The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

  Claire was still haunted by the expression on his face in the last moment just as the angry mob had reached him. For some reason they had tuned in to his broadcast while flipping channels and stayed with it to its horrible conclusion. Claire had maintained he died without ever having a chance to look at this own palm, to see what had triggered the reaction causing his demise. Reese swore he saw Beaman catch a look. The endless replays of the event on the cable news channels, which included digital recordings the networks had obtained of other camera views that were not utilized for the original live feed, did not satisfy either of them, with no clear view to settle the argument.

  Reese had been certain that Beaman had Elohim’s mark or at least believed he had it. Otherwise, he would not have orchestrated things the way he did. That had confused Claire and concerned Reese. They both wondered if Elohim gave Beaman the mark and then took it away.

  Their late evening talks, a regular feature in their marriage, were their way of digesting all of the good and all of the bad happenings in the world and putting them into perspective or, at the very least, trying. Claire reflected upon the fact that it had always been a comforting and satisfying part of her life, the portion of each day she anxiously anticipated. Lately, just the past few days, world events seemed to conspire to overwhelm them and exceed their capacity to process the information. This was not helped by all of the extra time Reese was gone, mostly in meetings with Elohim.

  She understood the rationale behind Elohim’s decision to maintain a hands-off role as the world seemed to unravel, yet it ran counter to her own feelings. She thought it would be akin to watching a piano drop from a ten-story window and not shouting a warning to the people below. Reese and she had spent hours debating the point, with him calmly and logically explaining that Elohim had no choice, that intervening would become a constant effort and would inevitably create a dependent, rather than self-reliant, people. He reminded her of their talk after seeing the first Superman movie when they had both commented about all of the fires, car crashes, and storm victims around the world who were probably dying horrible, screaming deaths, while Superman flew Lois Lane through the sky over Metropolis, shirking his responsibility to rescue them.

  But as she watched her husband closely during the never-ending newscasts, she knew that deep within himself he, too, was troubled by Elohim’s choice. She knew him well enough to know he had far too much compassion to ever be able to embrace the pragmatic principles Elohim maintained. On the other hand, she granted it would be impossible for her to ever understand Elohim’s perspective. He was, after all, aware of every word, deed, and even every thought of each person on Earth.

  Although that particular concept had been taught to Claire from a very young age, the reality of it, after being around Elohim, stretched her ability to comprehend to the limits. She described these feelings to Reese as being “freaked out.” From the first day around Elohim, she became quietly obsessed with finding a way to outwit Him, finding a way to have a single private thought while being constantly aware that He was listening in to those desires. Gradually, she adjusted, until reaching the point where she found herself this morning. Rather than attempting to hide her thoughts, she was happy He was listening to them. The knowledge had caused her to clean them up a little and make them better organized, as she would her own living room when company was expected, but that was probably a good thing, she reflected. She now found herself vaguely comforted by the fact that someone accurately knew her opinions, her reasoning, her beliefs, her thoughts, and her emotions. So many of the situations which had gone wrong in the past had been a result of misunderstandings. From I Love Lucy to Shakespeare, the misconstrued statement or intent had triggered everything from a good belly laugh to war. ‘At least,’ Claire thought, ‘Elohim doesn’t get the wrong picture.’

  Her contemplation was interrupted by the opening of the balcony door. Turning, she saw Reese, coffee cup in hand, coming out. “Morning, baby,” she said.

  “Hi, honey,” he muttered, obviously still groggy.

  “Not a good night?”

  “No. Not really. Lots of dreams. I guess you’d really call them nightmares. I couldn’t get that image of Dick Beaman out of my head. Except, in the dream it was happening to me instead of him.”

  Claire shivered. “That’s awful.”

  “Tell me about it. Anything new happening?”

  “I just haven’t felt like turning on the TV yet. I think I’ve OD’d.”

  “Yeah,” he said, while chewing a bite of cinnamon roll. “It’s an approach-avoidance thing. While I watch it, I’m unhappy and uncomfortable. If I turn it off, I start wondering what’s going on that I’m not hearing about.”

  “It’s just that there’s nothing good happening. It’s all so ugly.”

  “Well, it doesn’t take having a degree in psychology or being Elohim to have predicted that. It’s a lot like what happens within a group of friends if one of the group wins the lottery. In no time at all, none of them are speaking to him. They all hate him unless he is one of the rare few who shares it all with his friends; then they continue to like him. Basically, two or three percent of the population just won the eternal lottery. And it’s a prize which can’t be shared.”

  “Not a pretty part of our makeup.”

  “No, it’s not. But it’s probably hard-wired, going all the way back to our hunter-gatherer days. If one guy in the tribe lucked out and killed a, I don’t know, something big, a mastodon….”

