Josef opened his eyes, taking a deep breath. The first thing he felt was confusion. This room was unknown to him.
Elisa was there beside him, with tears in her eyes. Her face looked different than he remembered, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. It had been almost a month since he’d seen her last. Has she dyed her hair?
“W-what happened?” Josef asked, confused.
“Something wonderful.” His daughter assured him, giving him a tight hug. “Welcome back, father. I’ve been looking forward to this for so long!”
Josef wasn’t sure what was happening, but he hugged his daughter back automatically. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here.”
She burst out laughing into his shoulder. “Yes, you are.”
~~/*\~~
Elisa had become a Witness in the Old World, when she’d grown up enough to take her studies seriously. Josef had refused to join, his experiences making him bitter towards God, and generally agnostic. He wasn’t the only one to lose his faith in the War.
Finding them both in Paradise, exactly as Elisa had shown him from her Bible Studies, Josef was having to make some apologies, given the way he’d always turned her away on this subject in the past.
“I never objected to you discovering a new faith.” Josef said carefully. “And certainly, it seemed to bring you some comfort. I make it a point to never begrudge anyone finding a way to cope with… well, evil.”
“A position that didn’t change for almost thirty years; no matter what I said.” Elisa nodded. “And now?”
“I don’t know. It seems wrong that after a lifetime of refusing to listen to you talk about Him, God would raise me from the dead in Paradise.” Josef objected. “If I get the same life in Paradise that you do, after I spend years ignoring you, and you spend years working faithfully, how is that fair?”
“It’s not a reward, it’s forgiveness.” Elisa countered lightly. “But you’re here. Alive. I should demand an explanation?” She shrugged, unconcerned. “A lot of people are getting surprises from the Returning. People we never expected are getting second chances. What can I say? Beyond everything else, God needs to be compassionate and merciful. A world ruled by a cruel God is what we had last time we were alive.”
“We?” Josef pounced on the word.
“Old age got me, some years after it got you, dad.” She didn’t seem concerned. “And now we’re both here. Together.”
~~/*\~~
That topic of conversation came up several times as Elisa taught her father about this new world they lived in.
Josef had been given a place to stay while more permanent accommodation could be arranged. Apparently, temporary housing was common, as many people were on the move. Communal meals were laid out every day, and the food was plentiful.
Josef had died of old age in a retirement home. His body hadn’t felt so healthy and vital in decades, and he found himself walking the streets at night, just to be moving. There was a totally different feel in the air, and in his bones. He couldn’t quite define it, but the ‘spirit’ of the world had changed. Everything felt lighter, and easier. He was meeting new people every day, and somehow making friends, which had never been the easiest of skills for him. Everyone had a story to tell. When they found out his own, their reactions surprised him. Here, in this world, survivors were spoken of with honor, even a measure of reverence.
That morning, Elisa had brought a guest to join their studies over lunch. He seemed middle-eastern. Wearing clothing that was hard to place. Outfits and personal style and grooming were a product of culture and background, and the whole spectrum of humanity was Returning at a rate of thousands per day.
Josef made his face a little warmer and more welcoming than he usually did when meeting a stranger. He knew Elisa had surely married at some point, but not everyone returned to their original spouses after Resurrection. He wasn’t sure who this man was, but his daughter was introducing them now for a reason.
“Have a nice walk?” Elisa asked, by way of greeting.
“Very nice, thank you.” Josef agreed. “The neighborhood seems to be designed for people who have never been here before. There are maps and information spots all over town. It’s all but impossible to get lost.” his smile faltered a fraction. “I barely recognize anything I’m looking at, of course; but I can always find my way around all the confusing things.”
“This world is dealing with the Generation Gap of all time. It’s not just new and modern things being built. We’re rebuilding plenty of ancient things for the sake of our newly returned brothers and sisters. Some meeting halls are designed in the same style as Ancient Greek auditoriums, since a lot of Returned ones got their education in such places.” Elisa smiled, and just for a second, he could see his little girl again. “That’s part of the reason why I wanted to introduce you to Emet.”
