Depend on't; no Truth can ever subvert true Religion. - Richard Bentley
Mike O’Hara bashed his horn at the car that had just cut him off and nearly took off his bumper. “Idiot,” he grumbled. He was averaging a good fifteen-miles-an-hour in the typical Monday morning commute.
Except it wasn’t a typical Monday morning. Tornados had touched down the night before and destroyed several blocks of houses and a school. Mike had never heard of a tornado hitting California. That was Oklahoma and other God forsaken places that had tornados, not California. He laughed as he remembered the old joke, ‘You know how an Arkansas divorce and an Oklahoma tornado are alike? Someone is going to lose a trailer.’
Mike, along with most people, had been glued to the boob tube news reports for the past several weeks. The world really did seem to be heading for the dumper. A dam in China had burst killing millions. Drought in Australia was killing off their entire harvest. Rains in South America were flooding whole cities. And the capper two days before had been when Iran had secretly built a bomb capable of being loaded on a missile. They had launched it against Israel and it had hit Jerusalem, the birthplace of the three Semitic religions. The Holy places of all three religions had been incinerated. Fallout from the blast was inundating southern Lebanon and Syria. Condemnation had been raining down on Iran from every country in the world, even their former friends. Israel had been launching constant air attacks against Iran, helped by the other Muslim countries, who were inflamed that Iran, a Shiite state, had destroyed the Holies of the Sunni Moslems. The bomb exploded right over the Dome of the Rock melting that holy place. Things were revving up for a three-way religious war in the Mideast. Mike sighed at how things seemed to be careening out of control.
That’s the moment when Mike thought he lost his mind. Car tops started popping open like a giant corn popper and people in those cars were lifted out and started floating up into the sky. All around him cars were suddenly without occupants. The car behind his ran into him; luckily, they were barely crawling along and his impact bumper absorbed it. Pretty soon it was bumper cars with most of the cars empty.
Mike looked out over the city and saw something from a Magritte painting, the sky full of people, all of them floating up and up and up into the morning sky. The driverless cars started finding the side of the road and plunging off into the river on one side or fields on the other. Soon, the roadway was clear of traffic.
He pulled to the side of the road and stared up into the sky. The bodies were quickly disappearing into the distance, the blue morning sky freckled with diminishing dots.
Nancy Wilkerson was up and preparing breakfast for her children, still in bed. The roof of her house opened over her head with a whoosh. Startled, she looked up and saw a face of majesty looking down at her. “Come!” the voice commanded. Her body felt light, and she suddenly floated up into the morning sky. Shocked, she looked around and saw the sky filled with people also floating up and she remembered the sermon last Sunday when the pastor of her Assemblies of God church had announced that the trumpets of the Last Judgment could be heard if one listened. He told the congregation to prepare to meet their Maker face to face. Nancy thought she had been ready, but the reality of it shocked her.
She began to weep and pray that she would be among the Elect, chosen to enter Heaven with the Lord Jesus at her side. As she wept and prayed, she noticed that she was wearing nothing except her old nightgown, tattered and stained. Her pendulous breasts hung down and her chubby thighs, marbled and veiny, were uncovered. Her feet were in ratty old pink mules. “I can’t meet Jesus like this,” she cried out.
Nancy tried to cover herself and self-consciously looked around. She saw many of her neighbors. Wait, that was Sam Clark. He’s a Mormon. He can’t go to Heaven. And there’s Rosa Garcia. She’s Catholic. Catholics can’t go to Heaven; they aren't born again. But they all continued floating up into the blue with Nancy Wilkerson.
Nancy felt the cold as they ascended. Soon, it was getting dark as well and the Sun began to glare with a terrible brilliance. She wondered if she would die of suffocation.
Then, startlingly, she felt as if she passed through a sheet of glass, but a liquid sheet of glass. And as she emerged on the other side, she saw the peoples of the Earth; White, Black, Yellow, Brown, all of them in flight towards Heaven. And as she saw this, she saw that they were forming into lines, separate lines that went off into different directions.
With a whoosh, she flew off into one of the lines, one of the smaller queues. Mrs. Garcia flew off into another much longer line and Sam disappeared in the opposite direction. ‘Of course,’ Nancy thought. ‘Poor man, he’s going to Hell.’ She felt self-righteous. She knew she was saved because she was Bible believing and had been born again in Christ.
