The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

  “Mark, were you able to determine a more accurate figure? And, if so, how?”

  “Yes, I believe we were. Our first step was to create a control group. We did that by choosing three demographically representative neighborhoods: one neighborhood in the outskirts of New York, the second in Kansas City, and the third in Biloxi. We mobilized a team of canvassers and sent them into those neighborhoods to perform a marketing study. To maximize participation we gave away a rather pricey MP3 player and headphones to each participant. The marketing study was a sham. Its sole purpose was to determine if the person or persons we talked with had the mark.”

  “What were the results of this first door-to-door effort?”

  “Well, between those who actually participated in the survey and those whose right hands we were able to clearly see in the process of being turned down by the residents, our various field personnel were able to categorize a total of 812 people, which is a statistically sufficient sample size. Out of the 812 people, only 21 had the mark.”

  “That’s less than 3%.”

  “It’s 2.59%, obviously quite a bit lower than the 25 - 30% that other polls were reporting. Yesterday, we also sent out two teams to major public areas such as a mall and an airport. In those locations we also gave away the MP3 player in exchange for a brief interview, again solely for the purpose of determining the presence of the mark. When we visited the residences, we obviously had the names and addresses of the participants, as well as those whose right hands were visible, for later contact. In our survey at public places, we obtained names and contact information by offering additional free merchandise.”

  “How did the 2.59% figure hold up at the mall and airport?”

  “Close, actually. From a sampling group of 548, there were 12 who had the mark, or 2.19%.”

  “Mark, that’s fascinating. Why do you think there is such a disparity?”

  “Actually, Barry, before I answer that, the fascinating part is what happened next. Yesterday evening, after finishing all of the field work, we then called as many of the participants we had identified as we could reach by telephone. Of the 1,360 people identified, we were successful in reaching 951. In those phone conversations, we identified ourselves as being with the Simak Opinion Research company and performed a standard telephone poll, similar to the polls performed by other organizations, inquiring as to whether they had the mark. Of the 951 polled, 28.08%, or 267 participants answered that they had the mark.”

  “Amazing. And that was from a group which you had already confirmed contained less than 3% who bore the mark.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So can you now poll other groups and assume that 25% are not truthful.”

  “Actually, Barry, it’s much more fascinating than that. Of the 267 who said they had the mark, all but 2 of them were not truthful, which did not account for those with the mark.”

  “That is amazing, Mark. What you’re saying is that essentially all of the people who said they had the mark didn’t….”

  “And essentially all of those who did have it denied it.”

  “Do you have any theories as to why people are responding this way?”

  “I’m not a psychologist. I’ll leave that speculation to the experts. I can tell you this. For this poll because we had established an excellent, verified control group, we also decided to experiment with some relatively new technology, at least new for the polling industry. During the telephone polling we utilized voice stress analysis equipment and software.”

  “The so-called voice lie detector.”

  “Yes. It has never proved itself very dependable for that purpose. But since we already knew the truth, we thought we would deploy it as a further test just to see what we would learn. The equipment and software had a moderately good success rate at identifying the untruths, somewhere in the 65% range, certainly not a high enough result to be able to rely upon in future polling. However, there was one interesting result. Of the group we had identified from physical observation as having the mark, as we spoke to those people and they claimed to not have it, their voice stress readings were nearly off the scale.”

  “Mark, that is fascinating. I am obviously not a psychologist either, yet it isn’t hard to jump to the conclusion that since your final telephone poll was taken after the Times Square attack yesterday morning, there might be fear in the minds of those with the mark, fear that they could be the next target.”

  “That certainly is a logical conclusion, Barry.”

  “In the meantime, I guess what we’ve really learned from all of this is that the most accurate assessment of the population who will be departing soon is less than 3%?”

  “At least for the demographic profile used in the study. Different demographics, different locales around the country and around the world could certainly have substantially disparate results.”

  “That’s true. And, I suppose the other fact we can take from this study is that approximately a third of the population wish they were going?”

  “Or, at the very least, wish other people to think of them in that way. We must recall that the majority of those killed in Times Square did not have it, yet they wanted to be associated with the Chosen as Elohim refers to those with the mark.”

  “Mark, thank you very much for an outstanding job on this.”

  “My pleasure, Barry. My bill to the network is in the mail.”

  א

  Suri Kaval stood at the podium in the main chamber of the United Nations building in New York, staring out at the semicircular rows of interconnected desks that radiated out from him like ripples in a pond disturbed by a dropped stone. Nearly all of the chairs were filled, with the notable exception of the ambassador from the United States and a few others. Word had gone out to the delegates yesterday that the Secretary General was to address the body this morning, and the vast majority had managed to rearrange their schedules to attend. Kaval noticed with satisfaction that the various media organizations had assembled their teams to cover his speech, as well.

