Day 3, 9:15 am
Sunday, 31 March 2233
Denman Glacier, East Antarctica
Apollos sat with his head in his hands. Micah studied him silently, sensing that this moment required no comment. Clearly, thousands of years of solitude had resulted in frequent depressive episodes. After a minute, Apollos got up and began furiously beating his chain against the wall, screaming incoherently in another language. Micah kept his distance. A blow from one of the heavy chain links would have shattered his face.
Eventually, Apollos had expended his fury and spoke urgently, facing the ice wall, his back to Micah. “They say God is good. But how could a good God allow what has happened to me, his creation? Pardon my anger, but I have been hurt and am still hurting. God is unfair, I think. God is unjust, in my experience. God doesn’t care for me.”
Micah approached him slowly and cautiously. “Have we exhausted all other options? Maybe there is a way. Show me. Show me the scroll that Gabriel gave you.”
The scroll dropped from his hands to the floor. Apollos did not turn to watch Micah pick it up. Micah studied it closely for the first time. A scroll passed down thousands of years ago. A combination lock with an unknown code. Surely, there had to be a connection. He looked at the Latin writing: Choose now whom you will serve. Nothing new there. Apollos had pondered that message long enough.
Micah turned the scroll over to check the reverse of the parchment and gasped in surprise! “Apollos, I assume you can’t read English?”
“Yes. Is that the meaningless scribble on the back?”
“The back of the scroll is in English ... How did Gabriel think you would understand this? Did English even exist prior to creation?”
“As I said before, we were taught all languages that humans would use, but it wasn’t a language used in heaven.”
“And if I am correct, you didn’t have a Bible with numbered verses?”
“Of course not. The Bible is God’s story for humans.”
Micah looked at Apollos with a sparkle in his eyes. “Could this have been tampered with then? This is what it says: there are two lines: ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables. Mark 4 verse 11.’”
“And the second line?”
‘Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. Jeremiah 33 verse 3.’”
Apollos whirled around. “Did Gabriel really send a message thousands of years before you were even conceived, foreseeing that an English reader would interpret it today?”
“The first line seems to explain why you could not decipher the message. Let me look up the second verse to check the context.”
“What are you seeing?” Apollos paced impatiently, his chain clinking noisily across the ground.
“It’s clear that the prophet Jeremiah received this message while in a pit.”
“We are also, now, in a pit. Except that our pit is a few thousand kilometres below the surface. And how exactly did Jeremiah escape that pit?”
“Give me a second; let me read a few chapters from Jeremiah 33.”
“Read quickly, Micah ... I can stay down here another 3000 years, if necessary, but I see you only have three hours of oxygen left.”
Micah quickly pored over the chapter of Jeremiah. “Perhaps this could be a hidden message about our escape. Look at what Jeremiah 38 verse 10 says: ‘Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies. So Ebed-Melech took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern.’”
Apollos smiled, but then a frown raced across his face. “Micah, in this story, only one person gets lifted out of the pit?”
Micah gave Apollos a shove. “Don’t be a pessimistic son of ... Oh, I forgot, you don’t even have a father! Well, don’t be such a pessimist. Gabriel knew that one day you would need to hear this message. Are you implying I won’t make it?”
“Micah, I ...”
“You thought of yourself, that’s all! Give me that lock!” Micah grabbed a rock and started pounding furiously at the combination lock, tears suddenly streaking his face.
Apollos touched his heaving shoulders. “This is what a pit does. I had my meltdown, and you’ve had yours. Perhaps this message is a sign that there really is a way out.”
Micah looked up at him with wet, glistening eyes. “There has to be. I remember escaping a situation when there seemed to be no hope. I was with Lydia, and we were tracking rhino poachers. Right in the middle of the semi-desert natural region of the Karoo, our vehicle had a puncture. We had one two-litre flask of water, and help was two days away.”
“How did you survive?”
“We stayed in position because we knew that’s how we would be tracked down. We stripped the vehicle for shelter and drained its radiator for water. We sat in its shade to conserve energy. We shared the last breakfast rusk. At night, we would huddle in the vehicle, fearful of the lions roaming outside. With parched throats, we even sang under the stars!”
Apollos smiled. “It sounds like this Lydia means a lot to you. Would she travel to the ends of the Earth to save you?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her, Apollos. I never properly expressed my feelings to her. I always assumed she would just be there, no questions asked. But she became a Christian shortly after that, and we drifted apart – still best friends, of course, but she was ... well, different.”
“Different, how?”
“Her priorities, her outlook on life, the sort of conversations she wanted to have. And she kept urging me to join her in repentance for some absurd reason.”
“Repent for what?”
“Apollos, stuck there in that barren semi-desert, we did something Lydia had pledged never to do before marriage. It was mostly my fault ... I should’ve respected her boundaries. I thought nothing of it afterwards, but she felt condemned, filled with shame and self-disappointment. I guess that was what Christianity did to her. I saw her carry such guilt for something that should have been just a fun survival experience.”
“Micah, there is something more you are not telling me. I have had thousands of years to know the ways of a man.”
