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The rising smoke and splattering of scalding fat caused mingled washes of hunger and revulsion. She turned the meat in the pan with heavy wooden tongs and pressed down on the slab of half-seared flesh to cook it faster. The force kept her hand still. No longer was it merely the pains in her stomach that caused Parson Mary Simonson concern.

Each morning she awoke to the nibbling in her stomach. That sensation of being devoured from the inside woke her throughout the night and acted as her alarm call come the dawn. Each new day was accompanied by nausea and dizziness the moment she swung her feet from the low, slim cot she slept in. It wasn’t the grip of some week-long sickness that was doing the rounds; this early morning vertigo had been with her for months.

Breakfast was getting harder and harder to eat, but, as a Parson, she was required to eat three meals a day and each of them had to contain the flesh of the Chosen. For Parsons the eating of the flesh of the Chosen was a sacrament. To ordinary townsfolk, meat was simply a way to avoid starvation. The thing she required to heal her stomach was tripe but she found it too much of a struggle to chew and swallow first thing in the morning. Instead she had taken to frying a small chop or grilling some thin smoked cuts and accompanying them with a glass of milk.

It was in doing the cooking that she first discovered the new problem. She was unable to hold a pan or spatula steady. If she brought every ounce of her will to bear on her betraying hands, it seemed to control the vibration to a minor tremor but stop it completely she could not. In a matter of days, the trembling had spread to other parts of her body and now, waking this morning bilious and unbalanced, the very room was shuddering.

It took a few seconds to work out that it was her head trembling and not her surroundings. This was a sickening turn for the worse. No one ever talked about it in the Welfare offices or the Central Cathedral but the Shakes was very common among the Parsons of the Welfare. She’d seen many of them take to their beds with it and never stand up again. The Grand Bishop of the Welfare sometimes mentioned the ‘burdens’ that Parsons were duty bound to carry and among them, she took that to mean the many illnesses that Parsons suffered from and the brevity of their careers. Few in the town lived past the age of fifty but for Parsons it was more like forty-five.

Parson Mary Simonson believed that it was the demands of the job that made Parsons prone to illness. Preaching the Book of Giving, short though it was, and maintaining moral standards among the townsfolk was increasingly difficult. There was more violence and aggression in the town every day, so the peacekeeping function of the Welfare became increasingly necessary. Every week now, she was compelled to use force to subdue townsfolk that had lost control and become unmanageable. In the past it had been possible to guide such offenders back into the fold. Nowadays, it was far more common that their status would be revoked and they would be driven out to the Magnus mansion before travelling on to the plant.

The Grand Bishop also mentioned, usually in the same speech as the one refering to ‘burdens’, that there were many blessings to weigh against the sufferings in a Parson’s life. This too was true.

A Parson never went hungry. Provision of the flesh of the Chosen was paid for by the town’s taxes. Parsons were noticed wherever they went and they had more power than any of the other townsfolk. They were more respected, for example, than the workers at the MMP plant and they were more educated. They had knowledge of medicine, law, faith – of course – and were imbued with divine powers. People feared them. It was good to be feared, for Abyrne was a dangerous place.

The fillet was cooked right through and burned dark brown on the outside. An accruing of fat on the inside of the pan ensured its charred crust was crisp with saltiness. She laid the still sizzling meat on a plate, said a brief prayer, and cut into it. It was, as always, highest quality produce hung for an appropriate number of days before being butchered for cuts. Most townsfolk got their meat in a hurry, causing the flavour to be less mature, but here again Parsons took the privilege and got the best. In the past she’d only ever eaten her meat rare but since her illness began the desire to cook it through, and then to char it, had increased. Now she ate hard, blackened meat. It was still a struggle, though.

As she forked a piece into her mouth, the knife in her right hand juddered against the plate. She laid the knife down and was glad of the silence. As she chewed, she considered her course of action regarding Richard Shanti.

He was a man with a spotless record of work for MMP. His reputation for speed and efficiency was rumoured far beyond the factory floor. Townsfolk often blessed him as they blessed their meat, though she doubted he was aware of the fact. Shanti was so quiet and withdrawn she didn’t believe he was aware of very much that went on outside his own head. She didn’t like people like that. Too self-contained, too independent. Townsfolk should be accessible and predictable. They should be trustworthy. Richard Shanti did not strike her as possessing any of those qualities. He was an unknown. Unknowns were a threat to everyone.

But if she investigated him and was wrong to do so, or if it turned out the records in the archive were incorrect in some way – it wouldn’t have been the first time – she could end up showing not only herself but also the whole of the Welfare in a very poor light. Did it matter that his name might not be Richard Shanti? He was an asset to the town. Did anyone need to know his true lineage?

She could easily drop the whole issue. She was sickening and the extra pressure would not help her. Did she need that? Was it really worth it or should she save her energy for maintaining high standards in her day-to-day labours? She couldn’t make up her mind. Perhaps there was a quiet way of doing it, merely spending more time checking records and staying away from Shanti’s family. They had two beautiful little girls with impeccable manners and just a hint of mischievousness. It would be a shame to shake up the family over speculations. No, she would wait. There was more she could do without mentioning anything to anyone. It just meant she would have to spend more time in the inch-thick dust of the records office. The idea almost appealed. She would be out of the way for a while, away from the harsh streets of Abyrne and its degenerating inhabitants.

Halfway through her steak a piece lodged deep in her throat – so far down it was almost in her stomach. She swallowed again, trying to produce saliva but the lump was fixed. She could breathe all right, there was no danger that she would choke, but this blockage was painful and seemed impossible to shift.

She reached for her glass of milk and brought the sweet liquid, its surface trembling, to her lips. She took a long, large gulp and waited for it to wash away the bolus of half-chewed meat. The milk slid easily down to the lump and stopped. It backed up into her mouth. She dived for the sink but didn’t reach it.

She would fulfil her religious duty and eat three meals of Chosen flesh that day, as always, but she wasn’t confident any of them would stay down.

Maya had no reason to feel guilty.

Getting a message to the factory had been the worst part. She’d felt bad about that for days. Well, for hours perhaps. Before and after she’d done it, at least. But what choice did she have? She’d asked herself the same question time upon time and ignored the answer just as often. None of it was a foregone conclusion. She wasn’t setting out for betrayal. She was responding to necessity. She was managing a difficult situation – one that her husband was refusing to address.

He’d brought home meat on the night of the Parson’s visit and it had been good meat. The best meat there was. There had been none since. Not the kilos he’d promised, not the backpack full of cuts and joints and chops and mince that they deserved, that he, as the man of the house, was duty-bound to provide. He’d weakened and reneged, become a victim of his pathetic obsessions once again.