The scratching of my pen becomes so loud that the kids behind me lean in to look over my shoulder.
“Does that mean that God is evil, because he uses evil?” He shakes his head and smiles. “No. God is good, both the adjective and the noun. He is our definition of good, our atomic clock, the standard of measure by which we draw all comparisons. If God does it, it’s not evil.”
Paul looks up from my notepad and catches my eye. His gaze is hard, his scruffy chin jutting. He gives me a stoic nod.
“So when you see the world burning around you . . . rejoice!” Spread palms. Beatific smile. “When you see civilization crumbling into darkness, praise God, because you are watching his work. He’s scouring the earth, blasting it clean in preparation for his Kingdom, and believe me”—his smile takes on a sly gleam—“you are not going to miss the house we’ve built with our clumsy little hands when he drops his mansion on top of it.”
I feel the eyes of a dozen young men and women on me, some staring at my notepad, some at my face as it reddens and trembles. Rage and grief are colliding inside me like lava and seawater, forming gnarled black stone. A clump of my peers remains around me as the rest of the congregation flows to the exits, and though no one says a word, I know the same thought is in all of us, hovering over our heads like tongues of fire.
I tuck my notepad away as the pastor walks past us, hiding my doodles from his curious gaze. He may have inspired them but he wouldn’t understand them. They are a new revelation for younger, stronger saints: houses, schools, refugee camps, all engulfed in flames, and a flock of spirits fleeing the earth, which is just a ball of black ink, without form and void, like it was in the beginning and like it should have stayed.
“What are you kids up to?” the pastor inquires cheerfully.
“Your sermon moved me,” I tell him. “I’d like to stay and pray about it.”
“We’re all going to stay with him,” Paul says.
“That’s good of you,” the pastor says, then downturns his smile into consolation. “I’m very sorry for your losses, all of you. I know it’s been a hard season.”
“What do you mean?” I say with a strange, trembling euphoria. “Everything we lose brings the Kingdom closer.”
He looks uncomfortable. “Right. Well. I hope God speaks to you tonight.”
He walks away, leaving us alone in the conference room. I glance from face to face, all of them pale and tired, eyes red from grieving and fighting and seeking answers that never come, and I see my own epiphany reflected in all of them.
I pull out my notepad and begin to sketch plans, and they crowd in around me like members of one body. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to the Spirit of God moving.
THERE IS NO WARMTH in this basement. No pleasant nostalgia in these old boxes. They lie in heaps as if tossed in a panic. Sharp objects poke through them and some are soggy with dark fluid. What was I supposed to find here? Why should I want these old horrors? There are plenty of new ones waiting outside.
I open my eyes.
The interior of the plane is calm. The soft drone of the engines. The pink morning glow creeping through the windows. Will this day look different? Are the eyes I just opened the same ones I closed last night, or did I bring new ones back with me? What does the world look like to someone who has sought to destroy it?
M and Nora are asleep in the row behind me. Sprout is curled up near the back, arms wrapped around her knees in a heartbreaking posture of fear. Abram snores in the cockpit with the autopilot engaged, his wounds neatly bandaged, looking rather comfortable.
Only Julie is awake. She slumps in the copilot chair, her pistol on the armrest. She notices me looking at her and her puffy eyes glint with defiance, daring me to judge her. After what I’ve just relived, the thought of me judging anyone almost makes me smile.
I step into the cockpit and lean against the instrument panel behind her. She swivels her chair to face me, giving me a blunt stare. “What.”
It’s the voice of someone addressing a stranger. Perhaps an enemy. Whatever I had to say evaporates.
She swivels back to the windshield. The sun is a small coal rising up from an endless gray expanse.
“Julie.” I step forward and put my hands on her shoulders. “I understand.”
“Do you?” she says to the windshield, and there’s a dangerous tremble under her level tone. “Because I thought you were a blank canvas.” Her shoulders are so tight they seem to be extruding spikes. “I thought you get to choose where your past begins and you chose the day you met me. Which is sweet and all, but it means you never had a family, never lost a family, never lost anything. It means you don’t understand.”