random etchings

Story 6: End of Things

When the world ended in flame and smoke and bitter cold that lingered out of season and air that choked the life from the few tattered remnants of population wandering broken roads and twisted towers to try and find some echo of home, that's when we first heard whispers of it. A green land, far away to the west.

Paradise, Brother Evan called it when he met people on the roads. Before, he hadn't been a preacher by trade. He'd been an accountant, secreting billionaires' money in clever places all around the world like a magician until all those secret places failed and now, numbers were something no one cared about any more. There was no money or taxes (though there was death aplenty) and at first Brother Evan had despaired when he realized how little his life's work meant.

But then (as he shared at every campfire he rested by) when he was at rock bottom, that's when he had a vision from God. And so he renamed himself (he never shared what his first name had been, but it had been something common like John Fitzsimmons Smith and he hadn't been wise or famous or loved by anyone but his Mama, back in the big city before it burned) and started walking west, bringing hope with him as he went, getting leaner and stronger and hungrier just like the rest of us as he walked.

Not everyone was willing to hear Brother Evan. The survivors had all sorts of people, some of them not willing to believe in anything anymore. Hope was more trouble than it was worth when everyone was going to be dead soon. And others believed in every impossible thing that anyone said. But most of us were just waiting for some where to go, no matter where it was.

And so we followed him. It was a slow line across the country, mostly because we had to stop and find food enough to move on. And some people found places to cling to, where the water was clear and they could make a garden to feed a family. Little settlements built up along the way, and soon, Brother Evan was so far ahead of everyone else that we weren't sure why we were still following him, but for those of us who didn't lose hope, it was a goal.

We followed him across the plains and over mountains. We followed across rivers. Sometimes for those of us who were following months and years after him, the only reason we could find our way were the random houses with chimney fires guiding us to the next point ahead. We followed him until the land ran out and salt filled the air and all that was ahead of us was a settlement that was bigger than any other village left to us, filled with people who didn't trust to follow him anymore.

Because there, at a point of land sticking out into the ocean like a finger pointing at nothing, Brother Fred had built a door.

It was wood and painted yellow with a doorknocker lion face and a doorknob on the right like it was the door to a house. And when we saw it, we saw the back side of it was directly over a cliff face, so the only way there was through that door was to fall and hit the rocks and the waves and die.

But, even the people who were too scared to follow, promised that they'd seen him open that door and walk through. And he hadn't fallen. Instead, lights and music and the smell of green things and his voice, echoing back. Paradise.

We've camped out there for a week now, talking it over, And most of us turned back because there's good fishing around here and homes and the salt in the air makes it cleaner and easier to breathe. But some of us have decided.

Tomorrow, we open the door.

word count: 664