Smugly, Nancy looked over her shoulder at one of the queues. It was full of Asians, Nancy noted disdainfully. At the head of that queue sat a fat man, legs crossed, a gentle smile on his face. As each person went past him, their body fell away and the pure bright spirit floated free and entered the portal. Nancy could not see what was beyond.
She was close to her own portal now and dreaded the moment of Judgment. She passed the portal for the Calvinists, Calvin taught ninty-nine out of hundred don't make it to Heaven. So in that line, the Angel randomly counted out 99 and sent them off down the escalator. Only one was allowed through the portal.
At Nancy's portal a terrible apparition stood guard. But each person passed by the sentinel. No one seemed to be cast down. In fact, Nancy had not seen the other queues, except for Calvin's, rejecting people. When was the Judgment to be? It couldn't just be the Calvinists? She glanced ahead to see each person given a pair of wings and a halo as they entered.
She nearly fainted as she came to the head of the line. The Archangel Gabriel played his great horn and St. Peter read from a book, “Nancy Wilkerson.” An assistant angel handed her wings and a halo and she was swept past and into Heaven. There were scores of Angels directing traffic in Heaven. “Put on your wings and follow directions,” one shouted.
Nancy saw several people struggling with the wings. She watched as one man first attached the halo to the wings by the long rod, then he put his arms through the straps holding the wings in place, sort of like a backpack. Having helped her kids with backpacks for years, Nancy quickly inserted the halo in the proper hole drilled for it and put on the wings. She wondered what she looked like in her tattered nightgown, pink mules, and golden wings, and halo.
“That’s the ticket,” congratulated the angel in a heavy Bronx accent. “We run outta the premade wings what wid' the Rapture. That way,” he pointed.
She looked up ahead to see a throne, golden light streaming from it, and seated on it was God the Father, the Holy Spirit flying above his head, and standing beside him, Jesus, frankly, looking a little bored. After all, he’d already been here for two millennia with nothing to do.
Jesus turned to God and asked, “Hey, how come there aren’t any Jews? I was a simple Jewish Rabbi on Earth trying to save Israel for the Jews from the heathen Romans. By the way, how come it took two millennia for the Apocalypse? I preached it was coming in my lifetime.”
“You Galileans never were good at math. Now, the Greeks, those were math guys,” God said shaking his crowned head, his long dazzling white beard flowing over his chest. Pointing out over the adoring faces, God said to Jesus, “This is what you get for not leaving anything in writing. Now you’re stuck.”
“Can’t I go over to the Jewish Heaven where I belong?” Jesus asked.
“These people can’t have Heaven without you,” God answered.
“All these meshuganah? I should never have gone to Jerusalem that year. I just knew I was making a mistake getting any where near that nutcase Roman,” Jesus said to himself.
“Get over it. It’s just for Eternity,” God told him as the Golden Phone at his elbow rang.
Nancy followed the line up towards the mighty throne. It was a bit of a problem, this bodily resurrection, but the Saved managed to trudge up the stairs. Nancy looked around and didn’t see any Blacks and she sighed. ‘Thank God,’ she said to herself, then laughed since He was seated on His throne looking down at her. This was what she had been taught Heaven would be.
An angel appeared and said, “Right there,” pointing to a line of people standing on a shelf which stretched off into the distance, all looking up towards God and singing his praise. Nancy took her place and looked up at the Majesty of God.
She was about to start singing with the others when the angel pointed next to her and said, “Right here.” She felt a presence next to her and looked. She tried to recoil, but the Saved were packed in tight as sardines in a can. A thing stood next to her. It was shaped like a man but inside were black cinders swirling as if caught in a maelstrom. She looked at the angel, disgust on her face. “Don’t worry,” said the angel. “He was cremated. No body to resurrect but we got the ashes.” The angel turned away and started directing arrivals to the next row behind Nancy.
Nancy shuddered, looking at the swirling ashes shaped like a man. She turned back towards God and began singing his praise, for all Eternity. She heard Mr. Ashman, her name for the thing next to her, raise his voice in praise. It was a nasal high pitched voice like nails grating on a chalkboard. But it was only for eternity.
