God is in the Rain

by Bruce Burk

  “This is incredible,” John said. “Look at all this history. Pigeons would crawl in and out of the rock that comprised the walls and stares at you as you walked by. The rebels came to see a large desk with hundreds of books surrounding it. By candlelight, John’s grandfather sat. He turned around his chair. “Boys. I’m so glad you’re here. The Earth is at its darkest hour. We need your help.” Grandfather stood there in a Native American looking robe. He walked with a cane that looked like a wooden branch. However, it glowed when the light hit it. “Here, Grandfather … look. I still have the books. I protected them just as you asked, “John said. “Those were a gift, my son. They belong to you now. Come … we must begin the training.”

  The next day, the three men were kneeling in robes in the large room. The room was dark, hidden from sunlight and lit only by candles. Grandfather paced in front of them. Grandfather spoke with a quiet disposition – taking long pauses and walked as if all the peace in the world was bottled up inside him. Grandfather looked lovingly at John, placing his hand on his cheek, “John, my boy, it is so good to see you again. I'm sorry we can't meet on better terms.” “What’s going on?” John asked. “In light of recent events, it has become necessary to begin your training,” Grandfather said. “Training?” Gavin said. “I don't need any training,” he added. “Oh, Gavin. Your father would be so proud of you,” Grandfather said with a smile. “How do you know my father?” Gavin asked. “I have known the three of you since you were young boys. I have watched you; molded you from afar. John got the worst of it. The three of you form a human bond that is necessary for your purpose.”

  “What purpose?” Clark asked. “Today, we begin your journey to becoming Knights of the Living Earth,” Grandfather said. “For many years, the Knights have acted as guardians of life on Earth. We believe the Earth to be one organism and we deal with problems that threaten that organism. As I have said, we are the Earth’s white blood cells,” Grandfather explained.

  “The Knights have a symbiotic relationship with nature. We understand that as powerful as we may become, we are natural beings and must behave in accordance with the natural world. We understood that nature has provided us with natural laws. Therefore, our Order has taken the task of discerning what these laws are and defending them. You must respect nature, study nature, and become one with it. For centuries … empires have come and gone. Some of this has been at our hand and some of this has been due to pure violation of the natural law. So much ink is spilled over the Fall of Rome but the reason for their fall is simple: a violation of the Rule of Power Ratio. Some laws we know and some we do not. I will teach you how to find them. We realized it was important for us to preserve what nature has presented as Holy. We defend against the manipulation of the genes of animals or plant life. You see, when we are born we inherit nature. It is our duty to ensure that it remains untainted by modifications so that posterity can have and appreciate it as we have. We do not call things holy simply because of their connection with a religious divinity, we call things holy because they are given from nature. Some men seek to be destructive of these ends. The last thing we guard against is information. For the larger part of history, there was not much to do in this area for information was decentralized. Then, the printing press was invented and books flooded the earth. People started to centralize information in computers; they put it in the clouds. We made it our mission to protect all human thought, but it has become difficult. That is why are you here.”

  “Eidolon is not of this Earth. He seeks to manipulate humanity into thinking he is God. However, as you have seen, his true goal is to enslave mankind. We know he has done this to other planets in the past. He moves in and wipes the planet's culture from existence. It makes it much easier to assert himself as divine when there is no information to the contrary,” Grandfather added.

  Because we are acting to preserve the religious freedoms and moral thoughts as information, we are not bound by them. You are here to become Knights. Usually this task would be worlds easier. I would have you kill Eidolon and allow the proper transition of power to take place. But this time, it’s different. We cannot destroy him. He has complete centralized control of all information in the world. The world's information has already become so tainted and manipulated. If we destroy the central power and allow the people to be free while they only know what Eidolon has told them, they will most likely just elect a new ruler. Before we destroy him, we must restore the principles of the Old Republic. This is your task. I will tell you how you will do this in the coming days. The first thing you must learn is to be without fear.

  Gavin shot up from his knees. “Sir, I don’t fear anything. I’m in the Air Force. You don’t scare me,” Gavin said. Suddenly, the room grew darker. You could barely see your hand in front of your face. Gavin felt something swirling beneath his feet. He felt something speed past him touching his shoulders and arms. “What’s going on? What is this?” He was quickly hung up by his left leg. Strange whispers swirled around him. “Ow! Make it stop! Make it stop!” He was dropped onto his back and got the wind knocked out him. The candlelight was returned. John and Gavin stood staring at what had occurred. “My son … the military’s teachings can only go so far. You still fear pain and you still fear death. These are vices which must be removed from you if you are to defend the Knights of the Living Earth.” We will now begin several days of meditation, fasting and soul searching to remove your fear. The lights went out. Strange whispers filled the chamber where he sat. It was hard to tell if they came from the room or your own thoughts. [omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted]

