#92 Two Brothers- Brian Evenson
Daddy Norton has fallen and broken his leg. He refuses to
let his sons leave the house for help. He believes: “God has foreseen how we
must proceed.” That’s the jumping off premise of this O Henry Award Prize
Story. Can faith alone heal all?
While Aurel, Theron, and Mama look on in worry and doubt,
“…before Daddy Norton’s pure spiritual eye, celestial messengers [cleansed] the
wound with God’s Holy love.” It appears Theron is fed-up with the
self-proclaimed prophet and his martyr act. He makes a series of callous
remarks: “Tell daddy to ask God what
time lunch is served.”
Daddy Norton’s delirium causes him to attempt to cut his own
leg off before falling back into darkness. Theron puts his father out of his
misery while his mother also dies of starvation and neglect. It appears that
God did not provide.
The children, scarred from this experience as well, it is
assumed by the crazy upbringing being sons of a living prophet. They go feral
in their empty house, naked, demented and occasionally fall into metaphysical
hallucinations. They eschew outside influence, hunt their own food but hold the
locked room of their dead father as something sacred.
This is pure parable and extremely well done. I wish I had a
better grasp of the religious symbolism here to fully understand the references.
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