SISTER LISA MARIE WAS ALONE that afternoon, doing some month-end bookkeeping, in Mother Superior's office — she was ardent with numbers. An Intersexual in a monk robe ran in next, without knocking the door, and he was panting...
"Sister Lisa Marie, come quick, now!"
She looked up at him, while her own fingers were still punching numbers on the calculator pad...
"Yes Pete, what is it?"
"It is that weird Doran — he is acting bat-shit crazy again..."
The affable nun smiled...
"Don't say that Doran is not weird — he is just special in his own ways."
But Peter differed...
"I don't know, he is not like anyone of us, Sister Lisa — and we think he is looney too!"
The nun now laughed at what the young boy had just said.
"Where is he now — and, what has he done this time?"
She stood up — and the boy babbled back...
"He is back in the yard, and he is scaring us all by doing weird and dangerous things with two sticks, Sister Lisa — even yesterday, he was tossing the sharp wood-chopping ax in the air, over his head — and he was then trying to catch it."
Peter made his point, the nun had heard of so many things on a frequent basis about Doran — but, it was the trust Doran had grown to give her — that made the nun from not judging him severely.
"You run along now, Peter, I will come now."
The boy-monk responded...
"Come fast, Sister Lisa!"
She laughed again while following the monk-boy...
"Peter, I am 68 years old, I can't walk that fast these days, my boy."
She saw the monk-boy running ahead, while she trailed behind gradually...
She divulged her memory by recollecting the first day, when the maltreated and undernourished boy, with facial scars, was brought by a social worker to the St. Mary's orphanage in Hammond, Ohio...
It was after some days later when he was freed from his locked cellar in his mother's basement.
Sister Lisa Marie remembered the scrawny seven-year-old, who was terrified after seeing the women wearing strange, black nun habits at the Convent. He hid behind the social worker during the meeting with the nuns, grabbing tightly to her skirt...
.
He later cried uncontrollably in deep fright when the social service woman left him behind — assuming the dark-robed females were hell-bound demons that his dead Pentecostal mother had once spoken of.
***
Thirty orphans in monk robes were standing at a distance in the yard, observing an angry Doran holding two self-made, cudgel sticks — hitting them hard on a trunk of a tree, while he made short grunting cries.
Peter ran towards a smaller coterie of monk-boys, whose leader was Michael.
They all looked at the direction of Peter pointing at Sister Lisa Marie, who was coming from behind...
The boys knew that the nun was overt in disciplining Doran — and he only obeyed her — it was why they had summoned for Sister Lisa Marie, whenever he got out of hand — with his abnormal, aggressive behaviour in the quiet abbey.
Sister Lisa Marie walked up towards Doran, and called his name — but he ignored the nun, and kept on madly striking the tree.
She finally raised her voice...
"Doran, give me those sticks, now!"
Doran stopped, dropped the cudgel sticks on the ground, panting in exhaustion. The nun came over, placed her arm gently around his shoulder.
"Come with me."
Michael observed both of them sitting by an old stone well, from afar.
"What is the matter, why are you acting like this? You promised me that you will behave the last time, right?"
Doran remained quiet as she continued speaking...
"What is troubling you now, Doran?"
"Why are we here?" he finally spoke.
"No, you answer to your question now — tell me now, why are you here, Doran?"
Sister Lisa Marie asked him back. He responded truthfully...
"So that we can be trained as priests — and someday serve the Holy Church!"
"Good," said the nun.
"No, it is not good," replied the boy, shaking his head. "What is this?"
Doran took out a ripped-out, headline newspaper page from a recent Catholic publication from his robe and handed it to her — it was slightly drenched with his sweat.
The nun looked at the article title with a photo of a female Cardinal from Ireland...
The now, first elected female Pope of the Catholic Church.
Doran stood up, disgruntled...
"Then, why this nonsense is happening? This is not right — first the female bishops — and now the Pope is also a female — this is blasphemy — a woman should not be the head of the Holy Church!"
Sister Lisa Marie smiled widely and was even amused by his latent awareness of reality...
"It is a different situation now Doran — the bad virus as you know has killed all the men on earth — and until an Intersexual grows up to lead us someday...
"...until that time comes, someone has to step in to keep the ways, of our Church in its proper order."
Doran kept objecting...
"I still feel it is not right — the position of the Pope should be reserved to a new breed — a male!"
"But Doran, all the new-breeds around the world are only 12 years old just like you — and it will be a long time before you all will grow up — so until then, the Catholic Church needs a 'head' to be a temporary leader — or else the whole faith in the Catholic world will collapse, do you understand now?"
She elucidated gently...
Doran did not argue nor respond to her, and the nun touched his crown...
"Would you like to be the Pope someday, Doran?"
After some hesitation — he replied in a faint voice...
"Yes..."
"Then, you have to work very hard each day to be a good leader — and to be knowledgeable about the Christian teachings, and all Church doctrines." She pointed at Michael who was close-by, talking to some boys...
"Look at Michael over there — he is a good aspiring leader — and his affinity ambition is to be a bishop someday."
Doran did not like Michael and his friends very much — because he felt that they treated him as though he did not belong there, among the brotherhood in the abbey — they all saw him differently because he was raised as a Pentecostal Christian in the past.
"You must be a good leader like him too, Doran — and you should then work ten times even harder — if you want to be the Holy Father of the Catholic Church.
"Do you understand what I am saying, Doran?"
Doran finally agreed and nodded...
Sister Lisa Marie stood up and hugged him, and kissed the top of his head...
"You will always be my special boy, Doran."
Tears rolled down from Doran's cheek, as he whispered...
"I will never let you down, Sister Lisa Marie, I will be the Pope someday ...
"...you wait and see..."
The nun who brought him up with suffused love in that orphanage, for the last five years — had also, planted the seed of ambition into his head, that afternoon.
The monk-boy's legacy manifested since then...
It soon became flesh when the Soldier of God was born that day — in the Second Coming of the post-Medusa era, which the world had long awaited for...
Years later, this fearless monk-led his invincible army outside the abbey, and he fought for his people against the dominant circle, as it crossed his path — bringing out their fear of the zealous monastic warrior in him — who then waged a civil war — which swayed those high-powered of America, vanquished as they dropped on their knees.