by Mark Kraver
“Mommy, what is that on her face?” one small child blurted out loud enough to be heard by everyone in the acoustically perfect building.
All eyes were on her walking up to the front of the church, where she extended her hand to greet the Archbishop.
“Archbishop Rodgers, this is Prophetess—” the Ambassador paused, hoping she would fill in the blank with her last name.
“Dr. Logan,” she said with an unexpected confidence. “Katherine Logan. And this is Dr. Vincent Conrad and Maximilian DiRoma.”
“How do you do? Prophetess Logan, it is a great pleasure to meet you. Our Holy Father in Rome has not recognized you as a prophet of God, but nonetheless, here you are. Why have you come to our Judgement Day Mass at this hour?” the Archbishop asked.
“To be honest, I’m not sure,” she nervously laughed. “I thought I could comfort someone by shedding light on what is happening?”
“Yes, it is a very stressful happening, indeed,” said the Archbishop. “Maybe you can say something? What was it that you wanted to say?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Good idea. Channeling God’s words leaves you without the chance to interpret.”
“Something like that, I guess,” she said, with a worried smile.
“Well then, we need to get started. The Judgement is scheduled to pass by this area in a few minutes. I thought keeping everyone occupied would lessen the stress of, well, whatever it is coming.”
“Good idea,” she said. “That should help all of us.”
The Archbishop led her to the pulpit, and the Ambassador sat down in the front row with his driver.
“Come, come,” the Archbishop said to both Conrad and Maximilian. “Maybe you can assist in some fashion?”
“Not me, I’m just the concubine,” Conrad whispered in Logan’s ear. He left her side and limped to the other side of the altar, where he closed his eyes and slumped in a nearby chair as if he was dead.
The Archbishop cleared his throat and spoke into a wireless microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, and beloved children of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ, we are blessed today with the presence of Dr. Katherine Logan. You may recognize her from the UN building event.” He paused as murmurs of surprise moved through the congregation. “I had planned a more traditional Mass this afternoon, but instead, Dr. Logan would like to address you with her explanation of what she thinks is transpiring around the world and what may be in our very neighborhood within a few minutes.” He held a hand out toward Logan and smiled warmly.
Logan adjusted her top over her rounding belly and stepped closer to the pulpit, as the Archbishop pulled his smartphone from under his robes to make a video conference call to the Pope in Rome.
Saeed was listening in the back row for any discerning words he could recognize, and his face suddenly lit up with recognition. “Did I hear Jesus Christ?”
“Yes, uncle. We are hiding in a Christian church,” Yusef confided. Astonishment splashed across his uncle’s face before he ducked his head and slid down in the pew to hide.
Logan looked down at the microphone, then up at a packed house of scared and nervous parishioners. There was, it seemed, absolute silence. Logan had never addressed an audience of this size—or any audience for that matter. She had always been that fair-complexioned girl whose face turned bright red, eyes bulged, and tongue swelled before any kind of audience. As her eyes locked on those of a random woman in the center of the second row, her mind drew a complete blank. Nothing. She had nothing at all. This was so uncomfortable, it began to anger her. Why was she the one put into this predicament? I shouldn’t even be here, she thought to herself.
She could feel her chest tightening and she took a series of deep breaths. Too many. She was starting to hyperventilate. As she frantically gripped the podium, she heard someone whisper in her ear, “Breathe.”
No, it wasn’t Numen or one of his minions this time. It was Conrad. She hadn’t noticed he had returned to stand next to her. He said it again, putting a hand on her lower back. Logan closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She could feel the baby inside her kick as if trying to help her start. The baby, her baby. The daughter that was being born into this unknown new world. This new world of hope, cooperation, and sanity. It was for the baby that she needed to be strong. For Conrad, for all the people of this planet.
She opened her eyes, looked up at the back of the church, and said with a gasp, “Hello.” It felt good to say, the sound of her own voice strangely reassuring. She exhaled and continued. “In a few moments something extraordinary is going to happen. Life as we have known it throughout the history of this planet has been an illusion. The culmination of billions of years of meticulous planning is entering its final chapter.”
