The Messenger

The Messenger

I was a young journalist when I received the call. My column in the local newspaper was called Jerry’s Jotter and I filled it with accounts of my investigations of various matters that came to my attention.

Many subjects were dealt with in just one article but others were ongoing projects that lasted for years. The latter was the case for my experiences in the sphere of prophecy. This took the form of interviews with all types of seers and visionaries of the modern age. Usually they called themselves experts but some were so bold as to award themselves the title “prophet.” However they thought of themselves, what interested me about them was the fact that they all made predictions of how the future was going to pan out. My passion was to note down what they had to say and then see how much came true over the following years. Very few had an accuracy rating of greater than a single figure percentage.

There was a time when the suggested prescription for false prophecy was stoning but things are different now. These days we don’t care about prophecy but dispense metaphorical death for those whose views disagree with our own. I suppose my interest in the matter originated in a desire for true prophecy, for a way to sort the genuine thing from the vast outpouring of pure nonsense the data age had released upon us.

Be that as it may, it was my series on prophecy that must have brought me to the attention of Mrs Yang. I was working at my desk in the middle of the chaos that was The Cambury Crier’s newsroom, when I had a phonecall from our receptionist. A Mrs Yang was waiting to speak with me, apparently.

When she was ushered through to me by the receptionist, a little girl of about ten years of age was hanging on tightly to her hand. Mrs Yang was small and stocky with an open and attractive face, but the girl was strikingly pretty. She gazed at my colleagues engaged in such noisy and energetic production all around us, while retaining that sure hold on Mrs Yang’s hand. There was a look of innocent wonder on her face, a rare sight in the harsh and cynical world of news.

I stood to greet Mrs Yang and asked how I could help. She took the offered chair in front of my desk, the girl still standing by her side and hanging on like a limpet. Mrs Yang began.

“My daughter, Fen, wants to speak with you.” She turned to look at the girl, who now extended a hand in my direction. I took it in mine and gave it a quick shake.

“Pleased to meet you, Fen,” I said but she remained silent, just turning her gaze to the floor.

Mrs Yang continued. “Fen has been very interested to read your column and to learn of your views on prophecy. She has important things to tell you in that connection and hopes you will allow her the time to hear what she says.”

“Always ready to hear from one so sweet,” I said, and hated myself immediately for such condescension.

Mrs Yang spoke to Fen. “This is Mr Jerry. Can you tell him now what you have been saying in the last few days?”

Fen nodded and turned her face to look at me. “There’s an asteroid coming,” she said. I waited for more but that seemed to be it.

“You mean like the one that killed off the dinosaurs?” I asked.

She nodded and said, “Bigger.”

“So this is going to destroy the earth,” I suggested.

She shook her head this time. “No. It’s going to miss.”

Well, at least that makes a change, I thought. It was one of the most popular end of the world scenarios, after all.

“That’s a relief,” I said. “But how do you know all this?”

“God told me. And He told me to tell you.”

That was interesting. It’s true that God seems to use little children to speak through, especially if they are female and Roman Catholic. Personally, I had no particular opinion on such things. It was a question I had to ask, however.

“Which God are we talking about? Does He have a name?”

Fen smiled. “Oh, He has lots of names. You probably know Him as Jesus.”

“And what do you call Him,” I asked.

Mrs Yang interjected. “We’re Christian.”

“Denomination?” I had to know.

“Isn’t Christian enough?” she asked. “We don’t think about such things.”

“Fair enough,” I answered. I supposed it made no difference in reality. I turned back to Fen. “So what do you want me to do about the asteroid, Fen?”

Fen smiled again. “That’s up to you. I was only told to tell you about it, not what you should do with it.”

I laughed. “Sticking closely to the brief, I see. You’re a wise young lady, Fen”.

For a moment we sat and stared at each other and then Mrs Yang suggested that they leave. They had done what they came for, it seemed. I agreed and took down their address before they left. “Just in case I need to ask any more questions,” I added.

That was where I left it and the event slipped gradually from my mind in the days that followed. It was not that I did not think the girl’s statement had any importance, but more that there were several other interests of mine bubbling with activity at the time and they absorbed all my energy.

