The Note

         Jim was driving his normal route.  Being a police officer wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. He hadn’t seen any action for the past couple of weeks and the only thing that really made him get out of bed at four in the morning was the free coffee and donuts he got from the Donut City. He promised himself he would start cutting back, but that was the only thing opened at that time in the morning. He would start when he got his promotion.
          Jim’s eyes started glazing over as he drove his black and white down the empty Kansas road.  The repetition of cornfields was occasionally broken up by a cow pasture. Of course, then Jim would want a hamburger. Jim started to wonder if it was too late to go to college for something more interesting. He was only twenty-nine. Then again, what exactly would he want to do? Up until now he was sure police work was his calling. Could he be a beer tester?
              Something relatively unusual broke his thoughts about his future beer testing profession. There was an elderly lady lying in the side of the road about twenty feet ahead of him. Jim quickly stomped on the brake, put the car in park, and rushed over to the woman. She looked like she was about eighty. Her gray hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed and her pink, flannel, nightgown was drenched in sweat. She obviously was in a hurry.
         He called the station on the radio in his car and went back to the woman. He knelt down to feel her pulse. There was none. He had no idea what else he could do. Jim looked at the woman again for clues. She had a gold cross on a chain around her neck, and her flannel nightgown had several stains on it. She had a wedding band on her finger and a piece of paper in her hand. That was odd. He took the paper from her and uncrumpled it. He took a short breath inward as he read what it said.
         
The chief was sitting in his chair. Dreaming of being county sheriff someday. Not knowing that the biggest news of his life was about to come bursting through the door.

    Kalvin was sitting in the police office for yet another "minor charge". But they always ended up being a major pain in the ass. This time it was "driving under the influence of alcohol". As he sat there, in his regular seat, and stared at the clock wondering what time he would get out of here and if it he could start drinking again.
Just then Jim, a young cop that arrested him once for vandalism walked in. He was paler and another cop followed him in. Looking at him with a mix of pity and fear. Kalvin saw the chief go up to Jim and Jim was just standing there looking at a  crumpled up piece of paper. Kalvin was curious so he leaned in a little bit, and what he heard changed his life... for five seconds.

Jim wasn’t sure what to do next. So, he called his big brother as he always does. Danny had bailed him out of so many problems. Jim lived with Danny and his wife until he was twenty-five. Jim never wanted to grow up. He never wanted to get a job or get married. He just wanted to be a kid in High School forever.
         Jim’s worked so many jobs. He was a janitor, he even went to college to be a teacher, but it was too much sitting. He tried his hand, literally, he was a pitcher, in minor league baseball. He did all right. But he quickly grew bored of that, as well. Finally, he went to school to be a police officer. The constant physical movement and the promise of fighting off bad guys and bullets held his attention, for a while. But now, he is beginning to get bored of that as well, he was thinking of quitting. And after seeing what the woman wrote on that scrap of paper he wished he had.

It was about four thirty in the morning. Daniel shot out of bed. He was having a horrible dream.  His wife and his two children were taken away from him. All he could do was sit there and watch. He tried to move, but he couldn’t.
         He looked over to his wife. She was asleep. Her long black hair a mess on her pillow. Probably dreaming of shopping or the restaurant they ate at last night. He touched her tan shoulder just to make sure she was real.
         Not being able to sleep he went to check on his kids. His oldest daughter, first. He opened the door with “Lena” carefully printed on it . His eyes were automatically drawn to her beautiful red hair contrasting the blue of her sheets. She always wished that she had her mothers black hair. But Daniel was secretly glad that he had her red locks. She was the one child that his weak genetics fought through to. She looked so much like him. Red hair, pale skin. The same blue eyes and freckles. He silently shut the door. Then he went on to Matt’s rooms.
         A two year old, with his mother’s genetics. Matt was almost a carbon copy. A when he looked into his brown-black eyes and saw their mothers. Matt’s nose though, his nose was Daniel’s. That’s what everyone says. He, too, was asleep and he made his way to the kitchen.
         He didn’t work in the morning and he knew that sleep was a lost cause so he decided to make everyone breakfast. He got out all the ingredients for an omelet. Three different types of cheeses, onions, butter, peppers, cilantro, and his wife’s homemade salsa. He buttered the pan and heated it up. And cracked the eggs in the sizzling pan and covered it with a plate. It was all automatic to him now. He had done it so many times, but he still loved it. How he wished he would have pursued his dream of being a chef but he settled on being a psychiatrist. Daniel was very happy in his work, but he still dreams.
         His concentration was interrupted by the loud ring of the phone. Daniel turned down the oven wondering who would be calling this early. He picked up the telephone and heard his brother’s panicked voice on the line. His stomach immediately dropped, afraid that something happened to him while he was on duty. Jim said he was fine, but what he said still made Daniel scribble a note saying, “ Marina, went to station. Call me on the cell” on a post-it and rush out the door in his pajamas.
         
