ark shadows from lush foliage fringed the road leading from the farmland of Gotesdene to a district where only the occasional tethered ox enlivened the orderly, monotonous rows of vegetable and root crops. These were regimented by an unending line of posts supporting barbed wire fences. At regular intervals signs warned me not to leave the path nor to appropriate what was not mine. At one stage, I observed a very despondent merman tethered just like the oxen, with a sign hanging round his neck and a black hood covering his face and head. He was too far away across the fields for me to decipher the writing on the sign.

The flat, grey paving stones of the road were undeniably better maintained than before, as also was the lethal barbed wire supported by posts in the grey earth, which had caught and killed the odd unfortunate song bird. It was getting late in the afternoon, but, as everywhere was so dark and grey, it seemed much later although the sky was no less blue nor the sun less golden. It was ominously quiet. There were no song birds and the only sound was the gentle rustle of a light breeze through the stiff orderly lines of cabbages, swedes and turnips.

Initially, I welcomed this tidier, more orderly, environment. It had evoked the care and attention I was accustomed to in the Suburbs, rather than the dirt and decay I had so recently left. However, after a few miles, I hankered for a break in the monotony or just the sight of other people. I had the distinct feeling that I was trespassing, although I’d seen no signs warning me off private property or informing me that I would be prosecuted.

After more than an hour of walking between the barbed wire and the infrequent dark shadowy tree, I came in sight of a large sign under which sat a hunched figure wearing a long black gown and a tall black hat. The sign informed me that I was in The Borough of Divinity and underneath was copious small writing that I couldn’t decipher until I came fairly close. It was a list of rules and regulations pertaining to the borough. Just behind the dark figure was a signpost which pointed in four directions ahead - two indicating Divinity that were nonetheless in opposite directions, one which read The Delta and the fourth which pointed to Endon.

As I approached, the figure in the cloak scrutinised me silently and curiously, while I debated which of these four directions I should take. He was small and thin and his head was shaven. He turned to stare at me, but made no attempt to acknowledge my presence.

“Excuse me,” I ventured after a while. “Where would you recommend I go?”

The figure cleared his throat, apparently resenting being addressed. After a moment of uneasy deliberation, he informed me that one direction led to the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ, which was the true and rightful administrator of the Borough of Divinity. The other direction, misleadingly also known as ‘Divinity’, was the heretical Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord. The borough, especially that part under the jurisdiction of the Holy Parish, was one which took true and unsinful pride in its status as a truly Holy borough in which the Word of the Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost was maintained as law and guiding principle. It was a district that welcomed with open arms all right-thinking people who honestly practised the precepts of the Holy and Sacred Scriptures, and who had surrendered their will and worldly goods to the greater good of the One True Religion of Jesus Christ Our Lord.

He didn’t know from his brief acquaintance of me whether I were a Christian: one who followed the dictates of Our Saviour and not the heretical opinions of the Pope, the AntiChrist or the Devil (who are but one in their sin and heresy). Only a true Christian, however, would be welcome within the walls of the Holy Parish. His opinion at seeing my uncovered head and hands (he sniffed disapprovingly) was that I was no Christian; at least not a Christian who followed the true Word of the Lord as faithfully practised by the good Christian people of the Holy Parish. Even those of the misguided and despicable Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord covered these extremities and purged their scalp of the vanity of hair. If I were to have any likelihood of entering the Holy Parish I would be obliged to at least cover my hair with a hat, several of which were provided, with accompanying gowns, in a chest by his side, for strangers such as I. He advised me to cover myself without delay if I were to stay any longer within the borough.

I decided it was advisable to heed the pious gentleman, and selected a tall hat large enough to cover all my hair and a long black gown that shrouded me almost to my feet. While I was dressing, the gentleman commented that I must be speculating why a devout Christian such as he was sitting alone outside the walls of the Parish, when all good Christians were at prayer or devotion secure within the welcoming confines of the Chapel and not out in the open air, imperilled by temptation and sin.

