A Prayer

• Christine Hur, Grade 5, Neutral Bay Public School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Word Zone 2016' competition

The tempest kept everyone indoors at the Vatican, winds howling and torrential rain. The pontiff peered through his window, overlooking the puddled courtyard, sipping on some hot ginseng tea. The ginseng tea granules were recently given to him as a present by an envoy from the undercover Catholic missionary group based in Beijing. Christianity was illegal in China. The pontiff was in deep thought, holding his tea cup near his lips, watching the pitter patter of the raindrops on the stone courtyard, and the other hand slowly patting his tamed pet ermine.

The envoy had mentioned some troubling news and the breadth of the situation was bigger than what the pontiff could have imagined. The Chinese government raided one of the underground communes in the outskirts of Beijing and discovered over one hundred bibles, and a valuable codex that had ancient spells and instructions on how to battle devils. Leading the raid was a Chinese policeman named Xiao, a former priest who was indignant about being banished from the Catholic church. This was because he was caught secretly using the spells in the codex and because his heart was not pure; some said he allowed the devil to possess him. Everyone from the commune was put in jail and then ordered to march endlessly through the desert until they perished.

The pontiff glanced at the tray of rissoles which were getting cold. He suddenly grabbed one and threw it like a baseball across the room, kicked the table over so violently that he could feel its vibration through to his femur and then screamed. He worried about his people in China, and now the pain from his foot, and fell to the floor. Thunder and lightning cracked loudly in the background.

The pontiff breathed heavily on his hands and knees. A drop of sweat fell from his brow onto the carpet. He finally lifted his head towards the window. The rain had stopped, the grey clouds began to whiten and part, then a ray of light shone through a spectrum of colours of the rainbow. As he stared at the beauty of it all, he clasped hands, placed them against the window sill and murmured a silent prayer.