  “I don’t think there were any mastodons around at the same time as humans.”

  “Whatever. He hit the meat jackpot, won the protein lottery. If he hoarded it, didn’t share it with the tribe, at the very least he was out on his ear. Most likely they would’ve just killed him and then shared his prize. That’s just the way we are.”

  “I don’t know. To me it feels more like the seven stages of grief. Different parts of the population are in different stages. Right now there’s a mixture of shock, anger, and fear going on, along with a fair amount of denial.”

  “You might be right, especially about the anger part,” Reese agreed. “It’s normal when someone loses a loved one to be angry at the one who died, angry at his or her choices which caused the death, or just angry that the person left. We have the same situation now except the anger is directed at people who haven’t quite left yet.”

  “That would explain the unprovoked attacks on people with the mark.”

  “Yes. And probably, after Elohim and, uh, the rest leave, depression and guilt will kick in. Eventually, a lot of people will reach the stage of acceptance.”

  Reese paused and looked at Claire over the top of his cup for a moment before asking, “Why is it we’re all having a tough time saying ‘after I leave’ or ‘when we leave’? I don’t mean just you and me. I’ve noticed it in Nicholas and Craig. Margo, too.”

  “And the kids. I haven’t heard them actually say it other than euphemistically, either. I don’t know. Maybe we don’t really believe it.”

  “Or maybe we’re uncomfortable being a part of the Chosen while we’re still here. Do you remember Steve Glinski at Harvard?”

  “Yes, he taught in your department.”

  “Yeah. He came from a family of five brothers and two sisters.”

  “Wow. Not much of that anymore.”

  “No. Anyway, he was the only one in the family who attended college, much less graduated. His brothers all worked blue-collar jobs, did quite well. His sisters married blue-collar guys. They all had great homes and happy families, no negative undertones going on. At holiday gatherings Steve would never talk about Harvard or his work, never brought up his college days. In fact, he told me he noticed his grammar and vocabulary downshifted a couple of gears during those visits. He used to tell me it took him a couple of weeks after one of those visits to get his vocabulary back, since he had blocked it out so thoroughly.”

  “Why? Had they slammed him at some point in the past?”

 
“No. I asked. He never once got any of the ‘You think you’re hot shit?’ remarks from any of them. Far as he knew, they were all proud of him and happy for him. It was just something he imposed upon himself. He said he always felt he would be, I don’t know, rubbing their noses in it if he brought it up. You know, the ‘I’ve done something you’ve never done’ sort of thing. You understand what I’m trying to say, Claire?”

  “I do. You think mentioning we’re among the Chosen would be gloating. Yeah, it felt funny right now, just saying it to you.”

  “I guess.”

  Claire looked out on the city. Reese stared at her profile more intently than he would have felt free to do if she were aware of his scrutiny. He had always believed she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met from the first time he saw her at Hawk’s camp. Over the years, as she gained the slight lines and other evidence of the passing of time, she had grown even more beautiful to him. What had started as an instant and substantially physical attraction toward her had become an intense obsession as true love always is, and in all ways: physically, spiritually, and mentally. Countless times in his life, Claire had been his compass, his lover, his friend, his intellectual mate, his own personal devil’s advocate when it was needed, his sounding board, and his protector.

  And he trusted her. So many people believed they trusted another, Reese thought, when what they meant was that there was trust as long as it was not truly tested. Some people on this planet were lucky enough to have one person in their lives they could trust fully and completely, no matter what the threat or temptation.

  Reese recalled one of his theories of human nature which had sprung from his fertile eighteen-year-old mind. He had not accepted the dogma that mating and child-rearing were the reasons man and woman first formed a family unit. Biologically, he believed, it made more sense for men to roam and spread their seed to as many women as possible, leaving the child-rearing to bands of women.

  Reese’s theory was that the family unit, the eventual creation of marriage, was a result of the fact that all people needed to sleep. With sleep being the ultimate vulnerability, especially for cavemen and cavewomen, it would be important, vital to their very survival, to find someone they could trust, trust enough not to take their food and their belongings while they slept, trust enough not to run away if a threat entered their cave while they slept, trust enough not to kill them to gain possession of their cave.

  If those were the criteria for a mate, a partner, Reese reasoned, then it made more sense for it to be a member of the opposite sex. No one of the same gender would be motivated to develop the depth of the bond needed. It was not hard-wired within people to protect their spouses. Reese knew that desire had to be nurtured. But the instinct to protect their own offspring was built into them all, so it made sense to him that men and women would piggyback their own safety onto the natural urge to protect their children. No father or mother would run away when a tiger or enemy approached, leaving the children unprotected. The pragmatic caveman would have realized that the mother of his children would not run away, leaving him unprotected either. So, Reese’s final conclusion many years ago was that if people did not need to sleep, there would never have been marriage.

