11. Jesse Pringle--2039
They were after him. The whole world was in flames, and the buildingswere falling, the mighty were fallen, the Day of Judgment was at hand.
He ran through the flames, blindly. Blind Samson. Eyeless in Gaza,treading at the mill. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but theygrind exceedingly small.
Small. They were all small, but that didn't matter. They had the gunsand they were hunting him down to his doom. Day of doom. Doomsday. Thegreat red dragon with seven heads and ten horns was abroad in theland.
They had unleashed the dragon and his breath was a fire that seared,and his tail was a thunder that toppled towers. The dragon wassearching him out for his sins; he would be captured and set to laborin the mill.
But he would escape, he must escape! He was afraid of them, small asthey were, and great oaks from little acorns grow, it's the littlethings that count, and he dare not go a-hunting for fear of littlemen.
Jesse crouched against the dock, watching the grain-elevators burn.The whole city was burning, Babylon the mighty, the whole world wasburning in God's final wrath of judgment.
Nobody believed in God any more, nobody read the Bible, and that's whythey didn't know these things. Jesse knew, because he was an old manand he remembered how it had been when he was a little boy. A littleboy who learned of the Word of God and the Wrath of God.
He could see the reflection of the flames in the water, now, and thereflection was shimmery and broken because of the black clustersfloating past. Large clusters and small clusters. There were bodies inthe water, the bodies of the slain.
Thunder boomed from the city behind him. Explosions. That's how it hadstarted, when the Naturalists began blowing up the buildings. And thenthe Yardsticks had come with their weapons, hunting down theNaturalists. Or had it been that way, really? It didn't matter, now.That was in another country and besides, the wench was dead.
The wench _is_ dead. His wench, Jesse's wench. She wasn't so old. Onlyseventy-two. But they killed her, they blew off the top of her headand he could feel it when they did. It was as if something hadhappened in _his_ head, and then he ran at them and screamed, andthere was great slaughter amongst the heathen, the forces ofunrighteousness.
And Jesse had fled, and smote evil in the name of the Lord, for heperceived now that the time was at hand.
_How the mighty are fallen._
Jesse blinked at the water, wishing it would clear, wishing histhoughts would clear. Sometimes for a moment he could remember back tothe way things _really_ were. When it was still a real world, withreal people in it. When he was just a little boy and everybody elsewas big.
Strange. Now he was an old man, a big old man, and almost everybodyelse was little.
He tried to think what it had been like, so long ago. It was too long.All he could remember about being small was that he had been afraid.Afraid of the bigger people.
And now he was big, and afraid of the smaller people.
Of course they weren't real. It was just part of the prophecy, theywere the locusts sent to consume and destroy. He kept telling himselfthere was nothing to fear; the righteous need not fear when the day ofjudgment is at hand.
Only somewhere inside of him was this little boy, crying, "Mama, Mama,Mama!" And somewhere else was this old man, just staring down into thewater and waiting for them to find him.
Another explosion sounded.
This one was closer. They must be bombing the entire city. Or else itwas the dragon, lashing his tail.
Somebody ran past Jesse, carrying a torch. No, it wasn't a torch--hishair was on fire. He jumped into the water, screaming, "They'recoming! They're coming!"
Jesse turned and blinked. They were coming, all right. He could seethem pouring out of the alleyway like rats. Rats with gleaming eyes,gleaming claws.
Suddenly, his head cleared. He realized that he was going to die. Hehad, perhaps, one minute of life left. One minute out of eighty years.And he couldn't fool himself any longer. He was not delirious. Day ofjudgment--that was nonsense. And there was no dragon, and these werenot rats. They were merely men. Puny little men who killed becausethey were afraid.
Jesse was a big man, but he was afraid, too. Six feet three inchestall he was, when he stood up straight as he did now, watching themcome--but he knew fear.
And he resolved that he must not take that fear with him into death.He wanted to die with something better than that. Wasn't theresomething he could find and cling to, perhaps some memory--?
A minute is so short, and eighty years is so long. Jesse stood there,swaying, watching them draw nearer, watching them as they caught sightof him and raised their weapons.
He scanned rapidly into the past. Into the past, before the time thewench was dead, back to when you and I were young, Maggie, back stillearlier, and earlier, seeking the high point, the high school, thatwas it, the high school, the highlight, the moment of triumph, thegame with Lincoln. Yes, that was it. He hadn't been ashamed of beingsix feet three inches then, he'd been proud of it, proud as he raisedhis arms and--
_Splashed down into the water as the bullets struck._
And that was the end of Jesse Pringle. Jesse Pringle, championbasketball center of the Class of '79....