He explained that he was indefinitely exiled from the Parish for committing the unforgivable and irredeemable sins of garrulity, irreverent laughter, vile thoughts and oversleeping. Sins for which he was pleased to do penance, awaiting a decision from the Priests of the Holy Parish, and the Lord God Our Maker who guides their deliberations, that he had atoned for his sins and could be rehabilitated into the community. In the meantime, he was to spend his days working on the fields with his comrades - never to utter one word to them on pain of more severe punishment - and his nights here, at the foot of the sign, in contemplation of the great mercy and goodness of Our Father Who Art in Heaven. When not praying, he would recite approved texts from the Holy Scriptures and flagellate himself with the barbed wire provided. In this way God the Most Wise and Merciful would see the sincerity of his penance and the degree to which he atoned for his transgressions.

The practices of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ were inspired by the classical wisdom of the great prophet, Saint Isaac Newton, who in his religious and secular writings had divined the profoundest depths and meanings of the Christian faith as it should be practised. A faith that had strayed too far over the centuries from the original fundamental tenets preached by Jesus Christ and His Apostles under the lax and heretical doctrine of the Papists, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Baptists, the Quakers, the Anabaptists, the Mormons and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. A faith which had schismed so many times that it was only in the pure unadulterated vision of the Great Saint, who had divined the Noble Principles of Force and Motion, that it had regained the clarity and purity of Our Saviour’s Own Truth.

There are Four Pillars of the Faith practised by Deists, as the good Christians of the Holy Parish are known by others blinkered by liberal ungodly interpretations of the Holy Scriptures. The First Pillar (1) is that of Unquestioning Faith. Man was not created by God to question His Laws or His Desires. What is Good is what the Lord dictates. What He wishes must be Good, because all that is Good is also the Wish of God. It is a Sin to question the Letter of Holy Writ, to even suggest that there may be error, misinterpretation or inconsistency. It is a Sin to even hint that one quarter of one word of the Law as interpreted by the Priests of the Holy Parish is anything but the complete and accurate precept of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Together with Unquestioning Faith is the Second Pillar (2) which is the Absolute Observation of Ritual. When Jesus Christ commanded Christians to pray at regular and frequent times of the day, to Labour not on the seventh day - the Day of Creation - and to attend Church regularly to voice praise, these were not meant as options for Christians to follow. Rather, as an ox must be tethered to prevent its escape, so too must Christians be tethered to the Rituals that characterise the One and Only True Church.

The Third Pillar (3) is that of a Rejection of Material Values. Material possessions and the means of measuring them in groats, shillings or florins were forbidden in the Holy Parish. A Good Christian must follow the example of Our Saviour who had no possessions of His own, as they were held entirely by the Church and in turn by God the Father. A Christian Man must not own his own ox, woman or slave. Possession is clearly the begetter of the Sins of Avarice and Greed, which along with the Five others (especially Lust), must be extirpated forever if Satan and his hounds of Hell are to be held at bay.

Not only must Material Values be rejected, but there must be conformance to the Fourth Pillar (4) which is Rejection of Spiritual Corruption. Satan is everywhere, ready to corrupt the Good Christian Soul as he endeavoured so unsuccessfully with Our Saviour. Nobody can hope to withstand the Temptations of the Devil as well as Our Lord Jesus Christ, so it is an Eternal Unceasing Struggle. Spiritual Corruption is the deadliest and most difficult of the Evils to ward off. It can lead to Atheism, Agnosticism or Heresy. Doubts as to the Perfection of Creation. Philosophical debate on the nature of Morality and Knowledge. Non-acceptance of class, status, race or gender, and one’s own position in the Hierarchy of Creation, a Hierarchy headed by the Priests and Angels, under which, in descending order, are Men, Women, Negroes, Animals, Monsters, Demons and Cats. All such propositions are diabolic, and only an unflinching and Total rejection of such luxurious unGodly doubts and discussion can be tolerated by the Good Christian.

