Right Behind
Even the flies had left us. There were no more crickets in the night, no more chirping calls, no more birds feasting on their bounty, no more maggots to dispose them all. And without the maggots, there would be no flies. It was as if Life itself had left the Earth, and forgotten us behind.
There was only one thing I could do about it now, out here, all alone, on a barren dusty highway home: I ran. I ran for miles through tepid rain. I ran for days on end—through skeletons of metropolis and town, through leafless forests of never-rotting wood, across streams without fish and farms without green or ghost of animal sound.
I ran past an old Wal-Mart, abandoned shrine to discount gods, its windows smashed to shards. My God did not favor the rich, the frugal, the materialistic. My God was still around, somewhere, watching over His faithful, waiting to take us home. And if I had to run forever to find Him, so be it. I’d check every temple and every town, every place of faith. I’d find a clue to the coming rapture. I’d find a reason for this place.
The pessimists claimed the rapture had already come and gone—that it was some ‘technology’ that kept us going—that the scientists had pulled one last dirty trick to make permanent our misery. But if I was just a machine now, just a hollow shell of a man, then why did I continue to run when the all real machines had failed? And if I was just a machine, then why couldn’t I simply run myself into the ground?
I’d certainly tried. And I certainly felt the pain. With all my miles, my feet were raw, my legs were strings of flame. My chest heaved like the bellows, heavy and slow, stoking the fires of my own cremation. But, as always, I went on.
"David," the voices called to me, the voices in my mind. "You must stay strong, for the end of The End is nigh."
I ignored them, for once, running down my old Main Street; under an arch of Christmas wreaths, lovingly preserved—and just as quickly abandoned; round the old town square, with its former Nativity now defamed. Baby Jesus’ head was swapped with Mary’s foot, her head mounted on the donkey’s ass, and the three wise men were melted into one unwise glob. But Old Man Sam’s liquor store sat open and idle across the yard. A pickup truck slept beside it, no doubt useless and spent. The Church stood ahead of me, just a quick sprint away; its windows darker than this star-less night; its clapboards, dull and grey.
I stopped to check the truck, or at least, its open bed.
"David," they called again. I could barely hear them over the labor of my breath. But they were there. They were always there, always pulling me back home.
I found a road flare in the back, its flint cap still in place. A quick detour into the liquor store found me some fuel for my pyre: a bottle of Everclear, a gallon of gin.
"David!" they called.
I screamed: "Leave me alone, or answer me for once! Where will God appear? When is He coming for us?"
"Go to Church," they whispered back. "Go and wait."
Their answer was always the same.
A taste of gin wet my parched lips, burned my dry cracked throat. It dulled the pain that lurked inside, if only just a bit. I walked the rest of the way, dousing my hair with gin, stinging my eyes, burning my nose with the fiery smell. I soaked the remainder into my clothes. The bottle of grain alcohol—and the flare—I saved for them.
I stopped at the steps of my childhood Church, my former Sunday home. It was one of the last churches I had left to search, the last one in my mind. They’d taken it over now—the entire town—or those who’d stayed behind. If God hid here, I’d certainly be surprised. But I’d been everywhere, and God had nowhere left to hide.
The doors creaked open, inviting me inside. And in that empty space, darkness reigned. I could feel their collective breath, a hot-tempered wind, chilling my bones. I feared they’d grown to monsters, hedonists, lost, like the others I had found.
A shape floated out through the doorway—a long and narrow rope. It was a living shape, all pink and wet—a tongue, at once human, and hovering at five feet off the ground, but of ungodly length and unnatural design. It snaked out from the darkness, reaching closer, searching for my face…
"Come now," their voices called. "Come with us inside."
The tongue found my ear, slowly circling, trembling, like a lover’s touch. Or perhaps I was the one who trembled so.
I touched my chest and formed the cross.
"Our Lord who art in heaven…"
"Hallowed, be thy name," came the voices, deep and dark, like a demon’s Sunday choir. "Come, David. Come inside."
"No," I whispered. "I won’t succumb. The Lord will come!"
