The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

  “From what I know about them, it wasn’t a black hole when it left, was it? I mean, it wasn’t pulling light into itself.”

  “No, you’re right,” Penfield answered Reese. “It was the seed, a black hole being born, so to speak. Give it a little more time, maybe days or hours, maybe minutes, I don’t know. It depends on how efficiently it can gather mass on its trip.”

  Margo courteously worked her way through the forest of bodies and joined the others. As she arrived, she flipped her cell phone closed. “He wasn’t bluffing.”

  “Who?” asked Doris Penfield.

  “Bennett, uh, Lucifer, that guy whose butt just got kicked.”

  Claire suddenly became alarmed. “What do you mean? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s very okay. We’re starting to get reports from all over the place. Known terrorists, mercenaries-for-hire, just all-around bad guys are walking into local FBI offices, up to cops on the street, whatever, and just turning themselves in. They had planes, trucks…hell, donkeys loaded with materials. The lab boys haven’t gotten their hands on any of it yet, but the containers have all the right markings for it to be pretty nasty stuff.”

  Reese asked, “What happened? The removal of Lucifer caused them to see the light, to reform?”

  “I don’t think so,” answered Margo. “So far, what I’m being told is that they’re scared out of their wits. They’re babbling about visions, a man suddenly materializing in the cabin of their planes, that sort of thing. One or two of them actually thought it was Mohammed himself telling them they were committing a sin, and then – here’s the kicker – they all were given a glimpse of their eternal fate if they followed their orders.”

  “Must have been quite a peek,” remarked Leo Schmidt, emerging from the throng to join them, followed by Bonavente.

  “I bet it was,” Margo answered.

  Bonavente asked, “How is Elohim?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Reese. “Right after His…after the….”

  “Pitch?” Matthew offered, his eyes still wide from the memory of the spectacle.

  “Yes…pitch, it is. Anyway, right after that, I lost sight of Him, as bunched up as we were and everything.”

  Flipping her cell phone open again, Margo punched the number for Bill Burke. He answered quickly. “Bill, Margo,” she shouted into the mouthpiece. “Have you seen Elohim or Michael and the others?” She listened for a moment, covering her other ear with the palm of her free hand. “All right. Thanks.” She snapped the phone closed and tucked it into her pocket, telling the others, “Bill is with Reynolds and McWilliams. They haven’t seen them, either.”

  A murmur, a shift in the tone of the crowd all around them, caused Reese to sense a change. Looking around, he saw Elohim standing at the top of the steps in front of the building, facing the throng. The cadre of angels formed a semicircle behind him. As the onlookers began to surge toward Elohim, Reese and his friends joined them. The people moved partially up the steps, stopping approximately twenty feet short of the top, and creating an arc, completing the circle initiated by the angels.

  As they moved closer, Melissa tapped her mother and exclaimed, “Look,” pointing upward. The white dove was slowly circling above Elohim. As they watched, it perched upon a cornice projecting from the front of the building. Reese looked behind and saw that all of the people were moving forward toward Elohim. The mass of humanity completely filled C Street as well as the grounds in front of the National Science building and the other structures across the street.

  In front of the building, parked on C Street and now engulfed in the midst of bodies, was a television news truck with its satellite link extended. A videographer stood upon the roof platform behind a camera. The audio technician impatiently held a parabolic microphone at the ready, waiting for an opportunity to capture newsworthy sound. Reese had not been aware of their presence and was curious as to whether they had captured the earlier mind-boggling spectacle, broadcasting it out for the entire world to watch.

  The streets extending to the south, toward the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Mall, were filled as well. As had been the case with other gatherings around Elohim, the people surged forward to get as close to him as possible, without pushing too hard, without crushing against those in front.

  Reese turned back to face Elohim. Having now edged close enough, he could see him clearly. Reese recognized a mixture of sadness, serenity, and determination set in the classic features as Elohim gazed out over the congregation, peacefully assembled under the now clear and star-filled sky.

  With deliberate slowness, Elohim raised both arms from his sides, as if to embrace the gathering. As he did, the people hushed in anticipation. Lingering first for several moments, Elohim began to speak in a strong and resonant voice which effortlessly extended out over the mass of people, clearly heard by even those at the rear of the gathering.

  “The time for my departure is near. It must be said before I leave that this visitation has been one of profound enlightenment and change. My own beliefs, my own concepts formed thousands of years before your birth and held throughout the ages, have now been forever altered by the wisdom of man. Throughout the tumultuous days of human history, mankind has suffered from an ever-burgeoning accretion of sinfulness, a growing burden of despair, envy, anger, hatred, and the other life-sapping attributes of evil. With no method for amelioration, no means for dissipation, this shadow of oppression deepened, threatening to engulf the heart and soul of each and every person on Earth.

  “That which was originally intended to be a challenge…an occasion for each new man or woman to rise above the temptations of evil and show his or her true worth, spirit, and character…transmogrified into a nearly hopeless struggle against an overwhelming barrage.