And then the news of the asteroid was announced. At first the astronomers reckoned that it was going to hit Earth and all the prophets of doom popped out of the woodwork to declare judgement on us all. I remembered the little girl and decided that the others were all a little too late for the bandwagon. If Fen was right, we had nothing to worry about. Why hadn’t I written about her visit before?

After a scrabble in my desk drawers, I found the piece of paper with the Yangs’ address. They lived in one of the poorer areas of town and it took me a while to find my way through the maze of narrow streets to their home.

The house itself was a crumbling old construction from Victorian times, I guessed, and since divided into apartments. According to the labels on the mailboxes by the front door, the Yangs lived on the second floor. I climbed the stairs and knocked on their door.

It was Fen who answered. The handle turned and then her sweet face peeked through the opening. “Hello, Mr Jerry,” she said.

“Actually it’s just Jerry,” I answered, smiling. “I’ve come to see you, Fen.”

“You’ve been reading about the asteroid, haven’t you? You didn’t write about it and now it’s too late.”

It was not an accusation, more an observation that explained my presence. Even so, I would have attempted an excuse but her mother appeared and threw open the door. She invited me in and then led the way to a room filled with light from windows that gave a view of a courtyard in the centre of the house. Lush vegetation filled this space and a fountain trickled into a pool almost hidden by the foliage. It was not the sort of thing one would expect in that area of town.

We sat in low armchairs and Mrs Yang poured tea from an elegant teapot into three tiny cups. The brew proved weak but very hot and we sipped wordlessly at our cups as we regarded each other.

It was Fen who broke the silence eventually. “I’m glad you didn’t write about it, Mr Jerry. We knew you didn’t even speak to anyone about it because no one came knocking and wanting to speak to me.”

“Yes, fame can be an annoying burden,” I agreed.

“So you’re not here to ask for something else you could write about, are you?”

“Well, no, I’m not.” This was a bit disconcerting. The truth was that I had only a vague idea of what I wanted from the visit. There had been a need to apologise for not having featured her in my column but now it seemed that was entirely unnecessary. Beyond that, I supposed that I had a need to get to know this little girl with a hotline to God.

“What I really want to do, Fen, is to get to know you. I’ve interviewed lots of people who say they know things about the future, but they always have explanations of why they think these things. You didn’t. In fact, you were quite honest about just doing what you were told without knowing the reason why. I wanted to talk to you about what you think and not just what the future holds.”

“You would find me very ordinary, Mr Jerry. I’m like any other girl my age and I’m sure you would be totally bored by my thoughts and feelings.” She smiled, as if to ease this apparent rebuff.

I was not going to let things go that easily. “You could let me be the judge of that,” I countered.

She laughed briefly, a girlish, light sound of pure amusement. “Or I could ask the questions,” she suggested.

Taken aback by the direction the conversation was taking, I was silent for a moment. Was this her mischievous way of putting me on the spot, of letting me understand what the prospect of interrogation must feel like for her? Or was she genuinely proposing that we switch roles and I become the interviewed?

I decided to take her literally. “Alright. Although I doubt you’ll find me very interesting.”

“But you’re wrong there, Mr Jerry. If God is so interested in you, why should I not be?”

“God isn’t interested in me,” I replied. “Why do you say that?”

She laughed again. “I thought I was supposed to ask the questions. But think about it, Mr Jerry. He sends me with a message to you but without telling me why. You have a choice, to write about the message or to keep silent. It’s a test, designed for you to learn something about yourself. And now you have and so have I. By deciding not to write about it, you have said something about yourself.”

“What have I learned?”

This time she did not laugh but her smile grew broader. “We both have learned that you regard the messenger as more important than the message. I know that you became so busy that you forgot all about me and the message but, if the message had any real importance to you, you would have remembered and written about it.”

Silence descended upon us again as I thought about this. Then she spoke again.

“So now the question is why God wanted you to learn this about yourself. It must be because He is interested in you.”

I had to admit that she was right. And that has been the basis of our relationship ever since. She asks the questions and then she helps me find the answers. It’s been ten years since these things happened but Fen still phones me from college occasionally and asks me questions. Sometimes she has things from God too, but now they’re always about me, never about the end of the world.

In all this, I have learned something else. No matter how hard it is to believe, God is interested in you. Don’t be surprised if you get a message from Him one day.


Word count: 1,942
For no particular reason
No prompt apart from the fact that it wanted to be written.