conversations with god
by Mark Daniel Taylor
“Are you listening to me or not?”
“Yeah, of course I am.”
“Because this is important.”
“Hey, you’re the head of publishing. I’m just the lowly literary assistant you’re sleeping with.”
“That is precisely why I am telling you this. You could be in my position one day.”
“Nailing someone half my age?”
“The head of publishing. The head of one of the most important cultural facilitators in the English-speaking world.”
“Sure, Ted. Then in that case, oh Grand Head of Publishing, please impart your wisdom onto me.”
“This is about stories.”
“I assumed it might be.”
“If I told you a story about a man who found his wife and children murdered, what would you say?”
“I’d say, why does it have to be a man?”
“It doesn’t matter. This happened. The fact that it is a man has no impact on the story.”
“It doesn’t? You don’t think it says something about our industry that we’re willing to accept a story about the death of a woman and her children and not question why a man is the central figure in the story?”
“I am talking about the importance of stories, Lisa. If I am telling it from the man’s perspective, that is only because that is where the pertinent information is coming from. Now, do you want to hear more or not?”
“I guess.”
“I said this was important.”
“And I said I was listening. A man comes home and finds his wife and children murdered. Can I assume this is a grisly murder?”
“Yes. Very much so. Stab wounds, mutilation, torture—the works.”
“Big shocker. Then what happens?”
“What do you think happens? The man falls apart. He breaks down in tears. He feels like his whole world has been stolen from him.”
“Mm-hm.”
“That’s all you have to say? I’m telling you a man’s life is ruined, and all you have to offer is, ‘Mm-hm.’”
“What do you expect me to say? It’s not like I haven’t heard this story a million times before, Ted.”
“Okay, but what if I said that the reason the man was so hurt and distraught was not just because he had walked in on the horrible sight of his butchered family, but because when he was a child, he had witnessed a remarkably similar scene, but instead of his wife and daughter, it was his mother and father?”
“It was?”
“That’s what I am telling you, is it not?”
“And so? What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“Oh, there’s a participation element, is there? Well, Ted, I assume it means the two crimes are connected. Either because it’s the same person who killed this man’s mother and father, or because it’s a copycat of some sort. Wait. Did you say it was his wife and daughter?”
“I did.”
“You said children before.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you said wife and children before. You implied a plural. You didn’t say the singular daughter.”
“Well, I was wrong. It is just a daughter.”
“Very reassuring. Okay then, Mr Head of Publishing, then what happened?”
“He called the police, who thought very much the same as you. That whoever killed the man’s mother and father also had something to do with the murder of his wife and daughter. They made a list of all the people who knew the man and his family, as well as his mother and father, and they came up with a suspect.”
“And this suspect is…?”
“An estranged uncle, who prior to the man’s birth was next in line to inherit a prized golden statue that an ancestor of both men had passed down through the family. However, due to the uncle’s inability to have children, he had been passed over to receive this priceless antique in favour of his brother and nephew.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Does that not sound like a reason enough to kill?”
“A gold statue?”
“Yes.”
“And why hasn’t anyone in the family sold this priceless inheritance before now?”
“Because everyone else has so far respected the ancestor’s wishes to keep the statue in the family. The uncle, however, wishes to cash out.”
“And that’s why he killed the man’s family? That’s why he mutilated the man’s wife and daughter?”
“That is what the police think, yes.”
“Then why didn’t the uncle just kill the man? Why go through this mess of killing his mother and father and then, however many years later, killing his wife and daughter?”
“Precisely the conundrum that gives the detective pause.”
“What detective?”
“The detective that assumed the job of investigating the uncle. The detective who, after meeting with the uncle, is able to deduce that while said uncle would certainly like the gold statue, he does not seem the type to mutilate and torture an entire family for it. Let alone twice.”
“So, who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Of course, you know.”
“That is where the story ends.”
“No, it isn’t. Come on, Ted, don’t leave me hanging like this.”
“What is it about the story that you still want to know? Why do you even care? I have not told you this man’s name. I have not told you what he is like, what he thinks and feels. You know nothing about the wife or the daughter, or the mother or the father. For all you know, they deserved to die.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is stupid, just tell me who killed the bloody families.”
“But is it not a problem that I have kept these things from you? These are the indicators of a good story, are they not? Texture, layers, characters, tone. Should they not be the reason we are here? Do you not want an insight into these people? How that insight might reflect your own experiences in life?”
“I couldn’t give a shit, Ted. Just tell me what happened with the murders.”
“Okay, fine—the man did it.”
“What?”
“The man in the story. He was a psychopath. He killed his parents when he was a kid, and then he did it again when he was an adult.”
“Huh?”