That poor itinerant Jewish teacher looked out over the throngs singing His praises and sighed. "I knew I should have listened to Thomas and gone fishing that week," he said of his twin brother. Looking upward towards God on His shining throne, Nancy continued singing. Mr. Ashman, because he was just a cloud of circulating ashes, looked like a Negro and Nancy tried, but failed to keep from touching shoulders. But they were just too tightly packed. She kept singing, singing forever without stop never speaking to her neighbors just as she had been told Heaven would be. She believed and got her Heaven exactly as promised. As Twain said, "Of all the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse. He will go any length for it-risk fortune, character, reputation, life itself. And what do you think he has done? He has left it out of his heaven! Prayer takes its place." In this Heaven, prayer took the place of everything, as had been promised.
Sam Clark had been walking to his car when the Rapture ruptured the heavens above. He found himself floating up with many of his neighbors. Sam looked back and saw his wife and children also rising from the house and he was ecstatic for he loved his son and daughter to distraction and deeply loved his wife, Arlene. They would be together.
As he was swept into the currents of Heaven, he saw Nancy Wilkerson fly by, a sneer of recognition on her face. Ahead, he saw many portals. As he flew by he glanced at one, a Rainbow Bridge stretched away to Valhalla filled with heroes killed in battle. No one was waiting to enter this Heaven. Apparently, the world had run out of heroes awaiting the coming of the end times when they would fight the final battle of Ragnarök before the earth and heaven would be consumed in flames and a new time would begin.
He glanced again and saw the Styx beyond one portal, and beyond that a world ruled over by Hades and Persephone filled with the Greeks and Romans who died before their civilization was Christianized. Sam felt a faint regret that he could not enter there to spend eternity in dialogues with Plato and Aristotle, Euclid and Pythagoras, Aristophanes and Euripides. With regret, Sam flew by the ancients' Heaven, for Man had been promised many different Heavens by the multitude of Gods that Man had believed in.
He found himself in a line heading for one portal. He recognized a few of his friends from the Stake. Stunned, he saw his first wife, his covenant wife that he had married in the Temple, the wife he was bound to for Eternity by Church teachings, the wife he hated with a passion unbounded and who returned an enmity greater than his. He prayed, loudly and passionately as he rushed through the air to his doom that the Church was wrong… But Sam Clark had always accepted the teachings of the Church and it was too late for rational thought about God’s design.
The line came to a shuddering stop and the Risen bunched up around the portal to this Heaven. The Angel Moroni shouted out to the assembled, “Hold on. Stay in line. We’ll get this sorted out. You there, stay in line!”
It seemed that there was a problem with one of the teachings. Whole families were supposed to enter Heaven: husband, wife, and children. But children grew up and married and wanted to enter with their children, and those children had grown up and, the adopted and step kids, which parents do they enter with… well, you can imagine the problem of sorting out who went with whom. Finally, God had been called on the emergency Golden Telephone. After explanation, he had issued a decree. Husbands and wives would enter together as promised by the Church. Children that died before marriage would enter with their parents. Otherwise, they would enter as their own family with their spouse.
The Church taught that the more wives you had on Earth, the higher your place in Heaven. In fact, they were taught that there were three classes in Heaven. Now, this might seem contradictory as Heaven is the perfect place and there can be no classes of perfection, it either is or isn't. So the lower classes of Heaven must not really be Heaven as they are less than perfect. But there was no time to sort this out, after all Man's religions have never been logical or made much sense, people were lining up. Brigham Young with his fifty-six wives was first in line and went to the head of the class, the most perfect part of this less than perfect heaven.
But others weren’t so lucky. Some only had been married once and so it was just the two of them. There was quite a bit of grumbling as they entered Heaven to find out it would just be the two of them for eternity in third class quarters, sort of like steerage in the old luxury liners instead of first class with those that had multiple wives. In some ways they were better off than the families who lost children at birth, to be saddled with a squalling infant for eternity seemed perversely against the whole idea of Heaven.
They didn’t know it but they were better off than the Catholics. Their Church taught that the person began at conception. There, since Purgatory was now gone by a stroke of the Papal pen, parents were given fertilized eggs only days old that had been lost to still births, still births that the mother might not have even been aware of, and told these were their ‘children’ by Church teachings. Even with special powers it was hard to hold onto the microscopic eggs for eternity. Who knew what the Heavenly punishment would be for losing a ‘child.’
