Deadline

by Randy Alcorn

  “Welcome, my son! Enter the kingdom prepared for you, by virtue of a work done by another, a work you could not do. Here you shall receive reward for those works you did in my name, works you were created to do.”

  And then, with a smile that communicated more than any smile Finney had ever seen, the Great One looked into his eyes and said with obvious pride, “Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord!”

  As the crowd broke out in cheers, Finney felt overwhelmed, and dropped to his knees, then flat on the ground, face down, as if the knees were still too lofty a position before the Lord of Heaven. Out of the corner of his eye he saw everyone else follow his lead and fall flat. Mostly this was out of respect for the one before whom they bowed, but Finney also sensed the emulation of his form of worship was out of respect for him, perhaps as the new arrival, the party’s guest of honor.

  “Rise, my son. You bowed your knee to me in the other world, where it was much harder to do so. I know your devotion, and I treasure it. Stand now before me. You have made your exodus from mortality to life. This is a new world, which I’ve made for you to enjoy.” Finney rose up and the welcoming committee rose too, a half step behind him.

  Finney gazed into those eyes that could have killed him with a look, but which instead conveyed unmistakable approval. But he could also sense something more in those great eyes, something different than he would have expected. And then Finney’s gaze moved to those carpenter’s hands that had been placed on his shoulders. On them he saw deep and ugly scars. Flinching at the sight, he looked down at the feet. They too were torn in a ghastly disfigurement. How could this be? All was to be perfect here, was it not? The first of many surprises.

  In a flash of insight, Finney knew what every child understands about heaven, that every body there would be perfect, unblemished, and unscarred. But now he saw that the scars of earth were not pretend or imaginary, but very real, and could only be gone here because someone else had chosen to take them on himself. The carpenter’s scars would remain forever. The only one who would appear less than perfect in eternity would be the eternally perfect one himself.

  Finney looked into the eyes again, knowing they saw every thought within him. The perfect and scarred one said simply, “For you, my son, for you.”

  Finney swallowed hard, and loved him more than he could ever have imagined loving anyone.

  They stood and looked at each other for a time, then Finney listened attentively as his Master spoke to him again.

  “Like a newborn child, your eyes will take time to adjust to the brightness of your new world. You must learn to walk here before you can run or fly. You have much to learn, and you will have the finest teachers. You and I have much to discuss. I will walk with you often. Later I will give to you the name I have chosen for you. A name that only you and I will know. And one day, when the time is right, I will give you a place of service, a place you earned by serving me in the dark world.”

  A hush of silent wonder followed these words. The bright one stepped back, smiling warmly, as if to defer to the others, to encourage them to resume their eager welcomes to the new arrival.

  But Finney could not take his mind off the carpenter. He was the center of gravity, the force that held this place together, that gave it meaning and purpose. Finney thought back to his last moments on earth. He felt as if he’d been a loyal dog, scratching at the door of heaven, not knowing what was behind the door except only that his beloved Master was there. That was all he needed to know then, and that was all he needed to know now. Wherever this One was, it was by definition heaven.

  Finney scanned the crowd, seeing the smiling faces of old friends and teachers and customers, and an old war buddy. And there were Garland and Emma, and Daniel and Laura. He’d known them as elderly, but now they were so strong and well, so much more alive than the most vibrant young athlete or actress in the other world. And there were his old friends Jerry and Greg and Leona and so many others who’d invested in his life, then gone home before him.

  But now he searched for one face only, and much as he wanted to renew his acquaintance with all the others, he would not allow himself to talk to anyone until finding that face. They all seemed to know this, standing back and beaming as he scanned them. There, finally, at the far end, grinning ear to ear in just the way of her father, was the one he sought. She had deliberately held back rushing to him, so she could treasure the intensity of his search and the moment of his recognition.

  “Jenny!” Finney shouted her name and by the time the great echo reverberated, she landed in his arms, arms that had ached to hold her for ten long years.

  “Daddy! I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Oh, Jenny, my Jenny.”

