THE SWORD AND SICKLE

PART ONE: REVELATIONS

CHAPTER-FOUR

CONVERSATIONS WITH ALINDA

© Olan L. Smith

"I'm sorry Levi. I have been selfish and haven't been looking at it from that point-of-view, which is so unlike me when it comes to you. Even if I wanted to leave, I doubt if Alinda would let me."

"I am sure she would do as I say and let you have time to think about it, but I am sure you that I will be back."

"It is just that I have wanted a child all my life and now, at forty-five, I find out I will have a baby."

"You could wait and go see your gynecologist and ask him to check your fertility and if she says you're fertile, then you will know for sure."

"Yeah, that would freak her out for sure. She's been my doctor for years and is very familiar with my insides, and what am I going to tell her about the permanent hand-print on my butt?"

"Tell her you had a disagreement with Aphrodite and she spanked you. She will have a good laugh."

"She will laugh, and then she will look at my ass and see it is not a normal mark or tattoo, and send me to a dermatologist. The dermatologist will most likely want to do a study about my ass; no, thank you God. I'll just wait to see if I get pregnant and then switch gynecologists. I will tell the new doctor it is a birthmark, or something."

"Wait a minute; are you accepting all this? Are we going to have a child and be married?"

"Yes, Levi Jackson, I will marry you."

"You asked me to reveal everything, Venus, I didn't want to tell you about it, and because I wasn't sure I believed it either and I didn't want to concern you. In the summer of twenty twenty-four, the United States will cease to exist!" Levi's attitude and demeanor changed. He was no longer the man Venus had known, but he was talking with certainty and authority.

"How do you know this?"

"Ariel, our daughter, came to me in my sleep and told me, and the next night she revealed to me what would happen. It is not pretty."

"How can Ariel come to you in your sleep if she hasn't been born? So, this is my story; in twenty, twenty-four the world is going to end. Why? And how many will die?"

"After I uh...kick-the-bucket, I will return to my true self, and usher in the End of Days. How many die? Nearly everyone."

"You're fucking kidding me. Billions of deaths and I will be alive to witness it; I will just as soon die with them as live. You even sound like a god; you and Alinda are a real pair. I don't mean any disrespect to either of you, but I've had enough of an example of her powers."

"You will never taste death, Venus. When the time is right, you will be transformed for the rest of eternity, and then you will abide with the Lord as his most significant other. You have been with him from the beginning of time and when you transform, you will recall everything. This life is just the last of your reincarnations."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am certain."

Venus leaned her head on his chest and sobbed, for now she truly understood the full burden she must carry. She did go home that day. The next day she moved Levi in with her, and found a minister to marry them. In three months, she went to her new gynecologist and discovered she was pregnant for the first time. Nine months later, she gave birth to a baby girl, weighing eight pounds and nine ounces, who she named, Ariel Myrtle Jackson.