Oh, Sweet Rapture Wednesday, March 26, 2018. Allen Rudolph has been anticipating this date for years. Circling and re-circling it in his mental calendar ever since he stumbled upon it. The day he would finally be right. Allen woke up to the first ring of his alarm. He didn’t hit snooze, he didn’t lay his head back down. He had no time to waste. He hurriedly tossed off his covers. The cold air penetrating the room made his leg hairs stand on end. He paid the cold no mind. He dropped to his knees on the cold hardwood and began to pray. “Father, thank you for all of the blessings I have received throughout my life. Thank you for providing me with a strong conscience, and with this path to walk. Please forgive me for all of my transgressions. You know I act only to honor and praise you. Please forgive me for any coveting, for any hubris. Please forgive any of my ill intentions or arrogance. Thank you for this beautiful day. I look forward to meeting you and enjoying your bounty soon.” After a moment of silence, Allen shot to his feet. He quickly dressed, putting his right shoe on first, but first tying the left. He then moved to the kitchen and hurriedly prepared his favorite meal: two eggs over medium, six strips of bacon, two pieces of sourdough bread slathered with butter, and a cup of black coffee. He took each bite slowly, savoring the taste. He knew it would be his last. Upon finishing his breakfast, Allen grabbed his bible off of his bedside table and left the house. He decided to forego driving. He could reach his destination on foot, and wanted to appreciate his world as it had rested for so many years.
On his walk, Allen prayed the rosary. He reached the bell tower at the center of Temple University’s campus just before beginning its concluding prayer. For a moment, his mind wandered to the ironic, yet significant name of the local college where he preached. “Kismit,” he said under his breath. He sat on the uneven concrete of the tower and continued praying. “Oh God, whose only-begotten Son by His life, death and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life; grant, we beseech Thee, that by meditating upon these mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.” Allen took a quiet moment of contemplation amidst the hustle-and-bustle of the college campus. Beyond him, students chatted about plans for the weekend, complained about professors, or shared a bit of gossip. Some rapidly walked by, others stood around and smoked cigarettes. The near-deafening wall of sound became simply a dull hum to Allen. He was centered. Focused. He had no concern for anything beyond the confines of his own mind. He took a deep breath, clutched his bible tight to his chest, and stood. “Today is the day of reckoning, my friends. Today is the day that I have warned you of. March 24, 2018! It has come! The rapture is upon us! Repent and be saved! Or risk damnation on an earth torn apart by earthquakes, fires and floods. In just four hours, at 2 PM, the rapture will come and the righteous shall take their rightful position with God! They will enjoy his bounty for eternity! Be among us! Repent!” He could hear the nearby students mocking him. Usually, this behavior would discourage him. Today, however, he felt pride in his path. He knew that God was counting on him to bring them into grace. Allen recognized that it was his responsibility to bring them into the light.
For hours, Allen alternated between sitting and standing at the base of the Bell Tower. When he would sit, he would read passages from the Book of Revelation. Every twenty minutes or so, he would rise to his feet and deliver a passage that he felt was pertinent information for the students congregating around him. Often, he would provide them with his interpretation of the reading - a homily of sorts. He was trying to lead the blind into glory. He wanted to save them – they just didn’t want to be saved. “’Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world’ – Revelation 3:10. God wants you to persevere in the face of adversity,” he pleaded to a group of students that appeared to be more receptive than the others. “Your peers want to damn you. They want you to remain with them in this lost realm. I beg you, repent! Join in on God’s grace. Persevere and you will belong to a world beyond compare. You will experience grace unknown. Possess a bounty unimaginable. God wants you to join him for eternity, but he is a jealous God! He will save you if you accept him. Persevere! For it is your –“ “World looks fine to me, asshole,” scoffed a tall, slight, male student. He wore tight jeans, bleached hair, and black nail polish. Allen assumed he was gay or transsexual or whatever new “chic” way kids were deciding to blaspheme. “Please, do not let your own arrogance lead these people to eternal damnation. If you want to disgrace God, as you so clearly have, you may. But please, let innocent people have their chance at salvation,” Allen retorted.
