M. Banner - Stone Age

Steve proceeded to tell Darla all about Cicada, including showing her the GPS location on his Google Map app on his phone. His phone interrupted, pinging with an incoming text.

“Sorry,” he glanced at his phone. “I’ve really gotta go. I actually have to do a little work before we head out tonight.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out something, laying it on the table in front of Darla.

“What is this?” she asked, puzzled.

“You gave me a little sand dollar from when you went to Mexico. I had it covered in silver and made it into a necklace… Ah, it’s for you.”

“I remember that. Wait, you’ve been planning this for a while.”

“Is it too much? Am I starting to scare you? You know-“

She kissed him this time, long and slowly.

She gradually withdrew, and when she opened her eyes, he said grinning, “I love kissing you.”

“Me too. We need to continue this, although I don’t know when.”

His phone chirped again, pulling him away. “Me neither, but I promise you, we will again soon.”

The crowds were ginormous , Thomas thought. Far bigger and different from any other revival he had ever seen. They all came to see, hear, and for some, to be healed by the Teacher. “The press,” he told Thomas, “fanned the flames of the embers he already ignited in the hearts of men.” Thomas didn’t exactly know what that meant, but it felt true. And on fire was right, because every night, they did a gathering, the crowds got bigger. Now, the Teacher, as his daddy would have said, “Was hotter than a whorehouse on dollar night.”

It started, at least for Thomas, outside Charleston, but then grew as the Teacher and his group of followers traveled the rural highways from West Virginia, through Ohio, then Indiana, and now Illinois, in the Southern rural suburbs of Chicago, always working their way West. Today, it was Joliet. With each town, the crowds grew. Today, hours before the big event, there were over one thousand people. Many attended on a previous night, but today, many brought family members, who probably told their loved one they were “full of bunk” after hearing their testimony.

When he first met the Teacher, Thomas was like many of them, sitting there waiting, hurting on the inside. He was unemployed after working in the mines for years. Then, his government checks ran out and his bitch of a wife kicked him out. Let her take care of those snot nose shits herself , he thought to himself.

While thumbing for a ride to Columbus, where he heard his second cousin’s boss might have a job for him, somebody handed him a flyer. He couldn’t read so he asked, “What is this bullshit?” The guy told him, all happy, “Come for free and you will be saved. There’s a map on the back.” He never made it to Columbus

Thomas had seen lots of preachers in his day, but this one was different. The man, whom everyone called Teacher and no other name, was amazing. Thomas went to one gathering — the Teacher didn’t like calling them revivals — and came out like he was drunk, his mind all twisted up. He had to go again. The second night, Thomas touched the Teacher and something happened he couldn’t explain. The Teacher felt him touch his clothes and turned to him, giving him a big smile and staring into his brain, as if he could read his thoughts. He said, “Thomas, your worries are few. Lift up your infirmities unto me.” The Teacher grabbed his hand and said something, and it was as if he was filled with electricity. Then, he felt peace. His mind was quiet. Before he looked up, The Teacher was already several people behind him.

On the third gathering he went to, there was a miracle. “It was no parlor tricks like those done by most big tent revival healers, or like you would see at the fair,” he would tell others. Those false preachers always reminded him of the movie his bitch-of-a-wife loved, starring Steve Martin, who played the huckster preacher, using slight-of-hand deceptions to cheat hard-working farmers out of their money. The Teacher was different. He performed real miracles.

Thomas thought back to when a man, known by the whole town to have born blind at birth, approached the stage. The Teacher walked up to him and asked him what he wanted and the blind man fell to his knees and said, “If you are willing, Teacher, heal me.”

The Teacher said, “Arise, you are cleansed. Now, go tell the world.”

The man stood up, turned to the faces in the crowd, who were silent, anticipating. The blind man opened his eyes. Thomas could see him clear as day. The milky color in his pupils gone, replaced with dark eyes that stared in shock at the crowds, then the ceiling of the tent, and then his hands. His mouth opened but he spoke no words.

He didn’t need to say nothing. We all knew what he felt.

Tears ran down his cheeks. It was like a high school football game when the home team scores at the last second to win. Everyone went nuts.

On the fourth night, when the Teacher passed, he turned again and said right at him, “Follow me, Thomas.” He had been with him since then, doing odd jobs and trying to learn.

After making the blind man see, the press started showing up. Their headlines asked the question a lot of people had on their minds and lips. “Was this Jesus’ Second Coming?” Thomas didn’t know any of this, and didn’t care. He was there because Teacher asked him to follow and he didn’t think he could say no.

Max’s computer slept like its owner, quietly.

His phone’s battery was dead and recharging. Similarly, his body and mind were unconsciously cocooned, recharging in REM sleep. His rhythmic breathing spoke of a peace he found nowhere else the last couple of days. While a few others around the world, those who were paying attention to the signs above, were frantically preparing for the end of the world, Max had done his work long before others even realized what was happening. Max earned his rest. So now, he slept.

When Max returned from the King’s party last night, he was so exhausted, he couldn’t even bother removing his clothes before flopping on his bed. Somewhere in the night, he managed to remove his boots, the rest of him lay in a discarded heap, fully clothed and quietly breathing on his back. He was even too tired to dream.

That day, Max slept through everything. His exhaustion consumed him. He slept through the early morning, not even stirring when several seagulls somehow became confused in flight and hit the side of his house, a few so hard, they broke their necks, their bodies coming to a rest upon his deck.

Then in the late morning, he slept through Sally vigorously knocking on his patio door, seeking answers to her questions.

Then, in the early afternoon hours, a pelican ran into his satellite dish, killing itself and his satellite dish instantly. The pelican’s carcass slid down a course of solar panels before crashing through a glass table on the patio, and coming to rest in a heap of glass, feathers and blood. His satellite dish dangled over the side of his bedroom wall, tethered by its thick black coaxial cable. Perhaps it was the noise, or perhaps he was done sleeping on his back, but Max rolled over onto his stomach and slept some more.

He even slept through the quite of sunset, its eerie light calling to him, unheard.

Before finally being awakened by bad dreams and the pounding on his door, he had slept a total of seventeen hours.

The stadium floodlights kicked on, working their soft orange rays into the shadows of dusk, pushing back the inevitable coming darkness. It was late, but no one cared. The Joliet High School Hornets football stadium had never seen a crowd this big, including the night they won state. Throngs of eager people filled the stands, the bleachers, and all grassy areas on the field. Some were even on top of their cars in the parking lot, and two sat precariously upon one of the end zone’s goal posts. All were quietly listening to the Teacher.