American Messiah II
The gnarled and weathered face lay sleeping as a youthful group clustered about the room. They spoke in whispered voices so as not to awaken him. The florid quarters was festooned with floral arrangements and cards of various shapes and sizes urging his speedy recovery. A deep yawn and a stretching of his frail arms dropped a cloak of silence over the room. The group closed in.
The old man’s eyelids rose like a curtain to a theater of anxious faces. A steady high-pitched beep, like the caution signal on a truck backing up, was an ominous reminder of the patient’s waning health. Except for the row of blinking lights on the heart monitor, a single lamp offered the only illumination in the room, the dimness masking their worried faces.
“Professor, some of your students are here,” a soft but anxious voice uttered. “Is there anything that we can do for you? Is there anything you need, Professor?” The old man, in his weakened state, tried to speak, but the words remained locked inside. After wiping the sleep from his eyes, he gestured with his wrinkle hand toward a pitcher of water on the nightstand. With help, the old man sat up. Hand quivering, he raised the glass to his month.
After a few slow and painful swallows, grimacing from the pain, the old man managed to speak. “More light,” he commanded, his voice hoarse and cracked. Instantly, the shadows retreated and the room was bathed in brightness. Squinting from the glare, he scanned the circle of faces. “If I’m not mistaken, this is finals week. So, what are all of you loafers doing hanging round here?”
“For your full recovery we beseech the Eternal in hopes that we may once more drink from the fountain of you wisdom. Nor are we are alone in our prayers. Millions more across the country and indeed around the world share our prodigious thirst. Your masterful works, Chronicles of World History, has helped to liberate the minds of a grateful world. Many well-wishers tried to get in to see you, but were driven off by a mountain of a nurse.”
Bursts of laughter erupted around the room, and then just as quickly subsided. The old man’s parched lips fashioned a weak smile.
“Hospital security being what it is, how have you managed to stay pass visiting hours,” asked the old man.
“Well, let’s just say that we’ve managed to obtain special authorization,” the young co-ed confessed, with an inkling of mischief in her voice and a twinkle in her eye. The hesitant young woman glanced over her shoulder at the others as they encouraged her forward with nods of approval.
“I know that you’re not here solely to comfort a sick old man. If there is something that you intend to ask me, go ahead and ask, but be swift about it,” the old man grumbled. His snappish tone froze the young woman in mid step. Her face went blank. A slight chill pierced the air like the draft from a porous flat in January.
The old man, with a playful wink of his eye, expelled the awkward tension and plastered a glowing smile on the face of the flustered young co-ed. “Say the words that your heart bid you speak. I will not bite you,” the old man said, still savoring a lighthearted chuckle.
“My name is Catherine, professor, Catherine Donovan,” she informed him while inching forward to the foot of the bed, her eyes diverted downward. Gone was the nervous inflection in her voice.
“Donovan you say”
“Yes, that’s right.” Any relation to our illustrious Council President,” the aged scholar inquired with a prankish grin?”
“He’s my father, Professor.”
“Of course, please continue, lassie,” he offered with a thick Irish brogue.
“
“Professor, the history classes and spiritual retreats offered by the Centers for Enlightenment fall short of revealing what it was really like during the last days of the Old World.
The books are factual and informative, but there’s something woefully lacking in them. Perhaps they are too factual.”
“Yes…Yes,” said the others adding their voices in harmonious support.
“Your voluminous works, as well as the works of other great scholars, has been our time portal to the past. Nonetheless, the books and the lectures are noticeably silent on the subject of our deepest fascination.
Not that we’re questioning the veracity of the Centers for Worship, the Grand Council, or the nation’s honored scholars and scientist. Nor do we want to appear spoiled and ungrateful youth. It just, well, sometimes we find their scholarship a bit insipid”
”Insipid my ass, outright boring is what it is. The Master would have never…,” he stopped short. The old man’s voice was more spirited now, and there was a roguish glimmer in his eye. His mind was reaching back.
“I was young once; like you I yearned for more to life. That’s the way it is with each generation as they come of age. Probing minds and adventuresome spirits they are. I would love to divert the culpability, but I was a part of council of spiritual scholars who sanctioned our present curriculum.”
After a deep swallow and a glance at some of the others, the young woman proceeded.
“Our elders, guided by the enlightened council of our beloved Monrovia, have given us the priceless gift of lasting peace and abundance. No one wants for anything and every citizen is free and even encouraged to pursue his or her deepest passions. Man has evolved.
“The desire for competition and conquest has been cast off like old clothing. Utopia is no longer a syrupy theme poured from a writer’s pen in to the minds of the idealist. It’s not a drug-induced apparition conjured up in the minds of a discontented count-culture.
“Nor is it a dream we are forced to wake from. We are living the dream. In gratitude, we bow humbly before the wisdom of our elders and the grace of the living God.
