wounds were cleaned up, though I wish I had been faster” Isaac explained, Kelly was his wife. His daughter Anne was likely in bed at this hour. “Clark’s upstairs in the guest bedroom if you want to see him. Though first, I have someone here who wanted to talk to you.”
“Can it wait till after dinner? I haven’t eaten all day.” I said, rubbing my stomach.
‘I don’t think it can, though we’re having vegetable stew. Made it on the fireplace, you can have a bowl when you talk to our guest.” Isaac said gesturing towards the couch where I had seen the man who tried to rape me. My blood was boiling at this point.
“What the fuck is he doing in this Goddamn place!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “And eating your food too!”
“DO NOT TAKE THE LORD’S NAME IN VAIN IN MY HOUSE!” Isac raised his voice before taking a deep breathe. “No no, it’s natural for you to be this upset… After what he did…”
“After your friend rescued me he had me help take you back to his place where he fed me, look I’m sorry… What I did is way out of line and I’m not really asking your forgiveness I mean, if I was put through that I don’t think I’d want to see the person who did that either.” Spoke the man, he had a prosthetic leg like I did, but only one and it was the full leg not just under the knee. The metal leg of this man had fallen into disrepair, now I know why he had been limping, he wasn’t hurt, his leg was just broken. The man’s face was beginning to dissolve, he’d need a mask like me in a few days. “I really did see the light and want help, but when I saw you were a chick, even a tranny… sorry… transgender.. I just… God’s abandoned us, I could die anyday now, I figured… What the hell? What I did was way out of line. Isaac here wanted me to leave after you awoke and that’s what I’m going to do. You will never see me again.”
“Apology accepted.” I folded my arms and grumbled reluctantly. “Now beat it!” He did, quickly. I turned to Isaac next. “You FED him? and had him SPEAK to me.. After he RAPED me!”
“First off my friend, if he had gone through with his dark deed I would be asking God forgiveness for violating thou shalt not kill, not yours for bringing him here.” Isaac explained with a smile, that warmed my heart a little. “When I forced him off of you he was still working on the belt buckle of his pants, he had slammed your head against the wall when I came in. I nearly left him with a concussion. You couldn’t tell, but with a tire iron I had succeeded in breaking his ribs. I had debated finishing him off, but when I realized you were still alive I decided not to.”
“So if you were that ready to kill him, why did you feed him?” I begged to know what on Earth had possessed him to think that someone who tries to rape me deserves a meal.
He opened the holy book he carried with him everywhere and began to read from it. “When you throw a banquet do not invite your friends or your brothers, for you know that they shall reward you for it. Instead invite strangers and the poor for they have no way of paying you back, Thus you can rest assured that your reward shall be given to you in Heaven.” he smiled closing the book, he was always very careful NEVER to use his hook hand around his bible to avoid damaging it. “Christ had saved Mary Magdalene from stoning and she had become one of his followers and companions despite being a prostitute, though I do see how a rapist is far more guilty than one with no other alternatives than to sell her body the idea is the same. By showing your attacker kindness I have helped plant a seed in him that I trust will make him blossom into someone more helpful to the remnants of society.”
“And what if they seed doesn’t grow and he goes back to raping people. Mary Magdalene didn’t go back to that life after she had found Christ, but her prostitution wasn’t hurting anyone besides herself. Unlike the person you tried to help.” I pointed out
“I had a talk with him about that, I explained to him quite clearly that though this time it got him a beating and a meal there are very few people like me left in the world.” Truth be told I didn’t think there were many people like Isaac even before we had corpses piling up daily.”If he decides to attack someone again…. It is highly unlikely he’ll survive that encounter. Especially since his prosthetic leg doesn’t seem like it has that much more walk left in it.”
“I pray you’re right… Because if he does just go right back to hurting people and succeeds at it, you will have blood on your hands.” I said, hoping my friend had not become someone without good judgement.
“I’m aware, and I can’t say that’s a risk I was one hundred percent willing to take, but, I did what I thought was right and I can only pray that it pays off for someone someday.” Isaac said frowning, his heart heavy with the potential that his attempt to reform my attacker had failed.
"It still feels wrong though I, I just.." The words were not coming to me.
Isaac sighed. "I can't say I know what it was like for you to go through what you did, but my options were kill him or try to reform him. So I went with the latter, it's not like there are any jails left we can take him to. Which is what I would have done had he tried to pull off that despicable act in the olden days." He then begun to change the subject. "I suppose you want to know what's going on with the cure?"
"More than anything." I nodded staring with complete focus. "What's da update."
"At first I thought they referred to marking those still loyal to the remnants of the Government and getting rid of anyone who didn't have the mark. Or at the very least giving them a low place in the rebuilt society." Isaac said rubbing his beard. "I thought this even more when I heard they were having us make birdhouses. I thought they were some kind of Idol."
"The mark of the beast from Revelation." I snapped. "That would be unorthodox and controversial as I said. Clark would take it in a heartbeat not knowing any better. Would Raven and Piet?"
Isaac gestured over to a birdhouse he had made in the shape of a small crude castle. "Like I said, I thought that until I dug a little deeper. Do you remember why we can't grow plants very well?"
"Yeah some company called The Big M or something like that had made genetically altered seeds that made the soil only accept their brand of seeds when you planted it, and then they found ways to force farmers to buy them and ensure the public couldn't know the difference between their seeds and untainted ones. The government did nothing to stop them, that's why the broadcasts ask God to forgive us." I said as if reciting a textbook for the big test.
"Precisely. It didn't help the food it produced was incredibly unhealthy forcing you to either buy their untainted Organic Food line for an inflated price or buy the medicine from the pharmaceutical companies they owned. The Government knew this was the scheme but as long as they got a piece of the action they didn't care." Isaac explained.
"It was a living and they made a killing." I felt the urge to smash something growing inside of me.
"There was the potential of modifying the food to make it healthier and the seeds take less time to grow, but that meant a surplus of plentiful and a healthier population overall, which wasn't good for business. I think the UN Scientists have rediscovered how to genetically modify things and want to use this process for good instead of evil. Mostly from a few strange comments on the last broadcast you conked out at about how our damnation will become our salvation." Isaac said.
"So seeds that can restore the soil to normal?" I asked feeling underwhelmed. "Seems like a bandaid when what we need is stitches. I mean it would help, but...."
"That's also neither controversial nor unorthodox. I believe the UN wishes to modify something bigger than a seed my friend."
I thought for a second as to what Isaac was getting at. Bigger than a seed? What could be changed right now that could ensure we survive, something that would fix everything as they said. Well curing the plague would be the best course of action, that's when it hit me. "You're talking about changing us."
"You always were a sharp one. Yes I am Michelle. Changing anything about God’s Design of humanity would be very controversial and unorthodox. People are already
rioting over what conclusions they themselves jumped to and due to all the ways negative and positive genetically modifying a person could turn out if I'm right I'm not sure that gives us a scenario that is at all workable, loveable, or even an improvement over our current lives.
"So what about the birdhouses?” I asked.
"Mmmm.. I’d say they’d have something to do with how they’d modify us, but our technology isn't as good as it was back then and changes of a large caliber were just pure science fiction in even our brightest moments. So the less absurd guess would be that it's just busy work to keep our minds off things." Isaac concluded.
“What reason would they choose a drastic alteration over just healing us?" I asked weighing every possibility.
"Because humans don't have a world anymore. We ruined the land, the sea, and the sky." Isaac said with deep sorrow in his voice. "I don't know if my guess is right, but, it's really the only scenario I can think of where most of the puzzle pieces fit and I still have a few pieces for which I have no idea where they go. Look take what I said