The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

  Rather than the normal shouting, the reporters quietly raised their hands. Dean selected one.

  “Mr. Secretary, did anything occur during the Archbishop’s meeting with Elohim that caused his collapse?”

  “I really can’t answer that. Our audio and video monitoring malfunctioned during that meeting, and no one was able to hear what transpired. I suggest that you contact the Cardinal for additional information. Yes?”

  “Were all of the interviews with the people you mentioned videotaped, and are those tapes available?”

  “We attempted both video and audio recordings. All of our attempts failed. We do not have a single moment of recording.” Several hands shot up at once, obviously prompted by this information. Clayton went on, “Before you ask, let me explain. Our initial meeting room was an interrogation room at the FBI. This room is well equipped with state of the art recording equipment and staffed with competent technicians. Those in the outer observation room were able to watch and listen to the proceedings on video and audio. However, when we played back the tapes, they were blank. The technicians replaced the equipment several times and rechecked all of the wiring. All indications were that the equipment was recording. However, when those tapes were played back, they were blank. I have no further information than that. Next question?”

  “Why is Bill Burke not here?”

  “In the midst of this investigation, Bill requested and was granted a personal leave. I do not know the reasons for the request.”

  “Is he ill? Is his absence a result of meeting with Elohim?”

  “No, I’ve spoken with him, and he is not ill. He has not stated to me that his leave is a result of the meeting.”

  “Are there written transcripts of the interviews?”

  “Yes, when we discovered our recording difficulties, we brought in a court stenographer to produce transcripts. We transcribed all of the meetings, except for Archbishop Coughlin’s. Those minutes, in our opinion, are the property of each of the interviewers, as some of the content is highly personal. It will be up to each of our participants to release complete or redacted versions. Yes?”

  “Does Elohim have any background that you’ve been able to find?”

  “As I asked, please confine your questions to statements made. Margo Jackson will be speaking shortly to address those issues. Any further questions?”

  No hands were raised. “In that case, I’d like to bring Margo up.”

  Margo Jackson reached the podium quickly.

  “Thank you, Mr. Secretary.” Margo took a moment to organize her thoughts before speaking. “During the few days since Elohim’s arrival, we have done an extensive check on him, utilizing fingerprinting, DNA database, face recognition, et cetera. With the exception of one…anomalous result, we have found nothing. He carries no identification or credit cards. Elohim is not in our database…nor is he in the databases of Interpol and other international sources. In fact, when Elohim first arrived at the Hoover Building, our people checked the building perimeter video. I’d like to show that video at this time.”

  A technician turned on the plasma screen mounted to the wall to Margo’s left. The video was split into two halves of the screen, each showing a different view of the exterior entrance of the Hoover Building. Using a pointer to refer to the right half, Margo resumed, “As you’ll notice, this view shows the front doors of the building; the other view is several feet farther from the doors. If you watch the left side, you’ll be able to see all of the pedestrians approaching the building….” Margo selected an unidentified woman, wearing a distinctive red dress, and used the pointer to single the woman out as she walked up the steps toward the entrance. “If you will all watch this woman, you’ll see that she is visible in the left frame as she walks up the steps. As she nears the entrance, she is visible in both frames, as the views overlap by approximately ten feet.” The press silently watched as the woman was in both frames, viewed from different angles. Her image then exited the left frame, showing only in the right view until she walked through the front entrance.

  “Now, as we continue to run the same video, you can see several people coming and going. They all pass from one view to another. There is no other way to approach the entrance without passing through this left frame.” The audience stared at the screen, as if trying to catch a trick.

  “I direct your attention now to the right-hand screen. Coming from the left side of that frame, Elohim is visible. He walks across the view and through the entrance.” There were a few muffled exclamations from the reporters. “Yes, as many of you noticed, he did not pass through the earlier view. In fact, backing up both videos….” The technician rewound the synchronized views. “You’ll see that when Elohim was visible in the right-hand frame at the point where he should have been visible in both, he wasn’t. He only appeared in the right frame…the frame closer to the entrance. The other pedestrians walking in proximity to him are visible in both, yet he is not.”

  Margo paused for a moment, as the group stared at the two frozen images. Elohim, locked in mid-stride on the right, could not be seen on the left. All of the others were plainly in the same frozen position; yet, the spot where Elohim should have been in the left frame instead showed only the uninterrupted background.

  “We have no explanation for this and, to be honest with you, have not yet asked Elohim to explain the…anomaly. I did not receive this video until hours ago. I’m afraid that the security officer who noticed it was not comfortable bringing it to my attention until he became aware of this meeting.” Most of the eyes in the room looked at Elohim, who sat impassively at the table with the others.

  “This video is being copied as we speak and will be made available to each of you at the end of this conference. Before I turn this over to Craig McWilliams, does anyone have any questions? Yes, sir?”

