The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

  Elohim continued, “The mark shall be my name in its ancient form. For you who unfortunately have lost your right hand at some point in your life, do not despair…you will find the mark elsewhere on your person. For you who do not have the mark, please remember that it is intended only to inform each of the Chosen of his or her reward. The mark itself is not a passage into Heaven. Therefore, attempting to replicate it upon your own hand will do nothing but make you a fool.

  “I now must address the Chosen….” Elohim looked directly into the camera and continued to speak. “Each of you shall have five days from this day to decide. A few of you will discover that although you have been chosen, others you love have not been. For you, this is a truly heartbreaking condition. However, it is one in which you must choose once again. You will not go to Heaven against your will. You may decide to remain for whatever reason, and your wish will be honored. Should you choose to remain…after those choosing to leave have departed, your mark will be erased, and you will live with the others as one of the others. I must explain that if you choose to remain, you risk succumbing to that which you have, to this point, resisted. There is no promise that although once chosen you will eventually join me in Heaven. I have learned from two other visits that the world becomes a less pleasant place after my departure. Although you have been tested thus far, to remain means to be doubly tested, or more. Each of you has spent a lifetime trusting your heart, mind, and soul…do not doubt them now. Make this decision as you have made all other important decisions in your life, and the choice will serve you well. Once you have decided…I will know.”

  Elohim stood motionless for a time. The others in the room were immobile, as well. After a few moments, he turned and walked back to the table, seating himself next to Reese. Watching Elohim’s face, Reese saw the distant, focused look once again. For once, Reese believed that he finally understood it. Elohim was listening. Reese, realizing that he had not looked at his own palm, turned over his right hand and opened it. There, in the center of his palm, were four symbols that he did not recognize. Looking around the table, Reese noticed that everyone else had his or her hand open, looking for the symbols. Everyone, that is, except for Leo Schmidt.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Pope sat alone in his study, watching the television. As Elohim finished, he then turned off the set and clutched the hand-carved wooden box he had retrieved from the tomb. It had not been out of his reach since that moment.

  א

  Cardinal Bonavente watched Elohim’s statement from Kerry Coughlin’s office, accompanied by the staff of clerics as well as others who worked at the archdiocese. As Elohim mentioned the mark, the Cardinal looked at his own palm, seeing the symbols, and wept. Through the veil of his own tears, he noticed that two of the three priests in the room, upon checking their own palms, quickly clenched their hands into fists, while the third held open his hand in wonder.

  As Elohim finished, the Cardinal asked all but the two to leave. When he was alone with them, he asked, “My sons, do you not bear the mark?”

  Without speaking, both slowly unclenched their balled fists, showing blank palms. One of the two finally found his voice. “I’m sorry, Your Excellency.”

  Gazing at both of them sadly, the Cardinal said, “Our time for confession and repentance is past. Your fate is in the hands of our Lord.”

  The other began quietly, “Cardinal Bonavente, I shall leave the Church immediately.”

  Instantly angered, Mario said, “How dare you? Do you not think that there will be a Church in six days?”

  “But I am unworthy.”

  “Of course you are. God has said as much. But your unworthiness only extends to Heaven. On Earth you are more than worthy to lead the flock. After the Chosen depart, who will remain to do so? You! And who better to show the others the way than one who has failed and learned from his mistakes? Saint Peter renounced Jesus thrice in His time of need. Yet he went on to become the rock upon which our beloved Church was built. Your belief…your mission…should now be more clear than ever before.”

  Sighing, with a much calmed voice, the Cardinal continued, “As Elohim reminded us, it is you who must make the choice…both of you. Now go…go and ponder not your fate but your futures.”

  The two priests left the room.

  א

  William Stavros had called a meeting so that his staff could watch the statement together. Several were poised to leave shortly for a planned demonstration, hoping to be present for Elohim’s departure and the ever-present camera crews. The cadre of demonstrators was in place and would react should Elohim emerge too quickly.

  At Elohim’s mention of the mark, all instinctively checked their palms, most snorting at the absurdity of the statement. When the statement ended, and the network cut to the backlog of commercials that had piled up during the long, live coverage, Stavros angrily punched the mute button and whirled to face the group. “This is outrageous! Those goddamn idiot journalists are sitting there with their thumbs up their asses! It looks like they’re falling for this load of crap!”

  Stavros’ staff, accustomed to his outbursts, sat quietly and waited.

  “We are so far behind the power curve on this, it stinks. They’re calling all of the plays…they’re running them…and we’re sitting on the sidelines, wondering what the hell is happening. We must get control of the ball…and I’m not inclined to wait for a fumble!

  “Has anybody found that cripple McWilliams yet?” Stavros looked around the table accusatorily. No one answered.

