Page 54 of Ezekiel
“No! Nothing like that! I think you’re lovely. I think that what we have here feels amazing. The more I get to know you, the more comfortable I feel and the more connected I feel to you. Please don’t think it’s that. It’s Zion,” he rushed to explain.
“What is so bad about Zion!?” I exclaimed.
“Everything!” he shouted back. He dropped my hands as he stood and began to pace the floor. He ran his fingers through his hair, one after the other, his agitation palpable with every strained and frustrated breath he took.
“I don’t get it. Our families are here. Our church is here. All of our friends are here,” I tried to reason with him.
“But that’s the problem. Everything here is fucked up, Talia. Don’t you see that?” he pressed, his hands fidgeting as he paced.
“Our families are fucked up? Our church? How!? They are family!” I stood, my own hands fisting at my sides. Frustration and confusion and anger flooded my senses. Nothing was making sense. Nothing at all. “We grew up here, Zeke. We have support and love and family here. Community!”
“But is this what you want? Really. Take a minute to think about it, Talia. Is this the life you want? Where women are nothing more than slaves to their husbands? Where we are all slave to the rules and rituals that the fucking Reverend sets forth?”
“God has set those rules and rituals, Zeke, and you know it,” I fought right back. Thoughts ricocheted through my mind at a million miles per hour, unable to settle on a single one for longer than a few seconds.
“Did He though? Because I’ve seen some of the real world now, and I can tell you, it doesn’t have to be like this,” he spoke tersely.
“Like what exactly? Safe? Secure? In accordance with God’s word?” I laughed humorlessly.
“I can’t believe in a God who wants to see young girls married off to old men as breeding mares. I can’t believe in a God who commands His followers, young girls and women, raped in front of old creepy men!” His finger pointed at me, fire blazing in his eyes as anger sparked so vibrantly. I could see the inferno of his rage.
“That’s not what that was, Zeke —” I began, but he refused to give me a moment to speak.
“No. You will not brush off or excuse the behavior of those Elders,” he spat, pointing out towards the window now. “You will not make light of such fucked up bullshit. They forced us, both of us, to do inhumane and disgusting things, all in the name of God. It’s not in the Bible, Talia. Did you ever think about that? These rules that Reverend Jacob has? They aren’t actually in the Bible!”
“Yes, they are! The Reverend preaches about them almost every Sunday!” I fought back. Every nerve in my body felt defensive. He was questioning everything. So much more than I had thought. The fun we had in the bedroom, the things we engaged in, that wasn’t wrong in my eyes. Not now that I had had time to think about it. It was love between a husband and a wife. But this? This was completely unfathomable to me.
“No! He cherry picks verses, twists them into his own message for his own purposes. It’s not in the Bible anywhere. Trust me. I’ve looked,” he scoffed derisively.
“That can’t possibly be true,” I scoffed right back. “And even if it is, God ordained Reverend Jacob. He is a prophet and speaks the Lord’s truth.”
“Talia, you are a smart girl. You can’t really believe that. Why would God want this for women? To be treated worse than animals. The women here in Zion are literally treated like animals to breed and bear children. And the Elders push the young men into being no more than slave owners! It’s absolute lunacy. It’s disgusting and I could never,never,treat you like that.”
“That’s rich,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes dramatically.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you very much so like me being a little slave for you,” I tossed back, my eyes narrowed, hands on my hips. His eyes widened and his lips curled in a sneer.
“Don’t make what we have into that. You know better than that, Talia. What we have… that’s special. We both consent to that! You did not consent to being taken in front of the Elders!”
“I consented to following God’s word,” I tossed back, but even as I said it, that feeling of fear and hopelessness, that same feeling I had felt on our wedding day in that basement room, set like a heavy stone in my belly.
“Did they even tell you about it? Did you even know that they expected it from you? Or did they just keep you in the dark like they do all women? Jesus fuck, Talia! Did your own mother even tell you?” His hands waved around in the air as he spoke. I swore I could almost hear his thunderous heart beating from where I stood. It mirrored my own.
“Well, no, but—”
“But nothing, Talia. That’s ridiculous. It’s downright abuse. You can see that, right? This place, it’s nothing but abuse, and slavery, and all things evil,” he spat. I couldn’t believe my ears.
“This isn’t evil, Zeke. It’s our home. It’s our family,” I fired back, hot tears welling up once again, against every desire in my being.
“And just because it’s family, doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it home. Toxic behavior, toxic people, abuse… all of it can come from right in your own living room. That’s what Zion is. It’s a place dreamed up by a power hungry, greedy man who wants to control people.” His words left me feeling panicked, angry, and so many more emotions I couldn’t put a name to right then.
“As opposed to what, Zeke? The real world is full of so much evil,” I sputtered, my argument faltering under his adamant mindset.
“How would you know, Talia? Have you ever stepped foot outside of Zion? Have you seen the world that’s out there? Let me tell you something, I have. And evil can, and does, exist in every corner of this world, but that does not exclude Zion. Zion is brimming with evil people and evil thoughts.” His pacing stopped, his presence looming over me as we both panted each angry breath.
“So just because you’ve seen something outside of Zion, that means that I should just accept that Zion is evil?” I questioned through my own tears. “You’d leave me? Leave our home? Just like that?”
