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What Kind Of God?This story may contain adult content. |
| Written by Jon Stalk | |
| Monday, 09 June 2008 | |
WHAT KIND OF GOD? By Jon Stalk
Funny how peaceful the world seemed in a time of such crises, Adam thought as he stood at his living room window, overlooking a deserted Second Avenue. Five-thirty five, Monday afternoon, and not a soul in sight. No dogs walking, no cabs weaving in and out of lanes or cutting other cars off. No fighting, no cursing, no road rage. Rush hour was now a thing of the not-so-distant past. Everyone was gone. To where, he did not know, did not care. Christine was in the bedroom, curled up in the fetal position with baby Eve nestled in her bosom, hiding, waiting, and praying.Eve slept peacefully during her usual nap time. Christine, however, restless and desperate for sleep, buried her face into the pillow and wept. Adam wanted so badly to be with her - to be with them - but he couldn't bear the sight of his family any more. To him, they were just a dour reminder of what was happening; of what was going to happen. A family portrait hung on the wall to the right of the window. In it, the the three of them - Eve was only three months old - smiled for the camera, happiness and elation prevalent on their faces. He studied the portrait for a moment, lost his breath, caught it, then closed his eyes. Their jubilant expressions were now extinct, victims of a force larger than their mortality, of a power higher than their humanity. He closed his eyes and tried to blink the image away, but it had already been burned into his short-term memory. He tightened his eyelids, tried to squeeze it out of his mind like a towel through a ringer, in hopes of once again reverting his imagination to a dark, blank canvas. Frustrated, he drew in a deep breath, felt as if he were suffocating, drowning, then exhaled. He opened his eyes and watched the sun as it danged in the west, bathing the cluster of buildings on the horizon in long, golden shadows, and pondered on why he was so afraid. After all, he'd known for months what was coming, known what he was supposed to do to try and survive. The news wasn't new. Yet the conflict he felt within his heart, twisting and clenching him like a vise was, and it tugged at every nerve ending. He felt as if he'd just awoken to the realization of his own execution. And he wasn't alone. Everyone else on the planet shared his fate. Trying to deny it was like trying to hide in an open field. Hoping that Christine had already fallen asleep, he became frustrated when he heard her weeping. He closed his eyes again, tightened his fists and silently cursed God. From the northern sky, miles above the Earth, the thing closed in. He turned to the blank television screen, avoided his own reflection. No sense in watching the news. There was nothing they could tell him that he didn't already know by now. The tube would just be nothing but static and dead air by now, anyway. Everyone was certainly gone by now; Newscasters, Weather Reporters, even Regis Philbin and Rachel Ray. Not yet dead, but either waiting for it, hiding from it, or denying it. Adam was denying it, too. But Christine wasn't. She'd tried, though, for his sake at least. Seeking higher ground, evacuating the city - they'd failed at both. Now the only thing they had to hold onto was one another, and the baby. Certain death is sometimes impossible to deny, especially when it's right there in front of you, hanging in the northern sky like an ominous eye, moving in closer and closer by the minute; by the second. Christine couldn't deny it any longer, and Adam hated her for it. Any time now, he thought, and once again found his fists clenched in suppressed rage. Another wrenching cry came from the bedroom, muffled, Christine hiding her chagrin from her troubled husband. "Chris?" He asked, pinched by the sound of her name as it left his mouth. He pressed his lips together, still fighting his inner rage. "You okay?" She replied with harder, louder sobs, and tried to vain to repress them. Adam looked to the sky, now bursting with the purples and magentas of dusk, and cursed through gritted teeth: "Are You having fun, You miserable piece of ****? Are you enjoying this? Is this what You do to people? Give them the happiest moment of their lives, then yank it right from under their feet? Huh? Is that what You do? What kind of God are you, anyway?" In the north, the thing seemed to have gotten closer, brighter in the wake of the bowing sun. He could almost feel its heat singing the skin on his face. Underneath that ominous sky, the beautiful foliage of autumn meant nothing. To him it was just another feature of the doomed planet's landscape that would be gone by tomorrow. He walked to the dresser, beyond enraged by Christine's surrendering sobs, pulled a revolver from the top drawer. His knees buckled under the weight of the gun, and the briskness of its metal surface seemed to travel across his skin like a virus. He popped the magazine open. Only two left. He closed his eyes, sickened by the feeling of the heavy machine in his hand. His stomach rose into his chest, and his mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with sand. He did not like the feeling of once again holding his father's revolver, but right now it seemed as if it was his only way out. There were no pills in the house that would do the trick, and he was running out of time. Everyone else had taken their shelter; it was time he had taken his. He loaded the clip and pointed the gun to the ceiling. "If I could shoot you right between your ******* eyes, I would." He growled. His mind drifted to the newborn that he'd never get to raise, whose voice he'd never get to hear; whose future he'd never get to witness. He was crying now; tears of fright, panic, horror and sadness. Fear gripped him with an iron claw and was now squeezing him to the brink of his sanity, his humanity. He traced a tear that had slid down his cheek and settled on his chin, wiped it away with his forefinger, then tasted it. He hated the saltiness of it - the mortality of it - and cried even harder. I never thought I'd go this way, he thought, restricting hysterics to violent heaves of sobbing. Cancer...a car accident...A ******* Mack Truck. But not this, not in my lifetime. These things just don't happen to people like me! Images flooded his brain like a speeding gag-reel; his wedding day, the reception, Christine licking the cake from his nose, the food fight after, everyone smiling, dancing, celebrating life, and immortality. Youth seems to go on forever...until you get old, that is. Adam felt cheated, robbed of the life he had spent so many years studying and planning for. He was still living his youth, barely got started. And now all that was gone, a waste of time.His future was now a bleak horizon of raging waters, rising dust, starvation and deprivation. He'd sentenced to die in the clutches of a bitter, cold, everlasting night. The End. It's all in God's hands, his old college roommate, Deacon Saul, had said to him two weeks ago. It was the last phone conversation Adam would have. Hasn't spoken to him since. After that conversation he didn't even have it in him to call his parents and say goodbye.