  “Are you all brain dead? Am I alone in this room? Hello?”

  Tom Gleason, having offended Stavros at the last meeting, decided to speak again. “Mr. Stavros, I’ll ask once more. What if this is real?”

  Stavros glared at Gleason for several seconds, before exploding, “Tom…what the hell’s wrong with you? Have you taken too many billy clubs to the head? You and I both know there’s no god! Why would you even ask that question?”

  Instead of replying, Tom Gleason raised his right hand, palm forward for all to see the mark. William Stavros’ eyes bulged forward, his veins nearly popping. His mouth and lips, working as if he were chewing something tough, and finally acquiescing to the conscious signals from his brain, spat, “GET OUT! GET OUT OF HERE NOW!”

  א

  Dexter Mills had decided to go home to watch the statement with his Nicole. As Elohim described the mark, he looked and was astonished to find it on his palm. Joy welling up within him, he turned to show his wife, seeing that she was staring at her own palm. Looking down, he saw that hers was blank. Before he could think, before he could close his right hand, she quickly turned and saw his mark, instantly bursting into tears. He grabbed her in an embrace, holding her tightly, and also sobbed.

  א

  Lynn Sheffield sat in the rental car, listening to Elohim on the radio. He had also checked and his palm was blank; yet, there was no discernible change in his demeanor as he made that discovery. The closest parking space that he could find had been five blocks from the State Department. Hearing the statement conclude, he decided to get moving since it was such a long walk. As he had listened to the broadcast, the time on the parking meter had run out. Sheffield noticed the flashing “expired” on the meter, shrugged, and walked away without dropping in any more coins.

  א

  Randy Osborn was in Boston for a meeting; otherwise, he would have been home with his family for the public statement. The hotel lobby did not have a television, so he went into the lounge, ordering a grapefruit juice and settling into a comfortable chair to watch the large-screen TV that was normally tuned to a sports network. At the table nearest him sat two men, both watching the various speakers who preceded Elohim, both in Randy’s opinion drinking heavily. When Elohim spoke, most of the room was quiet except for these two men who made snickering comments to each other throughout the statement. Near the end, as Elohim described the mark, Randy automatically looked at his palm, seeing the strange symbol
s that had not been there a moment before. He noticed the two men had gotten quiet, staring at their own palms. Almost unconsciously, Randy glanced over to see the palm of the nearest man; there was no mark.

  Suddenly angered, the stranger aggressively asked, “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing, sorry.”

  Not satisfied with Randy’s apology, the man came over and roughly grabbed his wrist, pulling him to his feet. Twisting his right hand over, he saw the symbols on his palm.

  “You’ve got it, huh? I guess that makes you hot shit!”

  Osborn noticed the cocktail waitress who had been serving both tables pull her cell phone off her belt, obviously calling security.

  “I said…does that make you hot shit?”

  “Look, buddy. I’m sorry I violated your privacy. I’ve already apologized. Let’s just drop this.”

  “Don’t ‘buddy’ me, you son of a bitch!” With that, the stranger swung, catching Osborn cleanly on the side of the jaw. Randy Osborn went down.

  א

  Kathy Crocker, news anchor for one of the networks, shook her hair slightly to enhance the loose and casual look she cultivated. Next to her was Barry Thorndike, the former full-timer whom the entirely under-thirty staff not-so-affectionately referred to as “the dinosaur,” due to both his age and his forty-three years of experience with the network. Kathy suspected that the network saddled her with Thorndike whenever something big was happening, to lend some “gravitas” to the show. She resented him intensely. The producer counted down to one by retracting his fingers, and the red light on her camera came on. “We’re back. Thank you for joining us for our recap and analysis of the…well….pretty amazing public statement that we all just saw. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. They referred to the situation as ‘unprecedented,’ and I think that certainly sums it up. Barry, your thoughts?”

  Thorndike looked as though she had awakened him. Blinking, he said, “Kathy, breaking stories like this one cause all of us to feel inadequate. Elohim was definitely charismatic, and the others seemed unanimous in their endorsement of him.”

  “Well,” she interjected, “some of the endorsements were less than unqualified. Walter Penfield made it clear that his opinion was strictly personal and that scientifically, he was not willing to take a position.”

  “That’s true, Kathy. However, he explained that position quite well. Such a limited time to perform the kind of scientific research needed to test Elohim’s statements is insufficient, by several orders of magnitude. All of the comments aside, Elohim’s announcement regarding the mark that would appear on the palms of some people, accompanied by the actualization of this statement, is obviously the news of the day.”

  Crocker always suspected that Barry deliberately paraded his vocabulary when sharing the desk with her, with the sole intent of making her look like an intellectual lightweight. She answered, smiling, “It certainly caused a lot of people, including me, to do a palm-check. So far, I haven’t come across anyone with the symbols, have you?”