  On a mysterious island, seawater brushed up on the strange man’s face. He began to cough as he slowly opened his eyes. The water dripped from his bearded, unkempt face. He slowly rose to his feet. The sand slid between his toes and created footprints that trailed behind him as he walked. His shirt was white and it was pretty torn up. In front of him was dense forest and he could see the clouds bringing a storm up ahead. He hadn’t eaten in a while. He picked up a freshly dropped coconut and managed to get a few droplets from it. He stared out into the waves crashing on the beach while admiring the horizon. The looked up into the sky and saw faces in the clouds staring back at him. A crab walked onto his food and he quickly kicked it away. From his pocket he pulled a knife. He stared at it as if it was his most prized possession - and it was. He then picked up a long stick and began to sharpen the end - forcing the bark off the end until it came to a point. When he was finished he walked into the salt water to catch some fish. He waded out into the water and stood incredibly still while the fish swam around his legs. He aimed the spear at a fish and jammed it as hard as he could but caught only sand. He tried over and over but to no avail. The sun rested its head and the man slept alone under a tree for the night.

  The next day, he tried spear fishing again. He allowed the fish to swim through his legs as he stood still. He realized the fish were swimming in patterns. One fish would lead and the rest would follow based on its movement of water. He discovered that these patterns occurred in a sequence. Based on the placement of the spear, the fish would swim in a certain direction and the leader would always swim away at a certain angle. He left the water and sharpened another spear. Nearly starving now, he waded out into the water again - this time with two spears. The fish swam between his legs again. He identified the leader and jammed the spear towards him. Predictably, the fish on the right side swam away at a 45-degree angle and the man stabbed his spear in exactly the right place. He lifted the spear out of the water and the fish was still flipping its fin. The man realized the key to his meal was a clear understanding of the fish’s behavior in nature. He made a fire for the night and roasted his fish. The fish was so tender in his mouth. Beyond him in the forest he heard whispers – voices in the night. The sun set on that day. The man knew that the woods were asking him for a visit.

 
; Swords clashed against each other. John and Clark were sparring in the Shadow Chambers. Both of them had progressed quite well. The matter swords were a weapon of grace and balance. The men circled each other and traded shots. John leaped over Clark’s swing. Clark then elbowed John in the head, sending him quickly to the floor. John’s grandfather said, “Shepard, you must learn balance, you must learn control. Anticipate the moves of your attacker. Understand the system he operates in. See his thoughts before he thinks them. Hear his heart push the blood through his veins. “Not so different are we. Observe the predictability in man’s action,” Grandfather said. John stood up and brushed himself off. John may have been the purest of heart but he still needed training in combat. The men returned to their rooms. John sat on a stool in the center of his study. Grandfather had forced them to be in the dark almost all day.

  He sat by candlelight with nothing in his room with the Holy Words that he had sworn to protect. He pulled the Bible and the Quran from his bag. He grazed his hands across the covers. He thought of the division these books had caused. How much bloodshed these books had caused. Now they were sitting next to each other – cover to cover. The words of old prophets and gospels lay in John’s hands. He opened the Bible and glazed his eyes across the page. His parents had always told him to stay away from the books of prophets, but after their death he felt there was no danger in embracing their ideas. He opened the Bible its beginning. He hadn’t read the scriptures in days – maybe weeks. He turned to Genesis 2:4-8 and began to read. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing … this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created … Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden and there he put the man he had formed.”

  John wondered if the Quran had a similar story. He flipped pages and pages for a while. He eventually turned to Al-A’raf 7.54, “As a matter of fact your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and earth in six eons. Then he found Al-Baqara 2.25-39, “And give good tidings to those who believe and do deeds of righteousness, that there await them Gardens from which the streams flow. In the Quran, he saw that God had told Adam the names of all the angels, whereas in the Bible he asked Adam to name all the animals. The Quran and the Bible both had a tree that was forbidden to eat and involved the temptation of Satan or a serpent. John was baffled by their similarities. It made sense that they stories were so similar in both the religions were based on the same God. John paced through his chamber and wondered what to do. He decided to start making an account of the similarities between the books. He assumed that the books who had similar Gods would be similar but the Eastern and tribal religions would be much further apart. Either way, he felt in his heart that all the books shared some common thread. All his combat training involved the understanding of the system and thought process of his enemies and he decided to apply the same to the Holy Words. Maybe if he could account for their similarities he could understand the author’s intentions and find similarities between what has divided so many people.

  John took the Quran with him to prepare some food. He walked by candlelight through the chambers. The light illuminated the various paintings on the walls. They all had such strange equations on them. “Grandfather when will you tell me what all this means? … Grandfather?” There was no response. He ate some carrots from the kitchen. They were now only eating plants and getting all their protein from nuts. John walked down a hallway to get some fresh air while the Quran sat in his pocket. He walked slowly through the forest around him. The leaves crackled beneath his feet. He came by an apple tree. He took off his jacket and laid it on a rock behind him. He could see some apples hanging from a branch high up in the tree. When he got to the top, he could see the vast array of lights off in the distance from the city. His head filled with thoughts of all the innocent people under Eidolon’s control. He thought about Sophia. He hated not knowing if she was safe. He knew that he must go to her. His grandfather had been teaching him about soul speak. It was a way to commune with people from far off distances. All of nature and our very existence consists of information. At the most basic level, it is atoms and even when dividing the atom it consists of smaller parts. There are ways to send information through nature. It made the distance seem to disappear. He searched within himself to find his peace and guidance within nature. John could feel a pull to the trees around him, like an unexplainable connection felt only between living beings.

