What the Hand: A Novel About the End of the World and Beyond

by Stockwell, Todd

  ***

  Nuns were always doing great stuff like that on the Old Earth. They were the rock of Catholicism, which had seen more than its share of scandal and controversy. This cardinal was taking bribes, that pope was in bed with the Nazis; this priest molested children, that bishop covered it up, and on and on. By the time of the Antichrist, Satan was deeply entrenched within the hierarchy of the Vatican, paving the way for the last pope, the False Prophet, who would promote a counterfeit Catholicism, a blasphemous religion devoted to his satanic master.

  Don’t get me wrong. There were great priests, and great bishops, even great cardinals and popes, who had done wonderful work, but the whole of it had become corrupt, a big infected corporate and political animal that could not be saved even by the saints.

  ***

  Her words lifted my sadness. Then I heard the singing I’d heard from the cliffs. It seemed to be coming from the walls. I hugged and thanked Umut. I left the vestibule, passing back through the great hall where many still recovered and comforted one another below the Stations of the Cross.

  I looked up. I was directly below the Twelfth Station. His eyes closed, his head tilted, blood dripping from his wounds—Jesus dead on the cross. I closed my eyes and pictured another lifeless body, a female, a friend, battered and bloody, and I would have wept again, but the music filled me, and I couldn’t push back the joy.

  ***

  The music lifted everyone in the room. I moved toward the elevators. There were signs posted for hundreds of different offices and meetings and seminars located on the many floors. The most popular, I’d heard, were the seminars led by the different apostles. The times were posted next to the names of the speakers. It was late; most of the lectures and classes of the evening had already begun. But, to my surprise, Paul would be speaking in a few minutes.

  Of all the apostles, his story and letters in the Bible most carried me and kept up my hope through the Tribulation. He would be speaking on the seventy-seventh floor.

  ***

  Almost as soon as the elevator door closed, it seemed, it opened again. We exited onto a long balcony that lined the inner edge of the pyramid. Looking down, I could barely make out the people milling around the Stations of the Cross. I moved with the crowd, all heading the same direction, until we reached a staircase leading to a large auditorium that must have been somewhere near the tip of the pyramid. I entered with the crowd and scattered to find an open seat.

  The room filled quickly, and we waited in silence for the great man to appear. A moment later, a man stood from a seat in the front row and approached the podium. He was short, mostly bald. His new body was the same as ours except it glowed brighter and more intensely. I knew it was him, though I had no idea what he looked like.

  “Peace and love and blessings in the name of Christ our Savior,” he said in Greek, in a voice so calm and confident and eloquent it sent shivers through my body. “I am glad you are here, good people, but I am sad listening to your hearts. And what I tell to you now may have little meaning, I’m afraid, for some of you are not ready, but I say it anyway because it will plant a seed that will help your light grow.”

  He paced for a few moments. “It’s true you are sinners,” he continued, “and you are full of the guilt of those sins, for they have been laid out before you, and you are devastated, for you have been in contemplation of those sins.”

  His voice became louder, filled the room from every direction, and without a microphone or a single speaker. “I was a sinner. I was greedy and full of pride. I was self-righteous and jealous and hateful, a killer of men. I stoned a man to death. I smiled as he fell, and while he took a long time to die. I killed him because I thought I was better than him.”

  “Stand up, my friend!” he shouted and smiled, pointing a short finger toward the audience. Another man sitting in the front row, whose light was even brighter than Paul’s, stood up. “Do you see his light?” he continued. “This is Stephen. I condemned this great man of God. I bore witness against him. I watched with satisfaction as the crowd flung stones at his naked body. I tortured and killed this man as surely as if I’d thrown each and every stone.” Paul was crying then. But as the tears poured over his face, he began to smile, until the tears and the smile became the same joy. Then he shouted out: “And Stephen forgave me! God forgave me! Christ forgave me!”