  “You mentioned one anomalous match earlier. What was that?”

  Margo smiled, looking slightly embarrassed. “I probably shouldn’t have referred to it at all, since it seems rather, well…prejudicial. After running Elohim’s face through all of the normal databases with no hits, an extremely zealous investigator ran a facial comparison search engine on the Internet.” Glancing toward the video tech, Margo said, “Vince, could you bring up the slide.” Turning back to the reporters, she said, “This was the hit that we received.” As she spoke, a slightly off-to-the-side view of Elohim’s face from the security video appeared on the left side of the screen. On the right side was the Michelangelo painting The Birth of Adam, in which Adam is brought to life by God’s touch. The image of the painting was then cropped to show just the face of God. As the cropped image zoomed to fill the right side of the screen, there was an audible gasp from some of the press members. At the bottom of the screen, computer-generated text stated that there was a seventeen-point match.

  Grinning sardonically, Margo remarked, “Like I said, slightly prejudicial. Any other questions? Okay…Craig?”

  Craig McWilliams replaced Margo at the podium. Because of the widespread coverage regarding his “cure,” the intensity of the press corps palpably increased at the prospect of questioning him, with many shifting forward to the edge of their seats.

  “Good afternoon. I’m Craig McWilliams, and I have headed up the profiling unit with the FBI for seven years. I was asked by Director Burke to oversee the investigation of Elohim and His claims. Ms. Jackson has already described the first phases of the investigation, which included the linguists and our background check. I’m going to cover my interviews with Elohim. During our discussions, Elohim displayed an uncanny ability to describe events, conversations, and even other people’s thoughts that had occurred not in His presence. In addition, Elohim provided me with the names and addresses of several criminals who had successfully eluded the FBI and local law enforcement for several years. These suspects have since been apprehended, preliminary evidence has been gathered, and some confessions have been obtained, indicating a strong likelihood of convictions for thes
e suspects. The specifics on these arrests are provided in the handout that all of you will receive at the end of this statement.

  “Although it would be an extraordinary claim in itself, I began to suspect that Elohim was simply an extremely gifted psychic. When I confronted Elohim with this suspicion, He performed a…miracle, for lack of a better word. As has been well covered in the media recently, I suffered from a severed spine as a result of a gunshot wound and have been paralyzed from the waist down for nearly twenty years. My spine is completely healed, which according to my doctors is a medical impossibility, and my recovery has been total. Due to the importance of these events, I have decided to waive my rights to privacy and have provided full medical documentation on this recovery, which is also in your handout.

  “The balance of my investigation will be best described by the remaining speakers…so I’ll take some questions. Yes?”

  “What was the miracle like? Could you describe it?”

  “I assume that you are asking if there were any theatrics or flashes of blinding light or any Hollywood special effects. The answer is no. In fact, when Elohim and I were discussing a miracle, He told me that mine had already occurred and reached over and pinched my leg. I felt the pinch, and that was the first sensation I had felt below the waist in two decades. Next question…yes?”

  “Do you believe that he is God?”

  “Yes,” Craig answered evenly and without hesitation. The directness and candor of his response briefly halted the raised hands. They slowly rose, and Craig recognized another.

  “Were you a religious man prior to your…cure?”

  “Not particularly. I was raised a Catholic and stopped regularly attending church quite a while ago. Yes?”

  “Has Elohim performed other miracles?”

  “Again, the remaining speakers can cover their own experiences. I can tell you that simultaneous to my spine healing, I also lost approximately forty pounds, and four false teeth that had been in my mouth were gone and replaced with natural teeth. Yes?”

  “You lost forty pounds and four real teeth regrew, and you didn’t notice any of this until he pinched you?”

  “To understand, you would need to have lived in a wheelchair. Paralysis and the accompanying bodily conditions that arise have the effect of making you ignore your body. You’re not getting any feedback from a large part of it, anyway. And the overall condition that you’re in is…depressing. To maintain your attitude…there is a tendency to focus on the surroundings rather than yourself. There have been documented stories of people with my…former…condition having significant events happen to their bodies and not noticing.

  “I know there are additional questions. However, to keep this moving, I’m going to bring up Walter Penfield. As Margo mentioned, we will all be available for questions at the end. Walter.”

  Penfield looked uncomfortable as he approached the podium. Thanking Craig, he addressed the reporters, “Good afternoon. I was asked by Ms. Jackson and Dr. Johnson to approach as a scientist my interview with Elohim. And I did that. The discussions that we had were profoundly fascinating from the point of view of both physics and mathematics. Unfortunately, due to the limited time, I have not been able to perform either the calculations or the experiments necessary to validate any of Elohim’s theories. I can tell you that, if His theories prove to be correct, there would be a change in both fields that would be revolutionary…a new paradigm would come into existence which would forever alter our view of the universe, Earth, and life. The specifics of His theories, or from His perspective – explanations, are contained in your handout. I cannot, as a scientist, authenticate Elohim’s claim of being the Creator without completing months or perhaps years of work. And even then, I am not certain that the scientific method can be applied to this question.”