6 "In God's hands?" Adam spat.With the phone pressed to his ear, he circled the floor like a restless lion in a cage. He'd stop momentarily, only to watch the bright object as it barrelled motionlessly from the northern sky. People outside his window ran aimlessly, screaming, desperate to flee, desperate to keep their lives. "I understand you're a Seminarian now, but c'mon Saul, is that supposed to make me - or anybody for that matter - feel better about this?" After witnessing a man struck by a careless taxi, Adam found he was holding his revolver closer to his hip. "I'm afraid I don't, man." Saul said, his voice calm and steady. "It's just God's will." Adam laughed. There was no humor in it. He looked over to Christine, who by then was still showing her face. She looked detached, eyelids heavy, eyes distant. She held Eve in her arms, but seemed to have no emotional attachment to the baby at all, as if she were trying to distance herself from caring for something that was destined to be taken from her. "God's will, huh? Well, if God's will is to destroy us, then I don't think I like Him very much. I don't believe I even want to believe in Him anymore. What kind of God would..." A gunshot broke through the distance. Shaking, Adam checked his magazine again. Three bullets left. "Things are really falling apart over here, Saul. What kind of God would do this? What kind of God would allow this to happen?" "There's free will, Adam. God doesn't make things happen. He doesn't work that way. We make things happen. His children." Saul's voice was low, deep, almost soothing. Adam was baffled at how calm his old friend seemed in the light of such an imminent disaster. "Free will? I didn't choose this! I didn't choose to live on a planet that's about to be wiped out, Saul! I didn't choose to suffer this way, or to have my wife and child suffer. I did choose to have a baby, though, to have a family, and that's being taken away from me, man! I mean, if He's God, then why he can stop this from happening? "It's not that simple." Saul explained. "I wish it were." "How can you be so calm knowing that you'll be dead in two weeks time...that we'll all be dead in two-fucking-weeks time?!" "I have faith, Adam." "Faith." Adam laughed again, disbelieiving. He checked in on Christine and Eve, the sight of whom tore at the lining in his stomach. "Faith is a myth, man. It's a ******* joke!" "I wish I could change your mind, Adam. I know you're scared. I am, too. We all are.But if you pray, and you have faith, I promise you will know peace when this is through." "Faith is for weak people, Saul, people who have nothing else to hold onto." Adam caught himself, realizing that he may have offended his friend, then apologized. Saul forgave him. "Adam, faith doesn't stop you from living, Adam. It guides you, helps you make the right decisions. " From his window, Adam watched on in horror as a vagrant attacked a young woman. The bearded hobo pushed the woman to the ground and tried to escape with her child, who couldn't have been any older than two or three. The woman shrieked, calling for someone to help her. Everyone around heard her, but no one listened. Adam opened the window, demanded the man leave her alone. "Adam?" Saul asked. "Is everything okay?" The vagrant howled something about a chosen one and an Anti-Christ. "Let her go!" Adam demanded. Adam put down the phone, pulled the hammer back. The revolver's magazine clicked. Christine watched, covered the baby in her shirt, then closed her trembling eyelids. Adam fired one shot into the sky. Startled, the vagrant released the child and retreated down the street, still spitting apocalyptic rhetoric, before finally bowing out of sight. A few people ducked for cover, but most continued on with their ranting and looting. The woman shot Adam an aplomb glance, then hurried away. "God's people..." Adam scoffed into the phone. "I can't just wait around anymore, Saul. I'm afraid. I don't want to die. Not like this. I have to do something. I have a gun..." Saul was silent, contemplating. "No! Adam, please don't." "I'm ******* scared, man! I can't just wait around. I don't want to suffer like that!" Christine's eyes flowed fresh tears. Adam demanded she stop crying. "If you do that..." Saul began. He stammered, unsure of how to continue. "It's wrong, Adam. You can't..." Adam sniffed. S aul could hear fear in the silence. "So what, then? I'm supposed to just wait around? To drown? To freeze to death, or choke? Why do I have to suffer? I'm going to die anyway. It's pretty much ******* guaranteed. What kind of God would rather watch me suffer? I mean, it's inevitable. I'm going to die. We're all going to die. So What's the ******* difference?" "God doesn't want you to suffer, Adam. He wants you to pray." "Pray? For what? For God to swoop out of the sky and change the course of this thing? To save the day at the last possible second, just so He could make sure that we're all paying attention? I'd be better off counting on Superman." "God hears all prayers, Adam." "That doesn't mean He answers them." Saddened, Saul conceded, and offered a short prayer asking God to restore his friend's faith. "Thanks for the prayer. I don't think it's going to..." Adam paused, caught a glimpse of his daughter from the corner of his eye, choked back