         The chief came out his office, where he snuck off to after Jim and the other cop came in with the body.
         “ So you think the world is ending,” He said in a taunting tone.
“You think that tomorrow, God Almighty is going to hit us all with lightening bolts?”
“I’m not sure, sir.” Jim replied, refusing to look him in the eye. Jim knows how crazy the idea sounds.
         “Well, anyway, it’s probably some senile old woman, who had a dream one night and she thought God was talking to her.”
Jim paused. With the risk of further mocking he asked what was really on his mind, “How can you be so sure? What if this is it?”
“All we can do right now is report it. Don’t tell anyone that you don’t have to.”
Jim couldn’t tell how seriously the captain was taking it. He already told his brother but he didn’t care. He trusted him.

Kalvin walked out into the early morning sun. It was easily eighty degrees, but he was shaking. Could it possibly be true? Could the world be ending? He thought about going to  church, but no amount of  praying would save him now.
         Why would he be praying? There is no way the world is ending. Aren’t there supposed to be signs for those kinds of things? But he could cash in on the idea. The local news station would love to get their hands on this one.  They really don’t broadcast anything apart from pie eating contests and the weather. And if the world is ending it is his duty to inform the public. And of course he deserved to reap the rewards for his hard work.

Mike flipped on the evening news. As he always did. The news never had anything interesting and if there was something with some excitement it was probably some exaggerated story that the reported didn’t really check too thoroughly. But he watched it anyway. His wife died five years ago and the TV helped fight off the quiet that consumed his house. Mike was sixty-five and a retired teacher. So he fills his time with golf, TV, and most importantly, church.
Mike pulled out a frozen dinner that was caked in ice and probably tasted as good as the box it came in.  But he never found out how good it tasted, a highly irregular and highly terrifying news bullet interrupted his thoughts.

Daniel went back to his house tired and worried. He wasn't sure what to think. The chances of that woman being right or actually knowing were very slim, but Armageddon is not a pleasant topic.
Daniel wasn’t sure whether he wanted to tell his wife what happened. She would probably become worried and have him and their kids convert to be Catholicism. Daniel shuttered at the thought of having to tell all his sins to someone he doesn't even know. That was the one thing he and Marie fought about the most, religion.             
Daniel doesn't think the kids should have it forced on them and Marie thought she was saving them. Daniel said that if they are sitting in a church when they would rather be playing with friends or watching TV God would know and that pretty much ended the discussion. Of course, Daniel had no objections to his kids being Catholic if they really wanted to. He just knows what if feels like to have religion forced and that's probably one of the reasons he's such an atheist, now.

          Daniel reached the door with no intention of telling his wife anything, or at least not yet. But when he put his hand out for the doorknob he found nothing but air and suddenly had 135 pounds of weight clinging to him.
The word crap quickly entered his mind but was interrupted by a Hispanic hysterical voice.
"Oh, Danny, thought I'd never see you again!"
After recovering from what seemed like a rhinoceros attack he put his hands on his wife's waist and led her inside.