  Finney hugged her and wept, in the wonderful way you weep at reunions long overdue. He swung her around, and danced with her and laughed. Though she seemed in a sense older here than when she had died, she was just as young in spirit, and he knew in this moment that the childlike qualities he treasured would always be hers. Tears gushed from both of them, uninhibited and unrestrained. As they gazed in each others’ eyes, they laughed at one another’s tears, and all the welcoming committee laughed with them.

  Finney said to his daughter, “Here’s a kiss from your mother, and another from Angela. They both miss you so, Jen. And here’s…”

  “A hug from Little Finn!” Jenny interrupted, wearing the same impish grin she used to when her Dad presented her with birthday presents she already knew about. “I heard him ask you to give me a hug,” Jenny explained. “But I wasn’t sure you could hear him!”

  As he whirled her around again in glorious celebration, he caught glimpses of everyone there at the welcome party, including the One before whom they all had bowed. He seemed to be enjoying the celebration more than anyone. And no wonder, since he was the creator of celebration, the inventor of joy, and he who planted within his creatures his own capacity for joy. As Finney had always taken special delight in his children enjoying each other’s company, so this one who was the Creator of all family and friendship took the highest delight in the exuberant expressions of family and friendship that filled this place now.

  Then Finney’s eyes returned to a very tall and muscular being, looking for all the world like a decathlon champion, only three feet taller, standing at the edge of the crowd. His face seemed expressionless but his eyes were alive with interest and a keen sense of participation in the party, as if he had vested interests in Finney’s homecoming. Around him were still crowding those dozen of his kind, who seemed to Finney like comrades in arms, welcoming a buddy home from a special mission, exchanging stories and celebrating a long awaited return in the unique way soldiers do. Finney recognized him as the one who’d come through the passageway with him.

  Finney contemplated the mystery. Who exactly is this, and why did we leave the other world together?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sue sobbed quietly, head in hands. Jake barely heard her whisper, “Goodbye, best friend.”

  Jake sat in dazed silence. Only once in Vietnam had he been there at the moment of death. Moments before and moments after, often. He’d seen vibrant, pulsing, youthful soldiers, then an hour later helped carry off their lifeless bodies on a stretcher. He’d seen the badly injured, but when they died it was in a medical compound, not with him. When death seemed near, he’d never lingered. He’d always managed to put distance between him and it. Except that one time, and here again now.

  Having given herself but a moment, Sue turned to Little Finn. He seemed strangely reconciled to what had just happened, almost excited, as if he understood it somehow. Must be denial, Jake thought. Little Finn hugged his mom, giving more strength than he received.

  As the two shared their intimate grief, Jake stared wide eyed at Finney. Or is it Finney? The body so familiar to him, once his friend’s house, now seemed no more alive than the furniture or light fixtures. It wasn’t frightening, like dead bodies were supposed to be.
Who could be scared of a piece of furniture?

  Finney’s gone. But gone where? Gone into oblivion? Or merely relocated outside the range of Jake’s senses? The house had been vacated. Was there a forwarding address?

  Suddenly the room teemed with medical staff. A nurse, as though acting under specific instructions, pushed a wheel chair up to Jake. He didn’t resist. He could do nothing for Finney now. The nurse said nothing as she wheeled Jake to the elevator, then toward his room. He was grateful for the small favor of her silence.

  As they rounded the corner near Jake’s room, Nurse Natalie appeared, hands on her hips. The ICU nurse noticed her stern and frustrated glare. She stopped, walked ahead between Natalie and Jake, took her aside, and whispered briefly. Natalie nodded, her features softened, and she quietly helped Jake out of the chair and back in his bed.

  “Please rest now, Jake. I’m sorry about your friend.”

  Jake didn’t respond. He was exhausted, drained, depleted. There no longer seemed any reason to stay awake. He welcomed the escape of sleep. It was the waking up again he did not look forward to.

