The scribe.
The scribe was unemployed; he had been for quite some years. He was a soldier of the old war and when he returned home after peace was signed, the world had changed, and he had changed in the opposite direction. Like many others, he was lost and forsaken in the new order. He retreated to his room and waited as a lot of time passed. He was always hungry, and lived on green fruit and water. He was waiting, he did not know for what.
Until God called him and said: "Awake and arise. Take up thy pen. Write that which I command. The time is at hand. Thereafter God spoke to him in many voices that only he could hear. They spoke the words, the words of time eternal, of space and dimensions infinite. And he took the pen and wrote what he was commanded, which was many things. Voices with words of unsurpassable sadness and complete joy. Voices of life and wisdom, voices of grace and death. The message was pure and terrible, but so was the heart of the scribe, and he could listen to God without becoming utterly insane, unlike other mortal men. But as he listened the voice drove him passed all despair, beyond the boundaries of mortal reason. And still he listened, and still he wrote.
And God commanded him to take the telephone directory, which he did. He opened it at 'J' and God said: "Write. The scribe proceeded:
Janse Van Vuuren, Jansma, Janson, Janssen, Januarie, Jardim, Jardine, Jakvel, Jasmat, Jey, Jefferson, Jenkins, Jensen, Jivan, Job, Jobse, Jobson, Johannes, Jooste, Joosub, Jordaan, Jordt, Joshie, Joubert, Joss, Jouner,Joyce, Joynt, Julies, Julyan, Jurgens¦
And as he wrote these names, God harvested their souls. Mr. Jenkins was traveling on the highway; Mr. Jensen was traveling in the opposite direction. A tire blew on Mr. Jenkins' car, which caused him to lose control and collide head-on with Mr. Jenkins. They both died on on impact. Mr. Jefferson slipped on a bar of soap in the shower and broke his neck. Mr. January was involved in a gang shoot-out, got shot, and died. Mr. Joss developed severe chest pain, collapsed and died. So God harvested their souls as the scribe wrote the names, one by one. When he had finished with the 'J's it was time for the 'K's, so he wrote:
Kabini. Kabongo, Kahn, Kaizer, Kannemeyer, Kapp, Kapteijn, Karrim, Kassimatis, Kaufman, Keenan, Kearney, Kearns, Kekana, Kemp, Kempf, King, Kirk, Kgabo, Kgwadi,
Kgamedi, Kgawane, Kgobe, Kgomo, Kgongwana, Kgopa, Kgotse, Kitchenbrand, Kiesewetter, Kleingeld, Kleinhans, Kleyn, Klomp, Klopper, Knobel, Knoessen, Knot,
Kooi, Kushke, Kariacou,¦
Mr. Kabongo got hit on the head by a brick at a construction site, he died. Mr. Kitchenbrand died in a hotel fire. Mr. Kearns died on the operating table. Mr. Knott did not pay his gambling debts, and instead of breaking his arm, the debt collectors accidentally broke his neck. And so their souls were called to reckoning, one by one.
And so the time passed and the scribed copied names from the telephone directory. And those names that he copied, those particular individuals, their time in this life, this here and now, was forever over. And the handwritten pages of these names grew and grew, and still the scribe wrote, and still the souls were harvested.
And he wrote much else besides, because the stream of the voices was constant and never ending. He seldom slept, and when he did they were still there. The days were and endless river of instruction and writing. But now he hardly ate and became weak, so that he himself became incoherent, although his work was still genius. Because when the greater manifests itself in the lesser, the lesser becomes great. Yet, he was hovering on the brink of madness, and soon he tumbled over.
He left the room and wandered around in streets, repeating names, repeating ideas, repeating concepts to himself. A police patrol car drove passed, stopped, and asked him what he was doing out on the street at this time of night.
"Searching for the names. Said he.
"What is your name, identify yourself. Said the policeman.
"My name you can find in the book, along with all the others, as is your own. Replied the scribe.
"Which book? asked the officer of the law.
" The telephone book, he said.
They picked him up and after following the due process of law, he was taken to a high security mental hospital where they fed him many pills, and recommended much rest. He slowly recovered, as the doctors like to call it when unexplained behavior returns to normal behavior, accompanied by stupor, rather than eccentricity.
As a consequence the voices inside the scribe's head gradually abated, and then disappeared completely. The doctors recommended medication, which he took, even on returning home and resuming his life. He eventually found a job and settled down to an ordinary middleclass life. As the eternal stream of time flowed by he thought less and less of the time he was commanded by God to write the down the names of mortal men, but just occasionally he reflected on it a bit and then smiled to himself. When he was alone, and only to himself. Then he resumed the life and attitude of the ordinary man.
But somewhere far beyond the waves, in a land he knew nothing of, there lived another poor man, a soldier of some forgotten war, living alone in his little room, to whom one night God spoke and said: "Awake and arise. Be thou my scribe. Write that which I shall unfold unto thee. The time is at hand. So that he took up his pen, and the local telephone directory, and started copying names out of it:
Mac Arthur, Mac Alistair, Mac Douglass, Mac Nemara, Mac Donald, Mac Henry, Mac Doughall, Mac Davies, Mac Farlane, Mac Gillycuddy¦
Mac Gillycuddy¦ The scribe laughed. He read the name again and again. He couldn't get enough, he laughed and laughed and laughed.
And while the scribe laughed as heartily as any man has ever laughed, Mr. Mac Gillycuddy was run over by a Glasgow bus, for his name was written, and it was his time to part from this existence.