The boy flicked a cigarette at Allen’s feet and smirked. “I’ll catch you here tomorrow, buddy. Same time?” He walked off with a group of other students, who all cajoled and laughed at his rude comments. Allen sat back down and returned to his reading. At 1:30 PM, Allen rose to his feet. “It is time to repent! Your last chance to save your soul for eternity! Our God is watching and he will cast judgment in a mere half hour! You have such a short time to save yourself for all of time.” Allen was proud of that line. He spent all night thinking about the perfect phrase to catch the students’ attention. “Rise with me in prayer, won’t you?” Apparently, word of Allen’s preaching had gotten around campus. A large gathering of students congregated around the Bell Tower. While he delivered passages from the Book of Revelations, the students mostly chatted amongst themselves. Occasionally, one would yell out a snide remark. “Maybe you’re the one going to hell.” “I hope this does end today.” “Fuck you, psycho!” One boy even went so far as to pull out a Captain America comic book and start parodying Allen’s preaching. Allen could hear him call it the “book of interpretations.” Allen was discouraged. He felt sorry for the students – and for himself. He was disheartened to see so many young people dedicated to their own destruction. He was also sad that his last moments on earth would be filled with ridicule.
Quickly, he curbed his selfish thoughts. He told himself that God would know he was doing His work. He would be rewarded for his perseverance. Allen checked his clock almost exactly every two minutes. It felt like time was moving slowly. He eagerly awaited the judgment. After 43 years of faith, he would finally reach the Kingdom of Heaven. At 1:59, Allen felt the earth shake. He stopped speaking. He knew he no longer needed to. The crowd of students that had gathered around him immediately went silent. He watched the blood run collectively from their faces. Every hair on Allen’s body stood on end. He bowed his head. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” As Allen prayed aloud, a few voices joined him. He kept his head bowed and his eyes shut. “Blessed art thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, AMEN.” A single tear ran down Allen’s cheek. He was ready to meet the Lord. He dropped to his knees. He could feel the earth rocking beneath him. He raised his eyes to the heavens and admired the sun, and the way its rays felt on his cheeks. He knew it would be his last time. When the earth’s shaking met a fever pitch, Allen was thrown off his knees. He hit the ground on his side just before slamming his head on the concrete. He was dazed, but still lucid. After a moment, he turned upright and brushed himself off. At once, he noticed that the majority of the crowd was gone. He thought his sight was failing him. He rapidly closed and
opened his eyes, slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was still at the bell tower, and only in the company of a few lost-looking students. Some of them stood in stunned silence. Some ran around, screaming. Others fell to their knees and wept. The chorus of cries, names, prayers, and demands echoed off the stone facades of the nearby buildings. It was a harrowing sound. Allen could not comprehend what he was hearing or seeing. He did not understand why he was still here. God’s judgment had come, and for some reason he was left on this damned planet. He told himself not to get angry. He knew he should not question God. He must have a plan for Allen yet. There was no other reason to leave a dedicated follower behind. Allen found his bible on the ground a few feet from the base of the tower. The rest of the structure had toppled over into the courtyard’s main entrance. The shattered marble now largely resided in a crack that ran from the street to the base of the tower. Allen absentmindedly wondered if someone was crushed beneath it. He stepped backward to the adjacent library, and eventually paused to stand beneath it’s half-intact awning. He rifled through the pages of the Book of Revelation, feverishly searching for a reason why he would be left behind. Was he left to judge the damned? Was God saving him for a soon-to-be-revealed divine purpose? “Shut the book. We’re fucked. We’re stuck here. Everyone is gone or dead, and now we’re here, and we’re still alive, but we’re dead, and we’re doomed and, and, and..” The girl’s screaming was punctuated by loud, guttural sobs. Her mouth moved, still trying to form words, but it only allowed for increasingly high-pitched wails. She rag-dolled into Allen’s torso, knocking the bible from his hands.
Allen could not speak. He did not want to agree with her. He did not want to acknowledge those fears within him. He awkwardly patted her on the back and told her he was going to observe the damage of the earthquakes. He quickly surveyed the area for the boy who flicked the cigarette earlier, but could not see him. As he walked through the deserted campus, he spoke at a conversational volume with God, pausing between each sentence to allow for an answer. “What is your plan for me? What do you want me to do here? I have served you all my life, I will continue to serve you as long as you want me to. Please, give me a sign!” Allen was crying and did not notice the foot-wide hole in the ground in front of him. His leg dropped in, and he tripped, slamming into the ground again. “Is this your sign? Is this it?” Allen screamed at the heavens. “Answer me, God! Please!” He lay flat on his back and surveyed the sky. The portending black clouds still hung heavy above him. Allen sobbed. He began to accept his new reality. He spoke to himself as he tried to work through his new truths. “Allen, God has forsaken you. You, somehow, are among the damned. The world is ending, and you will perish with it. You will live out the rest of your days with the unsaveable. You are barred from the promised land.” As he spoke, his crying increased in intensity. He was suddenly upright on his knees, pounding his fists into the concrete. He struggled to accept what he knew was fate. He was lost. He felt truly alone for the first time in his life.