“Yes, he had schizophrenia or something like that.”
“No, no—don’t do it like that! Tell me properly. Like you did before. Come on. Wipe that look off your face and tell me what happened. Pick up from when the detective was talking to the uncle before.”
“You still want to hear it? Even though I’ve told you the ending?”
“Yes! But make it quick, before I lose interest.”
“Okay, well, after the detective realised the uncle did not have it in him to kill, he returned to the man in question. He wants to ask him some questions about the first round of murders, the one with his mother and father. It is here that the man mentions that his mother’s chest was caved in, which was true. But the way he describes the caving in of his mother’s chest bothers the detective. The man says that when his mother’s ribcage cracked, it pierced her lungs and made a sound like air escaping a bicycle tire.”
“That is strange. Why would he say that? Why would he even know that? Ah! Unless he was there when it happened?”
“Quite.”
“And that’s how the detective catches him?”
“No—it is not until the detective asks the man to recall the details of his wife’s murder that he begins to suspect him. When the man mentions how, before his wife was killed, she had been strangled, repeatedly, each time long enough that she would pass out but not so long that she would actually die.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because it is one of the details that the coroner discovered, but which the police decided not to reveal to the public. To weed out false tips. The detective, realising that the only other person who would know this would be the murderer, takes a step towards the door. But the murderer can see in the detective’s face that he suspects him. His expression drops, and with blank frankness, he begins to explain that ever since he was a child, he has been able to speak with God. That they have full conversations with one another. The man does not see himself as a murderer, but as an instrument for punishing the wicked, and that God was putting these people in his life for a reason. Mother, father, wife, daughter. These were only markers of sinners who needed purifying. The detective has been itching towards the door, but before he can make his escape, the murderer catches him, bringing him to the floor. He pulls out a knife and holds it over the detective. The murderer plunges it downwards, straight into the detective’s chest.”
“What?”
“It goes in—deep. The detective can feel it hit bone, but it is too close to his shoulder to touch his heart or lungs. The detective feels pain shoot through him, but he can still breathe.”
“What about the murderer?”
“The murderer is about to finish what he started, but the detective’s radio makes a noise. A squad car is on its way. The murderer is lucid enough to know that if he doesn’t move soon, he’s going to get caught, and so he dashes out the front door. The detective gives chase, the wound in his chest dulled by the rush of adrenaline and the knowledge that if he does not catch this man, he will kill again. But as he is running, he cannot believe the luck the man has.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is like the city is against him. The man runs right through the traffic without so much as a beeped horn. People move out of his way like they are in cahoots. They reach a park. The detective sees a uniform officer running towards the murderer, sure they are about to take him down. But just as the officer reaches the man, an Alsatian, born by some unknown fury, tears away from its owner and jumps on the officer before he can tackle the murderer to the ground.”
“It’s like God’s on this murderer’s side.”
“Exactly. But then the detective gets a better idea. He realises he knows where the murderer is going.”
“He does?”
“The murderer is lost, directionless—he will be looking for guidance. The detective jumps in the back of the squad car and makes it just in time to find the man at his church, his hands crimson with blood as he prays at a stained-glass depiction of Jesus on the cross. The detective arrives just before an armed response unit, but in the few seconds before they prepare to blow him away, the detective notices that whatever murderous expression was on the man’s face has disappeared. In its place is the desperate look of a man who has seen everyone he ever cared about die. He’s not asking God who to kill next, he’s asking for redemption.”
“And what does the detective do?”
“Well, he arrests him, but then we are into the part of the story where the doctor or psychologist comes in and explains the man’s dysfunction. That he was abused in some way, or he saw his parents having sex when he was too small to conceive of what it meant. I always skip those bits.”
“Really? I like them.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Like, how about if the man was manipulated by his uncle? Like maybe the uncle knew he killed his mother and father and caused the man to relapse, so he would kill his wife and daughter and then go to jail, where he couldn’t claim his inheritance. Then you can tie the golden statue back into it.”
“Hm, I like that.”
“So, what’s going to happen with the story?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are we publishing it or…”
“What? This? Are you kidding? No, no—we are not publishing this.”
“Why not?”
“Well… It’s not very good, is it?”
Photo of Mark Daniel Taylor
BIO: Mark Daniel Taylor is a working-class writer from Plymouth, UK, who now lives in London, where he is working on his debut novel, Infinity Land. He is an alumnus of the 2020 New Orleans Writers' Residency and was a finalist in the 2023 Killer Nashville Claymore Award and the Adventures in Fiction New Voices Competition. Mark’s work has appeared in The Hooghly Review, Weird Lit Magazine, Hobart Pulp Literary Journal, and Disclaimer Magazine.