It was a dark and cloudy day. In fact it had been so for as
long as I can remember. It was as if the beauty of the sun was taken from the
lands of the earth. I am Ada, it means adornment in Hebrew. My parents have
always been people of God, but I never understood who God was and why we had to
obey him. Others around us did as they pleased. Blood was shed on a daily bases,
people relied on themselves and not a supernatural being. Our neighbor for
example, Chavakuk he had had an answer for everything without seeking god for anything.
He always said to my father “You are a man of God, I on the other hand is my
own man. You are a slave to the unseen”.
We never quite liked being amongst corruption and deception
but my mother would always tell me” this is a trail from the God of Adam and
the righteous men after him”. I didn’t really want to go against what she would
say although I couldn’t make sense of it at all. “Why would God trail us? Isn’t
the evil and deception amongst the people enough of a trail? If God is good and
kind why would he put us through this separation of the people?” endless
questions flood my head. But I could never question our faith even though it
seemed we were amongst the very few that followed the teachings of forefathers
that we had never met and an unseen God that we probably will never meet.
My father was very close to a man named Noah he would always
come to our place of residence and enjoin having super with us. Occasionally he
would bring his wife Naamah and he son’s; Ham, Shem, and Japheth to join us, but we saw them rarely. Noah and his
family kept themselves to themselves as there were claims around town that he was deluded claiming to
be sent by god as a guide to mankind. Just like his grandfather Methuselah,
who claimed he received revelation from Enoch that he, Noah would be amongst
those saved when the great destruction befalls the earth and its inhabitants.
There was also tales that Lamech who was the father of Noah ran away from him
as he was strange looking and spoke at birth praising the lord. He would constantly preach words of wisdom in the
markets but he got nothing but heckling from the sinners making mockery of his
message. Rarely he would get a very few that would follow his teachings from
the Torah.
One evening he had come to my father pale faced and gasping
for air. “God is displeased with man, and for that he shall send a punishment
which will cause all to perish, man and beast” he explained. “That
can’t be, God made a convenient with Adam in that those who remain in his path
will receive salvation” my father replied both in fear and confusion, feeling
betrayed by God.
“My dear brother and neighbor
mankind has grown arrogant and insolent against god and through these mischievous
action they must pay. God has instructed me to build an ark so that the
righteous of men will be saved when the flood is upon us” urged Noah. I stood
there by the door, fear filled my heart “what was to come of the world if
everything was to be destroyed by the wrath of God”, and from hearing this news
I cried and cried for days “What if we were left behind?”.
Day after day my father arose from his sleep at the crack of
dawn aiding Noah and his sons to build the ark. Upon completion, people: both
good and bad, Animals: big or small flocked towards the ark, whilst a very few abstained
out of arrogance in hopes that they would remain untouched by the flood as they
would stop it with their power and might. My family entered the ark, it was
dark, noisy and cramped. There was no way this could sustain us all. We were
going to die in here before the flood came. Noah stood by the door granting
entry to everything in pairs (male and female) whilst others were turned away. Amongst them being women and
children. Families that I had grown up with seeing them almost every day. By
the time the sun had risen the doors of the ark was shut. We waited and waited,
Noah paced back and forth hoping that maybe god had changed his mind and would
not send the waters. Suddenly we felt a sudden thrust of pressure on the walls
of the ark. Everyone went into panic and water had filled the lands…….
(Noahs Ark, Noah unit, The king James Bible : The flood, (1611), Genesis 5-6. Source)
Authors Note: I really enjoyed the story of Noah and the ark.
Being around for 950 year and having very few followers most have taken a lot
of patients and perseverance. I wanted to tell the story from my own made up
character as I thought it would be interesting to try and be an observer of
what was going on at the time. Could you imagine what would be going through
our minds if we were to go through such an event? What would our reaction be? Would we be amongst the followers or those that think he is deluded?
Bibliography:The King James Bible (1611), Genesis 5-6 and The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909): Book 1, Chapter 4 Noah
Link: Noahs Ark
Bibliography:The King James Bible (1611), Genesis 5-6 and The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909): Book 1, Chapter 4 Noah
Link: Noahs Ark
I thought your story was very creative and well told. The story of Noah's Ark like many of the stories taken straight from the bible, is pretty bare boned - my high school AP Literature teacher would say that the story contained all concrete detail and no commentary - so the fact that you took to the story and added not only more detail, but also a different perspective was really cool. Telling the story from the perspective of an outsider was also a really nice touch because it was interesting to see the story of Noah almost free of bias - the narrator neither seemed to feel that Noah was absolutely crazy, or that Noah had everything all figured out. Good job!
ReplyDeleteAcce, I really enjoyed reading this story!! It took awhile reading into it for me to finally realize you were retelling the story of Noah's Ark from the perspective of someone actually there and close to Noah, but once I did, I thought it was fantastic! It was certainly a unique approach. I like how you dug into the thoughts and the fears that one might face in this actual situation, and I think they would probably be similar to the ones I would have if someone told me God was going to destroy all that was not good in the world. Overall, I thought your story was very well told, even though there was a few grammatical errors, but that aside, you did very good with your perspective twist and detail in your story!
ReplyDeleteYour story was amazing, and by using the perspective of an observer I felt I was seeing through the eyes of someone who had lived in year 950. I like how you wrote your story then asked questions in your author's note as well. I couldn't imagine being anyone of the christian faith back then. I can only imagine the amount of hate and mockery Noah had endured back then, but then again I'm not it would be a breeze for him today either. Yes, people are more open and following the faith, but if someone randomly ran about preaching about an upcoming flood I think many of us would see him as delirious.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your retelling of this story. I liked that you make the narrator someone who was watching everything unfold, seeing both types of people in the story. It made the story seem more realistic. I also liked that you included so much familial history. I thought that added a lot to the story as well. There were a couple of writing errors but overall it was a good story.
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