Afterthought

LETTER TO NOAH Greetings, I hope you will not be disappointed I survived the flood riding the back of a giant turtle. Adrift in the waters of chaos, above the ice-covered mountain ranges that had become part of the deep, I saw the sun and moon embrace in terror. I kept my senses counting the days that had no name, I heard all manner of newborn things crying for their mothers – nearly the last living sounds. We swam through islands of angry faces, an ocean of rodents devouring each other, great serpents of children knotted together in whirlpools. I saw the beauty of jungle birds that in mid-afternoon filled the horizon like a sunset. Once I saw your vainglorious ark, three stories of lights, your windows filled with riches, a woman on the deck, her wet blouse clinging to her breasts – I was that close. If you had heard my call, saw me alive, would you have reached down to save me? It wouldn’t have been the end of the world. But you of course were following orders, a tune as old as Adam’s song to Eve before the serpent. Then after all the days of nights I heard my turtle gasp, ‘Hallelujah’. I turned and saw the rainbow, the raven and the dove, in sunlight the waters that reflected nothing, receding, Noah, I think I am as grateful for the rainbow as you. I have survived, corrupt and unclean.

378