I wasn’t convinced that I wanted to visit either of the Parishes of Divinity, so I asked the Exile if he could tell me about the other two destinations indicated by the signpost. He assured me that his knowledge of them was not based on personal experience, for he knew better than to risk Eternal Damnation by visiting known refuges of the Devil, but what he knew convinced him that it was better for all men, and not just Christians, to forsake these districts. In comparison to these, even the heretical Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord was to be preferred.

In one direction was the Insect City of Endon which must forever be Damned for four reasons that were as follows. The First Reason (and one which alone must surely give me pause to think) is that the inhabitants are not Human and therefore have no hope of Salvation. No Animal can be Blessed - and for that reason no Animal is permitted into the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ. The oxen who labour on the fields are permitted outside its walls, but never within, only insofar as they must never speak a word on pain of death and must only be seen as Beasts of Burden, for which all Animals were Created by Our Maker.

The inhabitants of Endon are all insects - and such insects! Many as tall as a Man, if not taller, and pretend to Rights and Privileges which no Animal, nor even a Woman, would be permitted in Divinity. Even insects of more moderate proportions were not permitted within the Borough of Divinity: a partly inconvenient principle in that the fertilisation of all flowering crops had to be done by artificial means, but one which denied the Parishioners of much disease and all pestilence.

The Second Reason is that the inhabitants do not recognise the Primacy of the One True Faith as practised in the Holy Parish. There are Insects who claim to be Christians, but how can this be when they deny the superiority of Man over Arthropods or indeed any other Animal? It is true that the Borough of Divinity is a tiny island of Sanity and Virtue amidst an ocean of heresy, blasphemy and apathy, and in that regard the City of Endon is no worse than the Suburbs, Lambdeth, Delta or elsewhere; but it is no less the Damned for that.

The Third Reason is the Licentiousness of the inhabitants. They indulge in physical procreation, to read literature and view pictures not imbued with the Spirit or Word of Our Saviour, to freely express opinions contrary to that of the Christian Faith and to draw no ethical distinctions between race and species. Females are known to wander free, attracting lascivious and unholy thoughts. There is little or no public observance of Christian Ritual. There are private ownership, public vice and no respect for betters and elders. Sin is rife, in all its Seven forms.

The Fourth Reason is that the Borough of Endon is Doomed, and it was not necessary to wait for the Second Coming for me to see this happen. The Good Christians of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ would soon extend its boundaries to enclose the territory of this great subterranean City and in the process purge it of the last of these oversized Insects; and the Spiders, Centipedes, Wood-Lice, Worms and Silver Fish that also live there. The City of Endon would become a mirror of Divinity itself: no longer a haven for Godless Arthropods. The cinemas, brothels and video arcades would be replaced by Chapels at which Men could pray to Our Lord for forgiveness for our Sins and for the elimination of Godless Exoskeletal Execrations.

In the other direction is the equally damned Delta where the Borough of Divinity meets the Sea. This is another Godless district inhabited by merpeople and water buffalo. The merpeople are as damned as the Arthropods of Endon, for they are, in addition, cruel satiric jokes created by Satan who has taken the Holy and Sacred Image of Our Lord, in whose likeness Men are made, and replaced the lower limbs with the tail of a fish, a form of life lower than even an ox. These deformed people live wholly in the saline and estuarine waters of the Delta, where they can breathe freely both under and over water, and wear no clothes. This naked flesh invites Lust, that most base of Sins: the mere entertainment of which is a capital offence in the Holy Parish.

I expressed concern at the harshness in which nonbelievers and animals were treated by the people of Divinity. The Exile responded with anger. He advised me that it was imperative for all Good Christians to purge the World of Godlessness and Sin. And part of that imperative is to forcefully convert all nonbelievers, under threat of capital punishment if necessary. Animals, who have no Soul, and therefore no chance of the Life Everlasting, should be purged without recourse to appeal. For what value is there in a being without Soul?