  Three hours later he woke. For a moment he hovered in that netherworld of uncertainty, when in the very core of your being you fervently wish your vivid memories of an event are either reality and not a dream, or a dream and not reality. Jake’s gut ached as his growing consciousness convinced him Finney’s death was not a dream.

  He pushed the button, calling for a nurse. He was glad it wasn’t Natalie, for both their sakes. She was young, blonde, and competent. He didn’t have the energy to be charming.

  “Can you tell me about my friend, Doctor Lowell?”

  “Let me call ICU and get an update.”

  Unexpectedly, she picked up Jake’s phone and dialed an outside line. The phone cradled between her left shoulder and cheek, she said to Jake, “It’s much easier for me to call than to send out a search party to find you.” She smiled sweetly to say she was just teasing, but made clear she’d been warned about him. Jake groaned, managing a slight smile himself.

  “Hello, Rainy. This is Sharon from second floor. Would you do me a favor and give me an update on Dr. Lowell? It would be a big help to a patient of mine…yeah, that’s the one.” She smiled again at Jake. “Yes, right, we’re keeping a close eye on him.”

  Jake looked out the window and pretended he was interested in three twelve-year-old boys on bicycles, weaving through the hospital parking lot in the clear cool of late October, wearing their winter coats, dreaming already of holidays and escapades in the snow. Jake remembered playing hide and go seek on countless snowy days with Doc and Finney. It was all a matter of following footprints in the snow. You’d try to hide your tracks by climbing trees or crawling on fences or walking on wood piles or luring the seeker down some trail where you could lose him. Sometimes Jake would see both of his friends footprints in the snow, diverging from one another, going their different paths to make them harder to find. Then he’d have to choose between them. Would he follow Doc’s path or follow Finney’s?

  Life had been so simple, so innocent once, Jake told himself, as he looked at the boys on bikes. So little behind, so much ahead. Childhood and the friends of childhood. It would never be again.

  The nurse kept nodding and saying “Uh huh” to what Jake assumed was a technical explanation of Doc’s condition. “And the prognosis? Best guess? Okay, that’s what I needed. Thanks, Rainy. Yes, I’ll tell him,” she laughed.

  “Rainy wanted me to tell you two things. First, she loves your column.”

  “And?”

  “They’ve posted killer Dobermans outside ICU and given them a scrap of your hospital gown to expose them to your scent.”

  “Very funny. How’s Doc? I mean, Dr. Lowell?”

  “Still critical, but vital signs are steady. He’s stabilized enough they’ll probably upgrade him to ‘serious’ in the morning.”

  “That means he’ll live?”

  “Probably. No guarantees, but they won’t move him to serious unless he’s out of immediate danger.”

  “Thanks.” Jake didn’t want to ask more. He just wanted to hear Doc would make it.

  “No problem. Dinner’s in another hour and a half. Get some rest.”

  For an hour he laid back, closing his eyes whenever a nurse peeked in his room, which was often, no doubt because he’d been labeled an escapee. Just as sleep was about to overtake him again, in came a short, dark, long-haired man, with a huge beard that moved across his chest as he stepped. He bore the distinctive curling earlocks of a Hasidic Jew. Jake had seen one years ago on a New York street. The few parts of his face actually visible outside the wild beard seemed chiseled from stone, the sockets deep and the eyebrows thick. His eyes were dark, with pinpoints of white light playing in them as if they were black stones in the sun.

  With a thick Brooklyn accent, and with no hint of uncertainty or apology, he said, “I am looking for Jacob.”

  Jake paused a moment, studying the enthralling face. “No Jacob here.”

  “I was sent here to him.”

  “I’m Jake. That’s close. But no Jacob. Sorry, must be another room.”

  “I see.” The strange old man made no move to leave.

  I see? The man stood by the door, gazing at Jake. The silence was uncomfortable, but for some reason Jake didn’t mind his presence. He wasn’t one to share his feelings, and rarely struck up conversations in even the best of times, and these were not them. He surprised himself by doing so now.

