Margaret's Ark

A tractor-trailer roared by and blocked his view. When it had passed, the girl stood on the island separating the north and southbound lanes. The boy shouted something to her from on the far side – a scream as the best man raised the glass to his lips , a roar and the world shook and lurched. The ceiling buckled the same moment as smoke tore into the hall from –

Jack stared at the girl's face, urging her on with the words which God had planted upon his lips, reaching her soul and pulling her while he shook his shoulders violently, trying to cast away the demons attacking him from behind with false memories.

The boy started across, stopped as a car raced by, swerving, sounding its horn. The way for the girl was clear now and she ran across, stopping as soon as she reached the concrete pylon which had been Jack’s earlier pulpit. The boy finally crossed over and moved to her side.

“Do you believe,” Jack said, never taking his eyes from her soft face. The blonde hair fell forward and she pulled it aside. “Do you believe that God loves you and wants you to be with Him in Paradise when the rains come?”

“Let's go, Kim,” the boy said, and grabbed her arm.

“Release that Child of God and repent your evil, or God will destroy you where you stand!” Jack felt a rage he did not understand. At the boy, at the faces on the television screen that first dark day of his Awakening into this new, confusing world, faces long dead staring at him in grinning conquest... no, it was the Rage of God. The power of Jesus Christ surging through his veins towards this unbeliever. His thoughts were making no sense, the images were of the Devil, he had to focus!

The boy's scowling face mirrored Jack's mood. “You want to make me, Bonehead?”

“Sam, no, stop.” Kim’s voice was quiet, calming, still loud enough to be heard above the traffic. “One second.”

She fished through her coat, removing items and stuffing them into her pants’ pockets; then, she removed the coat altogether. The wind coming over the hill behind them from the harbor, the breeze of the passing cars and trucks, fought to carry it away. Jack felt something stirring within him, seeing such beauty taking off her coat.

God, forgive me. I am a sinner. I do not want to feel this way . He straightened. “God is love, and power, and is forgotten by all. He wants to be heard.”

“Come on, Kim! What are you doing?”

She stepped past the pylon and held out the coat. “Here,” she said. “Take this. I can get another one, but I want you to have this.”

“Oh, for the love of...” The boy reached around and tried to take it from her. She moved enough to keep her arm extended beyond his reach.

“Take it. It's cold out here, and you'll catch pneumonia.”

Jack looked at it. All sound around him faded; all was silence. The coat was thick, rough textured and heavy. For him. She was giving it to him. He reached out, not taking it away from her but feeling its coarseness on his fingertips.

The boy reached around suddenly and ripped the coat from her hands. Before Jack could react, the coat sailed forward and covered his face. “Take the stupid thing. Is that what you want? There, he has it now. When they fish his drunken corpse from the harbor tomorrow and the coat’s ruined, don't whine to me. That's where it's going to end up, you know. On a bloated corpse, like all these people end up, stinking up our water.”

Jack screamed and pulled the coat from his face but it was too heavy, crushing him down, pressing him into the earth. Where was his wife? His family? His world? Too heavy, pressing harder, no sound now, no hand in his, no hand no hand only a hand no hand.... Jack whimpered, blinked away the pain, saw the boy holding the girl’s arm. Her perfect skin buckled and stretched beneath his fingers.

“You're hurting me,” she said, and pulled her arm free. “You're such a jerk!” She looked back at Jack. “It's yours. That's all.”

“Bless you,” Jack said, shaking, still able to stand upright. But the memory of the crushing weight lingered, and the pain, of his heart. He looked at the boy, forced himself to focus on the present, on the true world. Again the images on some forgotten television mounted to a wall above a bed, smiling, evil. He was speaking before he could stop himself, “And may God condemn you for your sins. May your skin blister and burn for eternity for your cruelty to so many innocent people....”

The boy hesitated for a moment, confused, then his face burned red in the street light and he straight-armed Jack in the chest. The world spun; he saw the lamps, then the stars. He hit the ground, came up facing the direction of the open-air restaurant at the end of the wharf, illuminated but deserted this cold night. He almost walked in that direction, forgetting what had just happened, wondering where he should stand, wondering if he should find the shelter where he'd been staying the past two nights. He suddenly couldn’t remember how to get back there.

But when he stood up, something shifted under his feet. The coat looked like a gutted animal, bunched up as it was, and he remembered. No, he did not remember; there was nothing before, nothing but darkness and pain. He was free now.

“I'm not going back!” the girl's voice yelled. “Not until I know he's okay.”

Jack spun around. The boy was standing over him. He reached out and caught Jack's ears, one in each hand. Jack kicked and pounded the other's arms with his fists, ignoring the cast. He had no strength. “I am God's messenger! He will destroy you all - ah!” The boy twisted, pouring liquid fire into Jack's head. Everything went black, then blinding daylight, something too large moving off his chest, painful lights, someone screaming “Over here!” but the pain in his chest was too much as the concrete slab was rolled away and his head flopped sideways to see a hand in his own. Jack screamed.

“Let him go! All right! I'll leave; let him go!”

Once again Jack fell to the sidewalk, but only from his own weight, the weight of the world blown away in a moment, taking everyone to a better place but leaving him to whimper and suffer for his sins. ...I need to focus, I need to preach...

“About time,” the boy said. Jack couldn’t speak, couldn’t move except to look up in time to see the boy take the girl’s hand. She looked back towards him, her body obscured by tears filling his vision. Without looking in either direction, the boy pulled them both into the road. A car blared its horn and the couple waited until it passed; then they ran together across the street.

Jack watched them turn past a light post. The girl never looked back. He waited for her to do so, waited with an uncomfortable yearning to see her face again, her eyes. Then they were gone. Jack fell sideways and cried, and cried, face bathed in tears that washed the hurt away in small streams falling to the cobblestone walk. No one came; no one noticed him curled beside the pylon. After a time, it ended. He was empty, and cold. He stumbled to his knees, then used the pylon to pull himself upright. The coat was still there. He picked it up, gathered it in his arms. He turned and walked, slowly, almost painfully, into the night-shadowed park.

*     *     *

“How do you have it?”

“Black.”

Margaret handed Carl the mug of decaf coffee.

He took a tentative sip, then said without looking up, “They're good people. They just panicked. That's...” he took another small sip without finishing the sentence. “They just panicked.”

Margaret sat on the opposite end of the couch. Though the night wasn't cold, she'd lit a fire in the underused fireplace, and hoped the last cleaning six years before was enough to prevent a chimney fire. There weren't many California houses with fireplaces, but she'd always equated a comfortable home with one, having grown up in the Midwest. It seemed appropriate to light a fire tonight, give her new guest a calm environment.

Carl's left eye was a thick swell of blue, a smear of yellow along the edge of his temple. It was an obvious sign things had gone wrong. When he hadn’t returned on Saturday, she assumed the Jorgensons needed time to work things out among themselves. There was a chance he wouldn’t return, but that possibility seemed remote to her. When Margaret returned to the ark from church with the girls, he was there. They noticed his eye. He never explained completely what had happened, even when Katie and Robin insisted, but he did allude to the fact that his parents would “pretty much do anything” to keep him away from the project. He’d slept last night in his car, parked in a far corner of a supermarket’s parking lot.

The thought that Carl’s father, Margaret had assumed it was his father, had punched his own son... it filled