In the World of nonbelievers, there is a hierarchy of apostasy. Vile though the Dieuists of the heretical Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord may be, they are nearer to the One True Faith in that they departed from its basic tenets in only recent centuries. And this is why the greatest effort of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ has been towards the forcible conversion and Spiritual Salvation of these most hated of reprobates. These Dieuists dissented from the Doctrine as prescribed by the Prophet Saint Isaac and follow instead the heresy of the Apostate Rénè Descartes. May he be Forever Damned and his sufferings especially intense! To people beyond the Borough of Divinity, it may appear that there is little difference between the practices of Good Christians and Dieuists. They lead a similarly austere way of life, but unlike Good Christians, they place significantly less weight on the Natural Order as manifest by the Laws of Force and Motion. Instead, they attach greater significance to the Dual Identity of Mind and Body, believing that the Soul rests in the Pituitary Gland and that the Laws of Classical Physics have only passing relevance to the worship of the Holy Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

None of the destinations seemed wholly welcoming, and as it would soon be dusk, I thought it best to head to the nearest, whether it was a religious parish, a delta or a city of giant insects. The Exile advised me that the Holy Parish was by far the nearest, being less than four furlongs distant, but he was sceptical about advising one of such dubious character as I to sojourn at a Parish of such great virtue. He also advised me that I may not be alone in my journey as another - a woman, he admitted with some loathing, - had also passed by in that direction. He hoped that I would not sully my slim chance of Salvation by looking at, or, worse, speaking with this Temptress of Adam. I assured him that I would do my best to keep my Soul intact and followed the unswerving, grey paved path towards this one of the two Divinities.

As I walked along, I pondered the Exile’s reference to a woman preceding me on this route. It wasn’t long until I came upon a figure huddled up in a long black gown under the dark shadow of a broad-leafed tree whom I assumed to be a Priest. As I came closer I realised that this must be the woman I’d been warned to avoid. My steps on the hard paving stones attracted her attention. She raised her head and I could see that her skin was black and her hair was beaded. I was sure I recognised her.

“What the blinking heck are you doing here?” she exclaimed. “It’s a flipping long way from the blooming Suburbs!” It was Anna, whom I’d met the day before.

“I’m just looking for somewhere to stay the night.” I noticed acute misery in her previously self-confident face. Her eyes had lost their liveliness: evidence that she may have been crying. She didn’t stand up, so I crouched down beside her at the foot of the tree. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for somewhere to stay as well,” she sniffed. “I left the Suburbs yesterday and went by coach to the Delta which I thought would be jolly interesting. Well, a lot more flipping interesting than the blinking Suburbs, I reckoned. And I suppose the Delta is a lot more interesting: but it’s really just a place where merpeople live. You can’t see much of them, of course, as they mostly live underwater. All you can see is the odd merman or mermaid sunning him or her self by the water’s edge or on a rock. There’s a shop where you can buy souvenirs of your visit to the Delta and a café where you can sit and watch them frolic around in the water with sea-cows and dolphins. To be honest, though, when you’ve seen one merperson - and they’re fairly common sights in some places - then you’ve seen them all.

“There’s nowhere to stay in the Delta. Not unless you can breathe underwater, so I thought I’d come to stay the night in a motel or pub in this borough. I’d been told that Divinity was a rather peculiar place, where you had to cover yourself up like this...” She indicated with her hand the long gown that covered most of her body, and then tugged at the hood which would have totally hidden her face if she’d put it up. “I got all this gear from the souvenir shop in Delta when I’d been told what I’d have to wear. I suppose it was meant as a souvenir of Delta’s neighbouring borough. It was jolly cheap - less than half a crown! But I’ll be blinking well glad when I can take it off. It’s really heavy and constricting.”

I felt the same about the gown I’d put on. “Didn’t you find anywhere to stay?”

