The Perishing Land - A Short Story, Page 2

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  From within the church, Yosi could hear the commotion of the evacuation outside. In the coolness of the sanctuary, he tried to pray but found himself constantly looking sidelong at Father Michael. The priest sat upon the front pew, his face a blank, his eyes staring beyond the heavy wooden crucifix and baptismal that rested within the nave. Despair fomented within as he lowered his eyes to the smooth wooden floor. This was not the first time the Father had withdrawn so.

  Men of science had visited the island before, nearly a year ago. An elderly white man came with the Government men that time, and spoke to the Chief and his council (to which Father Michael and Yosi belonged). He told them of how the Earth had been changing for years, and that the oceans and seas were rising. Islands such as theirs were in dire danger of disappearing under the waters.

  Since that visit, the people of the island continued on, thinking little of the Science Man's warnings. And yet, the beaches did begin to shrink, and the fish that the people needed to thrive moved away. A few among the people began to believe the Science Man, but most attributed the changes to the Devil. Then whispers rose up like ghosts as old men and women turned to the past. The forsaken spirits of their ancestors, they said, were returning with vengeance. Over the night fires, crones spoke of the ancient days when the gods punished them with floods to remove their wickedness.

  All turned to Father Michael for comfort. As the changes became impossible to ignore over the months since the Science Man visited, he was asked by his parish about who he thought was making the changes. Was it God? The Devil? Or was it, he was increasingly asked, the spirits of the island?

  At first he refused to answer the questions. "The Science Man said that mankind is ruining the planet. That is answer enough." But Father Michael was native, unlike the priest that he replaced many years before. He was baptized as a baby, shortly after the first missionaries arrived. Yet as a nephew of the shaman of the old religion, he also studied to speak with the spirits of water and earth, and the spirits of his ancestors. So when the beaches kept receding, and the sun scorched their skins, and the fish left, he remorsefully answered the parishioners' questions by saying "I fear it may be all of them." It was then that he began withdrawing from his parish, rarely to be seen outside the church.

  Once the army started shipping everyone away, Father Michael quit seeing most people. He allowed the Chief to enter the church, who demanded the priest leave with him on the last of the evacuation boats. Father Michael refused. Tormented by an unspoken guilt, he told the Chief that he would not leave the perishing land.

  "God is angry at me," was all that he would say.

  The only other who entered and left the church was Yosi, and he would speak to no one about the priest. The only exception to this was his wife, and then only after the entire island had emptied of everyone else.