Allen was afraid to stay outside in such a public space. With only the damned left in the world, he was in great danger. He decided to head straight home. He took the side streets and tried to stay as hidden as he could. Outside of his house, there was a crack in the street that looked to be fifteen feet long. His car’s driver side rear tire had slid into the hole. He went into his house and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. He threw open the curtains to try to get what little light he could into the room. He lay supine on his couch, working and re-working the world through his mind. He simply refused to believe that God had forsaken him. It was beyond the bounds of logic. He thought about what to do moving forward. “Nothing matters, huh?! None of it matters?” Allen shouted to no one in particular. He knew God wasn’t listening. He was busy with the chosen. Allen had largely abstained from drinking all of his life. He took heed of the drunk fools in the bible. He did, however, keep a few bottles of alcohol in the house for company, though he never had much company. Knowing that his actions no longer mattered, he grabbed a bottle of rum and took a big swig. He coughed as the bottle left his lips. He hated the taste, but he kept drinking. After a few more swigs, his stomach churched and he could not stand without rocking. “It’s like I’m living the quake all the time now, ha?!” he slurred, at nothing in particular. Allen had never been married, so he had never had sex. He was always exceptionally cautious of sins of the flesh. He wanted to try sex now, he just didn’t know how to approach a woman and proposition her for it. He hypothesized that in a world of sinners, prostitution would
be rampant. He grabbed a gold watch – a gift from his father – and an unopened bottle of vodka. He walked back out into the world, stumbling down his stairs. He took off, back in the direction of Temple’s Campus. He pictured the Romans’ destruction of the first and second temple. In his imaginings, God was with them, aiding in their destructive might. When he reached the campus, Allen decided to go west toward 22nd Street – what he knew as the bad part of the area. On his walk, he observed the remains of his world. The streets were littered with cracks, large and small, some at least ten feet deep. There were scattered belongings everywhere. Schoolbags, handbags, groceries, plastic water bottles, bikes, and an innumerable amount of other items littered the streets. The crumbling foundations of the surrounding buildings presented a serious risk. As he walked, Allen rapidly moved his eyes from the buildings, to the road, and back. He could not afford to be hit with debris, or to trip again. As his heightened awareness began to tire him out, he thought about how his observance didn’t really matter. The remainder of is life would be suffering, what did one more scrape or bruise matter? Allen, still stumbling, finally reached 22nd and Norris. He looked around for women. He saw the scattered belongings of dozens of people, but could not determine if they belonged to the heaven-bound or not. After a moment of observance, he called out. “Who wants to fuck me?” It was bold. It was very unlike him to curse. He felt a strange freedom in the words. It was certainly the liquor that had loosened his tongue. He did not have the confidence to utter words like those. They rang hollow, but they felt true. He stumbled over them, each word feeling
new in his mouth. This, though, was not the work of the liquor. It was shame, embarrassment, and unbridled excitement that clouded his speech. There was no answer. When the echo faded, he was alone with his desire again. He took off walking again, this time stalking the streets, hoping to find anyone who would take his offer. The first three women he propositioned chased him away. One with a handbag, one with a knife, and one flailing her closed fists at his head. The fourth woman he encountered, however, took the bait. “Look, I’m desperate. I don’t know what is happening, but if this is all there is, I want to enjoy the pleasures this world can offer. I want to have sex. I’ll give you anything – money, jewelry, alcohol – I don’t care. I just want to have you.” “I want it all. I want everything you have on you. It’s gonna’ take a lot for me to stoop this low, but fuck it, right?” “Take it, it’s meaningless. None of it matters.” The woman grabbed the bottle of vodka from his hand, cracked the seal, and took a swig. “Lets go in that house over there. My house is gone. I’m Mary, not that it matters.” “Of course this trollop is named Mary,” breathed Allen as she led him up the stairs to the house. When they reached the bedroom, Allen did not know how to react. He didn’t know if he should kiss her or hold her hand or remove her clothing. Mary, sensing Allen’s unease, took command. “Just take your clothes off and get on the bed. Come on! I don’t need to waste all my fucking time on you. This is a pity fuck remember?”
