t I just have my usual avant-garde nonsensical dreams? Or those middle-aged hormonal filth frolics I have that felt a little too real? Hell, I’d take the flying-over-a-vast-floral-field typical and safe dreams. Anything but nuns. Where were the nuns coming from?
The Dream
The newest nun was helping the father end a weekend mass with his small flock. People were leaving the sanctuary, and he was turning to either go into his office or go home. He exits out the back, leaving her to clean up and put his robe and books away. The sun sets quickly on the late afternoon day. It becomes dark in the room behind the sanctuary. The only light the new nun has is by starlight. She is not dressed like a typical nun but instead has a women’s version of a monk’s frock. (Franciscan, Dominican, can’t really say…) Her hair is orange-red and cut a bit like Ed’s from Cowboy Bebob, but is far more tamed. Something between Ed and Sister Claire. She is squatting by a stone cabinet and has stumbled upon some papers. Her curiosity makes her read them. Her voice cannot be heard, but her mouth moves as she silently reads the contents. Whatever she has discovered, the observer realizes that it’s something bad. She had no business finding it. The nun does not react at all, yet she cannot help but indulge.
Behind the church sits a very large tree. Its unusual size serves a humble purpose — it is the nuns’ dormitory. The outside does not match the inside, where the outside is shaped like a semi-ordinary large and wide tree, the inside looks like a vast, three-story tree home better fit for animated woodland creatures and not a collective of nuns. The outside of the tree looks as if it’s part of a children’s book with light brown trunks and a seemingly drawn outline. The leaves are green and perfect, and the roots are above the concrete and stone pavement. The pavement, however, has not been disturbed by the tree’s roots. The roots are on top as if they’re part of the legs of a table. The new nun has yet to meet the others but feels right at home in the large space. The second story is a circular shelf from end-to-end, filled with books. She is fixated for just a second, then returns to glancing around at the ground floor of the treehouse.
The ground floor of the treehouse has a modest kitchen behind her, a small dining area to her right, and eight beds on opposing sides. The beds look strange and too small for the average-sized nun, but again she does not protest. It feels like she has been living here comfortably, no questions, for at least a month. It is a warm, well-lit space, and she has a home. What more could she ask for? Rain began to fall outside. With a burning sense of urgency, the young nun races outside.
“I won’t let you snakes come out here again!” she declares as she darts out into the dark night, shooting a bow and arrow that seemed to come out of nowhere. She is scantily clad a la Heavy Metal Babe Taarna (with a stylish cowboy hat), Seeming to leap in the air to fight the slender, green, long snakes that are zipping and wiggling in the air. Thunder rumbles and lightning strikes as she shoots the yellow-eyed fiends. She is bitten twice: once on her left forearm, and once on her left thigh. She makes no sound and seems to feel no pain, but knows she is defeated. She lands, softly. The rain stops and the snakes disappear. The world is quiet, and nothing else happens. Nobody comes to check the commotion.
Daylight. The main church is on fire, and city folks are watching it burn. Volunteer firefighters are working to save the church, carefully running with buckets. One old nun quietly enters the scene from the right, smiling and looking like a kindly soul with a bit of her gray hair peeking from her habit, and her matronly glasses covering most of her face. She stops, smiles, and looks down. The POV is facing her, looking up. The observation implies that the young nun is the one looking up at her. Nobody else seems to see her, and something is wrong. She feels herself changing. One small, gray squirrel paw shakily raises up from the left, then back down again. The older nun looks strangely larger. The people look larger. Everything looks bigger than it did last night.
“I see the snakes got you”, said the old nun. She placed her hand in her pocket, reaching for something.
“I…I can’t feel my teeth”, replied the younger nun. “I feel odd…”
The older nun is still smiling, collecting what looks like a perfect pair of teeth and gums from the tall grass. They look like a pair of full dentures — top and bottom — that fell from somebody’s mouth. “Well dear, hold still, this won’t hurt a bit.” The nun pulls out a silver lighter. Nobody notices her inching towards the poor squirrel. Nobody on the street stops her. The fire is so interesting because it seems to be consuming very little of the church. The cosmetic damage doesn’t matter much. The younger nun feels defeated because she cannot scream.
A sense of new knowledge, like a video game player would piece together through story progression, washes over the observer. There is a mystery concerning nuns at this church, and the poor little young nun found out on accident. Had she kept to herself and just put the hymnals and robe away, she would have lasted a little longer. Had she not opened the wrong cabinet and gone to bed, the snakes would have gotten her in her sleep. The nuns — the elders, that is — were sacrificing the younger ones and the newer ones for their own pleasure. A sick, strange ritual still shrouded in unspoken mystery. It was simply something they did that gave them power. Why those few pages were set in such an obvious location was never found out. Perhaps it was a test of an obvious trap.
It was curious how the young nun sprung to action so quickly. Unfortunately, her actions were in vain. She did not document her story, she did not contact anyone else to spread the word, and surely there would be more snakes. Yet her determination to defend herself and the treehouse was an admirable feat. Despite her highly questionable outfit, her heart was in the right place. Her luck, however, was not. She perished, quietly. Not one soul turned to see the curious burning mass of squirrel flesh. It was almost as if the old nun had cloaked the whole affair, able to sacrifice in peace. But then again — who would question an old nun over some bothersome squirrels?
Curioser and curioser.