The door frame oozed a turgid milky white. It reeked of salty musk, dripping from the sides; a puddle now, a creamy stream, sliding down a slippery step.
"The Lord will come," they teased. "But you can too…"
The tongue wormed its way into my mouth, silky and wet.
"Come, David," my mother’s voice called among the mass.
No. I lit the flare. I lit the flare. Oh, Lord, it wouldn’t light! As with everything else in this lonely place, cursed to exist but never work. God save me from this night.
I turned and ran, as far and as fast as I’d ever run.
I died the day she left me—not in body, but at heart.
Jillian had always been my rock, my solid ground. My eyes were fixed on heaven, while hers stayed on the road. I spent my time pleasing Him, for both our sakes. She spent her time on us.
As I sprinted across an open field, the clouds hung dark and low. The wheat was gone, as were the farmers, as was my wife. But the straw and I remained—both of us hollow, both of us long past desperate for the harvest to begin.
Even on this darkest day, her words still echoed in my mind. "David," she called to me, tickling my ears as the wind teased the grass. "You can still come with us. The new world isn’t far, once you know the way."
"It’s a godless place," I said aloud, jumping bales of hay. "I could never go to such a place. For Him, we have to stay."
The conversation was always the same, exactly as the last. We’d stood on the rim of a great Soul Catcher, a monstrous cylinder some ten stories high. She was thirty-one that year, so fair and tall. I was a year older and paler still, with a hint of gray, but no real wisdom to offer. Her slender body stood wrapped in white, smooth and soft as the day she was born. I remained in my Sunday best, determined to bring her home.
"David," her sweet voice said, "what if God is in the new world too? What if He wants us to come to Him? Most of us still believe, in some form. But on Earth, we’re just a sliver of our truer selves, just some shadows on a wall. The answers lie in the next phase of existence, or the next one, or the next… And it’s time we took that step. For myself, I need to know."
We gazed down into the belly of the machine, to its hollow central pit. Giant metal gears crunched heavily, flames spraying, tearing and searing everything that fell.
"God, it’s scary as hell," she said, taking my hand that one last time.
She needed to know… Was curiosity important enough to rip ourselves to shreds? Couldn’t she just wait patiently for the answers to be given, like the rest of us?
"I know everything I need to know," I said. "I believe."
"David," she pleaded, "if you knew, it wouldn’t be belief. Faith… it becomes a prison when it blinds us to new truths. I’m not even sure that if Christ came back tomorrow, you’d trade belief for proof."
Her words stung my soul. "I’m not blind," I said, wounded to the core. "If Christ came back tomorrow, I’d accept him, and listen to whatever he said."
"If Christ came back tomorrow, and he remained a Jew, or he was gay," she said, "you might crucify him too! The bible says to love and never kill, and yet we do the opposite as soon as our faith is threatened. Don’t be like the fundamentalists, David! Let them have the Earth. Let them wait. Come through the singularity. Come with me right now. Please! It’s not too late."
I wanted to be with her. I really did. "But this new world was discovered by science," I said, the words cursing from my lips. "Look at this machine, with its grinding jaws of death. It perverts the Laws of Nature. It mocks the Laws of Faith. And for myself, I do trust faith. Jillian… I’m sorry… I can’t go."
"I know," she whispered sadly. A tear streamed down her cheek. "I love you for it. But I miss you already…"
She let go of my hand and leapt.
I watched helplessly as she fell.
"David!" she screamed.
As the cursed forces took her, she approached the shredder gears, closer and closer still. She vanished there, uncut, unharmed, translucent and immaterial. She vanished to the next world. Only her robes remained, torn and charred to cinder dust.
I cried as I remembered, my heart leaping for my throat.
She was gone, as always. And as always, I remained.
I jumped an old stone wall and sprinted to the woods.
The laws of faith, I wondered, slowing to a walk. How true those words became. As the people left the Earth in droves and caravans, they took their laws with them. Gone were the rules of yesterday: the laws of science, the legalities of Man. It was up to us now, the shepards of His cause. Our rules flowed from God’s eternal law, as the Lord had always planned.