  Penfield paused, seeming to gather some strength for what he was to say next. “On the other hand, as a person rather than a scientist…a person hopefully with the ability for critical thinking….” Walt paused again. “What I am struggling to say here…is that Elohim is something special, of that there can be no doubt. All of my training is woefully inadequate for the purpose of evaluating Him. I was asked by Ms. Jackson and Dr. Johnson to form an opinion as to whether Elohim is our Creator…I can’t do that. I can’t do it as a physicist…I can’t do it as a mathematician…I also cannot do it as a theologian, having no training in that discipline. What I can tell you….” As Penfield spoke, he looked directly into the camera lens that was feeding his image and words to the world. “As a man…just as a man…I do believe that we have God in our midst and that Elohim is that being.”

  Rather than asking for questions, Penfield turned and walked back to the table, seating himself between Reese and Elohim. Reese, caught off guard by Penfield’s sudden departure from the podium, quickly gathered his papers and strode to the front.

  “Good day. As most of you know, I am no stranger to controversy. Because of that, I was surprised when I was invited to interview Elohim. I felt that the attention I had received in the past would have a negative impact on my credibility. As result of this concern, I have attempted to remain even more objective during this process. The claims made by Elohim are extraordinary. He has maintained that He is the being who created our universe…therefore implicitly stating that He is older than our universe. He also claims that although evolution, as taught by biologists, is real, it could not have produced mankind on its own, and that it was His hand which created man. Evolution is the mechanism He created as one of the tools which He has used in the continuing development of our species.

  “He tells us that after the original creation of man, for the most part, He has maintained a hands-off policy, allowing mankind to progress on its own and stepping in only occasionally to fine-tune the progress. At one point in our distant history, concerned that we did not have sufficient genetic diversity to survive a mutated virus or other threat, He created variations of us, resulting in the races that we have today. One of the most certain to be controversial aspects of His description of our history is that all of the epochs from the beginnings of life on Earth, including the millions of years of the dinosaurs, were necessary stages to create a habitable environment for mankind. And as each stage fulfilled His purpose, He caused the mass extinctions that allowed the planet to support the next stage.”

  Reese’s experience as a lecturer to frequently hostile students had prepped him to recognize the signs in the faces of many of the reporters. He knew that the group of speakers, especially Reese himself, were giving them far more than they would be able to swallow. The expressions of the audience members ran the gamut from incredulity to outrage.

  “Some of what Elohim has told me dovetails into the traditional teachings of the Bible. There are many areas where, He maintains, the biblical descriptions are inaccurate, misunderstood, or greatly exaggerated. Some of His descriptions of history are more accurately reflected in the teachings of other religions or philosophies, including some descriptions and prophecies verbally handed down from peoples who have long disappeared from the Earth. One of these statements is that this is His third visit, rather than His first, as foretold by the major Judeo-Christian religions.

  “The purpose of His visit, according to Elohim and as Archbishop Coughlin mentioned in his public statement, is that this is a time of judgment…not Judgment Day as described in Revelation. There will be no global cataclysms. There will not be the great battles between good and evil…that is, as Elohim has warned, unless His presence triggers those events in mankind. He is simply here to judge us all and depart with the Chosen, as He calls them, to Heaven, leaving the rest behind.

  “This departure will not take the form of the ‘rapture’ that has been popularized. Pilots will not disappear from flying airplanes…drivers will not be plucked from moving cars. And, of more importance to Elohim, the departure will be totally voluntary. There are many who will be chosen and will decide to stay. They will, of course, be allowed to st
ay, although staying may sacrifice their place in Heaven.

  “He also tells us that Jesus is His Son. In this interim period between His visits, Elohim feared that mankind was moving in a direction that was away from His desired goal…away from the path that would lead us to become chosen. His Son, Jesus, offered to come to Earth to teach and set an example by which we could live, thereby helping all mankind to reach Heaven. According to Elohim, this intervention by Jesus helped many to find their way back to the path to Heaven.

  “Interestingly, Elohim has described an afterlife of waiting. Those who have departed in the time since His previous visit must wait until His return to receive their judgment. While the many souls have waited, they have remained with us here on Earth. These souls cannot interact with us without the help of the living, either willingly or unknowingly. Elohim’s description of this process is quite similar to much of the so-called New Age belief. The departed souls frequently utilize the five senses of the living to be able to participate vicariously in our lives. He describes this not as a possession but as a borrowing of or piggybacking onto our consciousness, most of the time without our knowledge…although, He says, the sensitive among us can perceive this happening within them or within others, and, in some cases, can even converse with the souls.