John met a man in a barbershop yesterday, and prayed for him as I bound his wounds and connected the automatic defibrillator to his chest. "You’ll be all right now," I said, loving him even though he was a sinner – as evidenced by the sign he wore. It said "I have inoperable cancer, please let me die."

"As Jesus was resurrected, so shall you be." John was good with the flowery words -- his father was a minister.

"You think that guy was the barber?" I asked John as we wandered down MLK Boulevard, which was named after a famous preacher from the 1960’s. "I could use a haircut."

John replied, "we’ll check back in a few days and find out. He might not be happy to see us, but he’ll be happy to be alive." John’s faith is strong, and it sustains us both in these dark times.

"Amen."

We couldn’t go back to the barbershop right away, because there was a prayer vigil for the death cult that had been hiding out in the Oakland hills. John’s father always told us that it was okay to kill people like that to protect the American Way of Life, and we kept on doing it even though God had abandoned John’s father, ignoring our prayers and letting him die in that accident last year.

"My father may have been a flawed man," John muttered as he handed out the ammunition, "but he was right about this -- and so are we." John’s a lot like his father. I think he’ll be a preacher some day. Sometimes he already is.

Ten of us set forth on the prayer vigil, each carrying three weapons and a Crucifix. My cousin Samuel led the way. This was his first vigil, and he was excited.

The death cult lived in an abandoned university building, surrounded by books and old computers and junk. We peered through the windows and saw an old man on a bed inside, coughing. "Do you think they’re going to kill that man?" Samuel whispered to me after we moved further away.

"If they are, I guess we’d better get in there before they do," I replied, and went to confer with John while the others spread out to the other windows.

"This changes things," John said with an air of frustration. "I had hoped to just set the books on fire and get away quickly, but now it looks like we have to rescue the old man."

"But couldn’t some of them have gotten away from the fire too?" I asked, surprised.

"Sure, but they’d’ve been burned and then we could’ve saved them."

"So how do we save that guy?" I asked.

"Two of us will have to go inside and get him," John said determinedly. "We’ll set fire in only one part, and use that as a distraction. Then when the old man is safe from dying, we’ll torch the rest of it and get away."

We got everyone back from the windows and decided that Samuel and John would go inside, while I’d go with Samuel’s cousin George to set the fire while the others stayed back, ready to light up the rest of the place as soon as Samuel and John and the old man got free.

"Are we really sending all of these people to burn in hell?" Samuel whispered to John as they moved off.

"That’s in God’s hands," John recited solemnly, and then they were too far away for me to hear any more.

We waited impatiently for another half hour or so, watching and quietly praying, until the people inside moved away from the old man, over to their table. They had candles lit, and were serving food. I could see John around the corner of the building; he finished his final prayers, and motioned for me to get started.

George carried a half-full bottle of vodka that we’d prepared, and he lit it on fire as we ran up. I carried a hunk of broken concrete, almost as big as my head, and heaved it at the window, which shattered nicely. With perfect timing, George threw the bottle. I didn’t see the fire catch hold of the books, though -- I was watching the death cult to see what they’d do.

As we had expected, all of them (except the old man, of course) jumped up and ran towards the fire. I saw Samuel and John run inside to get the old man from the bed -- but then a woman inside saw me, and yelled something I didn’t bother to hear.

After that it was chaos. People running in all directions, vodka bottles flaming. After a while I found John struggling to carry the old man by himself. He didn’t know what had happened to Samuel. We found a ravine, and put the old man down on the ground to catch our breath and decide what to do next.

"What were those people doing, anyway?" I asked John, but the old man heard too.

"They were -- they were praying," he stammered painfully. "Praying for me, and for civilization."

"But...I thought you death cult people hated prayer," I asked. "I thought you only used doctors, and science."

He could hear the disdain in my voice as I used those words -- doctors, and science -- and shook his head ruefully. "Death cult? Ha! There used to be medicine, but you destroyed it. All we had left was prayer."

I looked at John for guidance, but he seemed as shocked as I was. What had we been fighting for, then? "Does that mean we won? There’s no more science?"

"Yes," the old man said, not even looking at us anymore. "We pray for life, or for death, it doesn't matter which one anymore. Blind faith has won out over reason, over intellect, over everything that makes Humanity great." And then he died, and we did nothing to stop him.