The miracles came every day: holy faces in happy places, burning bushes full of light, an end to poverty, an end to death, a holy feast of life. Our prayers were answered—all except one: The Rapture, our physical ascent to heaven, our reward for loyalty to God.
Turns out, it was the unworthy who’d left us behind.
I remember walking down a crowded street, in downtown Salt Lake City, as I recall. Jesus appeared to us in broad daylight, his arms full of food and wine, enough for one and all; on his head, a halo of golden light, and on his shoulders, lay a cross.
"It’s a miracle," an old woman cried. "Joseph Smith."
"Joseph Smith?" a young man snapped, dressed in gray Jesuit robes. "It’s Jesus! Are you blind?"
"It’s Joseph Smith!" she came right back, banging his shoulder with her cane. "He’s carrying the golden tablets. I can see them clear as day. Why on Earth can’t you?"
Well, tablets are not what I saw either. But then again, I didn’t see the fight. Next thing I knew, the young Jesuit held the old Mormon woman’s eyeballs in his hand.
Her empty sockets and slack jaw formed a contemptuous, hollow frown. "Give them back to me!" she growled, groping in the air. "I need to see him! Give them back right now!"
As for Jesus or Joseph, the miracle left us too. And the crowd, in a sudden rage, turned a hundred Mormon eyes on the boy who’d stolen two. I never saw what happened to his limbs, but I heard the tear of cloth, the screams of fear, the wrench of bone from flesh. He was quartered on the spot. And yet, like me, he could not die. I placed his shivering torso into an open cardboard box, his eyes still blinking, fixed firmly on the sky.
I found a similar scene at an old oak tree, its trunk grown to the shape of the Virgin Mother. This was in Duluth, where dozens of Catholics had come to gather. They’d camped out for two months so far, without food or drink or tent, sustained only by their prayer and their never-ending Lent.
When I arrived, they seemed no worse for wear, though a few of them had amputated their own legs—a sacrifice, they relayed, to prevent themselves from leaving, to let God know they cared. The legs remained alive as well—they twitched and crawled about. Even after burial, they retained the urge to walk.
Needless to say, there were more important miracles to see.
I examined the tree for myself. But it wasn’t Mary I saw in the tree. It was the devil, for Heaven’s sake. The cloth that had covered Mary’s privates now covered a prick of wood. And when I carelessly said as much, the pilgrims saw it too.
They blamed me for ruining their miracle, their first after a long dry spell—in which even a few of them had come to doubt.
"Maybe God has something else in store," I tried. "I’ve seen miracles come and go before… There are Marys everywhere."
"No," said a big-armed, pot-bellied man. "We were so close! We were sure Christ would appear here first. We nurtured our little miracle. We fed it with our prayers, our love."
The sight of such a large man speaking of love and prayer nearly drove me to tears.
"And you drove Him away!" a legless woman cried, her eyes stained red, her stumps now digging in the dirt, crawling angrily towards me. "With your devil’s touch!"
"We were so close," the big man cried, pulling out his useless gun. "Leave us now. And don’t come back. Run, boy, Run!"
I ran away that day, as I’ve run ever since, not from fear, but from regret. To the ends of the earth, I’d come, and home again to my church… and that monster with the tongue…
I stopped running soon enough. I stood near my old high school: Arlene, Kansas, USA. I’d once ended my education on this very spot. I’d left my sheltered town, heading out into the wild world—a freckled boy with a wide-eyed grin and a love for people, and a love for God—all of whom had so far let me down.
Well, I was back here once again, this time with a glimmer of hope, a beacon of light: a warm yellow flame flickered through a classroom window on the second floor—a light, in a world with no fire and no electricity.
It was the kind of miracle I needed right then.
I stole away inside and headed for the stairs.
At last, I’d found a friendly face, a human face, but not a mind to spare. Dr. Lee was my former high school teacher, an old man even then, small, frail and gray, but full of authority: Chemistry, Biology, Science League, and for me: Detention.
