The Infection

“God damn you,” she sobs, tasting salt and soot in her mouth as they rapidly close the distance in great leaping bounds. “God damn you for what you’ve done.”

Anne raises her handguns in both fists and rains death upon them.

♦

Paul pulls a large sack out of the Bradley and curses loudly as it splits open in his hands and spills cans, bags of rice, water bottles, medical tape, hand sanitizer, tampons, mosquito repellant and a box cutter onto the gritty asphalt. Everything is coated in a sprinkling of soot. He can feel the ash settling on his hair and shoulders, finding its way under his shirt, mingling with his sweat and turning into a grimy paste coating his back. This project is converting him to paganism. Getting these supplies sorted is like something out of a Greek myth expressing the usual cruelty of the gods towards those who worship them.

He reenters the hot, dim interior of the Bradley, his back aching at having to walk stooped, and rummages through the three neatly rolled MOPP suits that he found earlier. The soldiers at the government shelter wore suits like this, and they had respirator masks. He finds one with the filter already attached and pulls it over his head. The inside smells like a men’s locker room and it feels mildly suffocating, but it seems functional enough. He no longer feels like he is breathing sandpaper. He raises the mask until it rests on top of his head, sits and lights a cigarette, tossing the match on the floor and coughing.

Where are you, God?

Paul has not prayed in weeks, ever since Sara came at him with her hands stretched into claws. He always found conversing with God directly a path to inner peace and unlocking the solutions to problems.

Why have you forsaken us?

He wonders if this is some type of test for humanity and possibly for him personally. If it is, it is not a fair test. Imagine a school where the students have to guess what the question is on a test before they give their answer.

Dear God, help me to remain your servant. I only want to serve you and glorify you through good works and spreading the good news of your son’s resurrection.

He thinks about that. What has he done to help, other than endless work with the shotgun? He wonders if he is still invited to Heaven. Jesus’ teachings do not appear to apply to this holocaust. Those who followed to the letter God’s prohibition against killing died fast.

He had been so close to giving up entirely. He remembers standing near a wall in the government shelter while the other refugees were being evacuated. The people crowded against the doors while Paul pretended to pray over rows of body bags lined up neatly against the wall. He intended to stay behind after the others left. He wanted to stay behind because he was going to zip himself up inside one of those bags and lie there, pretending to be dead, until God came for him.

Instead, Anne taught his hands to war.

God already ended one wicked age with water, a great heaping flood that covered the earth and drowned it. Then the waters gave and Noah, stepping down from his ark, saw the washed-away ruins of the great cities covered in rags of seaweed, the thousands and tens of thousands of bloated bodies half-buried in the mud.

Noah had been tested. And yet God had talked to Noah.

Speak to us, Lord. Tell us what you want.

He steps on his cigarette and thinks bitterly that perhaps there is a Noah out there, building his fortress for the righteous, and Paul is simply not invited.

He is no Noah. He knows that. He feels he has much in common with Job, however.

God asks Satan what he thinks of Job, a truly pious man. Satan answers that the only reason Job loves God is because God blessed him with riches, health and family. God gives Satan permission to test Job. First, all of his property is destroyed. Then a wind kills all of his children. Job continues to praise God, lamenting that as the Lord gives, so the Lord takes. Satan next afflicts him with boils. Sitting in cinders, Job laments but forgives God.

Finally, unable to endure, he curses the day he was born. He realizes his life has no meaning and believes there is nothing for him to do but die. He does not understand why God created man to suffer.

It is a good story. Paul can relate to all of it.

God comes in a whirlwind and tells Job that it is not for him to question God, as God is king of the universe, not accountable to his creations for anything, including their approval.

Paul had always thought that it was a cop-out, that God gave Job a terrible answer that basically boiled down to: I’m God and you’re not, so do not ask me to justify myself.

But at least it was an answer.