Forever After by Mario Kresnadi (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) 📕

sitting in groups, talking in low voices. Some were eating at communal tables and others in their folding chairs. Every square inch along the walls was covered with people sitting with their backs to the hot water pipes in attempt to gather warmth. Small children cried, some played, their mothers tried to keep them close together. Volunteers passed out blankets and walked among the throng, handing out fruits.

The night before had been a big snow, a cold minus twenty degrees snap outside.

A young mother sat sleeping with her head propped on a pillow and the baby tucked under her arm. A little girl was motionless under the blanket. But the boy was awake.

He was small and scrawny.

"What's your name?" a volunteer with a cookie jar whispered to the little boy.

"Tommy," he said, slowly and plainly.

"How old are you?"

He held up three fingers, then raised one more finger.

"Four?"

He nodded, and extended his hand for another cookie. The volunteer cheerfully gave him.

"Where do you stay?" he whispered.

"In a car," Tommy whispered back. "You got more apple juice?"

"Yep. I’ll get it for you," he said, and walked to the kitchen.

The shelter was always available for the homeless. But, they liked to roam around. They had routines, things to do, friends on the streets, favourite places. They would go to their parks and alleys and dug out from the snow. Sure enough, about noon, they left the shelter.

Three days later, there was a car parked on the street, its bald tires stuck in the frozen slush. The car's exhaust pipe was buried in a pile of snow. Inside was a young mother, her baby, and two toddlers, Tarni and Tommy. They were all dead from suffocation; the family lived in the car, and was trying to stay warm.

The ground shifting vigorously as the city touches the ground. The crowd begins chanting and cheering. Abah takes a last look at the cheerful children and grins at their innocent reactions.

Abah was especially fond of these children. They had been resurrected from dead. They had inhabited heaven with Him for a thousand years, during which their ages were frozen. Everyone’s age were frozen during the millennium. Now they were going to return to Earth, their origin universe. There they will resume their growing until the prime age, about 33 years of metabolic age, forever and be immortal. The children had seen many wonderful and beautiful things during the millennium, but surely wouldn’t top the amazing experience of being in the descending great City.

In the west part of the crowd, Isaac Naiman with his mouth opens, gazing at the mindboggling event. Isaac used to be a ruthless criminal, the brain of many crime operations.

Isaac was supposed to meet other gang members at a loading dock of Eastfield mall at precisely 1pm. They planned to rob a business man with a possession of two million dollars in cash for a business transaction that would take place in Holiday Inn, downtown in Leicester. For unknown reason he was there 11am. Disoriented, he was heavily intoxicated with a lethal drug known as ‘Bomber’.

It wasn’t wise to hang around a busy area with arms, so Isaac went to a quiet spot in the Botanical Garden where he had a good view of their meeting place. He put his head down to rest as the marching band kept on beating in his head. The headache was getting unbearable; he soon fell into a deep sleep.

He was woken up by noises from a group of people who gathered around him. “Where the hell they come from?” he mumbled as he tried to ajar his eyes. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was. He quickly made sure that he had hidden his arms and could not be seen when a voice announcing, “Everybody rise up to your feet. It’s time for the word of God.” It was a gospel meeting in the park, something normal for churches to worship within nature in spring. Everybody stood up, and he too. He heard a beautiful prayer with words that touched his heart. Something about humility, loving one another, and everlasting life. He wanted to stay to listen for more but he had something to do. He checked his watch on his wrist, “Damn!” It was thirty minutes past one. “How long I’ve slept?”

He left quietly but swiftly and ran to the meeting place. He knew the other gang members wouldn’t be in the toilet anymore but he checked it anyway. Sure enough, they weren’t there so he proceeded to the destined Holiday Inn.

There were police cars with their red and blue chasers attracting a crowd, two ambulances, and a commotion of movements at the front of the hotel. Paramedics scrambled into the hotel, sirens kept on crying, and cops streamed in and out the doorway. The fear hit hard, Isaac stayed as far as possible from the scene.

The next day, the front page of the morning paper printed “Gang war, three killed”. Those who were the members of his gang. He would had been killed too. He felt that the gospel meeting in the Botanical garden had saved his life.

Yet, he continued committing crime after crime. Until two years later he found himself in prison. He was sentenced for life for drug possession and capital murder.

In prison, he exercised in the gym to stay fit and read books in the library. He read many books, and one night he read the Bible.

He found the Bible was full of mysteries. It was badly written as it could easily be misinterpreted, but actually treasurable and constantly provided astonishing revelations, if read carefully.

The reading became more and more fascinating in the New Testament, where the Saviour who had been prophesied constantly in the Old Testament, finally arrived. He wondered why people at that time, despite waiting for the Saviour didn’t recognise when he came. The people in the book misinterpreted the word ‘Saviour’ as a worldly strong king that capable to beat Roman Empire, freed them from any suppression and made them to rule the world. But the New Testament showed him that the ‘Saviour’ here referred to spiritual saviour instead.

