Waving Goodbye to Noah
by Larrywomack.com
The rain had stopped, after pouring on and off for about a fortnight. Water covered the floor of Aaron’s hut. Even though Aaron was over 300 years old, he could still wield a mean broom. But the faster he swept, the more the water seemed to flow back into the hut.
“I should have married again, after all my wives died in the fire,” he says aloud. “Then I’d have some help with this mess. At least, I’ll be able to eat supper.”
“Excuse me?” said a young man standing at the door of the hut. “Has anyone told you about the meeting tonight down by the eternal flame?
“No, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
Sloshing into the hut, the young man extends his hand and says, “My name is Ham, middle son of Noah. My father figured everyone would need a relight for their home fire tonight and that the eternal flame would be a good gathering point to discuss the upcoming vengeance.”
“Vengeance?”
“Yes, Yahweh is upset with the way things are going around here and has made plans to flood the earth and annihilate all the sinners.
“Oh, I’ve been hearing talk of that for over two hundred years. What’s new?”
My father says it’s for real this time. God came to him in a vision and told him to build a big boat in advance of the forty-day rain that will flood the land.
Aaron, looking upward, “Just what we need, more rain. I’ll be there if I can catch a pig in time for my supper. If not, I’ll get the word from a neighbor.”
The young man leaves and Aaron leans on his broom, “Goddammit, I’m sick of this shit. Every time things seem to calm down, Yahweh wants to stir things up with locusts, dragonflies, frogs, wind or rain.”
“It’s mostly about sex. If the good Lord didn’t want man to have sex why did he invent it? Oh sure, some men get out of hand, but why doesn’t Yahweh just smite them down, individually, like he did in the old days instead of threatening to wipe out a bunch of people on account of a few bad figs.”
“And, you can’t covet this. And you can’t covet that. To me there seems to be enough of everything – food, drink, fire, shelter, and women – to go around. Agreed those who try to have more than their share ought to be punished but a life-ending flood? This is ox shit!”
It’s not easy to catch a pig following two weeks of rain but after thirty-minutes of chasing, sliding and falling, the mud-splattered old man comes home with a pig.
As he is tying the pig upside down to a tree limb, a voice from behind says, “Aaron? It’s me, Lemuel from next door. You going to the meeting?”
“Yep,” says Aaron, as he slits the pig’s throat. “Soon as I slaughter this pig and make supper.”
When the squealing subsides, Lemuel asks, “Are you going to eat that pig?”
“Of course, why else would I have killed it?
“But Yahweh says we shouldn’t eat animals with cloven hooves. They are unclean.
“Well, Yahweh never has been hungry. And, to tell the truth, I’ve about had it with Yahweh. What has he ever really done for me?’
A clap of thunder can be heard in the distance.
“Lemuel, how long have we known one another?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s more than a hundred years.”
“Have you ever known me to do anything to piss Yahweh off?
“Maybe a little disrespect here and there but nothing real serious.”
The men discuss the upcoming meeting and Lemuel departs. Aaron realizes that he cannot cook the pig because he has no fire.
“Supper will have to wait until Noah ends his speech.” Aaron says aloud, “And everyone knows Noah is as long on words as he is in tooth.”
Aaron walks the mile to the temple that holds the flame, cursing God all the way. Thunder grows louder and closer. The gathering becomes visible on the horizon, as does the flame that sits atop the temple.
Noah is standing on the top step of the temple along with his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their families. He is shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries.
A makeshift platform is brought to the center of the temple steps allowing Noah to rise above the crowd.
He extends his hands above his head and says, “All honor to Yahweh.”
The two hundred or so assembled respond, “Honor to Yahweh!”
“Humbly and sadly, I stand before you to inform you that Yahweh is angry with your attitude towards the wondrous place he has created for you. You ravage the land, fornicate without discretion with women and beasts, and curse His name with every other breath; the very breath that He breathed into your father Abraham.
Thunder shakes the platform on which Noah is standing. His sons rush forward to keep him from falling.
Composed, he continues, “Yahweh came to me in a vision two weeks ago and told me to teardown my house of reeds and use the materials to build a big boat. He called it an ark. My sons and I have been working in earnest on the “ark” since that day. When the rains begin again, they will last for forty days and forty nights. However, I will not be here. My family, and a selection of the indigenous animals, will leave tonight on our great boat call an ark. We will seek new land, a land of milk and honey, on which to begin this new life . . . a life that honors Yahweh for the wondrous gifts he has given us. I will miss you all.”
“What about us?” shouts a fellow in the crowd.
“You’re on your own,” says Noah. “But know, sinners will be washed away in the flood, according to what Yahweh revealed to me.”
Thunder rolls, the sky opens and the rains begin in earnest again.
“I bid you adieu and wish you good fortune,” says Noah, stepping down from the platform.
As the two hundred continue to light one another’s torches with fire from the eternal flame, Lemuel and Aaron quietly walk back to their huts together using the light from their torches to see their way, while holding a shield of palm fronds to protect their torches.
“You know what I think,” says Aaron. “I think Noah knows more than he told us.
“Like what?”
Thunder crashes and the drizzle becomes steady.
“We’d better hurry or we’ll have to go back later to get more fire,” says Lemuel.
As Aaron enters his hut, Lemuel appears and says, “My house was struck and consumed by lightening. I have no where to go!”
“Stay here, if you can find a dry spot. I’m leaving”
“Where are you going in all this mayhem?”
“To where Noah and his ark are. I’ve been thinking. I am indirectly a member of Noah’s family. Five hundred years ago, Noah’s father begat Ezekiel. One hundred years later, Ezekiel begat Josephus. Josephus begat me about fifty years later. That makes me at least a cousin three times removed. I’m going to find Noah and his ark and see if he’ll give a family member a ride.”
“Do you know where this ark is?”
“It has got to be near the river. I’m headed that way. You can have my house or what’s left of it. I’m out of here.”
Without further adieu, Aaron heads out into the darkness into torrential rains and crashing thunder. Only the incessant lightening illuminates his path toward the river.
The earth is covered with water and darkness. The cries of pain and suffering become louder than the ever-present thunder and crashes of lightening. Water sloshes around Aaron’s ankles with every step. Sometimes he falls in holes as deep as his waist but he plods on.
Through the tempest and deluge Aaron can see the shadow of the ark violently illuminated by flashes of lightening. He is now waste deep in the rising water. Noah, holding a large staff, is herding the last of the creatures up the gangplank.
“Noah, Noah wait for me!” cries out Aaron.
Aaron is almost knocked off his feet by the carcass of an ox floating by. As he regains his footing, a baby floats by face down in the water that is now nearing his shoulders.
“Noah! Noah, I am family,” he shouts, waving frantically. The gangplank is pulled inside the ark and the door closed.
Everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.