  As he stared at Claire, he knew, no matter how big or ferocious the attacker, she would fight to her death to protect him…as he would for her. She turned, seeing his intense gaze, and said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re staring at me with the weirdest look on your face. What’s the matter?”

  Reese chuckled and said, “I was just visualizing you wrestling with a saber-toothed tiger.”

  “You’re not still thinking about that stupid ‘Caveman Needs to Sleep’ theory of yours, are you?”

  “No,” he answered quickly. “Of course not.”

  “Yes, you were,” she replied accusatorily. “Give it up, will you? I’ve told you before, a tiger gets within a hundred yards of our cave, I’m outta there.”

  א

  Margo Jackson, accompanied by a team of four special agents, entered the offices of the Secretary General of the United Nations only to find a lone woman with a bewildered expression. The woman was seated at her desk surrounded by empty cardboard boxes. Looking up, she asked, “Can I help you?”

  Showing her ID, Margo smiled gently and replied, “I’m the Assistant Director of the FBI, Margo Jackson.”

  “Yes,” said the woman, smiling sheepishly. “I recognize you from the television. What can I do for you?”

  “We’re here to see Secretary Kaval. We’d like to ask him some questions.”

  Shaking her head, the woman said, “That’s not going to be possible. Secretary Kaval left for his home country last night.”

  Trying to conceal her disappointment, Margo asked, “Will he be returning soon?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t speak with him. I just received an e-mail from him.”

  “May I see the e-mail, please?”

  “I’m not sure,” she responded nervously. “I mean, wouldn’t it be confidential?”

  Margo sympathized with the woman. She was clearly out of her element and had obviously just been dropped into an uncertain situation with no warning and no instructions. Turning to her four agents, Margo said, “Why don’t all of you excuse me for a few minutes? Go ahead and wait in the hallway. I’ll be out shortly.” After they left the room, Margo grabbed an empty chair and pulled it next to the desk, sitting down. “What’s your name?”

  “Kali,” the woman answered, and Margo shook her hand.

  “Kali, are you an American citizen, or did you come from Mr. Kaval’s home?”

  “I’m an American.”

  “I’m sure you heard the President’s announcement or, at least, heard about it.”

  The woman nodded.

  “Then you know all of the privileges enjoyed by the UN in the past have been canceled. This building and everyone and everything in it are subject to the same laws as any other office building in the country.”

  Again, Kali nodded, saying nothing.

  “We have reason to believe your boss, or former boss, I guess, was involved in the attack in Times Square.”

  “Oh, no!” Kali exclaimed, a look of genuine shock instantly clouding her face. “That’s horrible.”

  “We came to question him today, hoping to give him an opportunity to clear this up. After all, it could be nothing but a massive misunderstanding.”

  She nodded again.

  “But since he has departed so rapidly….”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  “Exactly. But, as long as we’re here,” Margo said, trying to sound casual and friendly, “we might as well talk to you and any others who may have worked closely with Mr. Kaval.”

  “I didn’t. I mean, I was just his receptionist, not his secretary or aide. I didn’t even schedule his appointments. He had two men, his aides, both from his home.” Kali’s voice trembled as she spoke.

  “Are they here?”

  “No. I guess they went with him last night. I tried to reach both of them when I got the e-mail….”

  “The e-mail. Yes…Kali, we brought a search warrant.”

  Margo started to reach inside her jacket, when the woman said, “Oh, no. You don’t need it. Here, I’ll print it out.” With a couple of mouse clicks, the laser printer began humming and, within seconds, printed out the e-mail which she handed to Margo.

  Glancing at the top of the first page, Margo saw that the message to Kali was brief and to the point, informing her he, Kaval, was going home and instructing her to pack everything in his office for transport. When he was established, he would contact her with a location for shipping of the items. The last line of the e-mail thanked her for her service. Margo thought the e-mail was not much help until she noticed the thread of others who had been sent copies. There were a total of three addresses, none of which were immediately recognizable. Margo assumed two of them were the aides, the third a mystery
. Folding it, she tucked it in her jacket pocket and stood.

  “Well, Kali, if you don’t mind, I would appreciate it if you could step out into the hallway while we search.”

  “Of course,” the receptionist said, standing quickly.

  א

  “We are here today to right a wrong,” said Mario Bonavente, holding a rechargeable screwdriver. Standing with the Cardinal were several priests, representing the major parishes in New York City. On the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the media, invited by the public relations office of the diocese, photographed and taped the event.