It was eleven o' clock at night at the Inland Revenue. Matty had finished work for the evening. She had a cup of coffee, went into the washroom to brush her teeth, and then climbed into her sleep pod. Her sleep pod was a structure like an armchair with a metal body around it packed full of cushions. The workers didn't go home to go to bed. They slept in the office. They worked forty five hours in three days and then went to visit their families for the rest of the week, those who were fortunate enough to have families. Public transport was expensive due to the energy crisis. Scientists generated electricity in every way they could imagine and fed it into the huge electric tram network, but it still wasn't enough. Matty didn't go straight to sleep. She delicately, carefully, took her cordless earphones out of the metal case in which she kept her wipod and put them in her ears, trying hard not to drop them. She turned the wipod on and put it in her pocket. Stephanie approached.
"Good night, Matty. What are you listening to?"
"A preacher."
"At this time of night?"
"I always listen to something spiritual before I go to sleep."
"Why?"
"I find it so comforting, so reassuaring. It really relaxes me at the end of a long day." Stephanie left and the preaching continued.
"I used to think that sin was a long list of things that you couldn't do. Have you got anything on your list that I haven't got on my list? Then I discovered that sin is a little word that has I in the middle. Sin means living a self-centred life instead of helping others. Sin means making your own plans, putting yourself on the throne and pretending to be God, instead of accepting whatever God brings into your life. God's not mad with you, he's mad about you. He wants to be in your life. Oh, there is a great party in the kingdom of Heaven when a prodigal comes home, when someone decides that they want to put God at the centre of their lives and stop living a self-centred life."
The sermon ended and Matty turned off the wipod and went to sleep. At seven o' clock in the morning the pillows vibrated and Matty woke up. Time to go to the washroom to wash her face and go to the canteen for breakfast. In the canteen Matty decided to have a small packet of coco pops and some banana flavour milk shake.
"10 euros, please," said the assistant. Matty gave her a large gold coin. She put the coco pops into a cereal bowl and poured the banana flavour milk shake on to them. Strange how the two flavours seemed to go together.
Matty arrived at her desk. The computer was tiny and looked like a portable CD player. You opened it up. The screen was in the lid and the keyboard was on the bottom. The customers sent emails informing of their address changes, marriages, name changes, or other problems. If a customer emailed to tell you they had been married they had hopefully completed the online form that had everything the computer needed to know written in the right boxes. The computer would be quite capable of receiving this form and updating the records itself. Name changes and address changes were done automatically in the same way. Matty was there when the customer or the system had a problem. One customer wanted to know what to do to inform the Inland Revenue of their change of address. There seemed to be so many websites. She had got lost searching for the Inland Revenue on the internet and had only been able to find the email address. Matty emailed a standard letter containing all the necessary instructions. Another customer was furious that he hadn't been sent a card. He had told the Inland Revenue he was moving house and they had sent it to the previous address. He was only allowed one card. Matty needed to investigate the customer's records. Yes, the customer had emailed saying he had changed his address and the email had been forgotten, as people sometimes did forget emails when they had such a vast number to look at. Matty sent an email asking another department to delete the first card, as the computer system would refuse to issue another and only a few people were authorised to delete it. A very small number of people could be in charge of national insurance cards and customers' problems for a whole country. The work seemed quite interesting to Matty but it was monotonous, the same basic problems coming up literally hundreds of times a day. She turned on her wipod and listened to some music. Matty had downloaded it from a budget website that consisted of albums that were more than twenty five years old and had never been in the top 50 album chart. An awful lot of pop gospel artists from the early 21st century or even the 20th were featured on this site, where their records could be downloaded for virtually nothing. The Christian works were sometimes better than the secular ones, which could be truly boring.
"The two of us together, stepping in time with you, love is just the deepest groove, and now and forever, we can go on together. You've got to keep it moving, getting better every day, growing up in every way, the way I am feeling because of your love and healing. Get it together, go on forever, no one can ever take it from you, love has no limit if you are in it, if you stay in it, dreams will all come true, yes, they'll all come true." Matty was sure that her dreams would all come true. One day she wouldn't be working on a temporary contract and living in a rusty old caravan on a campsite. One day she would be a manager. One day she would be able to buy a house.