Sam reached the head of the line and saw her, Louise. She returned the look of disdain. The angel called out, “Samuel and Louise Clark, enter.”
“But…” they both said and stopped not wanting to even speak at the same time as the other.
“What is it?” the angel asked exasperated. “Can’t you see we’re running behind schedule?”
“I can’t stand that bitch,” he said.
“He’s a foul filthy piece of…”
The angel cut her off, “I don’t have time. The rules are the rules. Off you go.”
Sam and Louise found themselves swept off into Heaven, sentenced to eternity together, in eternal hatred as they had lost those they loved for eternity. But that is what their church had taught and they had accepted. So it was to be in Heaven.
As Sam went twirling by on his way to the Mormon Heaven, Achmed floated by on his way to Paradise. They passed each other in disbelief; Sam that a Son of Cain could be saved and Achmed, in disbelief that a Non-Muslim could be saved.
Achmed swirled through a gate and was taken by an angel to a garden. The angel pointed, and Achmed settled onto a divan in a garden, lush with trees and grasses, a small fountain burbling sweet water, and thirty virgin houris awaiting him. He smiled, thanking Allah for his beneficence. Normally, he would have received seventy-two virgins but with the end of the world, the capacity for houris had been exceeded and the virtuous had to make due with thirty.
The thirty virgins surrounded his divan, waiting for his desires. One held a basket of sweet fruits, another held bread. A third held a bottle of wine, wine that never made you drunk and tasted as sweet as honey. As soon as he had entered his garden he became erect, an erection that would be eternal.
He looked at the girls. Well, not really girls since they were houri, spirits, even if they felt like flesh and he noticed that they weren’t identical, but somehow he couldn’t tell them apart either. They weren’t individuals, but part of some corporate existence. Standing side by side, he could tell one from the next. But if they turned away, or he looked away for a moment, they were alike again, indistinguishable from each other.
They were beautiful and desirable and naked. Coming from a society that required all women be covered, their nakedness was highly arousing as well as titilating. Achmed found himself desiring. He reached for one and she willingly came to him. He took her, as a man takes a woman. The others watched, smiling. It was disconcerting, like taking a woman while her sisters watched. “Look away,” he said and they all turned away. It was better and Achmed managed to take the girl, the houri.
Achmed lay back. The others returned, and using pure water from the fountain, cleaned him. Another brought fruit and wine and fed him. He lay back, remembering the harshness of the desert. Truly, this was Paradise.
And so it was for Achmed in Paradise. When he desired, he would take one of the lovely spirits and she was a virgin, pleasing his desires. When he was hungry, an houri would be there with food; when he thirsted, wine.
But soon, and who knew how soon, for there were no clocks or even days to measure time, it was one never ending perfect morning in the Garden, Achmed thought he should have run out of virgins. So, he took one of the houri, but when she went to leave, he held her to him. Another of the sprites cleaned him. Holding the houri, he took her again, finding that she was a virgin.
There were never ending virgins who resembled each other, forever; no difference, no conversation, no conflict, no change. The sweet wine became cloying. The fruits bitter. Where were his friends to have long leisurely arguments over tea? Where were the other girls, different ones, to relieve the boredom of sameness? He even would have welcomed a Jew just to have someone to argue with. Achmed was in Paradise and he was bored, bored beyond endurance with the sameness. Achmed came to realize whoever designed this Paradise had made a fundamental mistake, and it was for eternity…
All of Man's Heavens, all promised by God so they must all be true, seemed to have a fatal flaw, they were unchanging for eternity. It doesnt matter what you do, if you do it for eternity it will be infinitely boring.
Back on Earth, Mike saw the bridge in front of him collapse into the river and be washed away. Buildings, now empty of people, fell in thundering clouds of dust as the earth opened to swallow the debris. Great fissures appeared in the earth and the detritus of civilization was swallowed, only to have the wounds in the earth close and disappear.
Earthquakes followed one on another as the surface of the globe seemed to ring in the changes. Rain followed, washing clean what remained.
Mike wandered, running from one disaster only to barely avoid the next. Stopping on the brink of one great chasm, watching as buildings toppled into it, then holding on for dear life as it closed. He ran from that to find the river overflowing its banks as dams collapsed upstream, the river, now swollen, carrying away the great city. He swam to a small hill and watched as skyscrapers toppled into the muddy rushing waters, and were carried towards the sea.
