22 July 2011

The Lotus of Knowledge

His heart pounded, blood rushing through him as he felt the keys slipping in his sweaty palms.

"YOUR CODE, SIR." the robotic voice called into the incinerator. His arms shook violently as he attempted to unlock the door.

"FIVE MINUTES TO INCINERATION."

He held his keys close to him, inspecting each one, but no matter what way he held them, no matter how he looked at them, the words only blurred.

"Dammit!" He screamed in desperation. The circular metal room began to heat up. He could feel the crackling heat rise from the floor. He dropped the keys. Looking at the door's complex lock, He knew the keys were worthless. They wouldn't work here, not like they had for all the other rooms.

He reached, out of habit, to pick up the keys, but his shaking vision altered his depth perception. The loud computer voice rang out into the incinerator once again.

"FOUR MINUTES TO INCINERATION. PLEASE ENTER YOUR CANCELLATION CODE."

Cancellation code? His pulse seemed about ready to burst as he ran around the room, looking for something, anything, that would get him out of the incinerator. He stormed the large metal prison, until he found an odd machine atop a pedestal on the catwalk of the incinerator dome.

It looked like a credit card machine, however, the only thing on it was a number pad and a screen. The green lettering shone innocently from the screen's surface.

"CANCELLATION CODE PLEASE." the sign read.

He rejoiced, the adrenaline slowing in his veins, and holding the machine, he finally felt the ray of hope he had been searching for.

"TWO MINUTES TO INCINERATION. YOUR CANCELLATION CODE NOTE IS UNDER THE MACHINE."

It hit him across the face like a heavy book. He had no idea what the cancellation code was, nor had he the slightest idea what it could have been, but he quickly reached under the machine for a slip of paper, carefully folded into a little square. He ripped it open, hurrying in.

"What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?"

A quote from a book he'd faced many times; A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

He looked at the quote carefully, though the blurred vision from the adrenaline rushes proved to be detrimental. His face seemed to scrunch together, as though the note was hard to see.

Sure he had read the book several times, but who was to say that the answer to the question had anything to do with the location of the quote? Who was to say that the quote had absolutely nothing to do with the book other than to pose a question that both answered the cancellation code's request, the biblical definition of what God would want, and the plot structure of the original story.

His mind raced, the computer voice announcing the last minute before it all burned.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, waiting for the heat to blast out of the burners in the ground. His demise overwhelmingly presented itself, flaunting as though to mock his short life left if he could not find out the code.

Sweat beads dripped down his face. He could feel his eyes becoming wider and wider with every second. What does God want? What does God want?

In an instant, he felt the hit of a Revelation.

21-4, He typed into the machine.

He closed his eyes as a white light enveloped him, and he was Saved. He walked toward the bright sky, dropping the note to the ground, his face beaming with light, and the book no longer on his mind.