Allen undressed fully, leaving only his socks on. Mary pulled her pants and underwear down to her ankles and dropped onto the bed. She lay flat on her back and waited for Allen to proceed with the transaction. Allen’s mind raced. Waves of excitement, shame, depression, and embarrassment overtook him. He was nervous about the implications of a sexual encounter. What if she has HIV? Or herpes? When she gets pregnant, how will he be able to find her and his child? What will he teach his child about God? After watching him for a long moment, Mary asked “are we gonna do this or not?” Abruptly, Allen apologized and lay down on the bed next to her. “Just put it in already. What? Can’t get hard?” Amidst his anxieties, Allen totally forgot that sex necessitated an erection. He had always been so ashamed of them. He knew that God despised them when they weren’t contributing to a pro-creation sexual situation. There was a special shame that Allen attributed to the feeling of an erection. He had, over the course of many years, slowly coaxed his body out of having them frequently. Now, the one time in his life that he needed one, he could feel that shame rising again. This time, though, it was because the erection wouldn’t appear, not appear unannounced. “I’m just a little nervous, I’m sorry,” Allen sheepishly muttered. “Whatever. I’ll get you started.” Mary reached down and began rubbing Allen’s groin in a circular motion. The sensation of another person touching his penis made his skin crawl. It was not erotic, it was emasculating. After what felt like an eternity, Mary spoke.
“This isn’t gonna’ happen. You’re too drunk, or broken, or something. You can take back some of your shit. I don’t want it that bad. I don’t want to play with your old ass dick all day. I feel bad, but not that bad, and this isn’t getting anywhere.” Allen could sense anger in Mary’s voice. He, however, felt relieved. He hurriedly put his clothes back on without saying a word. “You can keep the stuff. Sorry about that. Have a good day,” Allen stammered as he backed out the door. Once he reached the sidewalk, Allen took off running. He ran a good five blocks before he got too winded. His chest was tight. His lungs were heaving and his eyes watered, stung with the debris still parsing through the air. When he got to his house, Allen ascended the stairs to his bedroom. He removed a gun from his bedside table. It was a Smith and Wesson revolver. He bought it seven years before, when his neighbor’s house was robbed by an intruder. It was simply for protection. When he would preach on the campus late at night, he would keep it with him in his bag. He never kept it loaded, but he kept twenty-two bullets in the drawer. He had taken six of them out once, just to make sure he knew how to load it. He removed the loose bullets from the drawer and put them in his pocket. He tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans and returned to the Bell Tower once more. Though he was still stumbling, Allen tried to retrace his exact steps from the morning. It felt like years had passed between those two moments. When he reached the Bell Tower, he sat perched in the same spot as before.
His head was spinning. He had lived so much in just one day. The highs of eternal life were in his grasp this morning. Now, he was drunk on a broken planet, hurling towards oblivion. Allen stood and fumbled in his pockets for the bullets. He pulled the gun from his waistband and began loading it. The first two bullets slipped out of his hand as he tried to load them. He let them stay. They weren’t necessary. After fighting the remaining four bullets into place, Allen dropped the gun down onto the base of the tower. He dropped to his knees and covered his face with his hands. He thought of the years he spent preaching in this very location. How the students ridiculed him for his faith. He could picture so many of them. He knew they were in heaven. In his heaven. They shouldn’t be there, where he knew he should be. He had always been so certain he was right. He was a pious man who lived to the letter of God’s law. Somehow, those kids stole it from him. He lifted his head and surveyed the broken concrete, the abandoned backpacks, and the broken benches. For the first time he had ever witnessed, the area was silent. Through the silence, Allen sang out. “Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name. Come and follow Me, I will bring you home. I love you and you are mine.” He could barely choke the last line out through his tears. He slid the gun into the web of his right hand. He pulled back the hammer. When he did, he pressed so hard that the steel left indents in his thumb. He pressed the cold, steel barrel to his right temple. He slid the gun along his hairline. His hand shook. His whole body shook. Allen took a deep breath, and broke the silence once more.