  “May I ask you something, old man?” Jake would normally consider “old man” offensive, but he sensed this one would receive it as a compliment.

  “Certainly, my son.”

  “One of my best friends died this morning. I was with him.”

  “That is a great privilege. You are very fortunate.”

  “I don’t feel very fortunate right now.”

  “Nonetheless, you are. Death is life’s defining moment. It is the point where the final touch is put on each person’s life’s portrait. The masterpiece is signed and the paint dries, never to be changed again. It is finished.”

  Jake stared at the man. He must be a rabbi or something. “I guess what I’ve been thinking about is this strange sensation I had right when he died. It was as if he…just left the room.”

  “He did.”

  “Well, I mean, I could almost feel it happening. It seemed like one moment he was there, but then suddenly his body was, well, just a body, nothing more.”

  The man nodded politely and waited, as if Jake had merely stated the obvious, and must now be leading up to some worthy observation. When none came, finally the bearded one said, “I understand. I have been present at many deaths.”

  “You’ve had the same sensation, then? Can you explain it to me?”

  The man paused a moment, as if looking for just the right word. Finally, he seemed to find it.

  “Ichabod.”

  Jake waited, but no explanation followed. Other than a character in Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, he’d never heard of Ichabod.

  “Ichabod?”

  “Yes. Do you remember Ezekiel?”

  Jake nodded, faking it, since he had no idea whether Ezekiel was a king, an angel, or an apostle. Ask Jake who sang “Do Wah Diddy” and he could tell you the man and the year. But as a Jeopardy contestant, “BIBLE” would be his category of last resort.

  “The shekinah glory of God dwelt in the temple. Ezekiel watched it depart. When it was gone, the temple was called ‘Ichabod.’ In the holy language it means, ‘the glory has departed.’ Once the Spirit of God left, the temple was empty, an abandoned shell. Your friend’s body is empty, abandoned. And so shall it remain until one day it is raised again to serve your friend and his master much better than before. The body that remains is not your friend. Ichabod—the glory has departed.”

  “I can’t believe he’s dead. He was…too young.”

  “Too young? No one is too young to die. A time is appointed fo
r all of you.”

  All of you?

  “May I tell you an ancient story, Jacob?”

  Jake decided not to correct the confusion about his name. It didn’t matter.

  “Sure. Tell me a story, old man.”

  “A slave and his master come to Baghdad. Early one morning, in the market-place, the slave sees Death in human form. Death gives him a threatening look, and the slave is terrified, convinced that Death intends to take his life that very day. The slave runs to his master and says ‘Master, help me. I have seen Death and his threatening look tells me he intends to take my life today. I must escape him. Please let me leave now and flee on my camel so that by tonight I can reach Samara, where death cannot find me.’

  “His master agrees, and the terrified servant is off to ride like the wind for the fifteen hour journey to Samara. A few hours later the master sees Death milling among the crowds in Baghdad. He boldly comes up to Death and asks him, ‘Why did you give my servant a threatening look today in the marketplace?’

  “‘That was not a threatening look,’ Death replies. “‘That was a look of surprise. You see, I was amazed to see your servant today in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samara.’”

  The old man riveted his eyes to Jake’s.

  “Death will come at its appointed time, my son. There is nothing you can do to escape it. The only question when it comes will be this—are you prepared for what awaits you on the other side?”

  With a great deal of effort, Jake broke away from the old man’s gaze. He looked down, simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the man and his story. Finally, he looked back up. The old man was gone. Dismayed, Jake realized he must have been looking down longer than he thought. The man must have stepped out in the hallway, perhaps to find the real Jacob.

  Jake rang his bell. Sharon showed up in fifteen seconds.

  “Hi, Sharon. Sorry to bug you again.” Jake knew it was a bad sign Sharon didn’t say, “You’re not bugging me.”

  “I’m looking for a little guy, an old man with a beard. Jewish, looks like a rabbi or something. You can’t miss him. He must be out in the hall?”