Logan glanced over at the Archbishop who was pointing his phone in her direction. He was obviously videoing her with great interest.
Halfway around the world in Rome, Cardinal Valentine DiRoma and the Pope sat together in one of the Vatican’s most private rooms, hunched over a laptop watching a live feed of Logan addressing the people of a Manhattan congregation.
“Should I let her continue, your Holiness?” the Archbishop asked into the cell phone camera.
The Pope nodded his head.
“Let her continue,” answered the Cardinal. “No harm will be done. We are interested in what she has to say about Judgement Day.”
Trying to ignore the odd actions of the Archbishop videoing her with his cellphone, Logan continued addressing the apprehensive congregation. As if her mind had awakened from a veil of ignorance, or perhaps the clarity and words were coming from her baby’s mind, she wasn’t sure as she spoke with a new confidence never experienced before. “Long ago, I believe it was after the great flood when the people of this world spoke with one tongue, the people became tired of just praying to God. So, they decided to build a great city with a gigantic tower that reached up into the sky, all the way to heaven. They must have thought heaven was some kind of low-hanging fruit. This way they could speak to God in person. I know how that feels, speaking to God in person. I have spoken to God all of my life.”
She stopped and looked around the enormous cathedral for a sign. The people were now smiling and nodding their heads in agreement. She felt her shoulders relax. “It is very comforting,” she continued, “speaking to God. God came down from heaven before they could finish the tower, and said, ‘They are one people, and have one language, and nothing will be withheld from them which they purpose to do. Come, let us—” She paused and looked pointedly at her audience. “Note the plural us. Anyway. Come let us go down, God said, and confound their speech.’”
Logan could feel the words tumbling freely from her mouth now. “Of course, everyone here recognizes this as the Tower of Babel story. Interestingly enough, it was never actually called the Tower of Babel in the Bible. Babel comes from the Hebrew word for jumbled. God did not tell me this story. I didn’t hear it in my dreams. This is not prophecy. I got it off the internet in the apartment building where I am staying. Wikipedia, my friends.” She paused at the sound of several people chuckling.
“The point I am trying to make is that over eons of history, humankind has wandered the Earth from one region to another. Vast amounts of geographical separation have spawned different dialects and languages. Different color hair, skin color, eye color. We are all different. We live in families of similar individuals. This is our nature. It is in our genes. We cannot help ourselves. Genetically, we are all programmed to be on the same team. Everyone here is Catholic, right? “
“Oh my God, “Saeed moaned, still slumped in his pew. “If I only had a martyr bomb vest.”
“Sameness,” Logan continued, “is the key to our behavior, to our very survival. It is what keeps us, and all the other species upon this planet, separate. Unique. And yet we as humans upon this world were never supposed to be so diverse as we are today. Our Creators never wished to come down from heaven and confound anyone. Instead, we were designed
to be one. One nation, one people, one family, one language, and one God.”
Saeed began to whisper, “Allah is the one true God, and Muhammad is his prophet. Allah is the one true God, and Muhammad is his prophet…”
Logan stopped for a moment and looked at Conrad for approval. He smiled, conveying more truth through his eyes than Numen could have ever expressed with his telepathic abilities.
Logan smiled at him and turned back to the captivated faces before her. “Do you ever wonder why we don’t see miracles like are written in the Bible, today? I’m not talking about the occasional spontaneous healing of a disease. That could be explained by our lack of scientific knowledge, not knowing how the body can heal itself. I mean really unexplainable miracles. Seen anybody walking on water lately?” she asked, winking at Conrad and eliciting light laughter from the congregation.
“Have you seen someone spread the water, so you can walk on the seafloor? Anyone got a talking donkey?” she asked, causing more chuckles to spread throughout the nervous congregation. “How about all those myths you were told as a child? Here’s one everyone should be familiar with: Ever hear of the lost city of Atlantis?” she asked, looking at Maximilian.
