Harbinger: A Journal of Art & Literature | 2018-2019

HOLY INCOMPLETE
Joanna Byrne
Travis lay naked on his bed, the sheets kicked to the side, his eyes fixed on the pattern
of ceiling tiles above him in the gray light. He thought they looked different than they
should have in a hospital, but this was not a hospital, and he should not even be here.
They were doing what they should, but they were not quite right.
They called him a dead man living on the news. The headlines on the tablet he had
been given said ‘the resurrected soldier.’ Dr. Larson said he was reborn of Chaos. The
chosen of the Divine Cosmos, according to the Church of Science.
His father would have called him lucky. Maybe, after a few drinks, he would have said
Travis had been touched by Odin. It would have taken the alcohol to bring up his father’s
old beliefs, repressed to live through Scientology taking over the Roman Catholic
Church, and subsequently the government.
His mother would have cried that he was a miracle that the Pope, the real Pope, not
the pretender that lived in the Vatican now, would need to hear about it. She would
have clutched her rosary and prayed thanks for a sign from God. His father would have
shaken his head and told her that advances in medical science coming from the Church
of Science were not miracles of her God or any of his gods.
She would have argued.
Travis raised his hands over his face, studying his palms. They looked like his hands,
but the left one was alien to him. His middle finger did not have the knot at the last joint
where he broke it as a kid. There was no scar from the stitches that had held the skin
together there. He imagined the color was a little different, more consistent than his right
hand.
His parents were dead. His dad had died of cancer not long after Travis joined the
military. The last time they had talked, Travis had told him that he had been accepted
into the space branch, that he would go to four more years of school, and be an officer.
He would have a chance at a good life. Though it was all too late to get his dad access to
the advanced medical treatment reserved for members of the military, the Church and
the government. His mother prayed a lot, but never got her miracles. Even though the
only legal religion was the Divine Cosmos now, she would have cried out to the heavens
that the resurrection of her son was a sign from God. If she was still alive.
He pushed his hands across his face, wiping away tears that had escaped his eyes, pushing
his too-long hair back from his face. The last conversation he had with his mother
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