Rapture

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Rapture is supposed to happen tomorrow.  I was thinking about that when this little story idea popped into my head, and I thought it would be good for the blog.  I wanted to post it today instead of the alleged Rapture day because A) May 21st will mark one year of blogging, and I’d rather do something else for that, and B) if the Rapture occurs on Saturday a bunch of people won’t be here to read the story, and those that are will be dealing with earthquakes and tribulations and what-not.  I ask you to bear in mind that this is a rough draft, so please forgive my grammatical errors.  I’m well aware of the fact that I use commas a little liberally.  

Rapture

He stood on the same corner everyday – right where I cross 4^th on my way to work.  He always looked the same: a nice suit, a Bible in his right hand, a sign in his left.  The sign towered over his head and it was made to look like a day on a calendar.  It said May 21^st at the top; Jesus Returns was penciled in and circled in red.  He never spoke.  I guess he felt the sign said enough.  I never noticed anybody stop and talk to him, but I figured everyone else was like me.  They didn’t think about him until they saw him, and then they promptly forgot about him when the light changed and they moved on.  On May 20^th my curiosity finally got the best of me, and I couldn’t help myself.  I spoke to him.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“No sir.  Just excited.”

Today, besides the suit and book and sign, he was sporting a couple of days worth of beard and some dark circles under his eyes that made him look a little wild.  His excitement must have been keeping him up nights.

“So this is our last day, huh?”

“Yes sir.”

“Do you mind if I ask how you know?  I mean May 21^st?  Why that day?  It seems so arbitrary, like it was just pulled out of a hat.”

“My pastor knows more about it than I do.  He did the calculations.  He figured out from the Bible that the Earth was created 7,000 years ago tomorrow, and in Genesis the Lord says he’ll send the rains to destroy the Earth in seven days.  In Peter it says a day’s like a thousand years to the Lord.  So seven days, seven thousand years.  It all adds up to tomorrow.”

“Don’t you have any doubts at all?”

“No sir.  The Bible says it, and that settles it for me.  If we can’t believe in the Bible we’ve got nothing.”

“I admire your confidence.  I have doubts all the time.”

“I’ll pray for you that you find your faith before tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”

“Why not.  It couldn’t hurt, right?  I’m late for work.  Good luck with your thing.”

And I left.

The next day dawned like any other.  It was warm out, so I had coffee and breakfast on the patio while I read the paper.  Of course there was bad news in it, but not unusually bad news.   I kissed my wife goodbye as I left for work.

I thought about him that morning as I rounded the corner.  I was startled when he wasn’t there, and I started to wonder what it all meant.  But the light had turned and I had a deadline at work and a doctor’s appointment later and wasn’t I supposed to pick up one of the kids that afternoon?

Life went on.