One afternoon he envisioned Yeshua when he was in the shared bathroom. Though very brief, he was quite sure about it. He saw Him with the tip of his eyes, before disappeared at his first blink. Whatever it was, he repented, took Yeshua as his personal saviour, and shared God’s good news with fellow inmates. They initially thought it was just monkey mouth but eventually many credited the good news he shared and converted.

He learned to meditate, pray for others, forgive his enemy as, “how could God forgive you if you don’t,” as he said over and over again to the remaining piece of smashed mirror on the wall. But most of all pray for himself, “God I don’t like me like this, help me to change,” as he pleaded. These all transformed him to a different man. He realised that his anger was actually expression of his fear and he was able to convert the negative energy of anger to his benefit. Still hot tempered at times, he could feel the blood boiling through his veins up to his neck, the butterfly was in the stomach, but never frantic anymore, and he could handle his resentment very well.

A year later, he had got baptised, continued to dig the Bible deep and actually started preaching in prison. The hot-headed bug had become a brother, the fellow inmate respectfully said.

Tragically, he died in a car crash during the inmate transfer at 45 years old. Nevertheless he had a chance to be a better man and he did.

He had woken up from dead to a noise, and trumpet sound from the surface. He was underground buried for many years. And as his body was miraculously reshaping, a divine force squeezed him up through dirt around him until a bright light from a fine day showered him and blinded his eyes for a second. Further, above the ground, his body continued lifted up to the sky, hovering on air as other people around him came to life resurrecting from death. As he flew higher, a shout from an angel hovering by the clouds where a crowd had gathered, was heard.

He joined the crowd in the clouds. In the air he met the most precious person he ever wanted to meet, Lord Yeshua. The scripture was fulfilled on that day for the first resurrection, where the dead in Christ came to life and the rapture, where they were caught up together with the living in the clouds to meet the Lord. Little did he knew that he would be one of them. Sharing the Bible had been just his voluntary duty but he always regarded himself as a sinner and never expected that he would be saved.

Minutes ago, he had witnessed the miraculous re-creation of the new earth, and now was experiencing this phenomenal occasion, beholding the descendent of the Holy City to the newly rebuilt Earth. Abah especially fond of this gentleman.

Minutes later while the hovering gigantic city slowly fills the parting ground, Abah becomes remarkably excited when He sees Charmeine, the angel of harmony, standing most graciously to behold the green Emerald foundation at one of the south gates. ‘Zebulun’ reads the sign.

At the touchdown, as the joyous song of welcome reaches its highest decibel, a bright light touches everyone in the crowd. At that moment, their memories are erased, all sadness wiped away. In the new Earth, there will be no more sorrow, no grief or pain, no more death, as the old things has disappeared. People will live forever, unless they choose not to.

As the bright light evades and the sound fades, a loud voice is heard, “Citizens of hope and glory, it's now the time of your life. The Almighty will dwell with you.”

At the deliverance of those words, Charmeine shoots to the air, the Great City is settled. The ground becomes still. Although the ground is greatly shifted, nothing is apparently replaced, and everything is obviously intact.

A small black cloud appears in a distance. As it draws nearer, it slowly became lighter, then turns fine, and splendid, till it transforms to a great white cloud. A most lovely song is heard when a rainbow appears over the cloud. Angels, hundreds or even thousands of seraphs and cherubs, emerge from the multihued, singing the lovely song. Ben Elohim Yeshua, the Almighty, gloriously appears out of the cloud. A striking crown rests on His head, and the blazing pillars on His feet bestowing light while shielding His people. He browses His children through and through with warm stare and smile in his eyes. No matter how much distance stand between them, every eye in the crowd meets His gaze. Isaac waves at Him and He winks in return.  

 

Then the angels cease to sing. Silence is the only sound before Elohim Yeshua bespeaks, "Joy will fill every heart.” And the angels strike a higher note and sang again, while the clouds draw still nearer the new Earth.

 

Lastly, Yeshua alights from the cloud, surrounded and welcomed by the joyful crowd, angels are all about.

 

Abah smiles as He spots Tommy and other children playing by the River of Life. The water, as clear as crystal, flows from the throne of God. On one side of the river is a trunk of a large tree, on the other side of the river lies another. The trunks are of pure, transparent gold. For a second, it looks like two trees but they actually are united at the top as one. It is the Tree of Life, rooted on the either side of the river. Their branches bows to the spot where the crowd stands. They are bearing twelve different crops of fruit, and they look like swirls of gold and silver.

 

Some people in the crowd go under the tree and sit relax on the green lushy grass to look at the glory of their new