“Nevertheless, we are waiting to hear your story. As I said, we have been greatly enriched by your lectures, but we have all detected the subtle evidence of another story, a story yet to be told.
“Rumor has it that you were a central figure during last days. Some say, you were close to Him, her tone more pressing. However, the holographic disks provide the same biographical material that appears on the jackets of your books. We know there’s more, much more.”
“Your words flatter me as does the spring lilies flatter the June sun, young Catherine. I am honored that so many find my work of some merit. Unfortunately, I am not altogether certain that I can still summon what your hearts and minds so eagerly long for.”
Activated by the old man’s voice, the head of the bed rose like a drawbridge, slowly with a soft soothing hum. His elevated view revealed a room filled with both familiar and long forgotten faces, all canvassing the same desirous look.
Two young women stepped forward from the others to fluff his pillow; gently leaning him forward and settling him gently back again. His head sank back into the pillow like the evening sun nestling down behind the soft, green foothills on the edge of barren plain. He lay there motionless, his eyes scanning the ceiling as if searching for the answer somewhere beyond the boundary of the small but lavish room.
As if commanded by an inner voice, the anxious gathering settled down on the floor, nestled on the receding windowsills, and positioned themselves along walls. In the few minutes that passed, no one spoke. No one dared turn away. Their eyes fixed on the sickly old man. Waiting.
Then, he leaned forward. After clearing a roadblock from his throat with a sip of water, he commanded the lights to dim. The room was instantly transformed. The half shadows returned and he started to recite from the final volumes: volumes already authored and spread in sequential order across the lectern of his mind.
“As the new millennium dawned, war and terrorism sweep over the planet threatening to topple civilization. Fanatic forces unleashed with the end of the Cold War reconfigured the dynamics of political and economic stability in the new era.
“What remained of a free America tittered on the edge of a dark abyss when the hand of the Lord God drew His children back from the edge of the apocalypse. God’s hand would take the outward appearance of a child Messiah.
“Like a tarnished coin retrieved from the depths of a watery basin and restored to its pristine luster, my faith was restored and my life profoundly changed by his words and deeds. My own accomplishments, while considerable in the minds of some, are but a pale reflection of His awesome spender.
“I was a young man then. A young man’s blood no longer courses through my veins. Thinning and lacking in sustenance, my blood lags and loiters about in abstention. The years has stolen my vigor, obscured my vision and nestled a silver crown upon my brow.
“Though my time on this earth is nearing its completion, my soul still burns with the intensity of the primordial sun, fanned by the winds of distant memories.
‘After the wars, the master entrusted me with the sacred chronicles, much of which was revealed in my earlier works. However, your insights are correct. There is a last segment of the Chronicles, which I had planned to publish. Ironically, the sinking sands of the hourglass that is my life have left me little time to complete the last volumes.
‘Although, we have not spoken in many long years, the Master’s voices still summons His weary agent into service. He paused as if reliving a special moment, smiled, and returned to his enamored listeners. His gaze appeared sharper and more attentive, his voice more robust.
“I will not bore you will another lecture; I too tire of academician formality. Instead, a tale would be more fitting. A grand tale. A tale of an enchanted boy! A tale of a boy destined to rescue a nation and to transform a world.
“I met Him when in the springtime of life. I knew him better than most. I was blessed to witness his extraordinary rise. You see, we lived and journeyed together through the deadly labyrinth that followed in the aftermath of the great upheaval.
“Here, my young friends are my recollections of the world, the way it was just before the launch of the present era. So many years have passed since He walked among us. Yet, His spirit is everywhere present. I will draw from this spirit now. Here is what I remember….
On the eve of the New Millennium beneath the once bustling city of New York, the Messiah drew his first breaths. His birth, in a war torn pocket of resistance against the manslayers, passed with little notice except for tiny spontaneous gatherings in remote parts of the country.
Yet, in the hearts of the hopeful all over the world, a star of faultless radiance appeared high in the spiritual sky. The star would grow in its brilliancy, relief against the never-ending darkness of wide spread suffering, hopelessness, and despair.
A clairvoyant sisterhood also gathered to witness the divine moment. A perilous pilgrimage, across a treacherous wasteland, could not detour the Sisters from their sacred journey.
Seers of all faiths and keepers of the mystical flame heralded his coming. A child brought forth by God to rescue America from herself, and to be an arch over the tumultuous waters of fear and doubt to a distant shoreline of supreme knowledge and volition.
Skeptical clerics marked him a false prophet, as they clutched tightly their crumbling world of stoic illusions and dogmatic perversions of the Word. When this failed to dissuade his followers, political powers sought the Messiah’s death. Nothing less than the pretender’s blood could satisfy them. Pursued by ruthless raiders, mountain commandos, and a massive army, the miracle child blossomed in to a shepherd of men and a peerless commander on the battlefield.