I found him in the classroom, burning books, perhaps for warmth. The cabinets were nearly empty now, save the jars of pickled specimens and some miscellaneous awards.
"What year were you here?" he asked again.
"2006," I reminded him. "I sat in the back."
"Ah," he said. "No. I’m sorry. That was fifteen years ago. And my memory isn’t what it used to be, not with science gone. That’s all I used to know, you know, I believe…" He frowned at his own verbal incontinence. "What do you believe?"
"I believe we may be the last two normal people in the world. The last I’ve seen in a long, long time."
"Yes," he said, an eyebrow raised. "The bible thumping zombies are always on the march."
"They’re not zombies," I said. "At least, they’re not dead. But they’re grown to monsters… I’ve seen them take each other apart. They put themselves back together in… unnatural ways."
I picked up a mason jar from an old lab bench. It contained a fetus of some sort, an aborted life, pickled and preserved for our dissection and display. In the pink murky fluid, the shape had become all bloated and deformed, a true monstrosity. There was a time when I’d want to smash that jar for the horrors it portrayed. But not anymore. At least, not today.
"Please be careful with that," he said.
"What is it?" I asked. A calf? A foal? A human child?
"It’s my member," he said. "It fell off the other day."
I put the jar back on the table.
"You do realize," he said, staring into his fire, "that we’re all falling apart now, bit by bit. I don’t know how we even stay alive. I put my tissue under a microscope. It’s like Jello, like the cells don’t even exist."
"Not me," I said. "I’m doing just fine." I’d run a thousand miles this week and hadn’t slept an hour. Apart from the anguish, the loss, the end of the world, I felt no pain at all.
"Well, your ear is gone," he said.
I touched the left side of my face, and then the right. To my horror, my right ear was missing. The church. The tongue…
"Why didn’t the devil flare work?" I wondered aloud.
"It’s like I said," Dr. Lee repeated, "science itself is gone. Physics. Chemistry. Reason… There’s nothing left but Faith. And only the books will burn…"
"How is it possible?" I asked. "How did it happen to us?"
"Oh, I don’t know," he said, throwing another book on the fire. "Something to do with consensual reality, I suppose. Whoever sticks around gets to make the rules, I imagine. The laws of physics need not apply."
"The laws of faith," I said.
Dr. Lee let out a hoarse laugh.
He laughed again. "I remember you now," he said. "You were that young crusader, with your Immaculate Design."
"Intelligent," I said.
"Either way, you win. The world is now a fundamentalist’s theme park, a theocreality, if that’s a word. Although, I think that without rational, consistent rules—and without changing basic human nature—it’s a little more like a nightmare."
"A little?" I asked, frowning with disdain.
Dr. Lee stared right through me.
"It’s just as well I should be stuck here too," he said. "I don’t deserve the new world either."
My eyes grew wide. "You saw it? The next reality?"
He nodded. "I could have gone there too."
"Damn it!" I cried. "It’s not fair!"
"I was… afraid," he said.
"It’s not fair to leave us here to fall apart. We believed in Him! He has to come for us!"
"Eh," he said, waving the thought away. "What kind of God gives us Free Will to sort the worthy from the bad and then biases his experiment with reward of Heaven and punishment of Hell? What kind of a poor scientist is He?"
"He’s not a scientist," I said, cursing the very word.
"He might as well have chosen for us," said Dr. Lee. "To choose from fear and self-interest is to make no choice at all. Is it ‘worth’ He wants, or sheer obedience?"
"Then why did you stay? What were you scared of?"
He bowed his head in shame. "It’s an irrational God of irrational design, likely born of our own irrational minds… Either that, or we misunderstood His protocol the whole time… Perhaps He intended us to be the best animals we could be? Or to get smart enough to beat Him at chess, now and then? It must be so lonely for Him…"
"I… don’t know," I said, backing slowly towards the door.
My teacher had clearly gone insane.
"I was so afraid," said Dr. Lee, on the verge of tears.
"Yeah." I reached for the doorknob, desperately wanting to slip away. But I froze, a sudden tingle down my spine.
