God grabbed him by the neck as he was running across Railroad Avenue and shook him like a terrier killing a rat. Rotten timing, Silas thought, since there was just enough space between waves of traffic for him to make it from sidewalk to sidewalk but by some miracle nobody hit him and nobody hit anybody else.
God said, “Silas.”
He couldn’t speak, could barely even breathe. He put his hands on his knees and doubled over. You weren’t supposed to do that, he remembered, you were supposed to stand up straight when you were out of breath and put your hands on your head. He remembered his high school track coach yelling at him about it but he did it anyway.
God said, “Silas.”
“Ark,” croaked Silas.
God bent down and blew into him with the breath of Its mouth. “You are Mine now, Silas, Mine alone. I will make your forehead harder than granite, harder than the hardest diamond, for your people are stubborn and hardheaded. By this mark will you know that you are mine.”
And God was gone; and Its breath filled him; and from his forehead curled two horns, ridged and unyielding and solid; and Silas was alone and breathless on Railroad Avenue.