Giskard
Only human
So, a few years ago I wrote SHIFT. Life happens. I was working about 55 hours per week in Retail Management, in Las Vegas. Had to get out of Vegas. Because, it's Vegas! Moved my family about 2,000 miles to East Tennessee. We LOVE it here. Any craziness that comes up my road will mean a heck of a lot of racket from many, many guns. Since then, I have semi-retired and have every intention of writing a sequel to my well-read novel SHIFT in a challenging style. I'm probably crazy, but I want to attempt an entire novel in the First Person, from the perspective of Sandy, alone.
Here's the thing. Though I liked the idea of the Left Behind series, I was never too keen on the execution, the cheesy names and dialog... What I have decided to do is take a very different approach from the norm, yet not run counter to a normal, straightforward reading of the chapters in Revelation that cover the extraordinary tribulational events from chapters six through nineteen. What would it be like to live through these events if taken as straightforward and literal as possible (except of course the parts that are most demonstratively symbolic... Like a dragon with seven heads and ten horns, etc.).
So I am thrusting characters from that first book into this scenario. Now I know... it begs to have a filler book in between... which I may do eventually. Meantime, here is an End Times scenario reworking what being Left Behind might be like from a different perspective.
She was certain of a broken rib or two. Cracked at the least. When first she came to, Sandy thought someone had a knee in her back. As the fog receded from her mind, she considered her surroundings, the condition of her room, her state of undress and the various parts of her body that were screaming at her for remission.
Sandy became aware beyond the walls. Someone's shouting. She became alarmed and not sure whether she was more frightful of her health or her state of nakedness when discovered by well-intentioned men and perhaps children. She lamely snorted a little laugh when she realized she was thinking she should be as quiet as possible so those people would not discover a naked woman under the rubble. Her little snort rewarded her with a well-deserved skewer to her left side. The keen of pain she emitted elicited a shush from someone a few feet away.
Odd thing was she could not immediately recall why she had neither robe nor towel, though she was still damp. Their house was broken, she knew that much. Her house, she corrected herself. She winced, not with physical pain but with the jarring memory she once shared this humble craftsman home with Danny, her husband gone an eternity ago. At least the recall of this hateful truth only stabbed her in the heart only occasionally now. It used to be a hundred times a day.
Sandy distracted her mind from the pain by concentrating on the chain of events, seeing her pinned naked to the floor like a not-so-elegant butterfly. Guaranteed, she will never again pick up that hobby. Oh! The explosion! That was it. She had been showering after a jog when a thundering crash shook the floor. It came from the front of the house so she thought there must have been a terrible accident and someone would need help. She had intended to dash into her room and drag her jeans and a shirt on so she could check outside. She'd made it no further than her bedroom doorway when a second explosion threw her and the lights went out; or rather her lights went out. Darn. I left the water running.
The spear of pain was abating, and her world softening into clarity. Someone was digging and dragging debris around her. Her room suddenly brightened with someone dragging something out of her vision. With one ear pressed to the floor, she could not yet tell from what direction the sound was coming. Not until she felt the cold draft across her legs and backside. That figures.
“Over here!”
A woman's voice. Thank God.
“Get me that moving blanket over there! Careful where you step,” more softly.
Sandy tried mightily to turn her head to see her rescuer, but was denied. She felt the blanket mercifully drop over her. She could hear them stepping around, careful to avoid misplaced weight to whatever debris had Sandy buried.
“Can you hear me? Are you okay?” the woman asked. She sounded older.
“Yeah. Ribs,” was all Sandy managed.
“Okay, well hang on. There's a chunk of wall across your back and the rest is a doorway, so I think we can pry it up a bit and ease you carefully backward so we can pick you up. We're going to go nice and slow so's not to hurt your ribs too much if we can. Okay?”
Sandy nodded, and then realized she was being an idiot because the nice lady probably couldn't see her head, so she responded, “Okay. Thank you.” Literally, a great weight lifted off Sandy's shoulders while hands around her ankles dragged her carefully backward through her dislodged bedroom door. This made for a fresh hell of pain. Acrid smoke forced its way into her nostrils to cause another coughing spasm. At least three pair of hands carefully turned her and lifted her up and away from her room. The ceiling was partially gone, but the sky was blue and beautiful through the wisps of smoke snaking upward. She felt safe through the pain, warm through the pain, but aware she was shivering. She became suddenly sleepy and recognized this as shock. She heard an ambulance siren as she nodded off to the welcome inhalation of sweet, heaven-sent air.