  Stephen stepped up to the podium and hugged Paul. Their embrace lasted a long time. “You forgave yourself,” Stephen said.

  Paul nodded and Stephen sat down. “I have forgiven myself; I have accepted the pardon,” he continued. “I was on the road to Damascus….” He paused and the crowd roared. And Paul smiled more. “You know the story?” he laughed. “I was on the road to Damascus when Jesus came to me and brought me home….”

  ***

  We all knew well the story of Paul—his amazing conversion, his relentless and dangerous mission of spreading the Good News, and of his martyrdom, from the Bible and other historical accounts—but I learned even more about him at the Hall of Knowledge.

  He wasn’t always Paul. He was once Saul of Tarsus, by ancestry and religion a Jew, by birth and upbringing Greek, and by citizenship Roman. He received a formal education in a strict, rabbinical school, which fostered hatred toward Christ and his followers. Saul took his hatred and joined the Sanhedrin (the Jewish religious court) in the condemnation and persecution of Christians.

  After Stephen’s murder, he was on the road to the city of Damascus, where he was going to speak on behalf of the Sanhedrin against Christians being held prisoner by the Romans. About halfway there, a blinding light stopped him in his tracks, filling the sky and the road. He heard a thunderclap and a voice called his name.

  “Saul, Saul,” said the voice.

  “Who is there? I cannot see!” said Saul.

  “Why do you persecute me?” said the voice.

  “Please…who are you? The light…I cannot see!”

  “I am the one you persecute…I am the one crucified. I live.”

  “Let me see you!”

  “Go to the city and a man will tell you what to do.”

  At that moment, the light grew more intense, until his eyes began to burn. Paul pleaded for the pain to end, yet no one answered. Still, the pain began to wane and the light to fade, but, when it was over, he could not see.

  A traveler returning home took pity on him, and upon Paul’s insistence, took him to Damascus. He wasn’t there more than an hour when Ananias, a disciple of Jesus, found him resting at the traveler’s home. He told Paul that Jesus had sent him to heal him and to give him a message. Ananias placed his hands over Paul’s eyes, and when he lifted them he could see again.

  Paul was astounded, but even more astounded by Ananias’ message. It was this: “You have been chosen as a vessel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You will bear his name to the Gentiles, to kings, and to the children of Israel. And you will suffer greatly for it.”

  Paul’s first response to Ananias was left out of the Bible. Paul answered him with one word. He said this: “What?”

  But Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit that day and would eventually spread the gospel to every known corner of the world. For this he was hunted, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and finally murdered. The persecutor had become the persecuted—such change in a man could only be possible by the truth and greatness of God. And without Paul, Christianity could not have spread as it did. So many, here in the New Kingdom, owed their eternal life to him.

  ***

  Paul continued, “you are here because Jesus has come to you. He has seen your hearts, and He wants to bring you home. Which one of you has tortured and killed a man? Yet, it is I standing at the podium; it is I who knows redemption. You were given a pardon. Your sins have been paid for. Accept your redemption. You still have mountains to climb and perils to overcome. But they are not of Satan anymore. The destroyer has no influence here. The perils come from within, and they dim your light. Accept the pardon. Forgive yourselv
es, good people. Peace and love in Christ our Lord and Savior.”

  ***

  The crowd gave him a lengthy standing ovation. Paul disappeared behind the podium. When the applause finally let up, the room became a mixture of laughter and tears. The collective light emanating from the bodies in the room seemed to have intensified. People hugged and shook hands. As I turned to leave, I noticed a very bright light coming from the back of auditorium behind the podium. I thought at first Paul had reemerged, but then I realized it was a woman.

  She walked out into the audience to greet and comfort some of those who were still milling around. She seemed taller than I remembered and her hair flowed, and she was clean, of course, and even more beautiful, but it was her. It was Danny. I closed my eyes, but there was Danny still, until I shook away the image of her battered and lifeless body and opened my eyes again.

