Stephen Beam - Balaam, the Gray Prophet

The men walked over to intercept Balaam as he headed towards the house; this new entourage wasted no time. One of the men stepped away from the others and greeted Balaam with a smile and a handshake. “My name’s Pluto. I have a message to relay from Balak, son of Zippor. These are his words: ‘Don’t let anything hinder you from coming to see me. I will shower you with honors and give you whatever your heart desires. All you need do is curse the Israelites. You’re our only hope to save Moab from certain destruction.’” Pluto finished delivering the message and returned to his associates, a far more dignified bunch than was Mickey’s. Balak had sent his top guns for the job.

Balaam stared at Pluto questioningly, then shook his head from side to side, deep lines of frustration carved into his face. After a few long minutes, he said, “Balak could give me all of his silver and gold, but it would do no good. I can’t go beyond the word of the Lord my God. I can only suggest to you this: spend the night here in the RV. In the morning I’ll know more what the Lord wants of me. That’s the best I can do.”

Pluto said, “We understand and will do as you ask. The connection you have with your god is something we don’t take lightly. There is power in it that is hard for us to grasp; we respect that and your wisdom.”

“Thank you,” Balaam said. He was pale and gaunt, and speaking nearly in a whisper, added, “Right now, I’m hungry. I’ve been absent from my mortal frame for a few days and need to eat, so I’m not a good host right now. I recommend you visit the Pethor Bar if you get bored. That’s all the entertainment Pethor offers. Be cautious of the bar’s renegade nanobots. They can be a nuisance.”

Balak’s elite representatives looked concerned at the mention of renegade nanobots. They would, of course, stay the night, but the bar was out. Most people shied away from malfunctioning nanobots. Within minutes, the micro-machines could drastically alter you and your environment.

Donald, Pluto’s closest associate, asked, “Any good restaurants in Pethor?”

“There’s a Deli that’s not bad. Look for Jeff’s Kosher Sausage.” After Balaam made the suggestion, he quickly walked off, entering his home and shutting the door firmly behind him. That was the signal he desired to be alone, a private time where he could wrestle with himself. Which of his characte traits would come out on top? Walking straight to the kitchen cupboard, he grabbed his last bottle of whiskey. This was the liquid potion that would most likely decide the match.

Never could he understood why God chose him as His mouthpiece. The world was filled with people morally and spiritually superior to him. Why would the Lord think he’d be any good as a prophet? Everything else in his life ended in disaster. Why should prophesying be any different? His relationships. His failed marriages. His brief, disastrous career as a copywriter. His advertisements were the kiss of death for his clients.

Words. His life was all about words. Words ultimately came to curse his life, so he found refuge at the bottom of a bottle. He poured two fingers worth of whiskey into a glass and carried it, along with the bottle, to his old faded sofa. He plopped himself down and set the bottle atop the dusty coffee table. He sipped his drink and meditated. He didn’t have the talent for writing clever copy, but when the Lord chose to invade his mind and fill it with visions, it was then his words gained notoriety. He became the prophet with mojo, and depending on YHWH’s will, able to both bless and curse. The outcome from his gigs always kept him humble.

He didn’t go looking for notoriety. He had no desire to become a famous prophet. When the Almighty grabbed him by the throat and threw him against the spiritual mat, he was both honored and confused. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he’d met the one true God. The Lord’s mental invasion wasn’t a violent overthrow of his personal will; it was an onslaught of love. A torrent of compassion that blinded him with the light of heavenly glory. He sank beneath a sea of infinite love. No matter the amount of love he let in, there was always more in reserve. Balaam didn’t understand what to do with it.

He heard Eeayore braying in the grassy field next door. Her voice was mysteriously deeper now. Should he go check on her? No. Let it go. Contemplating his life and drinking whiskey were his top priorities at the moment. But she kept on braying. On and on it went, with no indication she was ever going to quit. “Shit,” Balaam said, irritated in being forced to leave the comfortable zone he’d just created.

With some difficulty, he got up from the sofa and walked outside. The fancy RV had left. Balak’s elite crew probably took off to look for Jeff’s Kosher Sausage, which sounded like a good idea to him right now.

Eeayore was in the field, but she wasn’t grazing. Instead, she stared at him eerily. Even from his position on the porch, he could see something hanging from her mouth. Balaam muttered to himself, then made his way across the field to stand before her. He held her snout with both hands and tilted her head back to better view the strangeness.

A glistening oblong bladder hung from Eeayore’s open mouth. At first, Balaam thought his donkey’s tongue was inflamed, but it wasn’t her tongue. He poked the thing with his finger a few times. Eeayore didn’t move or flinch, oblivious to her master’s prodding. The slimy sack changed color, transforming from burgundy to light purple. It quivered.

“Whatever this thing is, it’s got to go,” Balaam said. He grabbed hold of the thing’s slick surface, ignoring the urge to vomit. Waves of dizzying nausea nearly brought him to his knees. Clammy and slippery, he held on tightly and yanked the bladder free from Eeayore’s mouth. She immediately lowered her head and started grazing. Balaam still held the slimy sack in his hands.

The whiskey Balaam drank helped guide his decisions. He normally would have dumped the thing in a garbage can, instead, he carried it inside the house. He brought it to the kitchen and set it in the sink. He took a steak knife from the drawer and gave the bladder a tentative poke, then sliced it open. A hiss of fragrant air was released. The organ flattened out and dissolved into dry purple dust. He turned the faucet on and washed the dust down the drain. “Damn nanobots. What’d they do to my donkey?” He squirted dish soap from a plastic bottle into the sink, then scrubbed the porcelain hard with a rough sponge.

Balaam, at last, returned to the sofa, refilled his glass of whiskey, and resumed drinking. The alcohol warmed his thoughts and made him feel better about himself. He pondered his supernatural talents that God continued to fine tune after invading his mind. His visions were overwhelming, and within their awesome beauty, the Lord made plain that supernatural powers used for sorcery were wrong. Balaam never hid that truth from his customers. But no matter how many times Balaam explained he could do only that which the Lord said, they wouldn’t listen. Balaam knew his mojo was an illusion; all power in the universe was God’s. The circle of time lay bare before the Lord. When he told his customers of YHWH’s revelations of the future, they believed it was Balaam himself that changed destiny. Whenever he felt depressed, Balaam tried to make himself believe his customers’ hype.

He could no longer keep his eyes open. When his eyelids shut, a strobe light burst across the darkness. He spasmed, fell to the floor and jerked fitfully about like a beached fish gasping for water. He heard a voice that wasn’t a voice, saying words that weren’t words. A bolt of cosmic lightning to the center of his brain cracked open his reality filter and let the stars come streaming inside. The vision stabilized. Then God said: “If Balak’s men rise first and call on you, go with them; but only the word which I speak to you — that shall you do.” An electrical neuron storm ignited within Balaam, followed by an ocean of love that drowned out any conscious thoughts of rebellion.