The Omen

by David Seltzer

Not much, but more than usual—struggling with the word "hippopotamus," and giggling when he finally got it right.

Lions are cats and gorillas monkeys, and squirrels are rats and horses are donkeys.

fetid;

The crowd stood silent, aghast, but Damien was laughing, pointing at the horrifying scene and squealing with delight.

He who was doing it. And as the holocaust increased, Katherine began to scream.

Damien indicated he was hungry,

Katherine drove swiftly but aimlessly, trying to escape the fear that was overtaking her. It was not the fear of Damien, or of Mrs. Baylock. It was the fear that she was going insane.

"I mean, only 'goodness' comes to the House of the Thorns," she said. "Black clouds just stay away."

"I have …'fears,'" she said. "Fears that a normal person wouldn't have."

"The common problem among politicians' wives is alcoholism,"

The fear that they have no identity of their own."

If you keep my covenant you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a Holy Nation.

Deuteronomy

No more robes and crowns of thorn, but chinos perhaps, or Levi's, or a suit and tie.

asunder

It was a moan.

It made no sense. In the privacy of her room, the woman had painted herself like a harlot.

They were all helpless. They didn't ask to be born and they didn't ask to die. They were made to. But why, in between, did there have to be such pain? Perhaps humankind was more amusing that way. Perhaps they provided entertainment

He saw himself dressed as a woman, yet knowing he was a man.

When one needs to buy, and the other needs to sell, we have the basic components of peace. When one needs to buy and the other refuses to sell, we have taken the first step toward war.

"We are caught together," he said, quoting Henry Beston, "in the net of life and time. We are fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth."

Thorn singling out the faces of the Arabs in the audience and speaking directly to them.

"How many millions do you have? Do you know how many people are starving? Do you know what the change you're carrying in your pocket could do? With what you pay your chauffeur you could feed a family in India for a month! The grass on your forty-acre-front lawn could feed half the population of Bangladesh! The money you throw away on parties for your child could found a clinic right here in the south end of London! If you're going to urge people to give away their wealth, let's see an example! Don't stand there in your four-hundred-dollar suit and tell us what poverty is about!"

The boy clearly scored.

"When Rockefeller was appointed Vice-President, the papers listed his income as slightly over three hundred million! You know what the slightly over was? Thirty-three million! Not even worth counting! That was his spare change, while half the population of the world died of starvation! Isn't there something obscene here? Does anyone need as much money as that?"

"One child! One starving child! Do something for just one starving child! Then we'll believe you! Just reach out with your own hand, not your mouth, with your hand, and extend it to one starving child!" "Perhaps I've done that," replied Thorn quietly.

"You have me at a disadvantage," said Thorn evenly. "You stand in the dark and hurl invective …" "Then turn on the lights, I'll hurl it louder!"

his knees unsteady.

The Satanists provided a sanctuary where the judgment of God did not exist.

The atmosphere fairly crackled with power.

he sought herbal potions that brought slumber,

becoming infirm.

The pain in his back was caused by a tumor; malignant and inoperable because of its position on the spine.

He was seeking the man named Bugenhagen, a name linked with Satan almost since the beginning of time. It was a Bugenhagen who, in the year 1092, found the first progeny of Satan and devised the means of putting it to death. It was again a Bugenhagen in 1710 who found the second issue and damaged it to the point where it could summon no earthly power.

ensconced

he covered every inch of wall space, even the windows, with pages torn from the Bible. It took seventy Bibles to do it all.

impregnated with particles of broken mirror,

hard

an accordion band struck up a polka

"... When the Jews return to Zion. And a comet fills the sky. And the Holy Roman Empire rises. Then you and I ... must die."

akimbo,

As he went, the child gazed back at his mother, his eyes filled with hurt.

"She's unable to love it," explained Greer, "so she invents a reason why it's not worthy of her love."

"I'm frightened," Thorn whispered, "Of course you're frightened." "I mean ... I'm afraid."

Behind her, in his playroom, Damien rode his wheeled car, making the sound of a freight train, a sound that intensified as he rode faster.

"She's pregnant." "I'm afraid not."

"Where is she?" asked Thorn. "She lives in Switzerland." "My wife."

"I lied. Just look at the picture."

cubicle

"The first item is a diary," he said, lifting a small tattered book from the pile. "It doesn't tell about him, it tells about you. Your movements. When you left your office, where you went, what restaurants you had lunch in, where your speaking engagements were ..."