“No chance! I thought these people being Christians and everything would at least have some kind of stable or something for me to stay in, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to a less welcoming place. If this is what Jesus Christ is all about, I’m flipping glad I’m not a practising Christian! When I got to that crossroads back there - you must’ve passed it! - the chap there didn’t even look at me, let alone say anything. He kept turning his head away as if I were the flipping Medusa or something. But I went this way because I was sure it’s nearer to this Divinity - (Did you notice there are two of them? Weird!) - than anywhere else. So I arrived at the Parish - and it’s all surrounded by this high dark wall - and outside I found this bell you pull, so I pulled it. Then I stood back waiting for an answer. There wasn’t one, so I tried again, only more persistently and louder.

“Then this pamphlet suddenly appeared through a kind of letterbox in the door. Look at it!” She proffered a folded piece of paper covered in quite dense script with the heading On The Reason Why Women and Negroes are Eternally Damned and Therefore Unwelcome in the Holy Parish of Divinity. “I stood around to read the pamphlet, thinking that perhaps if I waited long enough, someone would let me in and tell me it was all just a tasteless joke. However all that happened was that I heard a sort of thud as something hit the ground beside me. I turned round to see what it was, only to hear something else hit the ground. And then another thud. It suddenly dawned on me that the good people of Divinity were throwing stones at me, so I turned round and ran and ran. And then I stopped by this tree where I read this revolting pamphlet. It really is flipping dreadful!”

“What does it say?”

“Well, it doesn’t distinguish between being a woman and being black. They’re both equally damned. It seems that if you’re either, you’re some kind of subhuman. I mean, how’s that supposed to make me feel? There are four reasons why I’m damned which they’ve got here in four helpful sections. There are scriptural reasons, and there are a whole load of quotations from the Bible about Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve, and Sodom and Gomorrah. I don’t know what all that’s supposed to prove, but it seems pretty jolly conclusive here. The second reason is that apparently women and Negroes have been scientifically proven to be inferior. In fact, that’s the exact wording... “scientifically proven to be inferior in every detail to Man, created in the image of the Lord”. I can’t quite make out what all this stuff is meant to prove, but it doesn’t convince me. Then in this third section, there are loads of historical reasons why the ‘True Faith’ has only ever been revealed to Caucasoid Men, and that no one of any other ethnic background gets a flipping look in - and especially no women. And then, when you’d’ve thought that three reasons were enough, there’s a fourth one where it talks of all the sins that women and Negroes are supposed to have committed. It doesn’t exactly sound like a litany of damnation to me, but it seems these Deists have pretty high standards. You just can’t have a laugh or a good time with this lot!”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’ll just sit here I suppose. I don’t want to go wandering about in the dark by myself. I had this friend I’d been travelling with, but he’s gone off by bus somewhere. He was a Cat, quite a decent sort, - not one of those who keep going on about how badly History has treated them! He’s much more interested in natural living and organic farming and that kind of stuff. And he certainly didn’t want to come here. Good thing too! If they throw stones at me, just imagine what they’d do if they saw a Cat inside their precious borough. They’d skin him alive. Or crucify him!”

I stood up, leaving Anna still incredulously studying her pamphlet, and walked through the encroaching dusk towards the Holy Parish, the high walls of which I spotted at the end of the unflinchingly straight path, striped by the posts’ long shadows.

The Holy Parish certainly did not seem very welcoming when I stopped below its forbidding high grey stone walls, by a large grey oak door with monstrous black metal hinges. The precipitous walls rose imposingly from the end of the path. It was very quiet. Much quieter than I was accustomed to in the Suburbs, with not even the distant roar of aeroplanes or road traffic. It was difficult to believe that a community lived, worked and, presumably, slept inside those walls.

I broke the silence as I hammered on the door to attract attention. There was no response. I waited a few moments, then hammered again: the echoes of the heavy knocker perturbing the silent dusk. Again there was no response, so I turned back. However, as I walked into the gloom I turned my head round to see a silhouette entirely covered in a gown and hood. I wandered back to what must be one of the Priests of the Holy Parish.