  “I have seen through my own eyes, as well as through the eyes of those among you, that since this precious home for mankind was becoming so saturated with the accrued bitterness of malevolence, a righteous soul, struggling to cling to its goodness, would be striving to resist the irresistible. What had begun as a trial was evolving into a punishment. That was not my intent.

  “It was compassion. It was guilt felt and earned due to past actions which caused my inaction, which allowed the base and the corrupt to accumulate while, twice before, I removed from the Earth what should have been the counterbalancing influences. As the path to Heaven has become increasingly littered with the shards and pitfalls of an ever-increasing pervasiveness of temptation and evil, the expectations placed upon each of you to remain steadfast in your virtuousness, morality, and honor have been elevated to higher and more difficult degrees.

  “This downward spiral, this descent into the very essence of despair, has now ended. The slate has been cleaned. The scales have been righted. Mankind and the Earth, upon which you live, have been purged of the accumulated detritus of a million loathsome souls, stranded and opportunistically exploiting the living. No longer will you hear their whispers in your ears, urging you to forsake your ideals. No more will you feel their tug at your minds and hearts, coaxing you to stray from your chosen path. They have been removed from your sphere, just as if an odorless yet toxic gas has been filtered from the air you breathe.”

  Elohim’s visage softened and saddened, his voice lowering in timbre. “Gone, also, is Lucifer, my errant angel, the antecedent for my blindness to your plight. Having once been barred from Heaven, he has now been cast out from the Earth and shall never darken your souls again.

  “All of this is not to say that mankind will be free of evil and its accoutrements, for you are imbued with the wondrous and dangerous gift of free will. As you live each moment of each day, you will continue to be forced to make countless decisions from a myriad of choices, a seemingly endless procession of dilemmas which cannot be ignored. It is that which you will choose, the course which you will take at every one of these moments, which will determine the path you are upon. Among the panoply of options from which you choose
at each of these moments, there will always be a selfish choice, an immoral choice, a choice that will be deleterious to your soul. Yet there will always be present a moral, selfless, and honorable choice. The responsibility to decide wisely has always been, and will always be, yours.

  “I have only righted a wrong and restored a symmetry. Do not misconstrue my deeds, for I shall, again, not intervene in the processes and minutia of your lives. Who you become will be by your own determination. The perils and agonies and injustices of life will continue to beset you and test you and cause you to doubt my love. There can be no other way.”

  Elohim paused, gazing out upon the assembled, and smiled. “Buried within every person on Earth is a soul. That soul is a discreet, vibrant moiety of me, a portion of all that I am, splintered off and instilled singly into every new child of woman and man. From the instant of separation and infusion, the soul yearns to return, to reconnect, to reunite. That urge is shared with you, providing you the impetus to strive for an eternity in Heaven.

  “I stand before you in the form of a man – not a man made from whole cloth, but the true progenitor of a mankind blessed with free will. All of you before me on this day have my blood coursing in your veins, for I have truly become this man, and he has become me. We are one and shall remain as one forever.

  “It is because you carry within you a fragment of me – your soul – and because you are a progeny of my human descendants that you are all, unquestionably, my beloved children. As such, you are to be trusted with this most wonderful and powerful gift. You are to be allowed to grow and flourish. You are also to be permitted to fail, if that is your choice. Although I will not meddle…although I will not intercede in your lives, be assured I will not forsake you again.

  “Through the ages you have suffered the presence of Lucifer. You have been made to tolerate and resist a malignant force, external to you and not of your own doing. His influence has tainted this world, just as a single drop of diseased blood contaminates a pool of water. From this day forth, the pool is cleansed.”

  Elohim paused again. Rising to an even more erect posture, his voice once again returning to its former timbre, he resumed. “Yet, purifying the Earth, removing the invidious scourge, in and of itself, does not make right the wrong you have all suffered at my negligence. There is more which must be done before I have made full restitution to my children.

  “As has been promised, the Chosen shall depart this night to live in Heaven. And I shall depart with them. But this exodus need not be followed by turmoil and strife, as has befallen my children twice before. For this time I shall leave behind a gift….”

  The air, which had been still throughout Elohim’s words, began to stir. The Holy Spirit swept down from the cornice and circled, tracing an orbit above Elohim’s head. Directly overhead, the brightness of one of the stars in Orion’s belt intensified until its radiance visibly brushed the Earth, brightening the night. From the star, a single, narrow beam reached down, piercing the sky and touching the stone next to Elohim’s feet.

  Fine arcs of light from all directions appeared, converging on the beam, adding to its brilliance, expanding its girth. Coming from all points of the Earth, the sweeping, slender shafts merged, bending downward toward the space beside Elohim. Arcs of light suddenly sprang from the breasts of several of the gathered multitude, stretching to the brilliant column and contributing to the growing radiancy. The sheer volume of white fibers was so great that they fused, and it appeared as though the congregation was under a solid, white dome supported by a single Doric column.

