Future Home of the Living God

Cedar writes to her unborn child, explaining that she feels the baby move inside her. She places the picture of the ultrasound in the diary and describes her house (much of which is unfinished, untidy, or half-decorated). Cedar kneels by her bed and prays. She sleeps a little, ignores a telephone call, and then reads an academic paper about the conception of the Madonna. The idea of the immaculate conception (a child conceived through the word of God alone) intrigues her. Cedar thinks about the religious magazine she publishes, selecting incarnation as the theme of the next issue. She begins working and wonders whether the potential devolution of the human species is a reverse incarnation, in which humanity loses the “spirit of the divine” (48).

As she writes, Cedar ignores her ringing telephone. She assumes the father of her child is desperately redialing. The thought of the future terrifies Cedar, and she begins to cry, but she is interrupted by a face that appears on the computer screen. The woman on the screen calls herself Mother and asks Cedar comforting questions.