Peripheral Visions: Rupture

"Peripheral Visions: You sense them from the corner of your eye or in the soft blur of darkest shadows. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late."

Rupture

"Teddy," Alessa said, her voice distant and slightly garbled over the phone, "I really don't think I can save you unless you agree."

"Save me?" I asked. She was talking about more than my professorship, more than my tenure. We both knew that. Even before the... well, even before, religiously motivated extrajudicial killings had started taking place, and the nation's police departments hadn't seemed to be in a hurry to look into them.

Now, of course, we had gangs of young men riding around in the beds of pickup trucks, all of them wearing masks, all of them carrying automatic weapons, and all of them wearing camo that they got from military surplus stores. "Soldiers for Christ," they called themselves – "soldiers" who had never bothered to serve their country, but who now claimed to be defending their God.

Which was strange, I always thought, since their God was supposedly omnipotent, as well as being invisible and insubstantial. Whatever they were defending their God from with all those bullets, it wasn't armaments similar to the ones they were carrying.

It seemed to me that what they were actually doing was murdering people, not defending gods, or a god, or their god. Not that you could say so without risking a bullet these days.

"You know the situation," Alessa said, her voice almost pleading. "Please don't make me subject you to a board of review."

"Well, a board of review is for when a professor has done something wrong, isn't it?" I asked her.

"You know what the laws are going to be like," she responded. "The books you've published, the magazine articles, the op-ed pieces... you're going to be charged with blasphemy at the very least. Maybe even with atheism or insulting religious sentiment. Or, my god, incitement..."

"None of what I've written is against the law as it is right now," I said. "And last I knew it was unconstitutional to try and pass laws that could be used to prosecute people retroactively."

"That's beside the point, and you know it," she said.

"Which? The law? Or the Constitution?"

She was silent for a moment.

"Look, I'm sorry," I said. "I know you're not the enemy. I know you're trying to help me. But honestly, Alessa, I don't think any of us can be helped any longer."

"So you're willing to get fired? Arrested? Executed in the street?"

"If that's what's coming for me, then is there anything I can do about it?" I asked.

"Yes," she almost screamed. "Yes – there is! You can denounce your work, you can denounce the beliefs you once held."

"Except I still do hold them, Alessa."

"Really?" she asked me. "Teddy, I know you're a philosopher, you want to find and appreciate the truth. But it's obvious now that the truth has been there all along. A lot of people didn't believe in it... but now those same people are stepping forward, asking God for forgiveness, asking the tribunals to pardon their earlier lack of faith."

"And those tribunals, which have no force of law, are ordering their deaths," I pointed out.

"Force of law?" Alessa laughed. "There's only one law now, Teddy. The righteous have departed, the tribulations are upon us – "

"Sounds like you've been reading the book, Alessa."

"Of course I am. And you should, too. Go to a tribunal, quote scripture, they'll pardon you. They might even make you one of the tribunal members. Someone as high profile as you, making a public declaration of faith... of conversion? ? They would love that. They would love to have you on the tribunal bench. It would convince a lot of the holdouts that... that..."

"That it's all true?" I asked her. "Or that it doesn't matter if it's true, because the world has gone crazy and the only law we have now is the law of the gun?"

"The law of God," she said.

"Oh yeah? And where in the 'law of God' is there anything about committing mass murder?"

"The Old Testament – "

"Alessa, forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the whole point of the good news that it was new? And that it superseded the Old Testament? Wasn't that what the New Testament was all about? A message of hope, and salvation – an eleventh commandment that told us all to 'love one another?' Not slaughter each other?"

"I'm not a theologian, Teddy," Alessa said. "And neither are you."

"No, but neither are these alpha male murderers and rapists who have taken over."

"Teddy," Alessa said. She sounded close to tears. "If it isn't true, then how do explain it? How do you explain what's happened?"

"I don't," I said. "I can't. But that doesn't mean it really is the End Times, Second Coming, or whatever they're calling it today."

"The Rapture, Teddy," Alessa told me. "No one's pretending it could be anything else. They're calling it the Rapture."

***

I know about the Rapture. How could I not, after decades of religious types shoving their dogma down our throats?

