Stephen Beam - Balaam, the Gray Prophet

Slipping off his chair, Balaam fell to the floor. It was the same glass black surface as everything else in the cave-bar. The reflections, the sparkles, the confusion of bouncing photon, all this smacked him painfully in the face. He fell on his side, vomited, then rolled over on his back. The bartender stood over him, looking down at him. He was talking, but Balaam couldn’t understand his words.

Eeayore came up behind the bartender. “That’s my master and my friend. That is, when he’s not beating my ass with a stick,” the donkey said.

“I’m sorry… Eeayore. So, so, sorry,” Balaam said, weeping uncontrollably. Here lay God’s prophet, the wizard of curses and blessings, the failed sayer of imprecatory prayers. He was all this. And less.

“Get up master! Go outside. I have an idea. One that will change everything,” Eeayore said, sinking through the floor and disappearing. She was such a good phantom friend.

The bartender helped Balaam get on his feet, not letting go until he was certain the prophet could stand on his own. “I’ll walk you to the door,” the bartender said. Balaam didn’t resist, but struggled to balance himself as if walking across deck on a tumultuous sea. The obsidian door slid open as they approached. It was night outside, as dark as the bar inside, lit by a moon hidden behind low lying clouds.

Eeayore was tied to the fire hydrant where Balaam always left her. She greeted her master with a nod and a snort as he stepped from the bar. The door slid shut hard behind him. Eeayore watched as Balaam staggered towards her. When her master finally arrived at her side, she said, “I thought of something that’ll change your life forever. I understand the Moab problem. I understand it completely. And I know how to fix it.”

Balaam wrapped his arms around the donkey’s neck in drunken, loving affection. This also helped him stand up without falling. “You’re my best friend, Eeayore. I’d marry you. I’d marry you in a minute, if you were human. No offense.”

Eeayore smiled as best she could. “None taken. I’ve got no problem being a simple beast of burden. Being human is your problem. And your burden.”

Gently hugging the donkey’s neck, Balaam whispered into Eeayore’s ear, “You are very very right, my friend.” Beneath his swirling alcoholic daze, the dilemma of moral choice was certainly his own personal curse, not a blessing. Thankfully, alcohol wrapped all his problems in a blanket of numb comfort. “You were gonna tell me something that’ll change my life. What is it?”

Eeayore brayed in the affirmative and said, “Good! You’re sober enough to pay attention.” She wagged her head from side to side, breaking loose Balaam’s hug and knocking him to the ground. “Get up and look me in the face. And don’t hang on me. I can’t talk to you when you’re hanging on me.”

Balaam struggled to get on his feet and face Eeayore. He dusted himself off and asked, “What’s your idea?” He wanted so badly to drape himself affectionately around her neck.

Eeayore, possessed by a blend of nanobots and dark spiritual forces, said, “Your God is always listening. He knows your every thought, so pay close attention to my words. I’ll take you back to Moab. You will then go speak to Balak once more. Explain to him the Lord’s commandments to the Sons of Israel. Explain to them that these commandments must be obeyed in order for them to be blessed by the Lord.” Eeayore smiled too widely, the ends of her mouth reaching towards the bottom of her ears. “Surely Balak will understand why youcan’t curse the Sons of Israel. He will then understand what hemust do.”

Balaam smiled nearly as wide as his donkey, but was clueless as to what her words meant. His head muddled, his neurons shorting out across his brain, he looked upon Eeayore as his intellectual and spiritual superior. She was as strong as he was weak. What a pathetic creature he was, a stain on humanity’s underpants. Eeayore was so blessed. How wonderful not to be saddled down with addictions, regrets, moral choices… or even a soul. Eeayore was not at war with herself. She was a soulless beast. Superior to him in every way.

Eeayore commanded Balaam, “You need to step back while I gear up to transform. We’re going to Moab.”

Balaam obeyed.

The tether dissolved, releasing Eeayore from the fire hydrant. She walked behind a fig tree located on the south side of the building, distancing herself from people’s prying eyes just leaving the bar. Eeayore called out to Balaam, “Come here and watch, but keep about five feet from me until I’m finished.”

He staggered back to Eeayore, struggling to estimate the five foot buffer zone around her.

Eeayore said, “You’re fine. Stay right where you are.” She grinned wickedly. Her new attitude wasn’t familiar to Balaam; she was a strange new donkey.

Eeayore’s skin absorbed all her hair. It was pulled inside her body by nanobots — revved up to radically transform their biological host. A low rumbling hum filled the air around her. Her bare skin took on a brushed metallic sheen. Her legs withered away, lowering her new metal body to the ground. Her head and neck undulated for a few moments, then quickly morphed into a nose cone. The tip housed a single eye, and beneath it, a tiny mouth.

Balaam watched all this transformation lethargically, half asleep with drink. His donkey was gone now, replaced by whatever this new thing was. For a second, he wondered why he wasn’t crying at the loss of his friend. Shouldn’t he be sad? His best friend’s warm mammalian body was now transformed into a cylinder of cold metal.

Eeayore continued to tweak her new shape. She was a sleek metallic torpedo, ready for rapid transit to Moab. The nanobots embedded anti-grav disks on her metal belly so that she hovered a couple inches above the ground. The low rumble dissipated, replaced by an annoying whine that cut through Balaam’s anesthetized awareness.

A single tear finally ran down Balaam’s cheek; it swiftly turned into a torrent of sobs. Whatever this thing was his friend had become, he would learn to accept with an open heart. Perhaps the old Eeayore would return one day. The high pitched whine wound down to a soft, soothing purr of restrained power.

“It’s time to hop aboard,” Eeayore said, her voice loud and clear, despite coming from the tiny mouth embedded in the nose cone.

Balaam wiped away his tears and regained control of himself. Why be sad? After all, Eeayore still lived. So what if she was no longer a warm blooded mammal covered in hair, her skin metal and not flesh? Balaam’s sobs turned into laughter — the laughter of relief. Why fret? The universe changed every second. It was either change or die — the universe’s cosmic motto. He walked over to Eeayore the Torpedo and stroked her metal back. “You’ll always be my girl,” Balaam said in a trembling voice. He sounded sappy, even to himself. A few more tears leaked from his eyes, then he grabbed control of his melancholy as he sobered up a bit.

“Come on. Swing your leg over me and mount up. We’re going to Moab,” Eeayore said. Balaam obeyed. With the awkwardness of a nerve frayed drunkard, he managed to seat himself atop Eeayore’s sleek torpedo body. Directly in front of him emerged two, fifteen inch metallic poles, each topped with a rubber handgrip. Balaam figured these grips were safety features to keep from sliding off, so he held them tightly. The false bravery of inebriation helped him cooperate with Eeayore’s demands, but now he needed another drink. More, if necessary.

The Eeayore torpedo floated smoothly from behind the fig tree and turned onto the main road in front of the bar. No bar patrons saw them, and the road was empty. Balaam felt a growing vibration building under his butt. A deep hum grew in intensity, the power winding up inside the torpedo between his legs. They began to move down the road, floating a few inches above the road’s surface, then quickly gained speed. The wind blew into Balaam’s hood. He tightened the drawstrings to keep the hood on his head.