From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Noah
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 00:32:00 GMT

Whenever I think of those times I remember Noah.  His name
wasn't really Noah, of course.  I think it was Thompson.
When he started calling himself Noah it hadn't gotten so
bad yet, and people laughed.  It wasn't too hard to laugh
at Noah.

And when it really started getting bad, we forgot about him.
Almost.  I remember one night when the pavers were pressing
hard, our detail went over to Noah's and asked him to help.
We didn't really expect him to say yes, but we'd been out
on the ditches all night, had a few beers - you know.

We were sneaking up his driveway, or thought we were
sneaking up, and we saw his garage door a crack open. Mike,
who'd had more beers than anyone else, went and peeked
inside.  He smiled real wide and came back with a big secret
in his eyebrows.  He gathered us round in a huddle.

"D'ya know what old Noah's got in there?" he whispered.
"Quiet, now."

We looked at each other.  Nobody knew.

"GOPHERS!" he yelled, and burst out laughing.  He infected
us and we all broke down in a heap.  It was only when I'd
sobered up a bit that I got the joke.

When we looked up Noah was standing on the porch.  Not
moving, not saying anything, just watching.  He'd grown a
beard and was wearing a white robe that looked to have been
cut out of a sheet - percale, maybe.

Mike got up and walked up to him, standing a bit unsteady
but real straight.  He was still carrying his shovel.
"Excuse my - urp - indisposition, my deah sir," he said.
His voice was still slurred.  "I beg I am not
inconveniencing you overmuch.  But I do wonder if you might
lend your doughty arm in the struggle that, ah, against the
deadly tide that threatens to overcome us, pray, sir?"  He
was trying some kind of accent but wasn't up to it.

"Ye all are doomed," said Noah, in the kind of voice that's
just right for words like "doomed."  Maybe he practiced.
"Doomed.  The black tide shall roll over ye all and drown
ye - for, verily, it is the will of God.  Pray to the Lord
that thou may still find the will to accept thy doom, my
son."

"Puh," said Mike.  He was trying to laugh.  "Puh," and
clipped Noah over the head with the shovel.  Noah crumpled.
His kid, who'd been standing behind him, let out a scream,
and his wife came out the door with a shotgun.  We all
cleared out real fast.  

I felt kind of bad about it afterwards, but what could you
do - the guy was a loon.  Wasn't he?  And we had bigger
things to worry about.  Our island was down to a few square
miles. We worked like dogs on the trenches, but if we left
them unguarded they'd be full of asphalt in hours.  And it
seemed like the pavers were getting smarter - they sure
didn't come within rifle range anymore.

So we forgot about Noah.  He stayed on his land, he grew
his own food, he did whatever loons do to stay loony.
Every once in a while we'd wonder about his kids, but
nothing ever came of it.

And then one afternoon I heard an engine on the island.
Scared the shit out of me.  We'd never yet had one get past
the trenches clean.  A bunch of us got our guns and closed
in on it.

It was Noah.  He was driving a truck!  An old manual-drive
pickup.  God knows where he'd kept the thing all these
years, or where he'd found gas for it.  He'd beefed the
thing up with mattresses, big plates of sheet tin, lumber.
It wasn't a tank, but it looked like, if you had hope, it
might do.

His family was riding on the back.  The wife was looking
determined, a bit grim, but the kids were excited as hell.

They all had guns.  Even little Japheth, who was only about
nine, had a rocket-launcher that looked bigger than he was.
There was something on the back that looked like a mortar.

We could have done a lot with all those guns he'd been
hoarding, but nobody was inclined to complain.  We'd just
nailed a couple pavers and were feeling pretty mellow.

So we took him to the trenches and filled a stretch in,
so he could drive over.  It was a stupid thing to do, even
with about twenty guys standing guard - the big ones come at
you damn fast. But we felt, well, there was something noble
about all this, even if the guy was a loon, and it just
wouldn't be right to stop him.  

He said he was going west.  To the mountains.  They couldn't
have paved the mountains, he said.  You can't pave mountains.
It sounded reasonable.

There was a big mack lurking about, maybe half a mile off.
It'd come up close, just into rifle range, and then turn
away.  Some of the guys wasted bullets on it.  But Noah
wouldn't wait.  Lots of them out there, he said, what's
one more?  God will protect us.

We all knew what would happen, or thought we did.  But
sometimes something's got to happen, and there's no use
trying to stop it.

We got the trench full of sand and he drove over it.
They headed into the sunset.  It was a beautiful thing.

They got about two miles before the macks jumped them.
The big ones.  Eighteen-wheelers.  There were four or
five of them, and I think the mortar got one - we saw
an explosion - but the whole thing was over pretty fast.
The macks pushed the wreckage around for a while, and
then some pavers came to cover it over.  By morning it
was all gone.

c
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