  29

  I was in a panic. I needed to get out of there; I wasn’t ready to face her, at least not yet. Still, for some reason I couldn’t move. I felt she knew, without looking at me, that I was in the room. And as she hugged and held hands and stroked the people, she seemed to be circling toward me, and soon we would be face to face.

  ***

  My stomach hurt again like it did when I first met her. It had to be my anxiety. It couldn’t be yearning of the romantic kind. There was no such thing. Still, I was torn. I wanted to be near her as much as I wanted to turn and run from my shame. Those thoughts paralyzed me, but as she moved closer, a worse kind of panic set in, and I was able to lift one heavy foot, which was just enough to urge the other and get me moving toward the doors. Once there, like Lot’s wife, I looked back before I bolted. It wasn’t enough to turn me to salt, but close. Unmistakably, Danny had seen me. She wasn’t looking in my direction any longer, but she’d seen me. I could tell by that look of hers—that slight smile, not quite a smirk, and the way her eyes seemed set to roll but would not. I could almost hear her: George, quit being so silly…come talk to me. She carried no anger, no pity; I knew that, too. And still, I ran for it.

  ***

  Sodom, that ancient cesspool where Lot and his wife once made their home, had been condemned by God for its unapologetic wickedness. But Abraham had made a bargain with the Lord: If there were even ten righteous men left in the doomed city, He would spare the whole place. So God sent two angels disguised as men to have a look. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, met them at the gate, but so depraved had things become that by the time they reached his home, a mob had already formed, eager to have relations with the visitors.

  Lot managed to get the angels inside, but the crowd was growing and threatening to break in and kill everyone if Lot didn’t send out his new guests. Lot refused, even offering his virginal daughters in their place. But the angels weren’t about to let that happen. They had seen enough. They went outside and blinded every one of the fools. Then they took Lot and his family out of the city before it could be destroyed by hot sulfur sent from the Lord.

  As they were leaving, the angels told everyone to cover their eyes and not to look back at the burning city, lest they turn into pillars of salt. But Lot’s wife was the curious sort and couldn’t help herself.

  Some people said it was mean what God had done to the poor woman, just for looking back at the doomed city, turning her to salt and all. And what was the big deal about looking back anyway?

  The Lord was making a point that people would remember. The point was that no earthly ties, no pleasures, no material goods, no memories, were worth taking your eyes off heaven even for a moment. The heart was either with God or with the trappings of the Old Earth. Besides, Lot’s wife didn’t feel a thing, and she was much better off in heaven.

  But why turn her into a pillar of salt? Why couldn’t he just snatch her up or strike her down? He did it for effect. No one would have remembered the story otherwise. God did all kinds of things for effect—storms and floods, bringing people back from the dead, parting seas, talking bushes, and all kinds of neat junk. The drama of the event had served a purpose, one that was especially tough to forget. You ask almost anyone: Yep, Lot’s wife looked back. Yep, she turned to salt. I know that story well. I knew the story myself, backwards practically; even as a child I knew it. But what did I do anyway? I kept looking back, of course.

  ***

  Through the doors, down the stairs, to the elevator I ran. To the bottom floor as fast as I’d ascended, then across the lobby, through the entrance, down the steps, past the crowds, up one golden street, down another, beneath the floating traffic, I ran some more. I ran longer and harder than I had ever run before. I ran to forget.

  The mind of my Old Earth body would have been sufficiently clouded with fatigue, the body itself near collapse miles before. But this body would not tire, would not produce a drop of sweat, would not let me forget. It was pointless.

  I slowed to a fast walk. Never once did I notice the grandeur of the city surrounding me. Instead, flashing images of Danny, wonderful and violent, passed back and forth like so many bartered visions in the marketplace of my mind’s eye. The more I tried shaking them off, the faster they came, until I thought I might go mad. I fell to my knees crying out, “Only me, God! Only George Somerset could go mad in paradise! Yes, I admit it. I’m a dang fool, Lord. I’m a dang fool!”