         Jim was now on his morning route, again, just the day after. This time his mind wasn't on what his future would be like, he was wondering whether or not he even had a future. Could the world really end? It had to end eventually, but would it be now? Global warming is going up and there is acid rain. Jim always assumed that the end of the world would be man-made, nuclear missiles and such. But is the big guy up there really going to pull the plug? He grew up Catholic but after he got out of his household he became much more of  a "spiritual" person. He believes there is a god. It's just not the church's god.
         But why would he ever end it? I mean there is goodness on this earth. There are some that live a pretty decent life. Why should we be punished for the unmoral lifestyles of others. Jim wasn't naive, he knew there were some very "ungodly" things on earth. War, greed, money, politics and hell, even some religions. Or at least how much they fought.
Jim was still preoccupied on the ugly side of the world when he pulled into the station. The usually bare parking lot was covered in media trucks and cameras. He got out of the cop car and was bombarded with news-reporters.

Kalvin couldn’t believe where he was going. But his legs took him there anyway. As he walked, he saw the big metal cross get closer and closer, almost like it was watching him. Kalvin wondered if God would send a sudden gust of wind when Kalvin got to the door and blow the cross off the roof and onto Kalvin, just to keep something as morally corrupt as Kalvin out of the door.
                          Kalvin promised himself he’d try to go to church more often. It was more of a guilt controller than a renewed faith. His family never went to church. His parents were either working or drunk, but when Kalvin was a little boy he always wished he could go to Sunday school with his friends. Every once and a while he would go with one of his neighbor or a boy from school and he would love it there. All of the adults were so nice and no one screamed at him when he talked too much. When he was old enough to go on his own he would. He liked it there. It probably never had anything to do with God, but it was a place where he didn’t have to hear his parents fighting, his sisters screaming, or bottles smashing against closed doors.
            As Kalvin neared the doors there wasn’t a sudden gust of wind and the church didn’t fall down as he walked in, instead there was an old man with gray hair and a beard, shaking his hand and welcoming him in. Kalvin was rarely welcomed anywhere. Apart from the bar, but that was only because they wanted his money.

Jim sat by his chief, afraid to move. They were in the middle of a news conference. The chief wanted to deal with all of the news reporters and that was just fine with Jim. He just sat back and watched the chief at work. It really was quite amazing. He could say an answer to a reporter’s question, but it really means nothing. But the reporters scribble it down on their note pads, hoping to have some information to feed the American public.



“ Honey, it will be alright”
“ It’s the end of the world! It’s not going to be alright!”
“Hon, your overreacting, again, remember last year when you thought the tornado was going to blow us all away”
“ But Danny!”
                  Daniel was in the middle of the fight that he had been dreading the minute he heard his brother say what was written on the paper. His wife stood there with fire in her eyes and her cheeks burning from the heat that seemed to be radiating off her body. There was no way this was going to end peacefully. Maria was used to Danny just backing down , but this was the one thing Danny was set in stone about.
            Maria had tried everything, her puppy-eyed pout, reasoning, and now it was on to the tantrum. Danny had seen it so many times before. It wasn’t usually directed at him, and he was always glad of it. As he watched his wife’s face getting redder and redder, he braced himself for a force ten times worse than the hurricanes they had last year.
            “Daniel McAlester, I cannot believe how pigheaded you are. Just because you had a bad experience when you were younger, doesn’t mean our children will be the same Pagan you are! I can’t believe it. This is the end of the world and you won’t let you children be saved? How can you be so selfish? If I would have known about this when we got married!”
Maria ended in her famous sigh. Such a forceful sigh. Danny just stood there for a few minutes, afraid to move. When her cheeks started turning a more dull red, he started talking.
            “Honey, I don’t think they’d want to go! And assuming that the world does end, wouldn’t God know that we were just trying to get an in before the world ended? We’d be dragging them to church for all the wrong reasons. We are making a mountain out of a molehill, Maria. We are letting a stupid slip of paper split our family apart. I know there is no way I’ll win this battle with you, but how about this, We take the kids to church, tonight, and see how they like it?”