The weekend began on Thursday. Matty's pillows vibrated at seven o' clock and she woke up. She felt good. She was going home. After breakfast, Matty went to the tram station which was by the side of the main road. It was about the size of a bus shelter and was painted bright colours with an attractive, sloping roof. Matty took her mobile phone out of her pocket and dialled the ticket machine which was in the corner of the tram station. "Please type your mother's maiden name," said the voice on the mobile phone. "Please enter your date of birth. Please enter your identity number." The machine printed out a ticket which Matty took and put into her purse. The electric tram arrived. It was big and looked like a train with overhead lines. Matty waited for six people to get out of the carriage next to her and then got on. It was crowded. She stood holding on to the pole as the tram pulled away. Eventually she saw one free seat near the back, moved towards it and sat down. It was twenty miles to where Matty lived in Sunderland. It was going to be a long journey. Looking out of the window, Matty could see an awful lot of caravans. It was council policy to demolish any low cost housing that was over a hundred years old and replace it with caravans. The very rich would keep the best houses for themselves. All sorts of places were now huge, sprawling caravan parks, all the way from Gateshead Stadium to Felling, Heworth, Pelaw and Jarrow. The caravan was the new economic miracle, the home that an ordinary working family could afford to buy. If you had a job you bought a caravan. If you were unemployed, or had a temporary job like Matty did, you lived on a local authority camp site. Unemployed people lived in all sorts of things, second hand caravans, old vans, cars, even tents. Matty lived on the Southwick Local Authority camp site and belonged to a church which was working there to help the poor.
Matty arrived at the camp site and decided to buy some lunch at the site shop. The shop had huge freezers that contained one particular brand of frozen chips, one particularly unpleasant brand of beefburgers, one brand of cheap sausages, one brand of chicken nuggets, one brand of fish fingers and four different kinds of meat pie. There was another small fridge next to the counter in which were individual pies. A scotch pie was only two euros.
"How do you manage to make pies so cheap?" she asked.
"They're the same pies I have in the freezer. I'm not a butcher or a baker. I don't make them. I defrost them so that they're ready to eat."
"Don't they go bad in hot weather?"
"I'm very careful. I defrost them overnight, then I put them in the fridge. They are not frozen, but they are kept to a controlled temperature. They're always fresh." Matty picked up the scotch pie. Just occaisionally she liked to eat the same food that the poorest people on the campsite were eating. She also took a chocolate bar and a bag of crisps.
"Nine Euros, please," said the shopkeeper. Stan came in.
"Hello Matty," he said.
"Hello."
"I've just come here to get my main meal of the day. I'll have one of those scotch pies, one of those steak pies, a bag of crisps, a chocolate bar and a milk shake." He picked them all up and walked to the counter.
"Fifteen Euros," said the shopkeeper.
"That's a lot," said Stan.
"Well, you wouldn't get it cheaper anywhere else."
"I suppose not. I'm on benefit, you know. It's not easy living on 400 euros a week. I still haven't finished paying for the tent." The shopkeeper gave the goods to Stan in a plastic bag.
"Come to the church tea tonight," said Matty.
"Oh, thank you," said Stan. "That would be wonderful. How much does it cost?"
"It doesn't cost anything."
"That's really good, that's really nice." Stan returned to his tent with the plastic bag of groceries. He sat on his sleeping bag, still wearing his hat, his fleecy winter coat, and his scarf. He removed his gloves. His hands felt cold. He ate the pies and drank half the milk. The chocolate bar and bag of crisps he would eat later in the afternoon. This would have to do him for two meals. He was really looking forward to the church tea.
That evening the church had their communal meal together in a big tent that looked like a circus tent and that had red and white stripes. The tent was full of plastic garden chairs and tables. There were calor gas heaters. Stan sat down on a chair next to Rupert and Matty and unzipped his fleece.
"Oh, this is nice," he said. "I have no heating at all in my little tent."
"That must be awful," said Matty.
"No, it's all right. You rap up warm. I wear a T shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a medium size jumper, an extra large jumper, a hat, a scarf, and a fleece. My legs feel a bit cold when it snows." The food was being cooked in big, steel cannisters. There were peas, carrots, potatoes, meat being warmed up and vast piles of empty tins that had been thrown into the dustbins. A young couple arrived.