Beyond that, though, I've read the bible. I mean, I've read the whole thing, cover to cover. And I've also read a lot of the gospels that were left out of it – The Book of Judas, The Book of Thomas, the Secret Book of John, all the greatest hits of the Nag Hammadi library. For the sake of completeness, I've also read the Q'ran, the Book of Mormon, and The Upanishads... well, most of The Upanishads. Maybe about half of The Upanishads.

So I know what the Book of Revelation says about the End Times, and I know what it supposedly says about the Rapture: That a day will come when, suddenly, the blessed will be called bodily to a higher plane of existence. Two women doing chores, for some reason in the same house, will suddenly be down to one woman handing the laundry on her own. Two farmers ploughing shoulder to shoulder will abruptly become one farmer, who will probably he happy not to have someone on the verge of crashing into his combine. Everyone not taken in that moment will remain on Earth to face the tribulations, as the Antichrist and his armies thunder over the continents and establish a communistic, atheistic One World rule.

Except we already pretty much have that, minus the "communistic" part. At least communists pretended to want to provide for people. The capitalist version is what we got instead, and the corporations that own every acre of land, every fathom of sea, every degree of sky make no bones about telling us mere mortals that we are owned, body and soul. We've already seen the arrival of the Antichrist, and his name is Legion; he's every dictator and authoritarian head of state. He's every ruthless, cannibalistic CEO. He's every whack job fire-and-brimstone preacher who holds a bible high but proves with each word he utters that he's never studied it. The Four Horseman have left their tracks on Earth's poor and huddled, with War savaging the world's poorest nations, Famine and Plague resulting from climate change, and migrants, in all their desperate numbers, fleeing Death only to find Death.

Oh, and the Mark of the Beast. The sigil on the right hand or the forehead without which no one can buy or sell or even be considered a legal resident of his own city. Well, we have that, too, in the form of mandatory tracker monitors. They're for our own good, of course. They keep watch over our vital signs so that we can receive medical or police assistance if we need it. They also, by the way, create an automatic electronic record of our whereabouts and activities all day, every day. Crime is on the verge of disappearing, or so we're told, except that crime is more rampant than ever. And sickness and injury are vanishing as well... which might have something to do with the way people identified by their tracker monitors as suffering serious disease or injury end up in front of the Death Panels for brief "diagnostic hearings" and then, well, just kind of disappear.

But I digress. We were talking about the Rapture – the global phenomenon that supposedly takes place before all of these tribulations. The bible makes it sound like the people whisked away were, or are, to be seeded in amongst the general population. The Rapture is supposed to be how we know, right as the End Times commence, who is truly righteous. The wise thing to do then is model your life after their lives, do the good things they did, so that after seven years of misery, seven years of the dictatorial rule of the Antichrist, you can join the ranks of the blessed, too.

The thing is, though, that we've been living under dictators, living in fear and misery, for a hell of a lot longer than seven years already. And the mass disappearance – about 184,000, they think, a far cry from the 600,000 or so that religious tradition predicted – wasn't scattered throughout the population. The people who vanished were almost exclusively wealthy and powerful – government officials, CEOs, families with names that appear on museums and grants. The very people, in other words, who are the perpetrators of our ongoing tribulations. I have a hard time believing that these are the cream of righteousness.

But the panicked and the fearful are easily swayed, and the ambitious – and sadistic – haven't hesitated to grab for guns, grab for power. Those who embrace the "prosperity gospel" are positively giddy. Now, they say, God really has shown that to be rich is to be righteous... no matter what you have to do to gain your worldly wealth.

Some of us are still questioning what happened, and the response to it. We've become targets because of our skepticism – targets for the death squads, targets for the newly-coalesced religious police, targets for harassment and assault, arson and government-sponsored disappearance.

Here's the question I've been asking: If this is the Rapture, the rescue of the righteous before the Tribulations come, then why are hard-working doctors and kindly pastors still here on Earth? Why did no one from the work force suddenly depart to Heaven – nobody's loving grandmother, nobody's sainted mother? Why no social workers or lawyers fighting for civil rights pro bono? Why no everyday heroes? They aren't righteous in the eyes of the Lord? In what theology does that make sense?