Kalvin was sitting in the back pew. He half-expected the preacher to spot him and ask him to leave, but he didn’t. He was talking about God forgiving of all your sins. Kalvin would like to believe that God could do that for him, but he really doubted it. He’s broken almost everyone of the ten commandments. There is no way God is that forgiving. It would be like asking your friend to forgive you after his girl friend cheated on him with you and you wrecked his car taking her to Las Vegas to get married. But Kalvin still would like to think that going to church would get him out of the lowest level of Hell. Maybe he could work his way up. And plus, although Kalvin would never admit to it out loud, he kind of liked church. He looked around and was surrounded by good moral people and none of these people were pointing to him in disgust. He kind of liked it there. He would have to come back more often.
The service ended and Kalvin tried to beat the crowd out the door. It was a small town so someone would probably recognize him as the annoyance to the society. He almost reached the door when he heard someone call his name.

Jim sat in the chief’s office. It was just after the news conference and Jim wasn’t sure what to do or say. The chief looked like he had something bothering him. He would start to say something, but then sigh it off.  So they just sit there in one of those long and painful silences. Finally the chief broke it.
“You know that this is going to be blown way out of proportion.”
“That’s what the media’s good at.”
“ How real can it be?”
Jim just sat there, shocked. The chief never believes this kind of stuff. The crop circles were just someone’s idea of a joke, miracles are lucky coincidences, and life is to be taken at surface value, not any deeper.
“ I don’t know”
“I’m going to go home and spend time with my family. Will you make sure everything is shut down?”
“ Sure.” Jim sighed, wishing that he had a family to go home to.

“What!”
“But your mother said”
“ I don’t care what she said. I was supposed to go shopping with Michelle tonight.”
Daniel stood there rubbing his temples. Two women in one household were way to much. Lena stood there her face almost as red as her hair looking at him with a look that only an angry teenage daughter can give.
“ You know I want to do this just as much as you do, but your mother will make both our lives miserable if we don’t go. Let me remind you who actually drives you to the mall to go shopping with Michelle.”
Lena muttered something about getting a ride and turned to her closet to find a “churchgoing” dress shoved in the back with the Halloween costumes.
         Daniel went down stairs to get some coffee. He wanted something slightly stronger, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to show up to church smelling like alcohol. Although he strongly believed that most Catholics drunk heavily. How else could they live with such austere God?
         Maria came down with Matt in her arms. He wasn’t crying or screaming. Daniel thought that maybe the church thing wouldn’t be as bad as he was imagining it.
“ Are you ready to go to church big boy?” Daniel asked him with new renowned hope.
“ Mom said we would get ice-cream afterwards.”

Kalvin thought about running out the door, but there was an elderly couple blacking his path and even Kalvin wouldn’t brutally bulldoze the elderly in the house of God. Just when he reached the door he heard his name being called. He thought of acting like he couldn’t hear whoever it was, but they tapped him on the shoulder. Kalvin was trapped with no escape, so he turned around.
         He automatically went to dread to excitement.
“Hi, Mr. Shaper” He said
“ Kalvin I hadn’t seen you in years.”
Mike Shaper was one of the families that would take Kalvin to church on Sundays. He found it his duty to bring the light of God into this poor boys life.
“ So, what brings you here” Mr. Shaper inquired.

Jim’s headphones were blaring in his ears with hopeful, optimistic music. Jim felt like he needed to unwind and clear his thoughts after work, so he went on a jog. He was now passing the same cow fields as he did that dreadful morning, at a much slower speed, of course. He needed to get away. The phone calls had started. Fanatical ones, wanting to know if this was some sort of sick joke or if he was really sure. The panic in those people’s voices almost makes it seem real.
         This sleepy town is mentioned on every news channel in America. Everywhere there are headlines like “Doomsday is Coming” and on the religious channels they are asking their favorite question, “our you saved” even more than usual. Th world seems to be obsessed with the possibility that the world could end. Almost like it is some Hollywood movie, and not actually the truth.