Sandy awoke to the sounds of distant screams and the rhythmic beeps of medical equipment, but before she opened her eyes she realized the ambulance was not moving. In addition, the air was stale and redolent with antiseptics. She squinted against the harsh lighting and recognized time had taken her way beyond ambulance and now to a hospital room. She raised her head a bit and saw she shared her room with another, but could not tell who was beyond the drawn curtain.
The tube in her arm informed her saline was hydrating her and probably medicated against pain. She reached and could feel binding around her ribs. What the heck! She wondered if she slept through a surgery. How long? Hours? Days? Looking at the dutifully vigilant monitor next to her bed offered her no clues. If she were educated in nursing, no doubt some reading or other on the display would offer a clue how long she has been tethered to this machine.
That's right about when the gunfire began. It was the real deal and not the too-loud-TV sort of gunfire, but the kind you can viscerally feel in the air as the concussive rounds rattled the walls and windows. If gunfire did not tell her enough, then the uptick of panic-screams in the hallway confirmed reality. So bizarre and out-of-context did this seem, she was questioning whether she was experiencing a post-surgical, drug-induced illusion that made some TV cop show sound real. She had no prior experience with which to compare.
The shooting did not abate and the panic-screams increased. Sandy was alert enough to realize she was in very real danger. She grabbed the bed rail, prepared for the same shaft of pain as before, but was pleasantly surprised to feel not more than a muted ache. Wow. Good stuff! Must be morphine. She knew if she were not cautious, she could damage herself greatly, pain or not. It would be all she needed to fall to the floor gurgling on blood from an errant rib gouging into her lung. She must risk the rib into her lung, or a bullet. Neither prospect was a preferred road to post-surgical recovery.
Before she hardly recognized the fact, her bare feet were already on the floor. Again, a draft of air hit her backside. I can't keep my rear end covered these days, she mused. She grabbed the rolling hat rack thingy of fluids and shuffled toward what she hoped as heck was the bathroom door and not the door to the hall. No light beneath told her Door Number One must be the correct choice, and it was. She flicked on the light and found a blessed, backside-covering robe on a hook. There is a God!
Outside, the shooter continued close enough she heard him punctuating his nonsensical screams with gunshots.
“It's too late!” Bang!
“You don't get it!” Bang!
“It's all too late!” Bang!
“We're done here!” Bang!
“They're all gone, and we are done!” Bang!
The last shot emitted a Pock! as it punched a ragged hole in the wall above her head. Sandy slid to the floor. All the rounds sounded like they were hitting hard targets, which she took as a good sign. Either he didn't intend to hit anyone... yet... or he was a terrible shot. Sandy shook, whether from the cold floor or panic-shock. She heard more voices shouting, either security or police, yelling for the shooter to get down, drop the weapon, over and over. Then more shooting, followed by screaming only. At least the shooting stopped. Only then did Sandy realize she had her ears in a vice grip between both hands, pressing till her ears burned and wrists ached.
Sandy let her arms drop, and she flexed her fingers to regain blood flow. She then heard someone enter through the door of her room, or maybe her roommate was opening the door. She didn't know, but she decided it was time to ease up and out to regain her bearings. What manner of day had befallen her? After her harrowing experience years ago, she had clung to dull and boring normal, like a babe nursing milk. She desired it still. The past however many hours remained a hopscotch of consciousness and all mystery. She swung the bathroom door open and yelped, surprised by the nurse standing there about to check the bathroom.
“Alicia” was the name on the badge but no last name for privacy reasons, it is assumed. “Oh! I'm sorry,” Alicia said. “I was checking rooms to make sure everyone was okay, and when I saw your empty bed...”
“I'm fine, I think. What is happening out there? What's going on?”
“Man, that was scary! Some guy with a gun I'm not too sure how he got it in here or why. Someone said they thought he was a cop. Didn't hit anyone, thank God. He seemed like he wanted to shoot himself but couldn't manage.” Alicia was shaken. She collected herself and managed, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't be saying anything, probably.”