Mac shifted in his seat, wondering what she was going to say next.
“I have it from a very reliable source,” she said, “that Atlantis was never lost in the first place. It was just hidden from the inquiring eyes of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, we have with us today, right here in our midst, an honest-to-God Atlantean from Atlantis, Maximilian DiRoma.” Logan directed everyone’s attention to Mac with her outstretched arm.
With a collective gasp, hundreds of heads turned simultaneously to look at Mac. His cheeks bright red, he raised his hand reluctantly and forced a smile.
On the other side of the world in Rome, Italy, the Pope and Cardinal DiRoma watched as Logan’s drama unfolded through the Archbishop’s smartphone.
“Talking donkey. I’ve always liked that one,” the Pope said, sinking back against his chair. For the first time in many years, he felt overwhelmed with doubt and uncertainty about what to say or what to think: Who was this woman? What was she trying to tell them? He looked at his fellow shepherd sitting next to him watching the same laptop chat with suspicious eyes; he’d always felt there was something different about his favorite cardinal. He leaned forward placing both hands together in front of his lips scrutinizing the streaming video chat. “He has the same surname as yours,” he added softly, keeping his eyes on the screen. “One of your brothers I presume?”
The Cardinal didn’t not respond.
Mac exhaled with relief when it became clear Logan was moving back into her own story. He’d feared for a moment that her next move would be to have him tell everyone a little history lesson or something else he was equally unprepared for.
“When I was floating in the Cloud of Christ,” Logan continued, her voice growing even calmer as she spoke, “I was able to speak with what you saw as Jesus and his Mother Mary. It was indescribable. They were both kind and understanding, but it also was very frightening. Frightening that they were so advanced, so intelligent. So powerful they could create whole solar systems,” she said, holding up both arms. She looked up in the air, hoping for a sign, a miracle to illustrate her words. But nothing happened.
She looked at Conrad again, considering what to say next. A wave of sadness washed through her and she knew. “I was recently pregnant,” she said softly into the microphone. “But with all the stress in my life, that baby…” she stopped and shook her head, slurping back a tear. “It was the saddest day of my life. I didn’t know if I could be a mother or even wanted to be a mother. But—but after my cloud journey, I discovered that I was once again pregnant. With a daughter,” she said, her mouth turning up into a smile of pride. “I don’t know how it happened, it just happened.”
The Archbishop pressed his mouth closely into the phone and whispered into the video chat, “Could it be another immaculate birth?”
The Vatican gave no response, just silence.
A buzzing sound, like electricity arcing between downed wet power lines, began permeating the walls of the church. At first it was distant, just barely detectable, but with every passing second the buzz grew louder as whatever was causing it moved closer and closer.
Logan heard a whisper in her ear, “Be strong.”
“So why am I telling you about the Tower of Babel, the lost city of Atlantis, and miracles?” she asked, raising her voice above the coming buzz. “The Atlantean call this Judgement Day event the Anti-Babel. A way to bring all humans back onto the same page. One nation, one people, one family, one language, one God. And as far as miracles go—” Logan stepped to the side of the pulpit, so nothing was between her and her captivated audience. “I don’t know about you, but if I saw a miracle every once in a while, with my own eyes, I’d believe anything you said to me.” She clapped her hands over her head in a booming blast. Numen appeared, hovering over the altar in the reflective majesty of a magnificent winged angel. A gasp rang out of everyone’s overwhelmed face at the sight of an angel floating in midair before their very eyes.
Yusef and the other jihadis were awestruck and cowered at the sight.
“What is it Yusef?” his uncle asked, sensing something astonishing had happened.
“A miracle,” were the only words he could utter out loud.
“Are you seeing this?” the Archbishop gasped over the Rome video chat. It was the holiest sight he had ever seen in his entire life. His knees began to buckle, and he fell to the floor bowing in reverence.
“Keep the phone steady,” the Pope shouted, not believing his own eyes.