As I was saying to Alessa, I don't know what happened or where they all went, but I can tell you one thing: The Rapture, if that's what it was, happened late, and it happened all wrong. Why should I believe a single syllable of apocalyptic prophecy from an ancient, scientifically illiterate book? Why are we not treating this as the technical problem, even the philosophical problem, that it is? Why have we defaulted to religious mania, when the religion that supposedly predicted all this got so many of the details wrong?

***

I tried raising my objections to Alessa. She simply kept pointing to the hard, impossible fact of nearly 200,000 people have disappeared worldwide, all at the very same instant. There were plenty of witnesses, of course, any yet no one could describe what had happened; no one could say whether those who vanished did so in a flash of light or a sudden gap or darkness, or if they snapped out of existence or faded away. Somehow, whatever happened challenged the essentials of human perception.

To Alessa that in itself was proof positive of divine intervention.

"If it was aliens, if it was some kind of transporter like in Star Track, or some kind of evil death ray deployed by terrorists or a rogue state, then wouldn't there have been flames? Smoke? Sparkles?"

"Alessa, I don't know," I said. "But that's the key: The words 'I don't know.' Not 'I told you so,' or 'Jesus is coming.' The only way to understand something so frightening and strange is to investigate it, not fall to our knees and pray to it."

"No," she said. "No, Teddy. You're wrong."

"How am I wrong?" I asked. "Because the guys with bibles have guns, and having a gun makes you right?"

"It's all there in the book," she said quietly. "The disappearance of the faithful and the pure."

"You know what else is in the book?" I asked her. "The Four Horsemen on their phantom steeds, galloping across the sky." I looked out the glass door leading to the balcony. I live in a penthouse, so the view was good even from the heart of the city. Neighboring skyscrapers were lit up all around me, but I could see the sky, and it was clear; stars sparkled. No gigantic phantoms or blazing comets were in evidence. "And isn't there supposed to be a star that falls to Earth and burns the land and poisons the sea? I mean, that could still happen, but it sounds more like a nuclear missile or maybe a reactor-powered space station. And isn't the Moon supposed to turn blood red or something?"

"There was a lunar eclipse the night it happened," Alessa said.

That detail had been in all the news feeds. "Okay," I said, "so what have we got? Prophecy scores two points. What about all the rest of it? The Antichrist?"

We had talked about this already.

"Maybe the monitors are the Mark of the Beast," Alessa said, "but if so that just means that the Theopublicans are right and the Beast has been democracy all along... giving the people the right to decide, instead of trusting God. Placing civil law over religious truth."

I consciously said nothing, taking a deep, slow breath, letting my frustration bleed out in a long exhale. Alessa was scared, and she was my best friend. I wanted to yell at all the stupid, venal opportunists – I didn't want to yell at her, even if she was letting fear and superstition override sense.

She heard me collecting myself.

"Teddy, you can't argue with what's happened. You can't technicality your way around it. This is the end. This is the moment in human history when human history transforms into God's history. We return to the Garden. We become whole again. But our own stubborn will, our own sin, that's a cancer that has to be burned out of our souls... and that's what the Tribulations will do. At the end, the healed will be welcomed into a new Earth and a new Heaven, and all the rot, the corruption and filth, all human error and pride, all of that... it'll be ashes, dust, gone."

I clung willfully to calm. "So where's God?" I asked. "Where's the blast of the angel's trumpet? Where's the – "

Something caught my eye out the window: Something like distant rain, like falling snow, only it was bright, flickering, orange... sparks, I saw. Sparks in the distance, falling from the sky. Thousands of sparks, tens of thousands, trailing thin tendrils of smoke as they fell.

More sparks, falling closer.

"Alessa, do you see this?" I asked her.

"What is it?"

"Look out your window."

There was the sound of movement, shuffling, from her end, and then a gasp. "Teddy... what's happening?"

"I don't know..."