"Hello Matty," said the woman.
"Hello Pauline," said Matty. "How are you?"
"We're fine, we're not living in a tent anymore. We're living in an old ambulance."
"How'd do you get that, then?"
"I'm in St. John Ambulance," said Paul. "They had an old ambulance they wanted to get rid off. I asked, can me and my girlfriend live in it?"
"What did they say to that?"
"They laughed, at first. Then I went down to the jobcentre and got the forms to fill in. The dole gave them 6,000 euros."
"Of course, we have to pay it back," said the woman. "It's nice, though. It's got comfortable stretchers for beds." Some children and a young mother arrived. They sat down. The food arrived. One of the children began eating it.
"Could you wait until we've given thanks?" asked Rupert. A man was standing on the stage next to a microphone.
"Before we begin our meal, could we just pray," he said. "Dear Lord, thank you for bringing us here today and thank you for this lovely food. For good food and good fellowship, may the name of the Lord be praised. Amen." One of the children began to tuck into the meal, but the others complained.
"Mam, what sort of funny food is this? Why can't we have chips?"
"Mam, this meat is so boring. Why can't we have beefburgers, sausages and pies like we do at home?"
"I'm sorry," she said, "at home they get everything just the way they like it."
Suddenly there was a strange light in the sky. One of the men saw it through the entrance of the tent.
"What's that? Look at that." He pointed. A large number of people gathered at the entrance of the tent to have a look. Rupert came with them. There was a huge white ball descending through the clouds.
"Is it you Lord?" Rupert asked out loud.
"What are you talking about?" the man asked. There was a loud noise like a rumble of thunder.
"My life's work is done. Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit."
"Rupert's gone mad. He's talking rubbish." At that moment Rupert disappeared. He vanished into thin air. So did quite a number of people all over the tent.
"Oh no, what's happening?" asked Matty.
"What do you think is happening?" asked Stan.
"The big light in the sky. The noise like thunder. Oh no, is God angry with us?" Nobody in the tent now seemed to be taking any notice of the food. They were in a state of shock.
"I think Jesus just came back," said Pauline.
"Is that what would happen?" asked Matty.
"It's in the Bible. 'He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other.' "
"Who are the elect?"
"The elect are the Christians."
"Then why were we left behind? We're Christians too."
"It's one thing to listen to Christian songs, it's another thing to be a Christian."
"Is it? I always thought I was a Christian. I always listened to preachers on my headphones saying, 'God's not mad with you, he's mad about you,' and how I'm a lovely person and God's going to make all my dreams come true."
"Have you ever given your life to Christ?" asked Terry, Pauline's boyfriend.
"Why, have you?" Pauline laughed.
"Yes," said Matty, "I have let Jesus into my life. One of the evangelists used to sing the song, 'Who's that knocking at the door, who's that ringing at the bell, do us a favour, open the door and let 'em in,' and he used to have a big painting of Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. Well, that was what I did. I said the prayer to become a Christian."
"What kind of prayer did you say?" asked Terry.
"Thank you Jesus for dying for my sins. Now I want you to be my Saviour. Amen."
"Was that it?" asked Pauline.
"Well, what else is there?"
"You can say all of that and mean nothing. You can pray like that and live like the devil," said Terry.
"I didn't live like the devil. I lived a good life. I tried to help people."
"You can't earn your way to Heaven just by being good. You have to repent of your sin," said Pauline.
"Sin? Sin is selfishness. Sin is making your own plans instead of letting God make the decisions in your life."
"Matty," said Terry, "do you not think that a certain amount of God's providence is in everybody's life? Things that seem to have happened by chance sometimes aren't quite as bad as you thought they would be, as if God was in control. God is Lord of the universe, he's often in control."
"He's Lord of the universe and he's Lord of my life too."
"Is he?" asked Pauline. "Is he really? Matty, what's the most important thing in your life?"
"My job. Money. The hope that God is going to give me a beautiful house one day. And helping people."
"Jesus is not important. What would you do if you broke one of his commands?"
"What should I do?"
"Get down on your knees and pray for forgiveness," said Terry.
"Would I have to do that?"