More rain came, then fog and thunder, as the earth rent itself time and again. Mike found a lone oak tree on his hill and sat under it watching as civilization was washed away. He tried to understand. He had always used reason in his life. Reason was more difficult than belief since it required asking uncomfortable questions, sometimes unanswerable questions, and accepting that he did not always know. Where as with religious belief you always had the answers, they just weren't true. He thought Heaven should be on Earth, made by Man with his own sweat.
Applying reason required a man to discard prejudice and seek the best answer rather than rely on an old outdated answer from history. It meant seeking the highest truth possible, even if it meant discarding previously cherished ideas. It is the spirit which animated the Age of Reason.
So Mike looked out over the devastation and started thinking. He had no answers yet, but he would not give up his quest for the truth. He fell asleep in the gloaming dark, the roar of cleansing rain in his ears.
Mike awoke to a bright dawn. The rain had cleared the air. A gentle breeze carried the sound of birds to him. He looked out over the valley that had been home to millions and saw only the rivers meandering lazily. The works of Man had been erased as if they had never stood.
Mike shook his head and looked again, unable to comprehend the enormity of the change. Where there had been the tawny hills of summer, the grass burned by the blazing summer sun, now everything was green with new life.
He walked slowly down from his hill to the river. Already, trees and grass had sprung up from the rich ground that had buried civilization. He wandered down to the bank of the river which flowed clear and clean when before it had been fouled and muddy. He sat on the bank and contemplated.
The day was warm and a gentle breeze stirred the air. As he sat, he saw a doe, followed by her fawn, come to the bank of the river to drink. She looked at him, but seemed unafraid. The fawn watched him for a moment before it too drank of the cool clear water of life. They danced away bounding with sheer joy.
Mike was hungry. He saw many trees lining the small stream which fed the river. He followed the brook and saw a pear tree, then plums, apricots, figs, a pistachio tree, and bananas. This valley had been fertile but never did it possess this rich abundance and variety. He took a banana and peeled it. It was ripe with flavor.
Mike bent and cupped the water from the brook in his hand and drank; the water sweet, clear, and cool. He walked back to the river, eating from the trees as he walked. The river was so inviting that he stripped off his clothes, emblems of the vanished civilization, and plunged into the river. He felt the dirt of the old civilization that had clung to him being washed away.
When he returned to the bank of the river, he didn’t bother with his clothes. The day was warm and bright and he felt better walking as he was. Mike lay down on the bank and slept, slept the sleep of a Homo Novus without a worry in the world.
Mike awoke and saw a beautiful young woman sitting and looking at him. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” she responded, a twinkle in her eye.
Mike sat up and saw a pile of clothing next to his. She saw his glance and said, “I saw that you must have gone swimming. The river looked so good, that I decided to go in too. After, I didn’t feel like putting my clothes back on. Was it the same for you?”
“Yes, I felt so clean…” he said quietly.
“Me too.” She jumped up and ran to the nearest tree. It was an apple tree and the girl grabbed two of the bright red fruits and ran back, standing over him. “Here,” she said offering it.
Mike took it and bit into the soft sweet flesh, the juices running over his hand. The girl also bit into hers, the smile still in her eyes. They watched each other eat the fruit and smiled as they did. They looked around with clear eyes seeing the world for what it really was and their minds understood. No more fairy tales to hide the truth.
When they finished, they both ran, laughing to the river, to wash in the clear river. Mike looked closely at the girl. He had trouble telling her age. She could have been an old looking fourteen or a young looking twenty. She seemed to Mike an ideal; Woman. “I’m Mike,” he said.
“Hope,” she responded. Then, looking around at once was a city, she said, “It’s so beautiful now.”
He nodded. They frolicked in the water before going up to the bank to lie down on the soft grass and let the breeze dry their skin. She turned to him, her eyes inviting. He turned to her, his eyes asking. Their lips met. Mike rolled over on top of her and their bodies melded together, him in her as Man and Woman are designed to be. Each looking at the other, eyes looking into eyes, they moved together, until Mike gave to Hope his seed of new life.
After, they lay on the soft sward, touching and loving. They had found true rapture.
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The next story is Reversing the Curse
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Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
