FlOoD--Part Two

I Need Thee Every Hour

TwO

   When his breath returned, Jones, lying in the bottom of the boat, let out a long, deep groan, and then said, "By temperance, I didn't know she had another bullet in her."

   Shortly afterwards, Brown spotted Murphy drifting nearby, face down in the water.

   "There's a dead one," he said to Smith, pointing to the green-clad motionless figure.

   "Nothing we can do about it," replied Smith. Jones sat up and pointed his gun at the body as it floated toward them. When he pulled the hammer back and squeezed the trigger, all three gave a slight jump as sound once again exploded from the gun.

   "By temperance, what's the matter with this gun? It ain't fired so many times in secession since the last time I got me a new pair of shoes."

   As the gunshot echoed away over the water, the dead man rolled over and a fountain of liquid jetted into the air from his mouth.

   "Did that corpse just spit?" said Smith.

   "Of course not," said Brown, "that was the decomposition gasses blowing out some water that he inhaled while he was drownding."

   Jones was too busy examining his gun to pay any attention at all.

   "That body's gonna slam right into us," said Smith.

   "Well, push it away," said Brown.

   "I ain't gonna touch no dead body that's got composition gasses in it. Look at it. It's all green."

   When the feet of his body struck the boat, Murphy's head came up to see what it was. "Be jabbers!" said Murphy. "If it ain't the three leprechauns who went to see in a boat. I'm sorry to be tellin' ye, but there's naught in this here puddle but wather."

   "By temperance, what else should there be in a river deluge but water?"

   "Well, to tell ye the truth, I was kind of hopin'...ah, but t'ain't the homeland where no river would dare get so overbearin' without a touch of 'mother's milk', if ye ken what I'm sayin'."

   Smith, holding his brick, and Brown, holding his urn, just sat and watched and listened. At the back of their minds, they were both concerned that, at some point, the dead man might try to climb into the boat and so swamp them all. But, for now, the dead man seemed content to just clamp a hand on to the side and float nearby.

   So the four men were carried along the newly unboundaried river, occasionally glancing at one another.  No one seemed to feel the need for conversation, polite or otherwise.

   Jones had fallen asleep in the bottom of the boat and Murphy was floating face down again, when Smith and Brown began to hear a voice drifting toward them.

   "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." In the distance, they could make out the figure of a man who, as far as they could see, seemed to be standing on the water.

   "Blessed ARE the meek, for they SHALL inherit the earth."

   Smith looked at Brown and Brown looked at Smith.

   "That gentleman does seem to be perched atop the floodtide."

   Brown nodded.

   "He's not walkin." He ain't goin' nowhere. He's just standin' there."

   Brown shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows.

   "Blessed are the MEEK, for they shall inherit the EARTH."

   The figure was waving its arms in the air and they could discern that he had a book in his hand.

   "You reckon that's a scrinture he's flailin' about in his arms?"

   "A what?"

   "A scrinture, a scrinture."

   "A scrinture?"

   "Yeah, a scrinture."

   "Well, it might as well be a scrinture as anything else. Wait! Wait a minute! Ain't he jumpin' up and down? How come he don't make no splash?"

   "Blessed are ME 'cause I done INHERIT the earth."

   By this time they were close enough to see that the man was standing on quite a small piece of land with not much more space than would accommodate his two feet, and possibly a third, if he had had one.

   Then the boat gave a small bump and stopped moving. Jones sat up to see what was what and Murphy actually stood up in the water, which only went as high as his waist.

   Peterson, who was holding a small Bible in his hand, calmed down somewhat and gave the unusual quartet a good looking-over.

   "I don't know what kind of blessed you are to inherit an old rowboat, but me, I'm 'Meek' Peterson and I done inherited this here earth."

   They all looked at the tiny piece of land where Peterson was standing with his feet together. Actually, they only looked at his feet because they totally covered the miniscule parcel of earth which, now, would not have accommodated Peterson's third foot, which, thankfully, he didn't have.

 

Reviews

[mirui]

Really good job, i like this quite a lot