"David," the voices called.
They called from right behind.
"They’re here," I whispered. "Quiet."
"David," the voices whispered back to me. "We have your ear. We hear. Talk to us, my child."
A flaming textbook suddenly smashed against the wall near my head, its embers raining down. Dr. Lee picked up another one, right from the fire.
"You brought them here!" he screamed.
"No!" I whispered. "I didn’t mean…"
I ducked as it burst against the wall, shattering in flame. And I rushed out the door, running, sliding into the metal lockers, and sprinting down the hall.
"Get out of my classroom," he cried, throwing a third at me. "You moralizing idiot! And you stink of gin!"
I snuck out onto the school parking lot in the endless dead of night. The monsters, the voices, were nowhere in my sight.
But they were always in my mind.
"Thank God," I said with a sigh. I’d lost them.
"Thank God," I tried again. His holy name rang more and more hollow each time. What could He possibly be thinking with all this? Where was He now? And what was His great plan?
I fell to my knees, praying for answers, or forgiveness.
"Lord, we devoted our lives to you. Maybe I don’t deserve to go to Heaven. I’m no one to judge. But this is worse than Hell—being abandoned, left alone to fall apart."
"But you’re not alone," came the voices. "We’re always here for you."
A spear suddenly pierced me, an icy finger, bursting through my chest. The bloody fingertip emerged below my clavicle and curled up in my face. No. Not a fingertip—a tongue…
I took a step backwards to catch my balance. And another too. The thing was at my back now, pulling me closer, one awkward step at a time. I could feel the hotness of their collective breath blowing on the hairs of my neck, and a hundred eyes all watching, waiting for me to turn.
"David," said my mother, "there’s no need to be lonely."
The tongue withdrew from my chest, dropping me to the dirt.
And as it pulled away, it took something too: my heart, a bloody hole was all it left. My heart beat more quickly now, as they carried it up and away.
I saw the creature, as I stumbled in dismay. My mother’s head bobbed on one long tentacle, just above her arm, her left breast hung below it, and a buttock, and a leg. She was one of a hundred or so, grafted on the thing. She smiled warmly, like she always did, despite the fluid dripping from her brain.
Old Man Sam’s head sprouted from her side, his mouth filled with—I don’t know what—the end of someone’s fist? Dozens of the town folk were out in front, in every shape and pose. An arm here, then a leg, an abdomen, all rubbing together like a bed of snakes, seething in slow, molesting motion.
Pastor Grand’s head rose above them all, his body writhing around the rest. His tongue lashed out like a whip, his groin—I think it was—a giant pulsing mass. Little Jenny G’s neck was mounted down there—her cheerleader’s head sprouted from his loin—and beside her face, dangled two pom-poms, grotesque and deformed. She smiled at me and blew a cheery kiss, as my beating heart disappeared into their midst.
"Your heart is with us now," they said as one.
"Don’t fight your own people," said the preacher from the top. "There are so many others who’d rather see you dead."
"Others?" I cried. "Not like you!"
"Lord yes," said the preacher, "We’re one small mission of many, and one big happy mass. But the Muslims, the Catholics, the Mormons, and the Jews, they have all their masses too. We need your strength, David. It’s time to leave our church behind. It’s time to come and fight. We’ve got to build on success!"
"To fight for what?" I cried, clutching my empty chest.
Old Man Sam got the fist out of his mouth. "For God," he hollered. "For what the heck else? You always were a lazy kid."
"Only the strongest will get into Heaven," the preacher said, his snake-like tongue licking a young boy’s neck. "We need every hand we can get. The end of The End has finally come."
"That’s insane! You’re all insane. There is no Heaven, not for us. You’re not even human anymore! God doesn’t want you!"
I slowly backed away, wounded as I was.
"Heathen," one of their voices whispered.
"Heathen," they hissed, their anger churning to a froth.
"David," my mother said, disappointed and ashamed, "please stay safe… I’ll pray for you."
"Oh, he’ll join us before the end," said the preacher. "If he survives… There’s nowhere left to run."