The sparks were falling closer, like a curtain of rain sweeping across the land as a thunderstorm moved in. Tens of thousands of falling sparks had become hundreds of thousands... at least, that was what it looked like. The Fourth of July, magnified. A veil of fire descending from above.

"Teddy, are they missiles? Like you were saying just now? Are we under attack? Is it Russia... China... Korea...?"

The shower of fire was approaching swiftly. Suddenly, a mass of fire struck my patio – then more – then many more. Burning lumps pummeled the outdoor table and chairs, set the big umbrella ablaze, shattered the planters and scattered flowers, shrubs, soil...

I stood next to the glass door, afraid that it might shatter but too fascinated to move away.

Then I saw what the burning lumps were.

"Alessa," I said, "they're bones."

"What?"

"They're... they're bones." I squatted, leaning closer to the glass, trying to see more clearly. Inches away, just on the other side of the glass, a burning lump sputtered, the flames now tentative instead of strong. The light from my apartment spilled out and gleamed on the scorched contours of what looked like a long bone. A large, long bone, like a femur... a human femur.

"Alessa," I said, shocked by the realization. "They didn't go to heaven. I mean, they went into the heavens, but... they didn't go to Heaven. I think they actually went..."

"To Hell? They burned?" she shrieked.

I pulled the phone away from my ear by reflex. Then I put the phone back and said quietly, "It's not the Rapture."

"But... but what..."

"I don't know, but..."

A voice spoke from the other side of the room. I looked up, startled, afraid. Who was in my apartment? A death squad? Vicious young men, scripture on their lips and assault rifles at the ready?

It was my television. The screen was awash in white light and streaks of static.

"People of Earth," the voice repeated, scratchy and distorted. Whatever had activated the screen hadn't powered up my home theater sound system. The voice was deep, but also shrill, thanks to the TV's built-in speakers.

I heard Alessa sobbing, calling out for God.

"People of Earth," the voice said for a third time.

"We're here," I called back. Could the person speaking hear me somehow? Were they waiting for someone to reply?

"See our work," the voice said.

"Teddy?" Alessa's voice cried, distant. I'd dropped my hand in shock. I brought the phone up again. "Alessa? Stay with me... stay on the line..."

"What's happening? My television just came on, there's a man talking.."

"Not a man," I said. I don't think she heard me.

"See our work," the voice repeated. "See our work."

I started to feel annoyed despite the shock and fear. Whoever this was, did they have to say everything three times?

"You were enslaved. We witnessed your suffering. We documented the suborning of your laws and your rights. We witnessed your suffering. We verified the guilty. We monitored and gathered evidence. We considered how to help you. We came to consensus. We intervened."

Alessa was still talking, but I'd dropped my arm again. I couldn't hear her. She would have to wait; I needed to hear what the being talking to us here on Earth had to say.

"Your world is in danger. The balance of your ecology has been upset. You know this yourselves: Those who enslaved you drove your planet toward ecological collapse. Your civilization would not have survived. We culled those who perpetrated the atrocities. We culled those who suborned your laws and your freedoms. We have given you liberty."

I brought the phone up to my lips again. "Alessa? Do you understand? It's not god..."

"Aliens," she sobbed.

"From space? From another dimension?" I asked.

"They're going to kill us," Alessa cried out.

"No, I don't think so," I said. "They're doing what they think they need to in order to save us... save us from ourselves..."

"We have given you life," the voice on the television said. "We have given you liberty. We have given you life. Repair your world, reclaim your freedoms. Thrive."

"Teddy?" Alessa said.

"Thrive," the voice repeated.

"Teddy, are you there? What's going to happen?"

I wait for it:

"Thrive," the voice said a third time, and the screen went dark.

I started laughing.

"Teddy?" Alessa cried again, sounding frantic.

"There it is," I told her.

"What?" she asked. "What is it?"

"There's the rest of the prophecy," I said. "Or the coincidence."

Alessa was sobbing, sloppily, noisily. "What coincidence?" she asked, gasping. "Who are they? What are they doing?"

