All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923) (38 page)

“Huh?”

“Have you ever heard the story found in the book of Matthew chapter eight about the two men who were possessed by demons?”

“Not really.”

“Well, when they met Jesus, the demons knew that He had the power to cast them out of the men, and they suddenly cried out and begged Jesus, saying “If you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.”

The demons wanted a physical house to run around in. If they couldn’t inhabit a person, they were willing to take anything they could get, even pigs. After the War of the River a great number of the surviving men left the door to their souls wide open, with flashing vacancy signs on them. The fallen sons of God needed no second invitation.”

“Wait,” said Lester. “What you read before, in Genesis, didn’t it say something about the sons of God seeing the daughters of men and taking them as their wives?”

“Bingo.”

“You mean angels, er…well demons, married women?”

“Men married women; men possessed or influenced by demons, leading to them taking as many wives as they wanted. And the women not helping the cause because they welcomed them. It led to much hardship and grief among families. God did not design men and women to be unequally married. A man was to leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, one wife, and they were to become one flesh. But so many of the men were dead, and so many of the women were willing to share. The devil encouraged it, because it was contrary to the Creator’s design.”

Lester pulled Al’s laptop over to him and read the Genesis passage again, this time reading further down the page.

“Al, what does this mean?” asked Lester, pointing at verse four.

“Read it,” said Al.

“There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
’
”

“What catches your eye about that passage?” asked Al.

“Giants.”

“Mmhm.”

“Does ‘giants’ refer to the fallen sons of God? Could the giants have been fallen angels that slept with women causing the downfall of mankind?” asked Lester.

“No, it was not the giants.”

“Yeah, but it could be, right? I mean, think about it. That would explain a lot. If maybe it wasn’t just evil men but actual supernatural men, angelic beings in human shape but huge, that tainted the human bloodlines and produced ungodly offspring.”

“It wasn’t the giants,” said Al, firmly.

“Yeah, but I’m just saying…”

“It wasn’t the giants, Lester,” said Al, a bit more harshly than he’d intended.

Lester didn’t notice. “Maybe it was. Maybe it happened, and you weren’t aware of it. I mean, you’ve led an amazing life, Al, but surely you couldn’t have been everywhere at once. There might be some things that escaped your notice. The fallen angels may have been gigantic, right? How would you even know what they really were?”

“You’re right, Les. There are a lot of things that I do not understand, but I do know this.”

“But how?”

“I just do.”

“Well, I still think it’s a theory.”

“I’m not interested in theories, Lester. I’m interested in facts. And the facts are the giants were not fallen angels. They were not responsible for perverting the line of man, at least not directly.”

Lester looked skeptically at him. It was obvious to Al that Lester was not going to let go of his new pet theory unless Al gave him a good reason to.

“The giants were not fallen angels, Lester,” sighed Al. “I know this to be a fact because…well, because the giants were…my children.”

Lester just stared at him, his face registering no change. He was in fact so stunned he might have been in shock. His mouth moved, but no words came out. His hand that had been sitting flat on the table lifted half an inch, paused, then fell back down. All the color seemed to drain out of his face, whether from the revelation that he had just heard or from the fact that his “fallen angels as giants” theory had just disintegrated. Al could not be sure.

“Lester,” said Al soothingly, “Keziah and I had four children, three boys and a girl. My daughter, Samantha, was our youngest. By the time she was born my eldest son, Arba, was just reaching puberty. It was then that he hit his growth spurt. Until then, they all seemed to be normal children in every way. After we realized what was happening to him, we did not try to have any more children.”

“What happened to him?” Lester whispered his throat raw with emotion.

“He grew,” said Al. “He grew, and he did not stop growing. At first, when he grew to be taller than me I was proud, just like any dad might be. But then he grew taller and thicker, adding height and weight every week it seemed. His mother and I grew alarmed. His brothers and sister were frightened. We had no idea what was happening to him. Within a year he was twice as tall as I was.”

“Twice as tall?” Lester choked. “You mean like twelve feet tall?”

“Taller. He did not stop there. He kept growing. It slowed somewhat, but by the time he was eighteen years old he was nearly twenty feet tall, a massive human specimen, as tall as a tree. His legs were as wide around as two of me. His arms bulged with muscle like glacial boulders. His voice was as deep and graveled as the shifting of continents. And to be honest with you, he was scared. Don’t get me wrong. More often than not he reveled in his size and strength. But at night, when we would talk, he would confess to me that he just wished he was normal. He was worried that he’d never find a wife, never have children.”

“Oh,” said Lester, “How did he…”

“I never asked. I don’t even want to know. But he did marry. He did find love, and he did give me grandchildren, and great grandchildren, all of them giants, though not quite as large as their father. It was also around the time that Arba quit growing that Neph, my second son, started. All of my children, all three of my boys and my beautiful little girl,” said Al, his lips beginning to quiver, “all of them were exceedingly…tall for their age.”

Lester was quiet, thinking and giving Al a moment to collect himself. After several shuddering breaths, Al continued.

“Don’t get me wrong. They were exemplary children, though hard to make clothes for, but they never uttered a harsh word to their mother, never had a disrespectful tone in their voice. I loved them very much, but being a giant human being is not just about being big and strong and invincible. They were ostracized by our community. They were feared and reviled as monsters by many. The mighty men that you read about, the men who sought to make a name for themselves as defenders of their families, tried to hunt them down, thinking to establish their own reputations by killing my children. They drove us out from them. Keziah and I learned to live on the outskirts of civilization and my children, my sons and daughter, and their families, moved even farther beyond the boundaries of humanity. They lived in the wild, unmapped regions where men were afraid to go. They grew reclusive and visited us only rarely. Until the years leading up to the flood, that is.”