The buzzing got louder and louder as it closed in around the church. Swirls of white streaks began to spin throughout the room like a blizzard. Pew after pew of parishioners and terrorists fell like dominos, still wearing disbelief upon their contorted faces.
Conrad began to fall to the ground and Logan caught him in her arms, lowering him gently to the floor. Mac ran to their side and dropped to his knees to help. Leaning over, he whispered into Conrad’s ear, “Turn off your mind. Relax your body and float downstream. This is not dying. You are not dying.”
Logan brushed hair out of Conrad’s face and looked straight into his fluttering eyes. “What is happening to him?” she shouted.
Mac held Conrad’s shoulders and continued his low, rhythmic words. “Listen to the color of your dreams. Surrender to the void. It is leaving, you are not dying.”
A cherub materialized out of the swirling storm over Conrad’s body, flashed a cute little smile, and began scanning Conrad’s whole body, head to foot, with a flattened green beam from the palm of its hand. The baby shook its head and clicked its tongue, making a disapproving sound. It reached out to touched Conrad first on his head, then his heart, and then his testicles. With each touch an intensive green light sparked, illuminating all the organs throughout his body. The light traced each blood vessel, making his clothing and flesh look oddly translucent.
Behind them, the white flakes rained down on everyone’s head inside the building laying slumped in their seat, unconscious. Around the massive cathedral appeared a personal cherub in attendance for each person. The cherubim began busily accounting and surveying each DNA strand for sickness and disability, before repairing and marking their mortal soul’s genetic code with the Anti-Babel. As all the green scans ignited over each body, it made the ceiling glow a brilliant emerald that washed out every stained-glass window in the entire cathedral.
Before the intense green shine diminished, and all the cherubim left the building, Conrad’s cherub pressed its little pointer finger against his forehead and left a six-pointed star-shaped fingerprint that slowly melted away.
“Look for the meaning within. Love is all, love is everything. It is believing, it is believing,” Mac said to Conrad. He stroked Conrad’s forehead once more and looked up at Logan. “He will sleep now. His mind is filled with dreams.”
“But why didn’t I—” Logan started to say, confused as to why she hadn’t fallen like the rest.
“You didn’t dream while inside the cloud?”
The dreams. Logan’s mind flashed with intoxicating memories of flying over a mighty river, visiting the ancient solar system, and finally of a campfire watching the star Heaven rise over another strange planet’s horizon.
“Yes, I guess so,” she said after a moment. “But what about you?”
“Me? I was born this way,” Mac smiled.
“You can read my thoughts, too?”
“I’ve always known what you were thinking. You are a good person.”
Logan frowned, and then leaned back to take a real hard look at her former employee. “You sly dog,” she said, punching him lightly on his arm. “You’ve been playing me the whole time. Dopey stuttering Mac the satellite jockey. You’re good. You’re really good.”
The Archbishop’s phone line to Rome had cut off. The Pope and Cardinal DiRoma sat perfectly still in their private sanctuary, staring silently at the laptop alerting them their signal had failed. After a moment, the Pope exhaled loudly, still not believing what he had just witnessed.
“She said it was all an illusion?” he asked worriedly. “God, Jesus, the Bible? Is it all made up?”
“Not all. There is a God. We call her Eos, Goddess of the Universes. There was even a man, the first Christian Deist, a good man named Jesus. He had all the beauty and benevolence of humankind inside his heart. He was truly the son of God. His teaching and examples are worthy of following in everyday life.”
Cardinal DiRoma paused and looked over his shoulder to where one of many ornately decorated Bibles sat on a nearby table. “As for the Bible?” he continued. “Father, what are the very first words of the Hebrew Bible? ‘In the beginning Elohim created heaven and earth.’ If I am not mistaken, in Hebrew, if a word has an ‘im’ suffix it is considered plural. For example, more than one seraph are seraphim, are they not? The Elohim are a people who do exist. They created heaven and earth, literally. They are Creators of solar systems, not Gods. What does the word Creator mean to you, Father?”