I could see nothing of his face beneath his hood, but when he spoke his voice reverberated with authority, with a curious tendency to start off loud and to finish each of his long sentences in a quieter voice than he’d begun. He asked me first of all if I were associated with the Negro woman who had so recently called, for if I were he knew that I deserved at best pity and at most Eternal Damnation for my sinful acquaintance. Women were damnable afterthoughts of the Creator, whose sole purpose was to maintain the essential generation of Man, created in the image of Our Maker, but who had betrayed even this humble duty by the Sin of Curiosity in the Garden of Eden.

In the Holy Parish of Divinity, in keeping with the Divine Wishes of God, Women were kept totally separate from Men and from each other. They were not to be seen by Men at any stage in their damnable lives for fear they should arouse that most base of Sins, that of Lust, which made Man no better than Animals, below which there were few orders of Creation of lower regard. The rôle of Woman, as prescribed in the Divine Command To Go Forth and Multiply was entirely for procreation, and for which the act of Sex (intimately associated as it is with the basest of Sins) had been proscribed, and, using scientific principles inspired by the Great Prophet Saint Isaac Newton, the necessary task of procreation was now performed by artificial insemination: a process which was sometimes fatal by virtue of how it had to take place in total darkness and without bodily contact. But this sacrifice of the potential Whore was far preferable to the loss of a Good Christian’s Soul. To prevent the Woman corrupting the Virtue of the Child, the Mother was necessarily separated from their progeny who are inculcated in Good Christian Values by the Priests, unless, God Forbid, the Child were of the Lesser Gender, in which case more than the bare minimum of instruction in the Holy Scripture was both a luxury and a grave danger to the Social Order. In short, in the Holy Parish, Women were not permitted to be spoken to or heard from, seen or to be seen. This is how it should be and how it should forever be.

The Priest stated his opinion that the only reason I could have for venturing into the Borough of Divinity must be to seek accommodation for the night, but that for even the briefest of residencies, it was necessary to be sure that my presence would in no way corrupt the Godly and Righteous ambience of the Holy Parish of Divinity. He needed to know first of all if I were a Foreigner, because all those from foreign parts were necessarily Sinners, as it was widely known, and said frequently in the Holy Scriptures, that Sin was Abroad. I reassured him that I was not a Foreigner, and not even of Foreign birth. The Priest was much relieved, because he would not wish a Foreign Language or a Foreign Culture, especially one of an atheistic or heterodox kind, to be expressed within the confines of the Holy Parish.

The Holy Scriptures often damned foreigners, such as Philistines, Romans and Egyptians, who had so often brought misery to the Chosen People, who are those who follow the One True Faith. Some foreigners were much more to be feared than others, in particular Cats, who were nothing more than the Children and Representatives of Satan. Not only are Cats Animals, lower than Women or Negroes, but they are fundamentally damned for their close association with Satan and Witchcraft (the Devil’s magic), for which they had been rightfully punished, purged and exterminated since time immemorial. The Holy Scriptures hold Cats in the Greatest Abhorrence, an assertion for which the Priest provided no Scriptural evidence.

All Animals are no better than slaves for Man, for whom they were created and by whom they were named. Those Animals such as the ox have a privileged rôle of servitude, for which they can be spared for as long as they are willing and able to faithfully serve. Other Animals have no such privileges, and should be exterminated with extreme prejudice. The Cat is the worst in the way that Satan’s servants have inveigled their way into the homes and by the very hearths of Man, seducing Man with their lustful ways and their desire for food and comfort. All Sin is manifest in the Cat, for they carry Sin about them.

Were it not of sufficient disapprobation that Cats were Animals, they have the vile heresy to pretend to religious practices and beliefs that are in direct contradiction to those of Good Christians. It is said that it is the strength of their religious belief that has kept Cats in fortitude and courage in the face of the pogroms and concentration camps to which they have been confronted over the centuries, but no punishment, by flame, live burial, skinning alive or the most extreme and gross torture, can not be justified when a Right Thinking Christian is faced with the provocation of a Cat’s existence.

