Okonkwo's Revenge (Short story)

Summary

Reverend Jeremiah Smith clenched his jaw, inhaled, and patted the bulge in the right pocket of his trousers, as one would do to assure a wallet of crisp dollar bills had not been stolen. If the commissioner of Bible Technologies for the Global South project had been less agitated, he would have realized that the odds of his wallet being stolen were zero because his right leg was jammed next to the external wall of the medical office waiting room. He would also have realized that the other patients with faraway looks, bowed, or nodding heads had more sublime concerns than money.

Like them, Reverend Smith had been waiting for over an hour to see Dr. Ezinma Okonkwo, the internationally renowned New York psychiatrist. Her waiting room overflowed with patients. They had heard that she overbooked. But that she took whatever time was necessary with each patient. So few complained. Instead, they resolved to make up for the long wait by unburdening themselves when their turn came to talk to her. Such was Reverend Smith's resolve as he shifted his buttocks to ease the pain hammering his lower back. A transplant to the United States from a British missionary family, Reverend Smith saw the world in ones and zeros, and digital technologies were his weapons to slay the children of Baal. Until they beguiled and sent him on a downward spiral – a falling apart he hoped Dr. Okonkwo would arrest.

After shimmying his buttocks in an effort to relieve his back pain, Reverend Smith picked up Scientific American from the oversized coffee table and fanned the stale, hot air. The makeshift fan brought little relief, so he opened the magazine and began reading an article on the brain, about its plasticity, its capacity to create neural networks that enable people to learn new things. Dedicated to spreading God's Word through technology, Reverend Smith became entranced in a future world in which ignorant, lost, and dammed souls would be redeemed if he could use technology to saturate their brains with His Word.

‘Do you think he hanged himself?’ Reverend Smith said, surprised to hear his own voice questioning Dr. Okonkwo when she walked into the consulting room.