Looking for God in the Forest

That Sunday after church, he was in bed when Mom came to tuck him in. Taffy was playing on top of the bed, growling and pouncing whenever he moved his fingers and trying to bite him through the blankets. "Did you say your prayers Nels?" "Yes Mom. Is it okay if I read for a while?" "You can read until ten o'clock." "Oh okay..." She bent down and gave him a kiss on the cheek. When she was gone he got out of bed and got one of his library books. He propped himself up on the pillows and tucked Taffy in so she was comfortable and rubbed her belly until she went to sleep. Then he opened the book and began to read. It was a good one about some guys who went to Venus on a rocket ship. His eyes kept drifting away from the page. He tried to concentrate on the words but it didn't do any good. His mind went racing along, taking him with it through all the strange things he had learned on Pastor Billy’s first day in church. Hitler was the Devil's slave until the Americans got rid of him. The Devil's new slaves were the Communists and they had stolen a bomb from God. There was going to be a war. The world was going to end. It was too strange. His mind raced, trying to find a way out. Nobody had ever said anything about it before. Poppy and the old Preacher must have known about it, if it was true. The thought came again, that Pastor Billy must have made a mistake. It was hard to imagine Pastor Billy making a mistake. Even the old Preacher didn't quote Scripture like Pastor Billy did. He sat there, staring into space, wishing he was old enough so that he could understand it. Then he remembered that Pastor Billy had told them to watch the News, so that they would know what he was talking about. Dad sometimes watched the News at ten o'clock. He checked his watch. It was almost ten. He hesitated, knowing he was supposed to be in bed. But─ He slipped out of bed and went gliding across his room and out into the hall. The house was in blackness. Mom and Dad were still awake. He could hear their voices through their bedroom door but he couldn't make out the words. He went back and turned off his light, hoping Mom wouldn't come out to check at all. He took a deep breath, his need to know more urgent than his fear of getting caught when he was supposed to be in bed. He stole ahead into the blackness and crept silently down the stairs. There was still a bar of light beneath his parent's bedroom door. He stopped, listening, ready to sprint back up the stairs if the door opened. He heard Mom say something about Pastor Billy but he couldn't make out the words. She sounded upset. It was dangerous to stay there and anyways it was wrong to eavesdrop. He stole forward into the living room. The television was at the far end of the room, in the middle of the wall. He felt his way along the front of the couch with his fingers so that he wouldn't bang his knees on the coffee table. When he got to the end of the couch he felt his way forward until his hands found the set. His fingers played over the front of it until they found the right button. He made sure that the sound was right down. Then he turned it on. The TV set hummed softly to itself. There was a faint golden glow on the wall behind it. After a moment, the screen began to lighten. He crouched down, leaning forward, impatient to see what was there. An image formed, crystal clear, of a shiny silver airplane flying in a cloudless sky. The sun gleamed on the fuselage and sparkled along its swept back wings. It was the most wonderful airplane that he had ever seen! He knelt down on the carpet, reaching for the button and turned the sound on just loud enough to hear. A happy voice told him that the friendly bombers of the Strategic Air Command were in the skies twenty-four hours a day with their cargoes of atomic weapons ready to streak towards their targets inside Russia and deliver a devastating counter attack in the event of a Soviet first strike. The screen went blank. The voice went away. The words, "THIS IS A TEST" appeared in block letters before he had a chance to think about it. The screen cleared again. A new image formed, the image of a flat empty landscape stretching away to the horizon. There was nothing in it that he could see. He stared at it, puzzled, wondering what kind of a test it was. He leaned right in close, his nose almost touched the glass, trying to see if there was something he had missed. The fireball formed in a blinding white incandescence of light that filled the screen as the firestorm swept out, consuming every atom of oxygen in its path. The edges of the screen cleared into a whorl of sparkling white dots that were sucked back into the vacuum that the firestorm had created. The crack! of thunder that rocked him back was the wrath of God. Nels Sorenson stared in mindless awe at the pillar of fire raging up towards Heaven. Around it, near the summit like a sign, he saw the dazzling radiance of the halo cloud. "What was that?" Marg was out of the bed beside him before the words had left his mouth. He was right behind her at the bedroom door. The ominous rumble of the after shock reverberated in the hall. Then she froze in the living room doorway in front of him, one hand rising to her breast. "Oh my God─" He stepped around her and froze too, assaulted by some soul-numbing fear at what he saw there. The living room flickered with a weird unholy light. Nels was kneeling in front of the television as if to some eldritch idol, silhouetted in the glare of the atomic bomb blast. John stared past his son, aware of his wife beside him, neither of them able to move as the flaming obscenity on the screen faded into the poisonous grey menace of the mushroom cloud. He closed his eyes and tried to think of a prayer. Marg came out of it first. He felt the urgency of her touch on his arm. "John ─ turn the lights on!" He opened his eyes, reaching around for the light switch. The room lit up in its normal form. Marg was already reaching past Nels to shut the television off. The horror on the screen dwindled to a dot of light and went out. "Nels..." He crossed the room to stand beside her, nerves jangling at every step. Nels didn't move. He just stared blank-eyed at the empty screen. Marg flashed him a look that was full of fear, moving to put herself between the set and her son. She knelt in her nightgown in front of him. "Nels..." She took his hands. The boy stared at her with strange eyes, aware of her for the first time. "Oh... hi Mom..." His voice was distant, far away. "Are you all right Nels?" He thought about it for a minute. "I can't see very good. It was too bright. Everything's all shiny..." "Close your eyes Honey. Let them rest for a while." He closed his eyes. After a moment he said "I can still see it Mom..." "It'll go away. You'll be all right." She flashed John a frightened glance. He stared back helplessly, bending down close to his son. The look in her green eyes mirrored what was inside of him. He tried to keep it out of his voice. "Is that helping Nels?" "I guess so Dad..." Nels Sorenson was far away, in the desert, alone with the pillar of fire. "What were you doing up Honey?" Her voice in his desert was gentle, drawing him back. He opened his eyes and found himself in the living room. Mom was holding his hands. She looked scared. He wondered about it absently, blinking at the aura around her. He remembered why he was downstairs. "Pastor Billy said we were supposed to watch the News." Mom tried to smile. Her eyes were big and strange. "I don't think he meant boys like you Honey." "Are you mad at me?"