In addition to these two aspects there is also the Sinful presence of a Royal Family in the Kingdom of Cats. There can only be one Kingdom of worth and that is the Kingdom of Heaven presided over by God the Father flanked by God the Son and the Holy Ghost. How can any individual, especially an Animal, pretend to higher authority than those of others, even Her Maphrodite, when only God has True Authority which He divests only in the Priests and those ordained to execute His commands?

It is also known that Cats are in possession of great wealth, which they claim to have accumulated by hard work and endeavour. This can not be true, for they have gained their wealth rather by prostitution, racketeering and drug-smuggling. They may have a reputation for working long hours and wisely investing their ill-gotten gains, but how can it be right for any Animal to possess greater wealth than the lowliest Man?

Good Christians know that Cats, together with Monsters and other Animals have conspired in depriving Man of the Wealth and Bounty that is decreed to him by God, who has created Man in His Own Image, and in the process have caused great misery and deprivation among Men. Who knows how many crowns and guineas that rightfully belong to Man have been sequestered by the usurious speculation of the Cat, by which they seek to spread their pagan beliefs, their sacrilegious Monarchy and their bestiality? There is a Divine Order to be maintained, with Man at the Apex of all Earthly Things - for these have been given to Man in compensation for the vileness of Woman and the Serpent - and Cats deserve only the Eternal Fires, the Infinite Tortures and Unceasing Misery that are their Deserved Lot in the Kingdom of Hell, under the jurisdiction of Satan, the foulest of all Creation.

The Priest then asked me about my purpose for being in the Borough of Divinity, so I explained to him that I was on a quest to find the Truth. He appeared appalled by this, for, as he expostulated, a search for the Truth must necessarily be blasphemous, as the Lord Jesus Christ through the Great Prophet Saint Isaac Newton had already deigned to reveal the Truth to Good Christians. To deny this fact was to express a heresy most foul.

The Truth is invested solely in the correct interpretation of the Holy Scriptures as practised by the Only True Church. All that a Good Christian need do is unquestioningly follow the Four Pillars of the One True Faith and on meeting his Maker, all the Truth there is will be revealed to him. The Priest then advised me to practise the Four Pillars of the One True Faith.

First, I should instantly abandon my heretical search and accept without question the Doctrine of True Christianity. My Soul was not to be saved unless I followed each one of the Christian practises as outlined in the Ten Commandments and in the preachings of Jesus Christ and His Disciples. I must accept all that I was instructed by Jesus Christ’s earthly representatives, the Priests of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ. Knowledge of the Truth could only be gained by a full understanding of the Holy Scriptures as correctly interpreted.

This necessarily entailed conformance to the Second Pillar which is Absolute Observation of the Rituals inspired by the Lord. I should immediately take confession, pray the regulated number of times at the appointed times of the day and attend Chapel at the recommended intervals. The Truth could not be revealed to those who had not behaved in the manner appropriate to a Good Christian: a Good and Blameless life.

I must abandon all material values. All that I owned must become the property of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ. In this way the One True Faith would benefit and in recognition of my sacrifice I might gain some opportunity of Eternal Salvation. The Truth could not be revealed to those who clung stubbornly to material values and had not abandoned themselves entirely to the Spiritual World.

I must immediately reject anything that would entail my Spiritual Corruption. To even entertain departure from the Borough of Divinity to seek the Truth elsewhere would naturally be sufficient evidence that I was not one who wished to become a Good Christian and therefore acceptable to the Holy Parish.

The Choice was thus quite clear to the Priest. I either surrendered myself utterly and completely, until Death do come, to the Four Pillars of the One True Faith, or my presence in the Holy Parish, and within four leagues of it, was totally unacceptable and I should leave immediately, on pain of death. The Priest then asked me directly if I were then, without the least caveat, willing to follow the One True Faith.

