Famine

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

    Back in his living room, Jonah was devastated.  His sense of worthlessness was unbearable.  He knew that he deserved the treatment he got.  What Dr.  Joseph Hamilton Boron said about him was true.

   Jonah was a wimp.  Too cautious to be a danger to the present order.

   He had always played it safe.  It was far easier to hope in cryonics than to face death in faith in spite of his fear.  He was unworthy of Michelle, but she loved him so much.  She had carried on in triumph in a land that had lost its faith.  We could he not have had the courage to forgo cryonics and accept the inevitable a few weeks longer and enjoy her love until the end.

   Now he has come all of this distance in time just to find out that life is more than how many years that someone rack up as if on credit.  He called up his mirror and allowed a look at his shallow self.  He had learned a painful lesson.  Jonah couldn’t just click together his ruby slippers and say that there was no place like home.  He was home, except that it was not the home as he knew it.  He could not go back and be with Michelle again.  How would Jonah begin again somehow?

   Where would Jonah get the courage to live life in spite of the horror he was born anew again?

   He knelt down and asked God for forgiveness for denying everything he once said he believed.  Time after time he has proclaimed his faith to Michelle.  What if she were around and learned about what he had just done?  He cried.  His wailing cost him all sense of time.   Then he got up and sat down.  Still he felt all alone.

   Then there was a rapping at Jonah’s door.  He looked through the viewer of the door.  It was a serious-looking man wearing a metallic pullover.  Instinct told Jonah that he was concerned about being watched although he made no attempt to look around.  That would have drawn attention to him.  For all Jonah had been through and the promise of Dr. Boron, Jonah decided to take a chance on inviting his new visitor in his house.  He didn’t think this was the kind of agent he would send to terrorize him at home.  So he opened the door.

   “Jonah Mark?”

   “Yes.”  Jonah felt more at ease.

   “My name is Sonny Philpot.  I have something interesting to show you, would you like to see it?”

   “Come in, please.”

   Jonah put his finger to his lips so that Sonny would know not to speak yet.  He made small talk with him until he had taken him to a safe place where all sound could be dampened by electronic means.  Ho matter how sensitive a bur planted in his house or on Sonny, if he were carrying a wire, would they be heard by anyone but themselves.

   “Nobody can hear us outside a five-foot radius.  Now, what do you have to show me?”

Sonny pulled a cloth from his front pocket and unwrapped it.  He stood holding an old original photo with care from his front pocket.  He held it for a moment as if in reverence, much as he might handle a valuable diamond.  He handed it to Jonah.

   Jonah’s mouth opened wide, but he was unable to speak for the moment.  He smiled.  It was a photo of Michelle and Jonah both at a church picnic. He held it in silence, just remembering.  He smiled with unusual warmth as he looked back to Sonny.

   “You know, we were playing touch football the day we took this photo.  Her side was winning when we got rained out.  Didn’t you notice our wet hair?  I can still raindrops there even after a century of deterioration.  We got married  a week later.”  Jonah looked up.  “Thanks for showing me this,  I thought it was long lost.  How did you get--?  Never mind, you’re here for another reason, aren’t you?”