My shoulder drove into his back with every ounce of drive I could put into it. His startled yell was a wild sound in the room as he went plunging ahead of me. I hit the floor and tried to press myself flatter against it; and my last glimpse of him before pressing my face to the floor, was him crashing through the swinging door, arms windmilling.
10
And the cigarette went with him.
It was like the whole universe blew up. There was the blast and the searing lick of flame that seemed to lift me and drive me ahead of it. It seemed a long time later, although it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, that I was pushing my head through splintered wood, some of it burning. The shattered plaster was all around me, walls were tilted at a crazy angle; and dimly I realized I had been blown back into the living room.
There was something I had to do.
Something that was more important even than getting myself out of this burning wreckage.
Dobleen!
If he was cremated in this blaze, I could never prove — I stumbled to my feet, unable to use my handcuffed hands. “Dobleen! Where are you! Dobleen!”
I heard a feeble moan over the crackle of the flames. A figure so covered with plaster dust that you had to look twice to see it was a man, rolled a little, moaned again.
Don’t ask me how I did it. I can remember on a little of it, and that only as a dim nightmare. They say I dragged him out of the wreckage and all the way to the ocean, but I don’t remember the last part at all.
My memory picks up again with the sharp smell of ammonia in my nose, and a voice saying, “He’s coming out of it now.”
Then somebody was kissing my cheek, whispering, “It’s all right now,” and the voice was Julie’s and she was crying. Then I opened my eyes and saw the smile coming through the tears, and I knew she was telling me the truth.
Diary of a Devout Man
by Max Franklin
He wasn’t just an ordinary Peeping Tom. He had a job, a very important job.
Monday night:
I have decided to write this diary as though I were talking to you because you are a person who has always interested me, though you will never read these words.
You know me, yet you don’t know me. That is, you know my name, what I look like and that I am the son of one of your neighbors. But inside you don’t know me at all.
When you see me you probably think what a nice quiet lad I am. Shy and reserved, but always with a pleasant smile and a polite greeting.
Do you know I stood on your front porch for an hour last night watching through a window as you sat in your favorite chair under the lamp, reading?
You sensed it once or twice, I know, because you stirred and looked around uneasily. But you couldn’t see me outside on the dark porch and you couldn’t hear me because I have practiced moving without sound and standing perfectly still, hardly even breathing, for long periods of time.
Why did I watch you? Because I watch many people. But I’m not just a Peeping Tom. I’m an observer for God.
The knowledge that I am one of God’s personal servants grew in me slowly, for at first the voices didn’t make sense to me. They were in some strange language: ancient Hebrew, I now think, because that was the original language of God. When they first spoke to me out of the silence of my room, they were merely jargon, a meaningless discord of many voices. But as they returned on other nights I gradually was able to pick out a word here and a word there, and finally even to make out whole phrases.
It is a tremendous experience when the realization finally hits you that you are one of God’s chosen and are listening to the voices of angels.
My mission isn’t yet clear to me, but I know this much: I am to watch many people, of which you’re but one, and report what I see directly to God.
Tuesday night: The voices spoke to me again last night. I’m still not entirely clear about my mission, but at least I’m surer about what God wants to know about those I watch. He wants to know which are sinners.
Are you a sinner? You seem an ordinary enough person. I think you love your family and I haven’t noticed any signs of discord in your home. But how do I know what goes on in your mind? Maybe in your thoughts you’re committing sins of the flesh even while you’re talking in apparent innocence with members of your family. According to the Bible mental sin is as evil as the physical act.
I guess I’m going to have to learn to read minds.
Wednesday night: At breakfast this morning Mother fussed over me like a mother hen.
“Do you feel all right, son?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Why?”
“You’re getting dark circles under your eyes. Sure you aren’t studying too hard? Maybe you need glasses.”
“I’m quite all right,” I told her.
“I’m sure you’re studying too hard,” she decided, examining my face worriedly. “It’s not natural for a twenty-year-old boy to spend so much time alone in his room. You ought to take Mary out some evening.”
I didn’t tell her I spent much less time alone in my room than she thought. I didn’t tell her that almost every night when she thought I was asleep I was prowling the dark streets, watching those whom God’s angels have ordered me to watch. My mother is a religious person, but she hasn’t any more imagination than most practical people. She can believe in the saints receiving direct communication from God, but I know she wouldn’t be able to believe her own son is an emissary of the Lord. Like too many people, her religious belief stops when miracles strike too close to home. I know if I told her about the voices, she not only wouldn’t believe me, she might even do something silly like insisting I go see a psychiatrist.
Suppose Saul’s mother had sent him to a psychiatrist?
Instead of attempting to explain, I just said mildly, “Final exams are in two more weeks, Mother. I’ll get out more when I’ve finished cramming.”
Mary fussed at me a little too when I picked her up on the way to school. As she slid into the front seat beside me, she studied my face critically before even saying hello.
Then she said, “What’s the matter with you lately, hon? You don’t look well. And you haven’t even so much as called me for over a week.”
“Called you?” I said. “I see you every day.”
“On the way to school and on the way home,” she conceded. “Fine romance. Ever occur to you a girl might like a little night life?”
“Two weeks before finals? Be sensible, Mary.”
“I know you’re studying hard,” she admitted. “So am I for that matter. But it wouldn’t kill you to take five minutes off every night to make a phone call.”
“I get so involved in law books, I don’t think of it,” I said. “Maybe I am studying too hard. But you can’t win a law degree without study. We’ll go out on the town the night finals are over.”
Then she demanded to know if I had stopped loving her. Of course I said no, but in thinking about it later, I wondered if our plans to marry shouldn’t change now that I have a new mission. Is there any room for marriage in a life devoted to service to the Lord? Much as I love Mary, I can’t see that there is.
I haven’t mentioned the voices to Mary for the same reason I didn’t tell Mother. She’s a sweet girl, but I know with complete certainty she wouldn’t believe any more than Mother would that I’ve actually been chosen as a servant of God.