“I heard all the shooting afterward, so I assume they got him.”
“Yeah, it's a mess so please return to your bed. Someone will be around to...”
“Suicide by cop? Was he distraught because someone died or something?” Sandy wanted to know.
The look frozen on Alicia's face said nothing more than indecision, but the eyes... Her eyes were haunted? Not quite. More like confused or bewildered. Like she had not yet herself processed events. It wasn't really that Alicia didn't know. Sandy decided Alicia knew, but did not know how to frame her words. Doubt was what Sandy saw in Alicia's eyes, colored with confusion. Sandy thought that odd, because you either know what you saw or did not.
“Please. Return to your bed before you hurt yourself. I am sure someone will release some kind of statement soon, okay?”
It was not okay, but when Sandy nodded and moved as though to be the good little compliant patient, Alicia hurriedly ducked out the door. Sandy diverted to the door for a peek. What she found in the halls was mayhem. Not the funny insurance character, but the brutal kind. Blood, a police photographer, and stunned, tearful faces on patients and medical staff. Civilians shuffled about, were sitting on the floor. Shockproof nurses hurried about on various tasks. A gurney with a sheet over the shooter had a young kid, probably still a teen, conveying it toward an elevator. Two nurses at the counter were going over clipboards. As one ran down a list of room numbers, the other was reading off her own list, “Present. Present. Missing. Present. Missing. Present....”
Odd. Missing? She was not seeing any more bodies carried out, and no one moves that fast. It struck Sandy this was what the shooter had said too. They're all gone. Who? Missing? This guy was well and truly messed up.
A woman across the hall was ranting in hysterics, but Sandy couldn't make much out until Alicia opened the door to back out. Two women were in an embrace next to an empty bed and the one in hysterics was sobbing, “We should have listened!” She drew out long for emphasis. “I was right there when he went. It was the rapture! The rapture and we didn't listen!”
As Nurse Alicia eased the door closed, the other lady was saying, “Honey, that can't be! Look, no clothes or nothing left in the bed like they say. See? Did you see him leave?” The door closed.
Here's the thing. Though I liked the idea of the Left Behind series, I was never too keen on the execution, the cheesy names and dialog... What I have decided to do is take a very different approach from the norm, yet not run counter to a normal, straightforward reading of the chapters in Revelation that cover the extraordinary tribulational events from chapters six through nineteen. What would it be like to live through these events if taken as straightforward and literal as possible (except of course the parts that are most demonstratively symbolic... Like a dragon with seven heads and ten horns, etc.).
So I am thrusting characters from that first book into this scenario. Now I know... it begs to have a filler book in between... which I may do eventually. Meantime, here is an End Times scenario reworking what being Left Behind might be like from a different perspective.
REVELATION
IN THE TWINKLING
1
Sandy could not breathe. She lay pinned to the floor, naked and alone in her bedroom. Fine motes of silt glittered over her in golden stars as they settled around her. She coughed and scattered them in a nova of life-giving air. A gasp introduced fire into her lungs and a spasm of more coughs. She embraced the life-assuring pain aware that she was well and truly woke. Woke in more ways than this.IN THE TWINKLING
1
She was certain of a broken rib or two. Cracked at the least. When first she came to, Sandy thought someone had a knee in her back. As the fog receded from her mind, she considered her surroundings, the condition of her room, her state of undress and the various parts of her body that were screaming at her for remission.
Sandy became aware beyond the walls. Someone's shouting. She became alarmed and not sure whether she was more frightful of her health or her state of nakedness when discovered by well-intentioned men and perhaps children. She lamely snorted a little laugh when she realized she was thinking she should be as quiet as possible so those people would not discover a naked woman under the rubble. Her little snort rewarded her with a well-deserved skewer to her left side. The keen of pain she emitted elicited a shush from someone a few feet away.
Odd thing was she could not immediately recall why she had neither robe nor towel, though she was still damp. Their house was broken, she knew that much. Her house, she corrected herself. She winced, not with physical pain but with the jarring memory she once shared this humble craftsman home with Danny, her husband gone an eternity ago. At least the recall of this hateful truth only stabbed her in the heart only occasionally now. It used to be a hundred times a day.