  The small, green light built into the top of the podium lit, indicating that all connections between the staff translators and the delegates were complete, tested, and ready. Kaval began, “Greetings to all delegates, and thank you for your attendance on such short notice. The events of the last few days require the attention of this body. In the time of less than a week, the world has experienced a cascade of emotions, from hope and joy to fear, terror, and despair.

  “In approximately half a century since this noble organization has existed, we have seen and have been instrumental in great progress on this planet: progress in the areas of nutrition and health care through the World Health Organization; progress in the technological advancement of the underdeveloped countries of the world through the World Bank; progress in the reversal of damaging activities that have threatened the survival of our very lives in the areas of whaling, over-fishing, pollution, nuclear-waste disposal, and many others. We have accomplished this progress through the resolutions and actions of this main body. We continue to battle the forces that wish to plunge our planet into a warming cycle that will have devastating effects on all of us. And we have enjoyed the elimination of global war since the end of World War II. Of course there have been conflicts. Yet the majority of those have been resolved peacefully with the aid and intervention of our peacekeeping forces. With our help and support we have seen the unification of Europe and a new cooperation with countries that have long sequestered themselves from the family of nations.

  “This last half-century has seen a blurring of borders and a growing recognition that we are all citizens of Earth, that we are all brothers and sisters, and that the breath that you exhale will be my next breath. The glass of water that I save instead of waste will be your next drink. The food that you grow today will feed us all tomorrow. We have been steadily moving toward a day when the phrase ‘United Nations’ does not simply describe an organization with good intentions but describes the gove
rnance of Earth. We continue to nurture the belief that borders are obsolete. How can they not be? The radioactive fallout from Chernoble has damaged the bodies and the newborns of those living outside the former Soviet Union. The day-to-day work that must be performed within the United States goes undone without the intervention of ready and able-bodied workers from Mexico. The constant attempts by tribes to enforce the borders in Africa result in the deaths of millions.

  “There is greater wisdom than anyone realized in the phrase ‘divide and conquer.’ Under the guises of self-governance, independence, and freedom, the peoples of the world have been splintered into hundreds of largely ineffectual sub-countries. These countries cannot thrive because they have been deliberately, to use an American political term, ‘gerrymandered’ to limit their resources and fragment their populations, thus causing a dependence upon a few or, in many cases, only one true country. Therefore, they are doomed to remain less than bona fide nations.

  “The countries of Europe have recognized this subtle oppression. They knew that as long as they remained individual nation-states with their own inherent strengths and weaknesses, they would remain inferior to and therefore reliant upon the whims of the United States. The process now occurring in Europe is a process of hope and joy, as Germany and France and England and the others band together to forge the creation of a single union – a union that, once completed, will contain within itself the resources needed to choose its own path, to follow its own destiny sans the influence from without.

  “The United States has long preached to the world that democracy is the key, that it is the answer to all of our problems. The hard lesson we have learned is that it is not. It is merely a tool for the purpose of further splintering and segmenting mankind by offering vague and nebulous rewards such as freedom and liberty. Is Iraq free? Do the Afghanis enjoy liberty? How free are Taiwan and South Korea when their very existence depends upon the protective umbrella of the United States? Does anyone seriously believe that the umbrella would not be withdrawn the first time they displease their master by truly exercising their so-called freedom? Is the United States, the paragon of liberty and freedom, truly free? U.S. prisons hold a much larger number of their citizens than those of any other country on Earth, including countries labeled as the most oppressive.

  “Their democracy panders to the basest of human instincts, encouraging isolationism, selfishness, and greed, which lead to a nationalistic imperative to exploit the environment and squander the precious resources of our planet without regard for those who may live outside their borders. Democracy, because of its inherent egocentric nature, encourages, in fact, demands the existence of hundreds of small, impotent states which then ensures that no single country can rise up and challenge the dominance of the United States.

  “And so, the world stage is now set. On one side we have the obsolete notions of the sole superpower, struggling to maintain the many illusions it has created since the middle of the last century. We were all deceived for many years. We were deceived because we were accustomed to the historic natural tendency of super-states to inevitably seek to rule the world. The leaders of the United States claimed to have no interest in such endeavors, and they were truthful in a sense. They were perfectly content to remain within their own borders. With the military might they attained in the years following World War II, there was no doubt that the United States could have easily taken over Canada, Mexico, all of Central and South America, and the Caribbean. The rest of the world saw that they did not do this and took this fact as proof that the United States was a benign force.