The newcomer nodded to Josef, extending a hand. “My name is Emet, son of Takarut. I was part of the ‘Exile’ generation, wandering for forty years in the wilderness. Nowadays, I'm both a cautionary tale, and a professional source of reassurance.” He shrugged, smiling despite himself. “Apparently, it’s the job I was born to do.”
Josef shook his hand automatically, and froze when he heard that introduction. “The Exile generation?”
Emet nodded. “I wasn’t sure what I had to offer this world, to be honest; but I’ve been there before. When I was young, there was a time when I never really cared about going into the Promised Land. It was too different from what I had spent my whole life with. It was hard to picture a reason why any of us needed to make the effort, when we could just… leave things as they were. But God wanted us all to have a land flowing with milk and honey, because God knew there were better things ahead, even if His people had no concept of what it might be.”
Elisa nodded to Emet, gesturing at her father like he was a museum exhibit. “After the war, I spent some time in a refugee camp with other children. The whole world, especially our slice of it, was an orphanage for a long time.” She gestured at Josef. “I found my father eventually, but there were kids in that orphanage who were six or seven years old… They’d never known a world without war. They honestly didn’t know the world could exist without rationing, or recruiters dragging people away on the spot to ‘join the fight’. Some of the girls had no idea what fresh fruit was, or meat, or dairy.”
“Neither did I.” Emet put in.
“I felt so old, after the War.” Elisa admitted, turning back to her father. “I was a dinosaur, trying to convince young people that the world was better ‘back before’. Or that it could be again, after.”
“Trying to reassure yourself that life could be better than the best you’d had for your whole life.” Emet put in. “Yeah, I went through some of that too.”
“The whole world is undergoing that transition now, dad.” Elisa told her father seriously. “I spent a lifetime trying to convince you that Good was as powerful as Evil. Now I have the proof. Evil has been broken, and the world is being turned into a Paradise. Old Age and sickness have been abolished. You have been raised from your grave.”
“It doesn’t feel real.” Josef nearly moaned.
“And why would it?” Emet said agreeably. “Billions of people, across thousands of years, have lived their entire lives without realizing that the world they lived in going all the way back to their ancestors was not ‘normal’. The world we both lived out a lifetime in was never what God planned for His Kingdom. Just like the little children who thought War was normal life, we all thought that getting older, having to work hard to avoid starvation, and just… dealing with the day-to-day strife was just how it would always be.”
“This world is the Real Life, dad.” Elisa said gently. “I’ve lived longer in Paradise now than I ever did back in the ‘Old System’. I’m older than you now, by almost a century. I can tell you: No matter how hard we fought for what we got, no matter how hard the struggle, it was all just… prologue. The real life starts now.”
“Amen to that.”
Josef turned, and burst out laughing when he saw Oskar and Matheo coming to join them.
~~/*\~~
A few years passed. Josef had met his extended family, with generations from both directions being present. He’d been baptized as a follower of Jehovah, unable to refute the evidence of his own eyes forever. Everyone in his extended family came. Some wondered if he’d put it off until his wife had been returned, just so she could be there for it.
The day after the ceremony, they all gathered for a meal. Such gatherings were common now. Everyone was reconnecting with old friends, new family members, and Returnees from all across time. The oddest families and social circles were forming, as people discovered those with similar stories, or similar interests.
In fact, such social groups were forming so fast, and so naturally, that Oskar found himself wondering if ‘someone’ was helping it along, pulling people together.
Josef called his extended family together for a celebration of his initiation. As the host, he led the group in prayer over the food. Such events were common now. The table was almost thirty feet long, both sides lined with people, and a huge selection of dishes and servings filling every space inch of the table.
Josef looked at the table full of plenty in awe. He hadn’t missed a meal since his Returning, but he’d come to the brink of starvation, and been held there for multiple years. Deliberately. He knew there was enough to go around, but there had always been, even in the Old System.
The thought made him smile again, and he stood up. Everyone paused their own conversations and gave him attention.