“She ... she lost the baby.”
“She lost a baby. I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“I think she took it hard as if it was a double punishment for her sin, our sin. She blamed me for taking advantage of her vulnerability.”
“How did Lydia lose the baby?”
“You might have to ask her if you ever meet her. She never told me. The baby ... our baby, would have been 13 years old now if he or she had lived.
“After the incident in the Karoo, we went our separate ways, to our separate places. Lydia became moody, and we didn’t speak much. In fact, I didn’t hear from her for a couple of months. Then, one day, she called me sobbing. She didn’t say much, but from what she was saying, I gathered that she was pregnant and couldn’t handle it. A week later, she left a voice message saying things hadn’t worked out with the baby. I tried to call her back, but she had blocked my number. I later heard she had gone to stay at her parents’ farm for a year.
“After that, Lydia doubled down and focused on her career. That’s when she started winning all those journalism awards. She was incredibly driven, hunting for stories by day and hunting down poachers by night. I heard that she became incredibly violent in the shootouts with poachers. Often, the police would retrieve their bodies pumped full of bullets, but they turned a blind eye and chose not to intervene. She was, after all, getting rid of all the undesirable elements. Sadly, she suffered a few nervous breakdowns – post-traumatic stress disorder, they called it. She was hospitalised for three weeks once but got her life back together after a year of work with counsellors and her church.
“Then, one day, after about three years, she started speaking to me again. There was a glow in her eyes, and I could tell she had found peace or made peace with something. I was so relieved. I had missed sharing moments of joy and laughter with her.
“She never mentioned the baby again, acting as if nothing had happened. We became great friends again, but it was more superficial this time. No deep conversations or sharing our hopes and dreams. Also, she mentioned not wanting to date because she felt men, including me, were only interested in her body. While she still claims to be my best friend, she often teases me about not having many friends who could replace her. That works for me. All I want from her is friendship.”
“I don’t know what to say. What do you most long for, Micah?”
“Lydia has been such a big part of my life. I’ve realised, though, that I’ve taken her for granted and wasn’t entirely there for her during her dark days. But, man, is she a complex piece of work! I enjoy that about her – being with Lydia is like peeling an orange. Attractive on the surface, bitter skin and loads of sweetness on the inside. It would be great to see her happy and achieve her dreams. She is someone I will always check in on till I am old.
“And, Apollos, if I dare even imagine there may be a life after this ... one day, I would like to see our baby. It’s always troubled me that I was almost a father ... almost. And even though it was unplanned, that fatherhood was now lost to me.”
Apollos studied Micah’s face, silent for a moment. “Over thousands of years, I have witnessed that specific look of love in a man’s eyes, and it always amazed me how much power real love has. Love will make a way. Love will transcend many wrongs, build on shattered hope and create new truths. I see some hope in your eyes, Micah, that love might yet create a bridge between you and who you love. But I also see that you have no faith that God will go out of his way to make the impossible possible.”
“I didn’t say I loved her, Apollos, certainly not in that way. Yes, life has been tough on her, but like my own struggles with childhood trauma, witnessing my mother being killed and all. I’m constantly amazed by her commitment to Christianity and the strength and resilience she finds in her faith. God can be intense – or at least the concept of God. Take the Flood, for example – destroying everyone except Noah’s family. It seems like your God can be quite destructive when he gets upset.”
“Actually, I know why He had to do it. There was no other way.” Apollos seemed pensive.
“Really, weren’t you saying earlier how unfair he is?”
“Not in this case. Remember how Lucifer was so determined to thwart God’s plans of restoration? Well, he realised that if he corrupted the lineage from Adam and Eve, there was no way the prophecy would come true thousands of years later. In those days, the Fallen Angels could still take on a physical form similar to man. They seduced the daughters of men, mixing corrupted DNA with human seed. Within a few centuries, the corrupt DNA had attached to over 90% of humans. There were even giants in the land, freaks of nature. And weird animals, too. Chimaeras that were a DNA mixture of animals that should not be mixed, like a goat with a lizard head. Unicorns even.”
“Okay, now you’re making things up as you go, Apollos. Fairy tales.”
Apollos gave a small smile. “Sometimes there are kernels of truth in ancient legends, you know ... The Flood was a way to wipe the slate clean. Following the Flood, significant changes occurred. For one, the Fallen Angels were stripped of their ability to take human-like forms. They became full-fledged demons as we know them today. All spirit and no flesh – the only flesh they can access is by possessing people who allow them.
“The Chamber of Laws was adjusted too: imposing a limit on the lifespan of humans and animals to curb their wickedness, reducing oxygen levels, converting the seas into salt water ... Setting a maximum number of heartbeats to about 2,5 billion in a lifetime meant that small animals with rapid heartbeats lived shorter lives, but there was also a caveat that increased the longevity of healthy individuals who engaged in regular exercise as their resting heart rates naturally remained low. Numerous other modifications were made to create a new equilibrium mitigating the maximum effects of sin.
“Micah, the global Flood was an extremely drastic action. I don’t believe God took it lightly at all.”