Judgment Day

Before the watery wall I stand,
a pane of glass between me and
flashy schools of myriad fish like sins parading
when a hammerhead impales my gaze.

I remember that one, the one
I should go to the gallows for,
before it pivots from the glass, as if
content to bide its time till the apocalypse.

Say, for an instant the earth quakes, the
glass cracks and another deluge follows,
the shark like avenging justice would seek
me out, for all my sins, for each mortal sin,

each like piranhas eating at my soul and
one long shark bite to crown the whole,
an entrée in the overtaking flood.
Would I call to that fool Noah to let me in

to his ark of gopherwood which we laughed
to see him build, four by fours, and two by twos,
the men and women kneeling to pray, now before
a Lamb slain, innocent blood, the promised Son?

The light dims around me, and for a moment,
the watery screen is empty, a gray shield,
a blank page to write my own fate sans God,
sans judgment, sans arks and crosses.

Maybe the fish were being fed on the other
side, a reprieve for me, “for my sins,” I laugh
and turn, when the hammerhead shoots out
of the murky depths and steals my bubbly grin away.

Continue reading →

Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt 
and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

Genre: Realism
Word Count: 100

Narrator: dorahak Background: Arctic White Noise and Wind (link)

Judgment Day

Cur Deus homo.^* Why? Blindly, we sail past the pinnacle of what we could be.

The cruise ship Earth is all fun and games. Whether the fun intended causes others misery or not isn’t part of the equation. The equation only includes playing gods, every individual for himself, the rich richer, the poor poorer because they were losers. Losers become slaves because that’s how the game is played.

Like the pharaohs of old, we will take the living into hell with us.

Out across the ice, I see Frankenstein chasing his monster. And the worm turns.

Judgment Day.

^*Cur Deus Homo (Latin for “Why a God Human?”), usually translated Why God Became a Man, is a book written by Anselm of Canterbury in the period of 1094–1098. In this work he proposes the satisfaction view of the atonement.

In its preface, Anselm gives his reason for writing the book:

I have been often and most earnestly requested by many, both personally and by letter, that I would hand down in writing the proofs of a certain doctrine of our faith, which I am accustomed to give to inquirers; for they say that these proofs gratify them, and are considered sufficient. This they ask, not for the sake of attaining to faith by means of reason, but that they may be gladdened by understanding and meditating on those things which they believe; and that, as far as possible, they may be always ready to convince any one who demands of them a reason of that hope which is in us.
Preface to Cur Deus Homo, transl. Sidney Dean in St. Anselm