The sound of his phone ringing pulled David’s attention from his TV screen. He looked down and saw it was his wife, Leah. He swiped the answer button.
“David?” Leah said with a tinge of anxiety in her voice.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“I don’t know what’s happening. People are saying that someone bombed Toronto and there’s a man claiming he’s Jesus?”
David quickly relayed everything he had learned that morning. Leah explained that she had forgotten to charge her phone and it had died while she was at the park with their two children, Gordon and Nadine. She only heard about the events that had transpired after she took them back to her mother’s house and found her parents watching the news. For a moment David felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t thought to try calling Leah. He had been so enthralled by the scenes on TV and the discussions on the internet that he completely forgot to contact his wife.
“What should we do?” Leah asked. David was silent for a moment, standing up and walking aimlessly through his house.
“I’m not sure.” He replied slowly. He opened his fridge door and looked inside. It was mostly empty, he would need to go shopping soon. Even though North America had not been hit as hard by the famine gripping the world as many other countries food was still more expensive and difficult to come by. His job paid well enough that his family could afford to eat but funds were much tighter than they had been in the past. This year the police strongly urged people not to keep more than a couple days’ worth of food in the house to reduce the reward burglars might receive for breaking in. There had been stories in the news of people being killed over a few cans of soup and boxes of macaroni and cheese. Still, things weren’t as bad as some countries where food riots raged. A town somewhere in eastern Europe had recently made the news when a mob of lower class people numbering in the thousands attacked a walled compound that housed wealthy families. Mercenaries had been hired to defend the residents and managed to kill several hundred of the attacking horde before the compound gates were broken through and everyone inside was slaughtered by the starvation maddened people and everything edible was looted. David had heard rumours that some had even resorted to cannibalism. Just a few short years past he would have brushed them off as likely false, slander meant to make the hungry mob seem even more detestable and less human. Now, though, he knew how hard things were in these places of the world. People could spend an entire day’s wages and not have enough to satisfy their own hunger let alone their families. A man starving alone could do desperate things, let alone a man who spends every waking minute struggling to scrape together food that would barely qualify as a snack and falls asleep to the sound of his children crying from hunger pains.
“I think you should stay with your parents for a while, keep the kids out of the city.” David continued. “We don’t know how people will react to the explosion and the man calling himself Jesus.”
“Will you come too?” Leah asked quietly. David was silent for a moment.
“I… don’t know.” He said. “I will if things start to get crazy. But if they don’t and I leave my job, well, you know how hard it is to find work these days, let alone work that pays anywhere near what I’m making now.”
At first Leah was opposed to the idea but relented when David explained how they’d lose the house and how hard it would be to find work in the current economy. He promised that once they got a better idea of how society would react to the alleged second coming of Jesus that she and the kids could come back home.
“Do you really think it’s him? You know, Jesus?” Leah asked.
“I’m not sure. It might be.” David replied, rubbing his bearded chin thoughtfully even though no one could see him. “I didn’t think it would be like this. I expected that when Jesus came back everything would be changed all at once and I wouldn’t have to worry about going to work and paying a mortgage and stuff.”
David and Leah talked for an hour about their plans for the immediate future, what to do if this man really was Jesus, and what it means if he’s not. Eventually Leah said she had to make lunch for the kids and they ended their call after David spoke to his children for a few minutes. After the call ended David sat in silence. Normally he would spend the rest of his day off playing games, breaking only to quickly eat. Today, however, escaping into a digital fantasy land felt inappropriate. He walked over to his bookshelf and picked up his old, worn Bible and sat on his couch with it. He stared at the cover as the events of the day raced through his mind. He flipped the book open to Matthew and began to read. He read each of the gospels and Acts before skipping ahead to Revelations. The afternoon passed him by in what felt like an instant. He started to read the epistles in order, only stopping when the sun had begun to set and it became too dark to continue reading.
Rather than get up to turn on lights, David placed his bible on the coffee table gently and began to pray. He prayed aloud, begging God to give him wisdom to know how to care and provide for his family, to know if this man in Toronto was really His son. David found himself laying prostrate on the floor, his prayers became less formal and more sobs and vague declarations of his fear and confusion, begging God for mercy and guidance in the times ahead. Eventually David drifted off to sleep with the tear-soaked carpet as his pillow.
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