  I looked to the sky to face the addressee of my rant. Except I could not see the sky, only a glowing white sign on a gigantic square building. Three words, at least 300 feet across; sixteen letters, each 25 feet tall—which read: THEATER OF HISTORY.

  ***

  I was distracted as soon as I saw it. Most people had come to New Jerusalem wishing to meet one of the apostles, or Mary, or perhaps Jesus Himself. I, on the other hand, being a pathetic and unapologetic couch potato, was most excited for this place—paradise’s version of the History Channel.

  I smiled—a nod to God for landing me there—climbed the wide marble steps and entered the massive theater through one of the many double doors. Just inside, perched on stools behind the glass of a long booth, dozens of brightly uniformed workers handed tickets to lines of waiting theatergoers.

  ***

  That’s what was so neat about the New Kingdom, everything done like it once was on the Old Earth during the best of times—doormen, ticket takers, ushers, and everybody in fancy uniforms and such. And even though there wasn’t any money in the New Kingdom, they passed out tickets for everything anyway, so we didn’t have to walk in everywhere like a bunch of hobos. God was a good guy like that, making things like they used to be, familiar and all, just because he knew we liked it that way. Who would do that? That cracked me up.

  ***

  I said thank you to the girl in the booth and collected my ticket. Behind the booth the theater lobby was filled with concessions stands where uniformed concessioners passed out all manner of food and drink. There was popcorn, candies, fruit, breads, meats, juices, milk, and so much more, too many to name, and some I had never seen before, but none of it junk food like you’d get at a theater on the Old Earth, with fake butter and the red and yellow dye and all. It was all fresh and made from scratch, and the whole place smelled like a bakery I once visited, on a trip to my dad’s hometown in Nebraska when I was a boy.

  Regardless of the appetizing odor, I wasn’t in the mood to eat. I wasn’t thirsty, either, but I ordered a bottle of water, if for no other reason than to have something in my hand like my fellow patrons, to be the same in some small way, for I believed them, at least, to be content.

  I headed down a long hallway toward lighted doorways marking the entrances to the many individual theaters. The doorways glowed vacant or occupied. Choosing an empty theater, I entered through the swinging door.

  Inside, though fairly dark, I could easily make out the large screen hanging on the wall behind four rows of six plush seats, like a home theater in some rich guy’s house on the Old Earth. Each seat had a keypad and a small screen reading: Touch Here. I picked the middle seat in the middle row, ju
st like I would have at any theater on the Old Earth.

  I pressed the screen. Immediately the little screen and the big screen turned a bright blue with thin moving clouds upon them. Then a loud clear voice filled the small theater from all directions. “Welcome to the Theater of History,” said the voice. That cracked me up, too. It sounded like Darth Vader or somebody with authority like that. That was God being a good guy again.

  “Almost everything that happened on the Old Earth is here,” the voice continued. “Type an approximate date and place or a brief description of the event, or all of the above. The event will appear exactly as it was then on the large screen in front of you. You may press the fast-forward or rewind button to reach the exact portion of the event you are looking for. Don’t worry; the screenings are fine-tuned to each audience, so nothing inappropriate or traumatic to any specific audience member will be shown at any time. You may begin.”

  My heart just about ran out of my chest, frantic at the thought of viewing anything from my past. What was I thinking coming in here? I never did die on the Old Earth, so my life never passed before me or anything like that. I knew everything would be revealed about my life in the final judgment, but that was a long way away, and I didn’t feel ready just yet to see myself pulling all the crap I did on the Old Earth.

  Besides, I still couldn’t shake the incessant thoughts and images of Danny and the horrible thing I had done to her, and it certainly wouldn’t help to view any of it on the big screen. No, the only way to shake them would be to look at other people’s crap. And it needed to be extra crappy. I typed: 1-9-4-5, H-i-t-l-e-r, b-u-n-k-e-r, s-u-i-c-i-d-e.