"The Book of Revelations," I told her. "It talked about... about a third of the stars falling from the sky." I glanced out the glass door to the patio, which was covered in dark lumps. The bones were no longer burning. The aliens, or whatever they were, must have thrown the cadavers out of their spaceships... or their dimensional rift in the skies over Earth... or whatever they had used to come here. The bodies had disintegrated, burning, as they fell through the atmosphere.

"And the Savior," told her. "Don't you get it? The Savior will speak to the entire world at once. A voice from the sky..." I turned my eyes to the nighttime cosmos, visible past the skyscrapers, but all seemed tranquil in the heavens above. "They delivered a message of judgment – of righteousness. The owners, the ones to wrote the laws to suit themselves and punish everyone else... the ones who knew what they were doing to the planet, knew how they were killing the future, and went on killing it anyway... they might have fooled and bamboozled humanity, but they didn't fool the aliens. It was obvious what was going on, and who was responsible for it."

"So... so we're safe now?" Alessa asked.

I was still laughing. I couldn't help it. "No," I told her. "No, I really don't think so..."

***

Voices were back on my television, but that was because I had turned it on myself and was surfing the news channels. Most of the officials in the U.S. government (and governments elsewhere) had disappeared, along with the CEOs of all the major corporations, but the newly-installed replacements in Congress were busy bloviating.

"...won't be fooled by these murdering, godless socialist from beyond," one U.S. senator was saying.

I skipped to the next channel.

"And our exceptional nation will never bow to terrorists from either Earth or any other planet," a blond woman was declaring to a news anchor, an assault rifle cradled in her arms. The text on the screen identified her as a representative from Florida.

On the next channel, a red-faced man with a huge belly, flanked by several other red-faced men with huge bellies, held an assault rifle of his own. He also wore a bulletproof vest. He was identified as the governor of Texas, but I wondered if he might also be one of the death squad leaders. "...won't let Satan distract us from the Work of God," the man was saying, "and if the liberals think this is their time to dance, they better get ready for the next phase..."

The interim President of the United States appeared on the next several channels, addressing the "faithful" and the "patriots" of the nation. "Stand up," he was saying, "and stand by..."

A stern-faced man with gray hair was on the next channel. "Despite a lack of experienced leadership, we're determined to press on," he was saying. "My cousin would have wanted the stewardship of the company to be strong and steady at a time of such crisis, and I want to assure America that I, as the new CEO, will follow in his footsteps, continuing our initiatives and pursuing the same goals as good corporate citizens that we have always pursued.

"Our company, and business leaders across the country, will not let America down," the stern-faced man added, glancing directly into the camera. "The economy will start again. We support our country's great security forces, and we will help our domestic soldiers bring peace and order to the streets again. And the guilty will be punished – rest assured, we'll do our part to guarantee it. Things will get back to normal. I promise you."

The camera pulled back, panned to the right, and showed a smiling young woman. Her eyes were bright as she said breathlessly, "That's Winfield Kirsch, the new CEO of Wormwood Industries, who has already announced his intention to run in the next presidential election. And I'm sure he won't have any problem convincing the Electoral College that he's the right man for the job. I mean, I'd vote for him if ordinary citizens could still vote, wouldn't you, Joe?"

The view switched to the news studio, where the anchor man was also smiling. "Thanks, Jolene. And now we'll talk to some head coaches across the Big Five of American sports..."

I switched the television off. The entire apartment was now in darkness. I stared out the window, at the dark shapes of the burned bones, at the scorched patio furniture and the wreckage of my urban garden.

No, this was not the Apocalypse. It was so much worse. The gods – aliens who were as close to gods as this cosmos would ever see – hadn't taken the righteous; they'd taken the worst of the offenders. But human nature being what it was, they hadn't saved us at all. They'd simply opened up opportunities for those who remained. Our destiny had not been altered one bit.

I thought of Alessa, of her fear of Tribulations and her hope that on the far side of all our suffering there might be hope.

It was clearly more complicated than that. Of course it was. It was reality, not dogma or delusion or tribal poetry.

The aliens thought they'd saved us from our oppressors. What sort of beings were they, that they didn't understand the most obvious thing of all: Whoever they had deemed guilty and taken away, they had still left us with ourselves.

"Peripheral Visions" will return in 2022.