  When the phenomenon reached its zenith, the white threads began to blink out, the dome soon becoming diaphanous and continuing to diminish. As the final strand disappeared, the column of light, extending to Earth from the distant star, discernibly detached from the fiery point in the sky. The column retracted to Earth, like a slow-motion geyser with its source exhausted. While the assemblage watched, the tip of the spire of light descended from the cosmos to the very platform next to Elohim, dimming and resolving into a form…the figure of a man.

  The full congregation gasped in recognition. For before them, facing Elohim, was the robed form of Jesus. The dove, the earthly form of the Holy Spirit, was languidly flapping its wings above both Jesus and Elohim, hovering centered above their heads, forming the top of a triangle.

  Jesus turned to the crowd and began to speak. His voice, a unique blend of gentleness and power, was immediately soothing to the congregation.

  “My brothers and sisters, my heart is filled with great elation that I once again stand before you. The infinite love of our Father has prompted Him to return me to this form to walk among you…to live among you…again to teach and again to learn.”

  The silence from the vast, open area was remarkable. Not even sounds of distant traffic or the fluttering of a bird competed with his words. The multitude gazed upward, enraptured.

  “I come to you today not as a leader to be followed. This world has no shortage of those who wish to lead. No edicts, no laws, no commands shall issue from my lips. And I do not come to you as a minister or priest. The great churches of the world have produced a legion of those who will fulfill that function. I am here…and here I shall remain, only as your brother and as your friend, until the last man and the last woman have drawn their last breaths on Earth.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The conference room within the State Department once more was filled with the familiar group as well as a few additions. Reese, Claire, Matthew, Melissa, Reynolds, McWilliams, Margo, Burke, Schmidt, Bonavente, and Walter and Doris Penfield were all seated around the table, each sipping coffee or soda and nibbling on the snacks requested by Bill Burke and provided by the staff.

  Reese had his laptop open before him, polishing his final thoughts and recollections of the previous week. Claire, seated to his left, watched the typed words appear on the screen for a few minutes before wondering, “Is this really needed?”

  Reese stopped typing and turned his attention to her. “What do you mean?”

  “With what happened tonight…you know, Lucifer gone, Jesus coming to stay here…are your recountings of Elohim’s words and deeds going to be read?”

  Walter, overhearing the soft conversation, interjected, “I don’t mean to butt in, but she has a point. I don’t think the way things worked out was the way Elohim intended when He asked you to write it. I think He was just planning on leaving tonight, with the status quo intact. Your tract would have given those remaining something to think about and use to persuade others. With His Son here to stay….” His voice trailed off.

  Reese listened to Penfield, deliberately considering the points. Before he could answer, Matthew stated confidently, “Dad’s still gonna finish it. He’s gonna leave it behind because he promised he would.”

  Smiling, Reese looked at his son. “That’s right.”

  Mario cleared his throat gently. “Not all promises must be kept. Elohim said that Himself.”

  “It’s almost done. I’m just about ready to wrap it up, anyway.”

  “I have a question,” Margo Jackson said, changing the subject. “Before Jesus appeared, those streams of light coming from down here, from us, what were they?”

  As a cardinal of the Catholic Church, Mario Bonavente felt an obligation to attempt an answer, when Leo Schmidt replied to Margo, “They didn’t come from all of us. Didn’t you notice?”

  “Not really. I was a little distracted,” she replied, a slight chuckle affecting her voice.

  “I was standing with Mario, right next to him. One came from him, none from me.”

  “Of course!” exclaimed Bonavente.

  Leo continued, “I believe it is the teaching of the Catholic and several of the Protestant faiths that your act of Communion is a literal partaking of Jesus.”

  “We were giving it back!” Margo realized, awed.

  “It would appear so,” answered Schmidt.

  “If He was still here, within s
o many people, why wasn’t He enough of a counterbalancing influence against Lucifer? Why was Lucifer winning?” Reynolds asked thoughtfully.

  “Two reasons,” Mario proposed, pulling a blank yellow pad from the center of the table and picking up a pen. “As Lucifer ‘turned’ more souls to his side, the numbers grew through the ages.” He drew a line from the bottom left corner of the paper to the upper right corner, signifying the mathematical increase. “As the numbers grew, the influence upon society strengthened, persuading more and more people to abandon their faith or to be disinclined to join the faiths at all.”

  “Assisted, in no small way,” added Walter, “by the blandishments from the scientific community, claiming religious belief was a mental defect and a crutch for the moronic.”

  “True. That didn’t help,” agreed Mario, drawing a second line from the top left corner down to the bottom right, making an “X” on the pad.

  “At some point, the world reached this intersection.” He drew a circle at the middle of the page, where the two lines crossed. “From that moment on, the balance shifted. Before then, the ‘pluses’ outweighed the ‘minuses.’ Those on the good side not only held their own beliefs, they had the assistance of societal pressure to help them.”