  “Sophia,” he said. “Speak to me. Reveal yourself to me. Give me your location so I can come find you.” John waited for a response. His eyes fluttered open and again saw the lights of the city. He felt a presence come over him. His eyes began to tear up and he felt a sudden peace enter into his body. However, he wasn’t sure what to make of the feeling. An apple hung above his head. He broke the apple from the tree and took a bite. He savored the taste. Then, suddenly, he heard footsteps running away. He looked down and saw his jacket was missing. He quickly jumped down from the tree. He chased after it into the woods. John ran past trees as fast as he could. He took a sharp turn and lost his way. Now, he was surrounded by only the forest. Behind him was a fox with the Quran in his mouth. The fox took off running with John closely behind. “Come back here,” John yelled. The fox jumped between trees. Then, it dove over a brush and John followed. Finally, John cornered the fox between some rocks. The fox ripped some pages from the Quran, and swallowed them. It looked as if the fox was searching for specific pages to remove with his nose, almost to say that he wanted those sections removed. John grew very angry and dove on the fox. He yanked the Quran from its mouth. The fox broke loose from John’s arms and ran off into the forest. John caught his breath and opened the mangled Quran. Several sets of pages had been torn out. He searched quickly around the area and saw nothing. John lashed out in anger. He yelled up into the sky.

  “I have failed you, father! Those pages of the Quran are now gone forever! “Why would you let this happen? Why won’t you help me?” John fell to his knees. “No more of the Holy Words can be destroyed! I won’t let it happen again! I will guard them with my life!” John said. The trees began to whisper. “Those pages did not belong,” he heard faintly in the whispers.

  Sophia rolled her finger along the cross they had branded on her palm. She had been put into a jumpsuit that also had the cross of Christ branded on it. She was in a cell next to Mary: an atheist and Elizabeth: a Jew. The OS let them rot in their cell for days while barely keeping them alive. Sometimes, other prisoners would disappear and never come back. They heard rumors that people were being sent to gas chambers by the dozen. Sophia picked up her daily meal. It was nasty slop that no one would want.

  “Just a matter of time before they kill us. We mean nothing to them. I ... I wonder if they’ve killed my mother too,” said Mary. Sophia reassured her, “I’m sure she’s alright: They cannot capture every spiritual person … right?”

  “I don’t want to die in here. I … wish things were the way they used to be,” she said. “I think I should just submit to Eidolon – at least then I could be free. At least then I could live amongst the people,” Mary said.

  “It would be better to die in here with honor then to be a slave to Eidolon. The people out there aren’t really free! They are just manipulated in believing they are. Haven’t you heard the people outside the walls recently? They are brainwashed. They talk about the new government as if it’s the best thing that ever happened to them. I know John will come for me and when he does he will save you as well,” Sophia said passionately.

  “Please, can we pray together before the guards come?” Mary asked. The three girls closed their eyes together and Sophia prayed, “Dear Lord, please protect us in our darkest hour. Please assist John in coming to save us. If it is your will that we die before betraying you then let us be so but please be with us. Let the world see the wickedness of the new government. Give us the strength to stand up for what is right. But most of all, let your will be done. Amen.” Sophia reached out her ha
nd through the bars of the cell. The Cross of Jesus and Star of David bound together in their hands. “One day we will be free again. I promise you that,” Sophia said confidently.

  CHAPTER 9 - OS

  “The terrorists are being killed off as we speak,” said Aiden. “All terrorists loyal to the Old Republic are either dead or in camps where they belong. Soon, the world will be rid of their extremism. I will see to it myself that they are hunted down and defeated. We have drones now scanning the sky for these traitors to the One State. We have prisoners now in camps that could lead us to other possible traitors. Getting information from them shouldn’t take long. The empires in Europe and Asia have ceded full control of their puppet governments to us. We truly are the first global empire.”

  “Do not stop until we have rid the people’s memory of their gods. Only then can we have total control,” Eidolon said. “Yes my lord,” Aiden replied.

  The man sat near a fire on the beach under an umbrella of stars. Staring into a fire always reveals the deepest thoughts of the human soul. The man in the wilderness had recently discovered this. He stared down at small picture of a woman with beautiful brown hair. He could still feel his arms around her waist. He placed the picture back into his chest pocket and held it firmly to his heart. The taste of fish was starting to get old. He had been drinking water that was caught by large tree leaves but he knew it was time to journey into the wilderness. It was calling to him. He had given up all hope of ever being found and no longer wanted to be. Finding a suitable place to build a shelter quickly became his top priority. What is man without a castle? He took his spear along with everything he had and headed into the wilderness.