The boy savior ascended from the ashes of a collapsed civilization as a beacon of light for the righteous, and a final warning to the iniquitous. Those with ears to hear his message, eyes to recognize the countenance of truth and the pureness of heart to perceive the presence of the God in all things, gathered around the boy savior’s campfire as he rendered a God inspired dream for the world.
Displaying the mark of the lamb, he carried the heart of a lion into battle. Undaunted, he would assemble legions of spiritual warriors for a final reckoning with the soldiers of darkness. The seeds of his unconditional love and supreme wisdom would give birth to a mythos and spiritual order of unparalleled peace and prosperity.
Under the deleterious spell of materialism, the world had accepted the death of god and celebrated his demise. Pious pillars supporting the church shook and crumbled under the strains of scientism and technology. The last vestiges of fidelity blasted away by the twin tempests of political ideology and the capitalist paradigm.
Man placed his faith in the institutions of his own making. As his puny and atrophied social structures faltered, famine, war, and mutated viral strains claimed the lives of hundreds of millions.
Groping in ceaseless deprivation, man imagined himself alone. With no memory of his divine self, he sank deeper into the darkness. There he encountered an inscrutable presence. From the bowels of hell, it came bearing the gift of false deliverance. Many were deceived. His followers pledged their loyalty by waging a unholy war against the human race, placing the world in great peril.
Greed, the blind will to power, and the drive to enslave all of humanity became the unholy mission of these arcane lords. For centuries, the dark lords worked to raise the Anti-Christ to a place of worship. Toward that end, the truth became a lie and a lie became the truth. As long as their dark influence prevailed, humanity was cursed to dwell in a state of barbarism and war. With each planetary crisis, the powers of the Dark Prince grew, while hope faded.
As the new millennium drew near, this demonic order plunged the world in to a New Dark Age. It was an age that fostered the spread of ignorance, the perpetuation of fear and dissemination of misinformation. The world witnessed a period of unprecedented economic growth followed by a rapid decline of the world’s financial system. Behind the scenes, sinister forces worked to bring about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The world stood helpless as rouge nations and terrorist organizations tightened the hangman’s noose around the necks of a world sentenced to death and awaiting execution.
The floodgates of reason were flung open and waves of ignorance and loathing flooded the lush fields of tolerance and reason.
The beast first reared its evil head in the Middle East. It influence then spread to the West and the to Far East. NATO was dissolved. Economic competition and the resentment of American’s hegemonic rule over world affairs dampened her relations with Western Europe. Dozens of former allies routinely lined up in opposition to American foreign policy. America found herself alone, with the exception of Great Britain and a few Eastern European countries. Facing an increasing hostile Asia, where China and North Korea were mounting threats, America was forced to withdraw from the region. Shifting geopolitical conditions hampered the war against global terrorism. The cost of which was astronomical.
The world was had never been a more dangerous place for America.
But, even these daunting challenges were only the tip of the iceberg. Domestically, the great nation was showing cracks in its political and economic base. Whispers of discontent swelled into organized rebellion. In a climate of crisis and fear, mid-western states challenged the federal government’s authority and power under Article I of the Constitution. Acts of terrorism by domestic and international groups, unprecedented crime rates, and a crumbling economy compelled the government to revoke the Bill of Rights in favor of marshal law.
Faced with an insurmountable task, the beleaguered President called upon the Pentagon to guarantee internal security. When the central government’s police efforts failed to calm the escalating turbulence, there was a disintegration of confidence in the new government’s capacity to stabilize the besieged nation. As an undercurrent of panic spread across American, a splintered electorate demanded sweeping political changes. Only chaos ensued.
The nation began to come apart at the seams. Seeds of secession sprouted up in the Mid-West and spread like a brush fire through prairie town and big city alike. Washington’s powers continued to erode until it could no longer preside over the Union. Events began to spiral out of control. Anarchy followed in the wake of widespread rioting.
Fundamentalists fanned the flames of racial and ethnic paranoia helping to plunge the land into a Second Civil War. The nation fractured into separate spheres of influence. As the central government’s power continued to decline, so did the state of things. Hordes of lawless warlords, opportunistic mercenaries, and Techno-corporations rushed in to fill the vacuum of power.
A murderous and brutal autocratic government would rise up laying siege to Washington, taking the land of the free by storm. From it seat of power in Oklahoma City, New America would supplant old America. For the survivors, “…and liberty and justice for all” seemed a distant memory
Alone against the onslaught, a federation of divinely inspired Americans, led by a supreme sage, unlocked the gateway to a realm of infinite possibilities. The course of world history would be forever changed by the battle that was to follow, a battle pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil, with American the battleground.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
