| Noah By Theresa Barry The voice was faint at first, an irritation only. Though in his dreams he cried out, and in the day he moved like a sleepwalker.
He had never been a reflective man, yet he had a powerful sense that he no longer knew himself. Fear was his shadow. He closed his eyes, he crossed his arms across his chest. Yet the voice continued, day and night.
He examined every action, every word, every gesture before he made it. He balanced on the balls of his feet, heels a bit above the ground, like a runner. He reached for his wife for comfort and she backed away. He could not swallow food, only a little liquid. His wife sent him to the well to fetch water as often as she could because he frightened the children. He saw the signs she made against evil when she thought he was not looking.
He carried the water home from the well in heavy clay jars. His dark hair had thinned recently and the noon sun had reddened his scalp by the time he reached the dark doorway. He could hear laughter inside, so he quietly set the jars down in a pool of shade and stumbled down to a dry wash, dizzy in the heat. He crawled into the shade of a small overhang, where he rocked on his heels. His eyes filled with a dark light.
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Scorpions, snakes, all manner of creatures rose from the wash, ahead of a thread of water. The creek ran clear, then thick with silt, cooling his feet and welling up around his knees, a spreading stain on the hem of his rough robe.
Color drained from the landscape. The cry of a hawk pursuing mice startled him and he scrambled for higher ground. I am going to die, he thought. He slipped in the loose crumble of sand and rock and fell to his knees where he stayed until the water quieted, draining into the earth. Please, he thought, please don't let it be me.
Two days later, he left home. His wife sent two of their children to follow, the sons who took after him -- stocky, with broad hands and gentle eyes. They gathered his things as he dropped them, a flask of water, his cloak, and returned them to him each night as he slept.
On the third day, he climbed onto a ledge. The clouds, tendrils threading through the treetops, closed him off from the valley.
When his God spoke there was no sound, but his bones thrummed with it.
(I am displeased.)
Noah swallowed.
(The people have not lived up to their promise.)
Noah pulled his robe closer.
(And I will wash them from the face of the earth.)
Fear crept toward his heart.
(Only your family and the animals will be spared.)
The sky darkened.
He lay down and, when his breathing quieted, he listened, his sons waiting patiently, through two nights and two days. The voice was gone, leaving purpose in its place.
When he came down he was half-running, half-falling, shouting. He passed them, brambles tangled in his hair and beard, no shoes. But smiling. His sons looked at each other and shrugged. Their father was crazy, certainly, but he was alive and for that they were grateful.
They hurried after him and did not stop until they reached the village well where their father was drinking great gulps of water from the lake below the village and pouring it on his head, where it ran in rivulets down his cheeks and neck, soaking his robe. He was laughing now, telling his sons, "Two by two," he said, as if this were the most wonderful joke. "Two by two!"
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Soon the skeleton of the great ship - Noah's folly, the villagers called it, began to rise above the tents on the hillside. They shook their heads as he cut and hauled and planed the wood, soaking it in creosote. He was not a man of pride and unused to attention, but he did not mind their jeers. He felt light inside, both calm and excited.
Solemnly, he gave each child in his family a task -- one to gather birds, another, fish - and then left them to it. Sometimes they took off in pairs when they heard of some snake or a patch of new seed that had been spotted. On these hikes, the children complained to each other, kicking at stones as they walked. Who was this man, this man who no longer held them and looked them in the eye nor listened to their questions? Still, they stalked the animals to learn what they ate and where they lived. They built the cages and containers themselves, and following their father's instructions, gathered supplies of food before capturing the animals. Sometimes he would ruffle the hair of a child in passing but he did not take notice of them, except to pray that he would manage to save them.
Each day his wife, Sarah fed her family and then baked bread, cured meat and fish and dried fruit. She believed that her husband believed in his task, whether set by God or devil. She was a practical woman and felt that no harm would come of him being wrong.
The youngest asked Sarah why they could not just eat the animals on the ark and she smiled and said that those animals would fill a new world with life. Her daughter frowned and said, but what will happen to our world? Her mother replied, God only knows, child.
Noah's wife gathered reeds and wool and every material used in her household. Noah watched the growing piles uneasily. There was not enough room, he told her. But she kept to her work and set two of her older daughters to spinning and weaving and sewing. The other children also were responsible for the younger ones, who were exhausted from the constant activity and yet too wound up to rest.
Evenings they would gather to eat, the littlest falling asleep where she sat. Noah broke the flat bread first, scooping the food into his mouth with it, returning to his work without a word when he was done.
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The sky remained brilliantly clear, though a deep and frightening rumble from the west sometimes shook them awake nights. It took hours to calm the children. The village had begun to shift to higher ground, into the shadow of the raw wooden ship, as the lake crept upslope. Some of their neighbors had already fled with what little they could carry; others stood outside most days arguing, and a few were piling their small fishing boats with whatever they had, or could steal.
By now the children had heard Noah's God in his voice and seen the determination in his eyes. They no longer questioned his mission though none understood it. But still they worried and whispered together long into the night.
One afternoon a boyhood friend, now a merchant with a florid complexion and too many wives, found Noah blowing sawdust from his plans, drawn on scraps of hide, of a ship with three decks and a roof, big enough for his whole family, supplies and the animals. "Pairs of every living thing," his God had said. Daniel often made a game of trying to lure Noah from his work; today he offered to have his slaves do some of the work so Noah could come drink wine and watch the great oak drowning in the lake. But Noah could see only the ark. His friend, troubled by a premonition of his own, turned away. The next day he, too, had left.
Of those remaining, the men traded uneasy jokes in the evenings, over the din of Noah's building and the cries of caged animals. Ravens circled overhead on their way upriver, a sign of ill luck. The girls too young for husbands and too old for family to support wandered the periphery in the shadows, teasing Noah. Why, they asked, did he need such a large casket? Had his wife driven him mad? Did he need another?
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Each child was allowed to choose one thing - a blanket, a toy - to bring on the ark. Sarah kept them in a small basket by her bed. Some of the children had changed their minds several times already. The other baskets, tall and with carrying straps, were packed and sitting by the door.
One day Sarah stood watching her family in the doorway and saw how thin her children had grown. She stripped off her apron and, taking one of her finest blankets, strode downhill to the peddler's tent. Inside the boys were placing bets on when the lake would stop rising. They laughed uneasily as Sarah came in and let out a sigh of relief when she left, after she traded the blanket for fresh fruit and other foods her children had not eaten for many months.
That night she called her family inside to a feast, their home decorated with bits of feathers and flowers and her brightest rugs. Sarah had to fetch Noah herself, prying the hammer from his hand, helping him wash up and pointing him to his place on the cushions. She leaned over and whispered in his ear. A small smile appeared as he declared the night to be a holiday with a great sweeping gesture. Laughter spilled across the room and Noah scooped one of the young ones into his lap for a hug, only releasing her when she squealed.
Taking Sarah's hand, he said, thank you for this. That night he held his wife close and the child was conceived. The child of a new world.
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It began like this: The rumbling grew to a roar, the great inland sea grew green and salty in a wave sweeping from west to east, eating up the shoreline at first imperceptibly and then hour by hour. Watching anxiously from a small rise, he whispered: too soon.
The sky lightened from a too early dusk, yet he would not sleep this night or the many after because the message was clear: This land would drown, and all those upon it.
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