Rockingham Remembered
Short Stories II
The Day Jesus Comes
You are in your car driving home. Thoughts
wander to the game you want to see or meal
you want to eat, when suddenly a sound unlike
any you've ever heard fills the air.
     
The sound is high above you.
     A trumpet?
     A choir?
     A choir of trumpets?
     You don't know, but you want to know.


So you pull over, get out of your car, and
look up. As you do, you see you aren't the
only curious one. The roadside has become a
parking lot. Car doors are open,and people are
staring at the sky. Shoppers are racing out of
the grocery store.  The Little League baseball
game across the street has come to a halt.
Players and parents are searching the clouds.
And what they see, and what you see, has
never before been seen.

As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes of
the atmosphere part. A brilliant light spills
onto the earth. There are no shadows. None.
From whence came the light begins to tumble
a river of color spiking crystals of every hue
ever seen and a million more never seen.
Riding on the flow is an endless fleet of
angels. They pass through the curtains one
myriad at a time, until they occupy every
square inch of the sky.
     North.
     South.
     East.
     West.

Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in
unison, and over the sound of the trumpets
you can hear the cherubim and seraphim
chanting, Holy, holy, holy.  The final flank of
angels is followed by twenty-four
silver-bearded elders and a multitude of souls
who join the angels in worship.

Presently the movement stops and the
trumpets are silent, leaving only the
triumphant triplet: Holy, holy, holy.  Between
each word is a pause. With each word, a
profound reverence. You hear your voice join
in the chorus. You don't know why you say
the words, but you know you must.

Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet.  
The angels turn, you turn, the entire world
turns and there He is.

   
 Jesus.

Through waves of light you see the
silhouetted figure of Christ the King.  He is
atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atop
a billowing cloud.  He opens his mouth, and
you are surrounded by his declaration:  I am
the Alpha and the Omega.

     The angels bow their heads.
     The elders remove their crowns.
     And before you is a figure so consuming
that you know, instantly you know.
     Nothing else matters.
     Forget stock markets and school reports.
     Sales meetings and football games.
     Nothing is newsworthy..
     All that  mattered, matters no more....
     for Christ has come. . .