“The flood?”

“Yes, the purging of evil from the face of the earth. When God released the veil of water above and let loose the fountains of the deep. God warned me, like he warned Noah, and my sons and I followed God’s instructions to avoid the cataclysm.”

“Did you build an ark too?” asked Lester.

“Something like that,” replied Al cryptically, “but that would be getting ahead of the story. I wanted to tell you about Keziah first.”

“Oh, right,” said Lester. “I asked you who she was. How you met her? Do you think it was because of her that your children were…so big?”

“No,” said Al. “I think it was because of me. I think it was because I had swallowed the seeds from the tree of life and changed my genetic makeup. I think the seeds did something to me, made me different somehow and affected my children.”

“Don’t you think God would have known that would happen?” questioned Lester.

“I’m sure he did,” said Al. “At least, I’m sure he foresaw that possibility. Remember Les, we are God’s great experiment. He knows us, but we can still surprise him and please him or disappoint him. The one thing God could not do was give us holy righteous character. He could not create us with that, or we would have been no better than robots. He had to watch and hope that we would choose to develop it. Does that mean that God is not all-powerful? No, it does not. But it does mean that God, to some degree, learns about us as we are to learn about him. For instance, before the flood he had created man to live longer life spans, around a thousand years. But after seeing the evil that man could spawn with all that time at his disposal, God shortened our life spans. After the flood we have only a tithe of our original millennia.”

“A tithe?”

“Ten percent. About a hundred years, and often times less. I’m sure God knew what might happen when He allowed me to swallow the seeds from the tree, but with God, all things work out for good, so He incorporated that outcome into His perfect plan.”

“How?”

“Again, Les, that would be getting ahead of the story.”

“So then, what happened to your family? Are any of your great-great grandchildren still…?” Lester paused, unsure of how to finish his sentence.

“Still alive?” Al said for him. “No, they were all killed. Being reviled all their lives made them turn to violence, starting with my son’s sons, Emim and Zim. They lived by the sword and they died by the sword. The last few of my offspring lived for several hundred years after the flood and were actually slain by David.”

“King David?” asked Lester in astonishment.

“I never held any grudge toward him,” said Al. “In fact, I knew David better than I knew my great, great grandchildren. They had nothing to do with me, and I felt it best not to reveal to them who I was either. But David was like a son to me, and a great man of God. He had his weaknesses, to be sure, but never have I known a man so heartfelt in his devotion to God.”

As if on cue, the music that had been playing ended. Lester stood up to change the disc, and Al stopped him with a hand.

“Perhaps we should take a break. It’s been a long day and I’m sure you’re hungry. I know I could eat.”

“No, no,” said Lester. “I have to hear about Keziah first. I think I have some leftover spaghetti that I could warm up if you want some.”

“Sure, that sounds great.”

As Lester got up and pulled Tupperware containers out of the fridge and spooned the noodles onto two plates, Al continued.

“I met Keziah when she was nineteen-years-old. She was of marriageable age, and her father was hoping to find her a husband. Still, I was old and had never thought to look for a wife, not since Kesitah. But when I first saw her I was enchanted. She was exceptionally beautiful, exquisite, and her aura shone like the purest of lights. I was tongue-tied, but she introduced herself. She smiled at me like she knew some secret that I was not privy to and truth be told, she did. Sometime after we were married, she told me that she had had a dream about me, that I had flown down out of the sky and given her father a priceless gift, and in return her father had given her to me.”

“Was that true?” asked Lester.

“In every detail.”

Lester looked perplexed, but he let the “flying” comment slide for a time. “So, her father liked you?”

“We became great friends. For nearly a hundred years, until his death, he was my closest friend. I learned a lot from him.”

“Who was he?” asked Lester. “Is he in the Bible?”

“He is indeed,” confirmed Al. “He even has his own book.”

“Huh?”

Al turned his laptop around so that Lester couldn’t see what he was typing in. When he finished he turned it back around, so Lester could read the biblical entry. Lester walked over and put a steaming plate of spaghetti in front of Al with a warm piece of microwave garlic bread on the side. He bent over and squinted at the computer screen.

“Job 42,” Lester said, jerking his head up to look sideways at Al. “You’re telling me that your father-in-law was Job?”

Al laughed. “Just read it,” he said.

He had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first Jemimah, and the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. In all the land no women were found so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers. After this, Job lived
140
years, and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations. And Job died, an old man and full of days.

Lester just stared at the monitor, so Al continued his story.

“Keziah was the ninth child of Job, after his…ordeal. She was beautiful and perfect and amazing, and I miss her every day. Her voice was like warm milk and honey. Her skin was like cream and cinnamon. Her hair was a waterfall of molten gold. Her laughter rang like a fairy harp, and her eyes sparkled like emerald sunlight. And to see her dance…”

Al was no longer looking at anything in the room except the distant past and his cherished memories. “Oh, how she could dance, like a silk scarf in an underwater ripple, like the flutter of a raven’s wing. She moved in time to the beating of God’s heart. To see her was to awaken from slumber. I was no better than blind until she healed my eyes, no more than empty until she poured herself out to me. My five senses were not enough to perceive the qualities of her beauty. She was twice as alluring on the inside, filled with a winsome grace that bubbled into mirth as she daily beheld the wonders in the world that God had created. She was the most thankful person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Constantly bowing her head and lowering her lashes to give a silent nod of thanks to our Creator for some small marvel that she discovered, then looking up at me with a shy, almost embarrassed smile that could melt snow and cause meadows to bloom with wild profusions of color. She loved to be silly, and yet she was intuitive to the meaning of every moment. Nothing escaped her eye, and no thing was too insignificant to receive the blessing of her attention.”