Short Fiction

A Divine Gesture

And then when all was come and gone, the Great Lord God strode out of the house and into the garden, for in the garden he found the deep peace of Rome. Bathtubs stood all around in heavy earnestness. Boot jacks littered the Garden. A thousand broken flower pots were piled into one corner.

“Where is Adam?” asked the Lord God.

No one answered for all the flower pots were tired and none of the bathtubs remembered it was Sunday.

“Where is Eve?” asked the Lord God, pulling at his beard and looking remarkably like Tolstoy.

At once all the boot jacks began to leap and chatter and a flight of blackbirds swooped down into the garden and commenced to strut around, exploring into the flower pots with their beautiful shining bills.

“She is gone out, God,” said the largest and weakest bathtub in a heavily earnest manner, “and no man can prophecy the hour of her returning. But I would say that she would return around four o’clock.”

The Great Lord God made a divine motion with his hand and the angel Gabriel came swiftly forward from where he had been sitting and let all the water out of the largest and weakest of the bathtubs.

“That would teach him a valuable lesson,” remarked the angel Gabriel, and God nodded to him in an absentminded and approving manner.

“It should,” meditated the great Lord God, “and more valuable lessons is what we need in this day and age.”

As there seemed nothing more for the angel Gabriel to say and as the water was quite run out of the largest and weakest of the bathtubs, he smiled quietly at God and walked carefully back to his corner, treading cautiously as he went in order not to step on any of the boot jacks which were curling and uncurling in an alarming manner.

“Stop it!” shouted the Great Lord God, and at once every boot jack was still. “How often have I told you not to continue that loathsome habit?”

One boot jack nudged another and soon they were all nudging one another and whispering, “We mustn’t squirm today. We mustn’t squirm today. Hy ya to did eeyay. We mustn’t squirm today!”

In a little while from whispering the words had changed into a chant and all the boot jacks were squirming more than ever and chanting at the top of their voices, “We mustn’t squirm today. We mustn’t squirm today. Hy Yah Ta Did Esay! We mustn’t squirm today!”

“Stop it!” shouted the Great Lord God in a terrible voice.

All the boot jacks were very frightened and then in a few moments one said in a frightened but eager voice, “Why mustn’t we squirm today God?”

“I’m busy!” said God in a terrible voice. “I’m busier than ever!”

All the boot jacks commenced nudging one another and saying, “He’s busier than ever. That’s why we mustn’t squirm today.” But in a few moments they had forgotten why they were nudging one another and were all chanting and squirming, “We mustn’t squirm today.”

God strode away in disgust, making a divine gesture to the angel Gabriel who followed him quietly out of the garden.

“No peace,” said the Great Lord God as they strode rapidly up the long stairs, “no peace anywhere. I’m so busy, and there is only twenty-four hours in a day.”

“Are twenty-four hours, perhaps you mean, Sire,” quietly said the angel Gabriel.

“Is twenty-four hours, I said,” the Great Lord God corrected in a sad tone, for he was very fond of the angel Gabriel.

The angel Gabriel smiled uncertainly and followed God up the long stairs, thinking of his wife and children.

“I am sure there is only twenty-four hours,” he said, panting a little from the stairs.

“My good and faithful servant,” God said fondly, for he was very fond of the angel Gabriel, “I’m so very busy.”

So they sat down for a little while and far below them could hear the sound of the boot jacks squirming and chanting.

“What is that sound?” asked God, for like many other leaders he was very deaf at times.

“Your faithful boot jacks, Sire,” answered the angel Gabriel quietly, but very distinctly.

“Ah, yes,” God mused happily, “my faithful boot jacks.”

Up in Michigan

Jim Gilmore came to Hortons Bay from Canada. He bought the blacksmith shop from old man Horton. Jim was short and dark with big mustaches and big hands. He was a good horseshoer and did not look much like a blacksmith even with his leather apron on. He lived upstairs above the blacksmith shop and took his meals at A. J. Smith’s.

Liz Coates worked for Smith’s. Mrs. Smith, who was a very large clean woman, said Liz Coates was the neatest girl she’d ever seen. Liz had good legs and always wore clean gingham aprons and Jim noticed that her hair was always neat behind. He liked her face because it was so jolly but he never thought about her.

Liz liked Jim very much. She liked it the way he walked over from the shop and often went to the kitchen door to watch for him to start down the road. She liked it about his mustache. She liked it about how white his teeth were when he smiled. She liked it very much that he didn’t look like a blacksmith. She liked it how much A. J. Smith and Mrs. Smith liked Jim. One day she found that she liked it the way the hair was black on his arms and how white they were above the tanned line when he washed up in the washbasin outside the house. Liking that made her feel funny.

Hortons Bay, the town, was only five houses on the main road between Boyne City and Charlevoix. There was the general store and postoffice with a high false front and maybe a wagon hitched out in front, Smith’s house, Stroud’s house, Fox’s house, Horton’s house and Van Hoosen’s house. The houses were in a big grove of elm trees and the road was very sandy. There was farming country and timber each way up the road. Up the road a ways was the Methodist church and down the road the other direction was the township school. The blacksmith shop was painted red and faced the school.