When I replied, without great conviction, that I needed to think about this proposal at greater length, the Priest informed me that this hesitancy was in itself impermissible and that for fear of my pagan Soul corrupting the Souls of Good Christians I should immediately depart from the Borough of Divinity. He then turned around and left me to watch his dark-gowned figure approach the door to the Holy Parish. He stood at the entrance and waved his arm at me. I understood this gesture to mean that I should make haste to leave, so I walked back in the direction from which I had come. After a few yards, I looked back to see that the Priest had disappeared, although I’d not heard the door open or close, and I was now left alone in the long shadows of the late evening.

As I retraced my steps, the last of the daylight disappeared and it was now darker than I had ever known it to be in the Suburbs. There were no lampposts or belisha beacons to guide my way: the only light there was came from the stars and a moon currently hidden behind the clouds. In all directions there was nothing but darkness and an encroaching night chill partly warded off by the heavy gown.

I soon came to the tree where Anna was still sitting, her arms wrapped around her knees and her head facing down. She heard me coming and raised her head as I approached. “I thought you’d never blinking return! They didn’t want you to enter their precious parish either, I suppose?”

“No, they didn’t,” I admitted. “They were very firm about it.”

“They’re flipping nutters! I hate every last flipping one of them! What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not flipping staying here! We’ll go to Endon, if you like. It’s a bit of a way, and I’m not that excited about spending my time with Insects, but it must be better than Divinity.”

I accepted Anna’s suggestion, so she stood up and we walked along together towards the crossroads where the Exile was sitting. He saw us coming, but, as Anna noted, he turned around to face away from us. As we approached closer, he deliberately avoided even looking vaguely in our direction, rotating his dark-gowned body around to avoid facing us.

I felt very grateful for Anna’s presence as we walked in the dark, our shadows projecting onto the dark road and into the fields beyond, as she expressed gratitude for mine. It was undoubtedly unnerving to be in an environment as wholly quiet and empty as this with only the stars to guide our way. Anna wasn’t very chatty - and I also felt very subdued - and this was partly due to the way our voices reverberated like unwelcome intrusions in the silence of the night, just as our physical presence had been to the Holy Parish.

After a while, I was feeling very tired of the long monotonous walk and pleased when we approached a high dark wall which stretched out to perhaps encircle the Borough of Divinity. We walked through a wide open gateway, leaving the regulated order of the borough and into what seemed to be a forest overshadowing the pathway. There was no sign of a place to stay the night, but as soon as we’d passed through, Anna drew in a deep breath.

“At last! We’re out of that dreadful place!” She looked around at the overshadowing grass and enormous flowers high above our head. “This must be Endon! We’ll just have to sleep in the open air.”

“Open air?” I’d never slept outside of a warm bed before.

“No choice! But we’ve got these gowns: so we should be alright!” Anna looked at me sympathetically, her eyes and teeth the only discernible details in the darkness of her clothes and skin. “Don’t worry. This may not be the Suburbs, and it’s certainly not comfortable, but it’ll be safe. And don’t worry about the creepy-crawlies!”

I was now grateful for the heavy black gown and hat I’d acquired in the Borough of Divinity, which made a very welcome blanket for me as Anna and I stretched out on the long strands of grass beneath the wall separating Endon from Divinity. It was difficult getting to sleep, however, as all around were the strangest noises I’d ever heard of constant rustling and occasional buzzing. Every now and then was the crash of something breaking through the tall sheaves of wheat or monstrous weeds and a hum of movement through the dark night sky. This was totally unlike the Suburbs, where the buzz of night sounds was associated with preparing for the day ahead. Here, however, the sounds were not those of preset videos clicking off, aeroplanes flying overhead or the odd car driving by. They were quite different: both unfamiliar and disconcerting.

Anna didn’t seem too troubled, however. She lay down on the grass with her hood covering her head and face and her legs pulled up towards her stomach. I looked at her face which betrayed no expression, her eyes closed and her thick lips slightly open. The rhythms of her breathing slightly stirred the folds of her gown. I was comforted by her relaxation, so I turned my head away and using my arm as a pillow, I gradually fell asleep under the curious gaze of innumerable, concealed arthropoda.