The Ballet, Part 2: Noise

The voice disappeared as a meteor made contact and shook every home in the enclave to its foundations. Wherever this one hit, it was close, and it was big. Most of the time, the meteors were the size of basketballs. They did some damage, but in general the storms passed and left little rubble in their wake. But this was definitely different. And that voice. Was it just a crossed signal due to the electromagnetic storm? Delilah scanned different channels on her communicator, and found it again, a barely-there voice repeating, “Help us. Help us.” She looked at the channel and caught her breath. It was the frequency reserved for state use. Her com shouldn’t even be able to receive that channel. Hacking into it was punishable by death. It must be the meteor storm, she thought to herself. Please let it be the meteor storm mixing signals, she prayed. Because she knew that if someone had hacked into the state frequency, Sentinels couldn’t be far behind. The last thing Delilah wanted was Sentinels in their enclave.

Trying to hide her nervousness, Delilah took the boys by their hands and said, “Let’s thank God for keeping us safe, then go check on our friends.” The three of them joined hands and prayed. Josh asked Delilah if she thought iGod would answer their prayer and keep everyone safe. “We don’t pray to iGod, Josh, you know that. Noise and I, your mom—all of us in this enclave, we simply believe in God. God loves us, and helps us find the courage to live our lives differently. Our God—the only true God, is ancient, and has always existed. iGod is a creation of humans.” Josh sat and quietly thought about this. It didn’t make much sense to him. His mother and father had tried to explain the same thing to him, but he couldn’t see the point in believing in a God who didn’t give you stuff. iGod could give you anything you wanted! What had this other God ever done for him? If this God of his parents was so great, why did the people who said they believed in—what, it? Him? Her? Why did they seem so upset all the time?

Noise stood up. “We have to go find that voice,” he said. “It’s important. It’s really, really important.”

Next week we’ll return to the regular “Daily Wonder” format. Thanks for indulging me as I experiment with the story form.