"Yes," said Pauline. "That's Lordship of Christ as a Christian understands it."
"Excuse me saying this," said Stan, "but if you know all this, why were you left behind? Why didn't you repent of your sins? Why didn't you make Jesus lord of your life?"
"It's one thing to have all that knowledge," said Terry, "and it's a different thing entirely to actually do it. I couldn't repent of my sexual desires. I enjoyed them too much. I couldn't repent of my drinking either."
"There's nothing wrong with having a drink," said Stan. "People don't always get blind drunk, they're just being sociable. If you've been drinking for a long time you can have three or four pints and be reasonably all right."
"It is wrong to drink the way I drink. I drink far too much, far too often, and I know it's wrong. When I couldn't get drunk on three or four pints anymore, I tried nine or ten. I used to drink a big bottle of cider before I went out. If I don't get stoned, I haven't had a good night out."
"Yes, and you used to muck around with other women when you were in that condition, didn't you?"
"Pauline, you were my main woman. They were just casual acquaintances. And anyway, you can't talk. You're here as well."
"You pulled me down with you. I was a Christian girl before I met you, not totally committed or anything, but definitely on the way. I would have been all right if I hadn't gone out with you."
"Will we go to Hell?" asked Matty.
"There is a way," said Pauline. "It is still possible to be saved. We could become tribulation saints."
"Tribu - what?" asked Stan.
"Tribulation saints. Christians who will be in the world during the great tribulation."
"What's the great tribulation?" asked Matty.
"The terrible time of suffering that will come on the world after Jesus comes again."
"What sort of suffering?"
"Is it like all those American films about the end of the world?" asked Terry. "Extinction Level Event, Asteroid X52, stuff like that?"
"Yes," said Pauline, "except it's worse. It's like all of those nightmare scenarios happening at the same time."
"I'll become a tribulation saint," said Matty. "In a terrible time like this I need God."
"Matty, I should warn you that a tribulation saint has a very high risk of being a martyr," said Pauline.
"None of us are going to live very long, anyway," said Stan. "I think I really need God tonight."
"I'm having a prayer meeting in my caravan," said Matty. "Anybody care to join me?"
"I will," said Stan.
"I will," said Pauline.
"What about you Terry?"
"I'm going to the pub tonight. Have a drink, forget about it. Hell or nothing, fifty fifty chance. At least I'll be able to die happy."
Terry went down to the pub. The television hung on the wall and looked like an oil painting. A reporter was standing in a big tent.
"Here at the Keswick Convention," he said, "thousands of people have suddenly vanished." The picture changed to show a teenage boy who had witnessed the event.
"The preacher was reading from his Bible when suddenly he wasn't there anymore, neither were Mam and Dad and neither was Grandma. Half the congregation had suddenly just vanished into thin air." The scene changed back to the presenter in the studio.
"We go over now live to Downing Street for an announcement from the Prime Minister." The Prime Minister was sitting behind his desk.
"People of Britain," he said, "you are probably wondering what has happened tonight, what are all these strange lights in the sky, why are so many people disappearing? Many of you will have seen science fiction stories in which there are teleports that can transport people from one place to another. The Americans have developed a device which is like a teleport. Your friends and family members are not dead, they have not been destroyed, they have been taken to a special place to be re-educated. There are people in our society who do not enjoy our society, they do not fit in to our society. They need to be taught more about the values of our society. When their re-education is complete, they will be brought back."
"Those religious people up there think there's some sort of disaster coming on the world," Terry said to his friend, laughing and taking another large mouthful of beer. "There's no disaster at all. They're being re-educated."
Meanwhile in her caravan, Matty was praying passionately.
"Dear God, we're so sorry. We assumed that everything was all right, we assumed that you loved everybody anyway. We haven't turned from our sins, we haven't sought your pardon and forgiveness. But Lord, we do now."
"Yes," said Pauline.
"We really do come to you in repentance now, we really do want you to be the most important thing in our lives now, we really do want you to cleanse and heal us now."
"Yes," said Stan. "Forgive me God. I have done bad things. I have evil thoughts sometimes. I say awful words sometimes. I want to live for you. I want to follow you."
"Forgive me, Lord, for all the wasted years," said Pauline.