Sandy distracted her mind from the pain by concentrating on the chain of events, seeing her pinned naked to the floor like a not-so-elegant butterfly. Guaranteed, she will never again pick up that hobby. Oh! The explosion! That was it. She had been showering after a jog when a thundering crash shook the floor. It came from the front of the house so she thought there must have been a terrible accident and someone would need help. She had intended to dash into her room and drag her jeans and a shirt on so she could check outside. She'd made it no further than her bedroom doorway when a second explosion threw her and the lights went out; or rather her lights went out. Darn. I left the water running.
The spear of pain was abating, and her world softening into clarity. Someone was digging and dragging debris around her. Her room suddenly brightened with someone dragging something out of her vision. With one ear pressed to the floor, she could not yet tell from what direction the sound was coming. Not until she felt the cold draft across her legs and backside. That figures.
“Over here!”
A woman's voice. Thank God.
“Get me that moving blanket over there! Careful where you step,” more softly.
Sandy tried mightily to turn her head to see her rescuer, but was denied. She felt the blanket mercifully drop over her. She could hear them stepping around, careful to avoid misplaced weight to whatever debris had Sandy buried.
“Can you hear me? Are you okay?” the woman asked. She sounded older.
“Yeah. Ribs,” was all Sandy managed.
“Okay, well hang on. There's a chunk of wall across your back and the rest is a doorway, so I think we can pry it up a bit and ease you carefully backward so we can pick you up. We're going to go nice and slow so's not to hurt your ribs too much if we can. Okay?”
Sandy nodded, and then realized she was being an idiot because the nice lady probably couldn't see her head, so she responded, “Okay. Thank you.” Literally, a great weight lifted off Sandy's shoulders while hands around her ankles dragged her carefully backward through her dislodged bedroom door. This made for a fresh hell of pain. Acrid smoke forced its way into her nostrils to cause another coughing spasm. At least three pair of hands carefully turned her and lifted her up and away from her room. The ceiling was partially gone, but the sky was blue and beautiful through the wisps of smoke snaking upward. She felt safe through the pain, warm through the pain, but aware she was shivering. She became suddenly sleepy and recognized this as shock. She heard an ambulance siren as she nodded off to the welcome inhalation of sweet, heaven-sent air.
Sandy awoke to the sounds of distant screams and the rhythmic beeps of medical equipment, but before she opened her eyes she realized the ambulance was not moving. In addition, the air was stale and redolent with antiseptics. She squinted against the harsh lighting and recognized time had taken her way beyond ambulance and now to a hospital room. She raised her head a bit and saw she shared her room with another, but could not tell who was beyond the drawn curtain.
The tube in her arm informed her saline was hydrating her and probably medicated against pain. She reached and could feel binding around her ribs. What the heck! She wondered if she slept through a surgery. How long? Hours? Days? Looking at the dutifully vigilant monitor next to her bed offered her no clues. If she were educated in nursing, no doubt some reading or other on the display would offer a clue how long she has been tethered to this machine.
That's right about when the gunfire began. It was the real deal and not the too-loud-TV sort of gunfire, but the kind you can viscerally feel in the air as the concussive rounds rattled the walls and windows. If gunfire did not tell her enough, then the uptick of panic-screams in the hallway confirmed reality. So bizarre and out-of-context did this seem, she was questioning whether she was experiencing a post-surgical, drug-induced illusion that made some TV cop show sound real. She had no prior experience with which to compare.
The shooting did not abate and the panic-screams increased. Sandy was alert enough to realize she was in very real danger. She grabbed the bed rail, prepared for the same shaft of pain as before, but was pleasantly surprised to feel not more than a muted ache. Wow. Good stuff! Must be morphine. She knew if she were not cautious, she could damage herself greatly, pain or not. It would be all she needed to fall to the floor gurgling on blood from an errant rib gouging into her lung. She must risk the rib into her lung, or a bullet. Neither prospect was a preferred road to post-surgical recovery.