  With much seriousness, he answered, “Normally, I would have called my wife during the break…in fact, that was my first thought. But, as you know, she passed away four years ago.” A momentary sadness flitted across his face, replaced immediately by his somber, professional demeanor. “I did poll the production staff and found one person here with the mark. I then called my daughter. She also has the mark…as…” – he turned over his right hand for Crocker and the camera to see – “do I.”

  Kathy was startled for a moment by the revelation. As she stared at the four symbols clearly visible on his thin and wrinkled skin, she forgot about the millions of people watching as she said, “Well…isn’t that special!”

  א

  Across continents, reactions of the people able to view the public statement spanned the spectrum, from humility to joy to anger to hatred. Some were with their loved ones when the announcement was made and were immediately able to discover who, among their group, had received Elohim’s invitation. Others were not, and telephone systems, both hard-wired and cellular, were overloaded with calls as many attempted to reach their sons, daughters, parents, grandparents, and close friends. Had there been any method for tracking such things, it would have been determined that the vast majority of the calls began with “Do you have it?” in all of the languages of the world.

  א

  Margo, Reese, Craig, Nicholas, Claire, Leo, and Elohim had moved from the pressroom in the State building back to the conference room. Clayton Dean had gone to his office to brief the President. Reaching the conference room, they found Bill Burke waiting.

  “Bill! How are you?” Margo asked, obviously glad to see her boss.

  “I’m good, Margo,” he answered, smiling. “Actually, I’m very good.” Burke shared a knowing smile with Elohim.

  “What are you doing here? I mean, not that you’re not welcome. You know what I mean.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed this, Margo. I watched it here on TV. It went well.”

  Reese responded, “I’d say that was an understatement. I think our friend here blew them away,” nodding to Elohim.

  “More than you know,” Bill answered. “After you went off the air, I kept watching. The news people are clueless. But the coverage is running the gamut from outright skepticism to reverence. They’re still trying to figure out how you managed to set up the language thing.”

  Margo asked, “What language thing?”

  “Margo, you must be out of the loop. I guess someone here prerecorded Elohim’s statement in several languages and put it into the feed. It seems that people all around the world who watched the statement heard it in their own tongue. The network translators who were handling all of your speeches noticed it immediately and just stopped translating.”

  Reese looked at Elohim questioningly. Elohim explained, “There was no prerecording.”

  Burke was speechless. Leo Schmidt elaborated, “Most of the other religions in the world believe that individuals are chosen as messengers by God…that He speaks only to them, and that they carry His message to the world. Jews believe that God would not be so inefficient. If He had something to say, He would speak to all rather than one.”

  Margo’s cell phone rang. She answered it and spoke softly for a moment, then ended the connection. “Guys,” she said to everyone, “there’s something we need to see.” Reaching out to the console in the center of the table, she tapped a button and turned on the flat-screen televisions centered on each of the four walls. Tapping another button, the pictures changed to one of the news networks. It was a live camera shot of the street in front of the State building.

  Nicholas exclaimed, “It looks like Woodstock out there!”

  The news anchor was commenting during the live shot, “They just keep coming. I have no idea how many are there at this time, but if you take a look at the aerial view…could we have the shot from the helicopter?” The view changed to an overhead from high above the buildings. “There it is. All of the streets leading to the State building are clogged. People have stopped trying to park legally, and are just getting out of their cars in the middle of the street. They’re abandoning them…leaving them open…just getting out and starting to walk.”

  Everyone in the room sat transfixed. The reality that they were all within that building, which was currently being surrounded by a mass of humanity, made most of them feel slightly claustrophobic. As everyone watched, Bill Burke spoke softly to Elohim. “Could I have a moment of Your time?”

  Elohim stood, and the two stepped out into the hallway, which was quiet since the staff were all congregated around the nearest television. Bill Burke said, “I just wanted to thank You. I tried talking to Beth…to explain…to tell her I was sorry. She stopped me. She said she knew – not the details, I guess, but the gist. She knew all along.”

  “I know,” said Elohim.

  “I know You do. I just wanted to say that You have given me a gift. Beth and the children all
have the mark…they’ll all be going with You.”

  Elohim nodded.

  Opening his right hand, Burke displayed his blank palm. “I know I won’t be going with them. That’s fine. I don’t deserve to go…and they do. But…I wanted to thank You for the next five days. Now that Beth and I have talked…now that I’ve seen again how much she loves me…and I’ve rediscovered how much I’ve always loved her…it’s wonderful. Every minute is wonderful. The secrets are gone…the walls are gone. There’s nothing but love. And the next five days will be filled with…just us.”