Famine

Chapter Nineteen

 Jonah spent the late fall and early winter on the lecture circuit.  During his Bible reading at home, he memorized scripture.  He grew to enjoy the comfort it brought him in the uncertain times he found himself.  Jonah has just gotten out of the shower when his door bell rang one morning.

   With a bath towel wrapped around him, Jonah answered the door.  Had he been caught?  There stood two special unit, uniformed members of Dr. Boron’s Committee on Social-Environmental Ecology.  Where were they going to take him this time or what could he have been seen doing to arouse attention?   He had been so careful every time he had gone out.   He was relieved that they did not lay hands on him without delay.  They looked more like they were taking a survey instead.  Now Dr. Boron was not about to waste time with his goons asking how many rooms they had in their houses, how many electronic devices, and by the way, how many Bibles did he have?

   “This is a routine sweep of your neighborhood for subversive literature.  I hope that you are not too inconvenienced today.” The uniformed sergeant took off his helmet.  “May we come in?”

   “Would it make any difference if I said you can’t?”

   “No.”  They stepped past Jonah with hand-held devices and asked some routine questions.  “Do you have a Bible?”  Not that he was going to confess it.  He nodded no.  “What do you like to read?”  He led them his book shelf he kept just for such occasion.  They were guaranteed to put readers to sleep.  On advice from fellow cell members, he had added some pornographic works to his shelves more characteristic of the hedonistic lifestyles of some of his neighbors.

   When they stepped into the kitchen, they scanned behind two empty bottles of Jim Beam whiskey in his trash can.  A teetotaler, Jonah nevertheless hoped that they would not examine them with too much care.  The same two bottles were there during the last routine neighborhood sweep.  How many time, he wondered, would they buy the unwashed glass with a bit of wine residue left sitting next to his sink?  If they smelled it and he didn’t have an empty wine bottle, then he could be at a loss to explain.

   Then one of the goons picked up the glass.  “This smells like wine, not Jim Beam Whiskey.  Why?”

   Jonah’s heart leaped.  He didn’t know where his next words came from.  “I had a guest over, and he gave me a sample of his wine.  It was Boone’s Farm.  He took it with him because I don’t like it.”  Phew!  He calmed down when they continued in his bedroom.

   They threw back a floor rug and found a small trap door.  Smiling they opened it and found nothing. With that, they gave up and headed for the front door.  One looked around at Jonah’s wrist watch.  He called attention to it.  “We forgot to look at his watch.”  His companion reached out to Jonah.

   “Give it to me.”

   “Why?” Jonah asked.

   “It’s routine, just like everything else.”

   The officer took it and held it closer.  “Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John!” he hollered into it.

   The sergeant said, “You’re too new at this.”  He took it and spoke again.  “Methusula , Joseph, Jeremiah, Isaiah.”  The names got longer.  “Azariah,   Jechoniah,  Tiglath-pilezer”

   “What are you doing, talking to my watch?”

   “No,” said the sergeant, “but some Christians have downloaded whole Bibles into their watches.  One of them was caught using a verbal password from the Bible.”

   “Bible?  What’s that?”

   “We’re looking for suspected Christians.  I hate to run in my friends, but that is what I have to do sometimes.  If we don’t do our jobs, Dr. Boron will fire us.  If we’re unemployed too long, he’ll turn around and freeze us.  We’re not really free after and the times are tighter than you might think.”