fresh tears. "Saul, I have to go. I'm sorry, man. There's not much time left. I love you. Good luck." Before Saul could reply, the line went dead. "Dear God," Saul bowed his head, closed his eyes and crossed his hands. "Dear God, Help us all." 6 Now, two weeks after his conversation with Saul, Adam stood before the crucifix which hung in his hallway. He wanted to spit at it, but he didn't. Instead he cocked the hammer of the revolver and walked back to the window. It's getting closer, he thought. Almost here. Almost dead. Angered, Adam whacked the cross from the wall, knocking it across the hallway. It crashed and skittered across the hardwood floor, face down, before coming to rest in the doorway of the bedroom. Frightened, Adam closed his eyes, tried to imagine what the world was going to be like in twenty-four hours; Tidal waves swallowing cities whole, spitting out the corpses of children and animals into the dust that would have by then blocked out the sun; buildings crashing down, death on all four sides, in the sky, on the ground, all around him. Death and suffering. Not me, he thought. He walked into the bedroom, kicking the crucifix out of his way. "Chris?" He asked, and was relieved to find she had fallen asleep. He set the gun down quietly on the night stand and removed the pillow from underneath his baby's head. "Dear God, forgive me for what I am about to do." He was startled by what he heard himself say, but guessed that saying things he didn't mean was just part of going insane. He closed his eyes again, tears flowing more steadily now, steadied his breathing, and clutched the pillow at its ends. He placed it over his wife's face, held it down on both sides. Dripping tears dampened the linen below him as he tried to trick himself into believing that Christine hadn't woken up, that she wasn't struggling against him. He hummed a song to himself, trying to drown her muffled cries. ‘Sounds of Silence' by Simon and Garfunkel. They'd watched ‘The Graduate' on DVD last week in a final effort to simulate the regularity of normal life. The song stuck with him. "Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again..." Long wet tears leaked from his eyes, plopped into the puddles on the pillowcase like raindrops. "Because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping..." When she stopped struggling, the side of the pillow facing him was drenched. He lifted it, held it before him, smelled his own tears. He tasted them, and hated the saltiness.It reminded him of the simplicity of human mortality, of how physically easy it was to do what he'd just done. He flipped the pillow over, then tasted her tears. He stood up, looked down at Christine. Her hair was wild, unkempt, and her lips parted slightly. She looked as beautiful as ever, as peaceful as she'd been three months ago. She was just sleeping, that's all. Just sleeping peacefully. "And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains..." He went to the bedroom window, peered into the night. The sky was almost black, and the thing was right there, a brilliant spark in the sky. An hour away...maybe minutes. Death - inevitable death - was minutes away. He leaned in, touched his wife's warm face, kissed her lips. His wet cheeks rubbed against hers, blending their fluids in eternity. She wouldn't suffer through the destruction, the floods, the dust. The thought of that made him smile, then weep. "I'll be right there, honey." He stuttered, desperate to catch his breath. He felt as if he was drowning. "I'm sorry I've been so distant lately. I love you, always have. I'm coming, baby." He reached over, grabbed his revolver, checked the magazine again. Now there was only two left. He knelt beside the bed, kissed Eve on her forehead, wept against her soft, warm cheek as she slept placidly. Dread gripped Adam, immobilized him. An emotional paraplegic, he was, his body shaking in sharp spasms, the revolver tremulous in his sweaty grip. Death was on its way - either way. Suddenly, Saul's voice came to him, clear in his mind, preaching about a God that would rather he die a gruesome, painful death than a quick, painless one. "Faith..." The Seminarian's voice drifted in and out with fantastic valor. "Faith doesn't stop you from living. It guides you through life, helps you make the right decisions..." He watched his baby sleep, raised a clenched fist to the air, started to curse God, then, for some reason, withheld his execration. Instead, he simply said, "I demand a reason. Do You hear me? I demand an answer!" No response came to him, though. He was not surprised. He reached out, grabbed Christine's hand. Cool, now. Cold, soon... Two left, either way. "Christine, my...love...I'll...see...you...soon ...I'll..." His breath caught in his throat again. He coughed, hiccupped, convulsed. He could see the thing in the sky from the corner of his glassy eyes. It wasn't just closer, now. It was here. Watching helplessly as his baby slept, he lost all self-control. "...I...love...you...both...I'm sorry...we'll...all...be...together....soon...." With the gun in his fist, cocked and ready, he wondered whether or not he really believed that.
Copyright 2008 Jon Stalk |
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 30 August 2008 ) |
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