Unfolding of a Man

The beginning of a dream comes in waves. At first a glance out of the corner of my eye, than my head turns looking into the sound. I here it in the distance, and my heart begins to race. “I can see you, I know you are there in front of me,” my words go out into the space. My arm is shielding the light before me and I hold out my hand for the one who is there.

Can you feel it?

Can you taste the flavor of creation brushing against the pallet of your mind?

I know a heart that is heavy tonight; I hear his voice in the distance. After a lifetime of synthetic interactions responding to requests unanswered. “There is not enough energy in a nuclear bomb to explode this dream. There is not enough water to drown the flood I am in,” a voice cries in the night.

When I say flood I do not mean it in the typical metaphor of overwhelming emotion leading to the last gasp of air. I mean it the way a flood washes over a town with out warning a wipes out houses while children sleep in their beds.

And there he is, the man who new the flood was coming standing on a hill overlooking the town. He calls out for the people who are sleeping below to come and hurry for the waters quickly abound. In his last chance to save the village he leaves the hillside in and runs for the nearest dwelling.

The house is empty and filled with images of people who once believed. The dweller of this temple left long before the flood has come and he hears them in the distant, the voices of 10,000 angels coming for the ones who will never leave their house of sand.

A short story by S. Scott Hackman