A rubbery arm brought my throbbing heart up to little Jenny G’s mouth, and she licked it, and gave it a perky little kiss.
I ran East this time, to what I didn’t know, the towering sky scrappers of Before, to an avalanche of snow. I ran for three days and stopped somewhere in central Jersey to sleep, for once, to rest my weary lungs.
I lay myself against a large oak tree, both of us empty, alone, and rubbery. And I closed my eyes to pain.
But sleep did not come; nor hunger, nor even hope.
The flaccid fields of grasses still wallowed in the wind, lifeless and indifferent to my suffering. Their patterns danced and swirled about, with no real meaning, and, for me, with no real clout.
"Please, Lord," I cried, "tell how I wronged so I can make amends. Why have you forsaken me and doomed me to this place?"
But as I tried in vain to pray to a God who didn’t care, I heard a song of sorts, a chorus, a verse of chanted prayer:
The song came closer, over a nearby hill.
And then I saw it, or it saw me, a tree of bearded heads on the right, cloaked in black and tasseled white; and on its left, a burning bush of wigs and skirts and lips and eyes—all in all, some six stories high, a thousands bodies, headed right for me.
I tried to run. But a long arm reached out from the creature and grabbed me by the foot. It brought me up and dangled me in front of it, my world turned upside down. A second arm approached my neck, a polished blade in its grasp.
The blade paused against my jugular, pre-slice.
"Ah," said the male half, "he’s much too small to fight."
"Bubkes," came the female side. "A shitter mogn."
"Why are you all alone?" the men asked. "Does no one believe as you do? Are you too afraid to join?"
"It’s not safe to be alone," said the females. "You must have community for strength. You must have faith."
"God has forsaken me," I explained. "I’m alone. Go ahead. Please. Slit my throat."
They shook their heads and put away the knife.
"God has His plan," said their Rabbi, mounted at the top. "It is not for us to decide. The Messiah will settle things soon enough."
"Jillian," I cried. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."
"Hit zich!" they cried out in horror.
The mass of Hassids suddenly rolled to the side, tossing me in the air. And as I landed, I tumbled and flattened, the dirt stuffing me like a turkey, filling my mouth and hair.
I saw the source of their distress: another unholy mass, nearly identical in makeup, but of slightly different dress. A pile of fanatical Muslims had snuck up, some ten odd stories high, and now launched its attack upon the Jews. It hurled giant balls of flesh, first livers and spleens, then kidneys too, through the air, splattering on impact, smothering the Jews.
I sprinted from my dusty perch, just in time, as a ton of gushy gall bladder landed on my spot. The impact rolled me end over end, the splatter soaked my clothes, the sickly sweet aroma of bile mixed with gin.
I came to rest on a hilltop, facing a great open valley, as far as I could see. At the bottom, I saw a tower, another Soul Catcher—one of a thousand or so they’d built, sitting idle in the field. It was even taller than I remembered, compared to Jillian’s last day. It would do well for me today.
"Thank you," I cried. "Oh Lord, please let her be right."
I forced myself up, tortured and bruised in every way. And I sprinted for that tower and my one last chance at peace.
I reached the base, no enemies in my view.
"Behold the unholy beasts!" shouted a new voice, from not that far behind. Another tower, this one made of bodies, stood a good thirty stories tall, their golden robes blowing in the wind, their fleshy, pasty torsos stacked like pugel sticks. A tiny megaphoned head perched at the very top, shouting orders and insprationals to the rest.
"In Jesus’ name do we kill thee now!"
They started towards the Semites, rumbling down their hill, as the Muslims launched more volleys, some pancreas, at will.
I climbed the tower as fast as I could bear, step by spiral step, above the fray, the useless carnage, the panic and despair. As I rounded the circle of stairs one flight, I saw the Hassids once more. They were smothered by the raging Muslim hoard. Next time round the circle, the Muslims were the ones being crushed. The Evangelicals, with their massive tower of body fat, had simply stepped on them, the remains slowly oozing from the cracks and reforming into something new, even stranger than before, all eyes and skin and random bits of scarf.
