I was drawn by the chaos of noise, but I stayed for the rhythm. Most days I stand just out of sight at the tree line, peering in, hypnotized. All of them are so focused. The boys are hard at work, sawing, fastening, hammering. She has more grace than they do. She is busy and purposeful. They are all in sync, all with determination. He, however, is something more: something inspired or possessed, I don’t know which. His brow is like a great cracked cliff face, set forth against the wind. His eyes look to pierce whatever he is working on. I watch him, waiting for him to look up, take a rest, but he never does. His arms and torso twist in a perfect motion, never changing and always achieving maximum efficiency and power.
“Noah!” she breaks his concentration and brings him water. He attacks the water the same way as everything else. He looks up and lingers just a moment as he gazes at her. A quick smile, and then back to work.
I’ve been coming here for months now, and it is the same day after day. Relentless. And this thing they are building, I don’t know what it is, but it is massive. It looks to be a shelter, or a great fortress, or a place of worship perhaps. Noah is fierce, but he is a good man, if there is such a thing. There is something about Noah’s righteousness and the structure’s simple perfection that keeps all of this from seeming like the work of a madman. This is madness, though. It has to be madness. They live out here beyond the city, set apart. They are unlike the rest of us. I ache to be with them, at work and with purpose. They seem to know something I do not. They worship a different god, one God. I admire them, I am drawn to be with them. But at night when I am back at the fires of my own camp, with the smell of singed flesh of burnt sacrifice still lingering, I see their determined faces in my mind and I want to kill them. I imagine hurling huge stones over my head and into their faces. I imagine taking her, having her for my own. These visions inflame my heart. I become rage and lust. Death surrounds me. Flesh surrounds me. Whatever I want, I take. In the morning, after a night of fitful sleep,I leave my tent with a different kind of purpose. I try to make the flame of my heart subside by taking a woman, or taking a life: animal or otherwise. I have sacrificed my own sons and many others to appease this flame. I feel at times that only the destruction of Noah’s clan and Noah’s purpose can ease this. Maybe that is my purpose on this scorched earth. Why should he be favored, while I remain a regret to whoever created this place. Inside me, this flame...I want to watch it all burn.
And so, every couple of days wander out into the wilderness, intent on confronting Noah. Crushing him, destroying his family and watching the great “Ark”, as he calls it, burn. But I take up my same position, just on the edge of the tree line, just out of sight. I watch. The flame subsides. All my thoughts of destruction fade. In the night, destruction seems like the only solution, but here in the presence of this clan, watching them work I wonder if there might be another way to be saved. There is a a great entrance on the Ark. I want to see what’s inside this fortress. Is there a place for me?
As usual, I do not act on my desire for destruction. I just watch.
“Ham” is the restless one. There is something different about him from the others. He seems more like me. His work has rage in it. While the others seem to be working towards something, his work feels like he is being driven away from something. Unlike the others, he is prone to venture out beyond their camp, beyond his family. Maybe he is my way in.
I linger for a while more and then go back to my tent. I can smell the blood of tonights meal from a good distance away. She, my companion, prepares it.
“Where do you go?” she asks as I enter the tent. The rage hits me all at once. She is used to getting hit and doesn’t flinch. She knows the consequences of questioning me, but she still needed to know. My fist remains clinched, but I do not strike her.
“Noah?” she persists.
“Yes.”
“You must kill him?” she follows up.
“Yes.”
“We should consult the moon tonight, it is full.” she suggests.
I give another empty “Yes.”
The peace of watching the days work never lasts and my heart is consumed with fear and frustration. I try to make it go away. I take. I take her, though she is willing. That night we sacrifice in the moonlight. The beats of the drums bring us to madness in the fire and moonlight. We drink the fermented fruit and kill some more. We are covered in blood. We lose consciousness and that night I dream of the Ark.
In the dream I am in my same watching place. Slowly I drift down towards the Ark. It is still and no one else is there. There is no sound, no wind or work. I drift around the massive structure, with its huge planks of wood, lashed tightly together. It is sealed with pitch, nothing can get in, not even air. As I come close the entrance the sky begins to darken like the pitch. Great clouds form and the sun is blocked out at midday. I stand, quivering at the entrance. I drift forward and look in. Inside there is a great beam that runs across the structure. The beam across is lashed to one that comes up from the floor of the Ark. I look closer. I look up to where the two beams cross. There is a man. A man of sorrows bound to the beams. He is beaten and bloodied and pierced. He opens his eyes and looks at me. He calls my name and says.