  “Only as a result of watching their actions, rather than listening to their words, did we finally come to our senses and understand that their true intent was to remain as they have been and as they are. For the true cost of taking Mexico would be that the people of the United States would then be forced to allow the Mexicans to become an equal part of their country. They would then be required to share their incredible bounty of resources with this new group. We now know the truth. The United States has no interest in conquering countries because its citizens have no interest in sharing what they have. And why should they? Why should they conquer and share when they can simply take the resources of others, leaving each of those other countries to attempt to survive after having been pillaged by them? What other country in the history of mankind has ever built a wall at its border to keep out not invaders, but souls desirous of citizenship?

  “It is a strange statement to make; yet, the conquerors of the past, men we have all vilified, at the very least assumed the responsibility for the people they conquered. The United States feels no such obligation. Rather than seizing a household and, once owning it, feeding the children within, the United States simply steals what it needs to satisfy the seemingly insatiable appetites of its citizens, leaving the children of the robbed household to starve. And as those children starve, they are told to be happy and joyous because they are now free. They are free! They are free to live a deprived life and then to die!

  “Contrary to the oft-repeated platitudes of the President of the United States, the fruits of this effort are not ripening; they are rotting, and more and more of the world can smell the stench. This is why the countries of Europe are banding together. And the urge to join this new affiliation is spreading beyond the area of Western Europe to include Russia and many of its former satellites. This movement is anathema to the United States. It signals the eventual end of its ability to rob, steal, and plunder from the rest of the countries on Earth. For if all of the countries join this new union, they will no longer be the small, needy, and defenseless states that have been easy pickings for the United States. They will be a part of a group that can stand up to the hungry beast. And as the United States loses its supply sources, it will wither and weaken until it, too, will either collapse or join this new family of man.

  “That is why the United States is so threatened by recent events. It foresees its eventual demise. So, is it a coincidence that at this moment in time, as the tide is turning away from the sole superpower, we see the arrival of this man, Elohim – a man who purports to be a god, who pretends to be the being who is our creator.

  “Does this supreme being arrive with the promise of ending our conflicts and repairing our broken planet? No! He tells us that we are on trial! On trial! And he calls the acts of reaching out to us and ending our suffering – ‘tampering’! The heaven that he describes is a place where only a select few may live in luxury and happiness while the rest of us toil here on Earth. It is no wonder that this god of the Jews did not materialize in Israel. Nor is it any wonder that this god of the Catholics did not appear in Rome. The heaven he describes sounds like the United States…a place where a select few can live in luxury and opulence while the rest of the world struggles to maintain the master’s lifestyle.

  “He refers to us as his children and tells us that he loves all of us, yet he does not treat us as if he does. Since he has arrived, has he lifted a finger to end the pain and suffering of AIDS in Africa where innocent children are dying each day? Has he waved his arm and ended the global warming crisis that is enveloping our planet, our home, threatening to cause the greatest mass extinctions the world has seen in millions of years? Has he removed the scales from the eyes of the Israelis and the Arabs and brought peace to the Middle East, ending a several-thousand-year struggle that is fought in his name? Has he gathered up the nuclear arsenals of the former Soviet Union, China, England, France, the United States, and the other members of the so-called Atomic Club and hurled them into the sun, removing the ominous threat that hangs over the heads of the people of the world?”

  Kaval paused for a moment, surveying the eyes and body language of the delegates before him and liking what he saw, and then added, “And when his own faithful gathered in his name, did he lift a finger to make them safe? Or did he simply stand back and watch them be slaughtered?

  “He has not rectified any of these things! Nor has he addr
essed the myriad of other famines, blights, diseases, conflicts, or damages to our environment that so devastate every living person, that prematurely end our lives and prevent us all from reaching our true potential. No…that would be tampering!” Kaval delivered the final word with all of the contempt he could muster.

  “I ask you…each and every one of you…every person on Earth…to ask yourself two questions: Is this the being I have devoted my life to serving? Can this heartless and cruel man be my god? I particularly direct these questions to the select few among you who feel special, who feel superior to the rest of us because of the marks that have magically appeared upon your right palms. I ask each of you, in your smugness, to reflect for a moment upon whether you, if you suddenly possessed the power of god, could look upon the pain, hunger, and suffering of the world and turn your back on it? If you are honest…if you have looked deeply into your own soul and not found the coldness and the hardness that are necessary to do this, you must ask yourself, ‘How can my god?’

  “Mankind now stands on the precipice. We are on the verge of finally casting off the artificial borders and barriers that have distracted us and prevented us from living as a single family on this planet, our home. It has been mankind who has tried to end the suffering of AIDS, who struggles to reverse the ominous threat of global warming, who has sought to end the strife in the Middle East, who has already dismantled thousands of nuclear weapons and promises to eradicate many more. We have also dedicated ourselves, not to the service of god, but to the service of mankind by working to end the famines, blights, diseases, conflicts, or assaults upon our environment that weaken mankind’s soul and break mankind’s spirit.