“Before we ask God’s blessing on the meal, I wanted to say thank you.” Josef said. “Most of you only knew me briefly back in the old days, if at all. My daughter, in particular, was far more patient with me than I would have been in her place. You’ve all heard me say it: The evils we faced were personal, while the promises we were told to cling to were far too general.”
There were murmurs as everyone agreed, remembering the conversation they’d all had with him at some point.
“At the time, I thought of Paradise like a politician’s promise: Telling you that the world would be better, but it’s not like any of it is meant for you personally.” He looked down, embarrassed by it now. “You all think that what convinced me were the ‘personal’ blessings, like seeing my family again, or having my health restored.” Josef said, smiling over at his family. “But really, what made me a believer was… I realized that all those ‘general’ promises I disdained? They were as personal as anything else. Just because they were made, personally, to billions of people, it doesn’t change the fact that all of them were promises God made to me, even when I was ignoring them.”
“Any in particular come to mind?” Matheo asked with a wry grin.
Josef gave him a coy smile. They both knew the answer to that one. But he didn’t have to say it, and instead he bowed his head, leading the whole table in prayer.
~~/*\~~
Dinner lasted for hours. When they’d eaten their fill, they broke up into conversations, everyone sharing the news. There was always something new and joyful to talk about.
Everyone took their moment to congratulate Josef on his baptism, but it was clear there was a second group forming around him. They were his contemporaries from his time in OS.
The party went late into the night, and there were plenty of places for visitors to stay until morning. Half the world seemed to be on the move, seeing more, or assisting in various regions of the growing Paradise Earth. As a result, everyone was willing to stay later than they usually would, delighted to see the other guests.
As the party wound down, and everyone turned in or made their goodbyes, the select members of the group quietly let themselves out of the party, at Josef’s quiet invitation. With drinks in hand, and a few snacks in their pockets, they wandered towards the edge of town. It was a new community, far from the collapsed cities of the Old System. Josef’s home had been built in a beautiful spot, with a view of the mountains.
And now, as the sunset lit up the hillsides, Josef led Matheo, Oskar, and their wives and daughters up the hillside. It was a slow walk, completely unrushed.
Josef led them up the hill until they had a nice view of the growing town, spread out below them. “This hillside used to be a graveyard, where soldiers were left behind.” Josef said, giving everyone a look. “Not our war, of course.”
“There were thousands of them.” Matheo nodded, but the darkness had lifted from his tone.
“By the time our generation came along, this whole area and its wars were all but forgotten. Nature had built over the whole thing, and the empires of Man had started again, somewhere else.” Josef explained. “But this whole hillside used to have catacombs running underneath it. Multiple levels, all made of skeletons and bones, because they were packed in so tightly, there was nothing else to build from.”
Flora let out a low whistle. “I wonder sometimes, how we’ll break up the history books now. Back in OS, it was all ‘Pre-War’ or ‘Post-War’. We based our personal timelines according to how close we were to which fight.”
“Not just us.” Oskar offered. “Economies, empires, nations… Everything was remade by every war we ever fought.”
“Emet says that In Bible times, generations were marked by leadership, or generations. The Judges, the Kings, the Prophets.” Elisa smiled a bit. “We don’t have that kind of ‘disruption’ anymore. Our ‘Generation’ will last forever.”
Sentimental silence, as they looked over the town. The sunset crept up the mountainside as the sun went down, and the stars above came out, one by one. Down below them, the lights lit up, every house, every street. Whole generations, keeping away the dark.
After a long, reflective silence, Josef started to speak. When he heard the words, Oskar joined in almost right away. Matheo soon after. The translation was so… pure, now; with all language and communication barriers destroyed. The words invoked a meaning that the old translations could only give shadows of. But they all knew the words by heart. What had been a promise to hold onto had become a personal blessing to share with family.
“And many people will go and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths’. For law will go out of Zion, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem. He will render judgment among the nations, and set matters straight respecting many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore.”
“Not any more. Not ever again.” Someone said fervently. “Amen.”
“Amen.”
~/*\~~/*\~~/*\~
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