“Why have you forsaken me?”
I wake up in terror, screaming at the blood that covers me. This sacrificed blood upon my body is now putrid and the flies invade me. I need to end this.
I will end this.
I set off for the Ark, this time I will act. I have my ax in hand. As I come closer to the camp I don’t hear the work. Have they finished? Am I too late. I circle the camp. In a clearing I find Ham kneeling in the woods. He is mumbling. He prays, but not like the chants that my tribe uses. He cries to the “Father”, but not Noah.
I grip my weapon, prepared to begin the end.
“Father,” Ham cries.
“Don’t make me leave this place. There is nothing for me on that Ark. Give me another way. It is impossible for me to obey my father another day. End this, end my misery.”
I decide I will answer his prayer and end his misery.
Just as I am about to strike, a voice booms through the woods.
“Son of Cain!”
It is Noah. I turn to face him. I can’t look him in the eye. His fierce righteousness disables me and I fall to my knees. His eyes pierce my heart. His brow is like a great mountain and I shrink. My rage is just a smoldering wick now.
“The end is near, Son of Cain. God, the one true God has made a way, but this world will be no more. Your wickedness, you and your people, must be accounted for. Your judgment is coming. You will get the destruction you seek. When it comes you will cry out, but the time for you to be heard by him has passed. When it comes, you will know He is the Lord.”
In the distance I could hear the rumbling and roars of a 1000 beasts. My heart emptied all of it’s blood into my limbs and I ran. I thought the great rushing of these beasts was the end that Noah spoke of. I run and run until I could run no more. I hear screaming and after a while realize it is my own screams. Exhausted, I collapse. I awake and I find myself on the edge of Great Cliffs. “The end.” I mutter as I drag myself the the edge of the cliff. The sea below grows violent. It is a great distance below, but the waves are coming closer. The waves crash against the cliffs shaking the ground.
“The end.”
I get to my feet and back away from the cliff. Impossibly the waves reach me upon that cliff. The sea seems to be coming for me. When the waves recede, water from the sky begins to fall.
“The end.”
“Fire?” I questioned myself. I thought it would be fire. The bright flame of destruction. In my mind and my heart it has always been fire. But this isn’t just about destruction. This is a cleansing. The earth rumbles. I can hear the horns of the beasts in the distance. I’m going back. I must be cleansed, I must be saved!
“The end!”
As I come upon the place of the Ark, I am in Awe! A great caravan of animals were making their way into the Ark. I gasp.
“Why?” I questioned to myself again.
Noak stood over them watching the procession from a height upon a boulder. His family rushed around the Ark, finishing the work.
“Why? Why do these beasts need protected and from what?”
The ground had become soft from the water. It is hard to walk through. I approach the Ark. Noah stands high above the procession and I approach him with the procession in between us. He pierces me again with his eyes.
“What do you seek, Son of Cain?”
“Why?” is all I can put forth.
“Death is coming, the Earth is to be flooded, covered by water, erasing the sins of man. The Ark, the Ark is a refuge from God’s Wrath.”
“What must I do to be saved?”
“Son of Cain, you have made your choice. You have known Good and you have known Evil. You have seen He who Creates and the one that Destroys. Look at your own heart and tell me what you Love?”
At that moment, I became an animal, filled with fury. I hated his righteousness and his God who made me. I may not be saved, but neither would he. The last of the animals had gone into the Ark. I ran toward him and began to ascend the rock upon which he stood, the only firm ground that remained. I then heard another roar. Noah looked down on me, except now he looked with pity. He pointed with his staff toward the horizon. As I turned to look, Noah leapt into the Ark as the cubit wide door began to close. The water from the sky fell like a waterfall. The roar in the distance came closer. On the horizon I saw the sea on the move. A great mass of water moving towards me. I scrambled to get upon the rock, to find a way into the Ark. Desperately I cried. My moment of repentance succumbed to a heart full of rage and as the water came near I roared back in defiance. Faintly from the Ark, under the bellows of the beasts I could hear weeping. The last cry for humanity.
As the wave consumes me, in anger, awe and a final understanding I declare “You are the Lord.”
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