Part 2

“You can’t be serious. Dreams aren’t reality.” Joel’s wife, Mary, pleaded with him.

“It wasn’t just a dream, or at least it felt like more.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

He shrugged and got up to start the day. As he went through the morning routine, food, coffee, and brushing teeth, inside his mind the world was collapsing. Every second of the dream was played on repeat. The outside went mute; the car radio barely audible. He arrived at work to push papers and clear cubicles. Work didn’t matter. All that mattered to him now was unraveling the prophecy he was given. 

There was no one he could talk to about his situation. They would all think he was crazy, even a priest might throw him out as a prankster. People have been predicting the end of the world since the beginning. Maybe he could learn from them, but he didn’t have any information. Stories of floods are in every culture and the angel didn’t give a name. The despair began to grow in Joel and he felt sick. He ran to a sink and gave up his breakfast. Being at work was pointless; he stepped out.

Going home wasn’t any better, across the street was a store that sold boating equipment. He went in. Joel began to ask the clerk questions relating to his flood. He asked whether waves could get too big for the biggest boats, for he knew little about being out on the open ocean. The responses didn’t help. The store was there to sell products and not philosophize about man’s limits. As the conversation went on Joel could see the employee recede, they no longer wanted to talk to him. Exactly how he thought speaking up would go, and he hadn’t even brought up angels. People weren’t ready for this; he wasn’t ready for it.