Before she hardly recognized the fact, her bare feet were already on the floor. Again, a draft of air hit her backside. I can't keep my rear end covered these days, she mused. She grabbed the rolling hat rack thingy of fluids and shuffled toward what she hoped as heck was the bathroom door and not the door to the hall. No light beneath told her Door Number One must be the correct choice, and it was. She flicked on the light and found a blessed, backside-covering robe on a hook. There is a God!
Outside, the shooter continued close enough she heard him punctuating his nonsensical screams with gunshots.
“It's too late!” Bang!
“You don't get it!” Bang!
“It's all too late!” Bang!
“We're done here!” Bang!
“They're all gone, and we are done!” Bang!
The last shot emitted a Pock! as it punched a ragged hole in the wall above her head. Sandy slid to the floor. All the rounds sounded like they were hitting hard targets, which she took as a good sign. Either he didn't intend to hit anyone... yet... or he was a terrible shot. Sandy shook, whether from the cold floor or panic-shock. She heard more voices shouting, either security or police, yelling for the shooter to get down, drop the weapon, over and over. Then more shooting, followed by screaming only. At least the shooting stopped. Only then did Sandy realize she had her ears in a vice grip between both hands, pressing till her ears burned and wrists ached.
Sandy let her arms drop, and she flexed her fingers to regain blood flow. She then heard someone enter through the door of her room, or maybe her roommate was opening the door. She didn't know, but she decided it was time to ease up and out to regain her bearings. What manner of day had befallen her? After her harrowing experience years ago, she had clung to dull and boring normal, like a babe nursing milk. She desired it still. The past however many hours remained a hopscotch of consciousness and all mystery. She swung the bathroom door open and yelped, surprised by the nurse standing there about to check the bathroom.
“Alicia” was the name on the badge but no last name for privacy reasons, it is assumed. “Oh! I'm sorry,” Alicia said. “I was checking rooms to make sure everyone was okay, and when I saw your empty bed...”
“I'm fine, I think. What is happening out there? What's going on?”
“Man, that was scary! Some guy with a gun I'm not too sure how he got it in here or why. Someone said they thought he was a cop. Didn't hit anyone, thank God. He seemed like he wanted to shoot himself but couldn't manage.” Alicia was shaken. She collected herself and managed, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't be saying anything, probably.”
“I heard all the shooting afterward, so I assume they got him.”
“Yeah, it's a mess so please return to your bed. Someone will be around to...”
“Suicide by cop? Was he distraught because someone died or something?” Sandy wanted to know.
The look frozen on Alicia's face said nothing more than indecision, but the eyes... Her eyes were haunted? Not quite. More like confused or bewildered. Like she had not yet herself processed events. It wasn't really that Alicia didn't know. Sandy decided Alicia knew, but did not know how to frame her words. Doubt was what Sandy saw in Alicia's eyes, colored with confusion. Sandy thought that odd, because you either know what you saw or did not.
“Please. Return to your bed before you hurt yourself. I am sure someone will release some kind of statement soon, okay?”
It was not okay, but when Sandy nodded and moved as though to be the good little compliant patient, Alicia hurriedly ducked out the door. Sandy diverted to the door for a peek. What she found in the halls was mayhem. Not the funny insurance character, but the brutal kind. Blood, a police photographer, and stunned, tearful faces on patients and medical staff. Civilians shuffled about, were sitting on the floor. Shockproof nurses hurried about on various tasks. A gurney with a sheet over the shooter had a young kid, probably still a teen, conveying it toward an elevator. Two nurses at the counter were going over clipboards. As one ran down a list of room numbers, the other was reading off her own list, “Present. Present. Missing. Present. Missing. Present....”
Odd. Missing? She was not seeing any more bodies carried out, and no one moves that fast. It struck Sandy this was what the shooter had said too. They're all gone. Who? Missing? This guy was well and truly messed up.
A woman across the hall was ranting in hysterics, but Sandy couldn't make much out until Alicia opened the door to back out. Two women were in an embrace next to an empty bed and the one in hysterics was sobbing, “We should have listened!” She drew out long for emphasis. “I was right there when he went. It was the rapture! The rapture and we didn't listen!”
As Nurse Alicia eased the door closed, the other lady was saying, “Honey, that can't be! Look, no clothes or nothing left in the bed like they say. See? Did you see him leave?” The door closed.
(cont.)
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