I made it to the top of the Soul Catcher, just as the Evangelicals approached. They stood right beside the tower now, peering in at me, a doll in his little wooden house. Their handsome televangelist loomed closer, standing almost toe to toe. They would kill me in a moment. It would all be over soon.
I gazed down into the hollow central core of the machine. It was silent now, no churning gears, no fires, no life, and no clear passage through. But maybe it would still work. Jillian said it wasn’t far, if I only knew the way…
"Son," said the Reverend Jimmy Smile, "The good Lord will forgive all your sins, if you join with us and pray. If your mother’s church had seen the light, they might still be with us today. She’s here now, in a sense, but indisposed. But come, let us now lay our hands upon your flesh and show how Jesus saves."
I felt the pull of a thousand fingers, tugging at my clothes. First my shirt disintegrated, then my pants, until I stood naked to the world, my own taught skin pulling me backward, inch by inch, like a thousand little fishing rods.
But I struggled to remain free. I twisted left and right, tearing my flesh, but sliding closer to the core.
"Lord" I cried, the tears streaming from my eyes. "Catch me if you can. Jillian… I’m right behind."
I jumped. I fell towards the lifeless machinery below.
Please, Lord, I prayed, let this work. One way or another, let me pass on.
The ground rushed up at me—the frozen shredder gears.
With a crash, I slammed hard onto my back—a wrenching jolt, a shocking pain, my body badly sheared.
I lay there forever, my body torn in two.
I lay there, staring up at the pure black sky.
"Lord," I whispered, coughing through the pain, "if you ever did exist… It’s not science that left the world. I swear to God it’s you! I created you. And I renounce you!"
I’d finally done it. I’d sunken to the lowest of the low. And now I’d wait here, for a time, for the Earth itself to die.
But straight above me, high in the sky, I thought I saw a shooting star from the corner of my eye. And in a moment or two, a single soft hand grasped me from behind.
A man leaned over me—a single man—his head cloaked in linens, enshrouded from the night.
"Do you need a hand?" his soft voice said.
"Jesus," I called. "I do."
"I heard your prayer just now. I had that same prayer to."
"You came to save me?" I asked, stunned beyond my words. If I had any tears left, they would have flooded the valley below. "But if I renounced God…? Why…?"
The shrouded man helped me stand, lending me his strength, supporting my tired, broken frame on his strong arms and back. He brushed some dirt from my brow and set me on my feet.
"You’re a very special man," he said, "still suffering so. I believe, like you, that we created God. But he does exist and he does act. He’s just as real, as good, and as present in the world as we each choose to be. No more and no less."
"Oh, Jesus," I cried, "it’s so good to hear you say that." And then a thought: "Maybe… maybe now that I’ve seen the light, you might help me leave this place? Could I dare ask?"
The man smiled warmly and gently held my hand. "If I had the power," he said. "But this is the best I can do…"
He opened his robe to me, his body coming naked to the world. Strangely, it was split down the middle, fractured and re-grown, an extra arm, an extra leg, a random breast or two. A second head emerged from his abdomen—a head I recognized.
"Come David," Dr. Lee called, an arm waving me inside.
"We’re all alone out here," said the shrouded man. "It’s better to join in arms, I think, to share some helping hands…"
To join? There was a certain logic to it, no doubt, but I still didn’t understand. My questions, my endless questions about the nature of it all—would they ever be answered? Science was gone, and now God too. No. I’d never learn the answers now.
Jillian, I was blind, and I’d lost my chance with you.
"Jesus," I whispered, feeling faint. "Save me?"
"Come, David," said Dr. Lee. "No matter if you smell like Gin. My nose stopped working anyway. Come on, come on. Get in."
I took their hands as best I could and they collected me inside. Their hearts, their minds, their memories all found me right away. They comforted and fed me, like a baby at a breast.
"Welcome David," said the shrouded head. "Make yourself at home. Here’s Dr. Lee, you know, and my sister Sue, and a child who has no name… But please don’t call me Jesus. I’m just like all of you."
