The
Rapture Approaches
by Jane Yager
Macalester College
Winning Story in the 2000 ACM Nick
Adams Short Story Contest
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Thank you, Silent Elk, for that kind introduction. I also wish to
thank the entire membership of the Brotherly Order of Elks Local 81 for
inviting me here tonight to speak about the Rapture. I'll begin by telling
you gracious hosts a little bit about myself. As Silent Elk said, I am
Neil Darcy and the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to become central
Pennsylvania's leading expert on the coming Rapture of Christ. I am neither
an ordained minister nor a university professor; I'm simply a layman with
a passion. By profession, I am a regional manager of Susquehanna Properties
in Lockham, a man of commerce like so many of you.
Some would call my studies of the Rapture a hobby. Let me tell you,
it's not a hobby for the timid. Just last week a group calling themselves
the Heritage Coalition invited me down to Elkton, Maryland, to speak about
the Rapture. So I get to their "headquarters" and it's just some fellow's
creepy basement, all decorated with pyramids of empty beer bottles and
Soldier of Fortune back issues. This Heritage Coalition asked whether God
would only call up to heaven those of pure German heritage, or would people
with some English blood be considered as well? When I was leaving they
tried to give me a Confederate flag decal for my car window. My good friend
Maryna, the office manager at Susquehanna Properties, nearly burst into
tears when I told her this story at work the next day. Maryna comes from
Poland so she knows where hateful sentiments can lead.
Another time I went to speak at a church up in Scranton. These folks
have built themselves an underground bunker the size of the Shippensburg
Mall. Bedrooms, bathrooms, even a place for growing plants under fluorescent
lighting. The whole congregation wanted to wait out the Battle of Armageddon
down there. They had a special new oven they were all excited about because
it was smokeless. I asked them why they needed a smokeless oven. "So nobody
starving outside will smell our food cooking," they said, "and try to come
inside to get some of it." I let the selfish fools know they all certainly
would be around to enjoy their smokeless oven because none of them would
be called up in the Rapture, that's for sure!
Yes, my travels have brought me to many shadowy basements of hatred
and fear. My wife Helen jokes that one of these days a militia of crazies
will lock me up in the compound where they stockpile their weapons and
she wonÕt see me again until the Rapture comes! Helen has a rather
dark sense of humor. She comes from Troy, Ohio, and it used to be that
every Halloween she dressed up as Helen of Troy. She draped herself in
a white bed sheet and wore an old pair of sandals spray-painted gold, and
she cut some ivy off the side of the garage and wound it around her head
like a wreath. One year a lady at our church, Mrs. Lund, started getting
on Helen's case about the Helen of Troy costume, telling Helen she shouldn't
be endorsing paganism. So what does Helen show up as at the church Halloween
party? The Whore of Babylon! "I am dressed as a character from the holy
Book of Revelation," Helen told Mrs. Lund.
But anyway, after the years I have spent cris-crossing the beautiful
hills and rivers of the PennMarVa region in the Darcy family station wagon,
after the visions, sights and wonders that I have witnessed, it is a darn
relief to look out across this hall and see such levelheaded and respectable
persons as you Elks. You gentlemen are wise indeed to plan for success
in the new millennium. After Mr. Logan's speech, we'll all know how to
protect our computers from any Y2K pestilence, and I'm sure Mr. Kapecki's
speech on Business Success 2000 has put the dollar signs in all our eyes!
But now, fellows, it's time for something a little different. You know
how to get your computer in order for the millennium. You know how to get
your bank account in order. But do you know how to get your soul in order?
Actually, I must clarify that the Rapture does not in fact have anything
to do with the year 2000. The Rapture can come in any year, though I must
say that the millennium at least gets folks thinking about these sorts
of issues, and certainly this "millennium fever" has done wonders for the
Darcy family bank account. In fact, my Rapture-speech revenues have allowed
my wife Helen to quit her part-time job at the Christmas Store and devote
herself full-time to homemaking. The Christmas Store was depressing Helen,
anyway, because it does not have any windows. That's how they make it feel
like Christmas year-round. Helen is of great assistance to me. She types
up my monthly Rapture Watch newsletter and helps me prepare my speeches.
She sets up an information and hospitality table outside each of my speech
venues. She did not help with writing tonight's speech, however, as she
is somewhat unhappy with me for reasons I would rather not get into. It
was a mere hour ago, just as I was leaving for this lovely town of Hammondsburg,
that Helen revealed to me that she had not prepared the speech. I find
myself in a bit of a pickle, but I'll do my best speaking from memory,
just letting things flow more naturally. I hope you good men will bear
with me.
Where was I? Oh, yes, I should begin by painting you a brief scenario.
Imagine a beautiful Sunday spring afternoon in the year 2000. Wife's been
getting on your case about overgrown grass, so you're out in the back yard,
mowing the lawn. You're mowing along, plugs in the ears, trying to avoid
running over any rocks or garter snakes, when out of the corner of your
eye you see a giant black bird floating overheard. You look closer and
it's no bird -- it's Zeke Stumpf, the Mennonite fellow from down the road
who runs the taxidermy business out of his garage. His black Sunday suit
flaps in the breeze. Into the sky Zeke floats, fading upward like a helium
balloon set free. But old Zeke's not alone -- soon the sky is full of people,
all shrinking heavenward on the gentlest of breezes. Who do you see in
the sky? Your daughter's piano teacher; the old guy who always plays Santa
in the Christmas parade; that sweet blond who works the drive-through teller
lane at Liberty Bank. It's all the best folks in your town plus all the
children and the babies and other innocent souls such as the mentally disabled.
Then who should float by but your very own wife in her bathrobe and slippers,
coffee cup in her hand. And just behind her your little daughter -- the
kid who only a minute ago was sitting too close to the television, slurping
the milk out of her cereal bowl -- bobs through the sky as easy as a dandelion
fluff. Soon all the people are so far away, they're just tiny flecks in
the clouds. A terrible quiet descends on the backyard.
What has happened? The Rapture, my friend, that was the Rapture and
you just missed it. You're wondering what you did wrong to get left behind.
Or probably you know exactly what it was. Not a good situation to find
yourself in. All the elect have been spiritualized up into heaven and now
things on earth are gonna get very ugly for those of you left behind.
There's no feeling worse than being left behind in the Rapture. In
fact, if there's any man who knows that feeling, it's Neil Darcy. I recently
made a horrible and irreversible mistake in my life that led me to believe
I'd been left behind in the Rapture. A few months ago I invited my new
friend Maryna to my house for dinner with my family. Maryna, as I mentioned,
comes from Poland. Back in Krakow she was a mathematics professor. Her
specialty was functions of a complex variable, but you can't always translate
job skills to a new country and now she manages the office at Susquehanna
Properties. Her office is two doors down from mine. She's a sweet girl,
but not such a good office manager. When she was supposed to hire a new
receptionist, she spent all day building a chart with different categories
for rating the candidates on a numerical scale, and a complicated formula
for tabulating each girl's score. I tried to explain to her that's no way
to hire a receptionist.
Maryna is a single girl alone in an unfamiliar country, sleeping
under an afghan in the rec room of her cousin's house; it must be difficult.
I was just trying to be hospitable, inviting her to dinner. It was Helen's
idea.
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