"Manna" (A Short Story)

The following is an anonymously written short story that takes place years into the thousand reign, after the resurrection of several biblical patriarchs in the New World. It was written as fan-fiction for E.K. Jonathan's novel All Things New.
(I made an earlier post about All Things New. You can click here to see that post and read more about it.)

At the time of that post, I hadn't completed reading his hundred-thousand-word novel-length work.
Now, I have.

I really liked how his book made the idea of what new system life would be such a reality even if only in our imaginations for now. Most of all, I appreciate the painstaking effort he took to be as accurate as possible to what we know from the Bible and our publications. Although an imagination and creative license were necessary for a project like this, he avoided excessive speculation whenever possible.

My favorite section in the book is the experience of Hank Haynes. You can read that section by clicking here.

The writer of All Things New, under the pen name E.K. Jonathan, wanted to remain anonymous, but I do want to clarify that I was not the author. The writer is a friend of mine that I've known for a couple of years. We've done a few minor collaborative creative projects together, and I hope we can do more in the future.

In like manner, the writer for 'Manna' works under the pen name "Emma Nevarez."
There are only three characters in the following story (including the protagonist in All Things New), and the emphasis is clearly more on the dialogue than the environmental description. In the tradition of All Things New, much effort was taken to be as accurate as possible. Hopefully a second section will be written soon.

Hope you enjoy reading it.

--

Manna (A Short Story)

I sat down on the wooden picnic bench on the far north side of the long latticed enclosure. Here, unobstructed by the ivy intertwined wood, I could see clear out to where the riders were and hear the clomping of hooves. The late afternoon sun cast silhouettes of the tree-housed-trees. From the angle I was at, the silhouettes of the trees were stone-fixed in the ground framing the dancing silhouettes of the players. The riders and their horses blurred together like galloping shadows across the green. 

I had arrived early. 

Of course, I had arrived early.

“Brother Hanson?” a voice said behind me to my right. I turned around to see a man tie up his horse, and pull off his gloves and riding helmet before sitting down across from me. How he rode up behind me so silently, I don’t know.

“Glad to meet you, and glad you could come. My name is Amos. I live here at the ranch—had the privilege of personally teaching Moses how to play polo.”

I smiled, but my visage betrayed my slight confusion.

“You’re his polo instructor?”

“He had someone else teach him how to play it. I just taught him how to play it well.” Amos winked. “I’m sure even back then they all had their ideas of what they would want to do in Jehovah’s Kingdom—Moses too. When he finally got here, a lot of the things he wanted to do turned out to be things that didn’t even exist in his day! But to answer your question: No, I’m not the instructor. I’m the cook.”

“His cook?”

“Well, I cook for everyone here. It’s my passion. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to duplicate manna—trying to figure out the formula of how Jehovah made it, its nutritional complex…”

“But the manna was miraculous—heaven sent.”

“Sure. It was a miracle that happened briefly and then disappeared—like the parting of the Red Sea, the Ten Plagues, the Pillar of Fire. But there are miracles of nature happening all the time all around around us. Think about it. If there were a machine that could turn regular grass into milk, it would be a scientific miracle. Those machines do exist—they’re called cows!”

I’m sure the look on my face made it obvious to him that I thought he was a little strange. Back then, I didn’t really get his point and thought his thinking was a little, albeit harmlessly, twisted. Now, in hindsight, I think that I was the one who needed enlightening. 

“The manna was from Jehovah. We can’t make it,” I insisted. “We don’t even know what it looks like!”

“We didn’t know completely what it looked or tasted like, but now we’re getting closer to knowing the exact composition. Many eyewitnesses of the manna-fall have been resurrected now. Didn’t you help build one of the Resurrection Welcome Centers?”

I nodded.

“Well, I’ve heard it’s well after their generation’s turn in the Welcome Centers now.” He wiped his hands with a towel after washing them and continued. “Of course you’re right though; we can’t truly match anything Jehovah created—but the best science has always come from imitating his perfect machines in nature. The formula works in design—so why not expand it to the culinary arts I say. Jehovah’s miracles may just have been him bending the already existing scientific laws to his advantage at just the right moment.” He snapped his fingers when he said “just.” “Jehovah—the original and greatest scientist of all!”

I shrugged my shoulders in reply to his beaming smile.

“Maybe you’ll make a machine that turns grass into milk one day,” I half-jokingly replied.

“Better yet—one that turns water into wine.”

We finally shook hands, and he offered me a cold carbonated strawberry drink. We then engaged in small talk for a few minutes.

“I have to say, it’s an irony and a privilege to be asked for an interview by the one that everyone wants to meet,” I said.

“Moses has read your book—your interviews.”

Although he made the last statement and carried on, my mind uncontrollably lingered on the fact that the writer of Genesis, Exodus and more books than any other Bible writer living on earth—one of the principal writers of the book—actually read my book. That blew me away. 

“The requests for interviews and meetings have been more than we’ve expected—more than anyone that’s been resurrected so far. More than David. More than Noah—”

“Which is a gentle travesty if you ask me,” interrupted a voice from the entrance I was looking out from earlier.

I looked back and saw his silhouette there for the first time—standing under the wooden arched opening in the enclosure with the bright sun shining behind him. I shielded my eyes.

When he came into view, the first thing I found strange was his clothing—dark jeans and a fitted long-sleeve striped polo shirt. When I looked at his face, however, I knew right away that this was the man. His hair was long dark and wooly—his features dark and middle-eastern. He was strongly built, but slightly shorter than I would have imagined, and nothing like any of the pictures I’d seen in the Bible Stories book.

He carried in his hands a hefty dark-blue Bible with gold lining. That felt out of place too. Naturally, I would have imagined him with a scroll in hand, but the version he had in hand didn’t really match his modern clothes either. It looked like the type of Bible you would find in the Vatican—pretty and fancy but more for show than anything else.

“You know the irony in that statement,” I said replying to his statement about the ‘travesty.’ “When you’re known as the meekest man in history besides Jesus—” I didn’t need to finish my sentence.

—

Later, we pulled out two of the wooden rocking chairs onto the shaded patio and sat next to each other. We both had frosty, plain dark brown glass bottles of ice cold beer in hand. We sat and chatted as we looked out to the children playing far off in the orange late afternoon sunlight. 

“I was reading some Arthur Conan Doyle the other day,” Moses said to me. “I really like his writings. My favorite writer from your era. I’d like to rewrite some of the books—particularly Genesis—in his more narrative style—like a mystery—the unfinished mystery! That’s what it was back then. He’s someone I’d like to meet one day. I’ve heard he’s here. He made it.”

“He did,” I replied, “although not all of his writings did. What did you like most of his? The Lost World? Sherlock Holmes?”

Moses looked at me as if his curiosity were piqued. “I’ve never read any of that. I was reading Through the Magic Door.”

I’d never heard of that book.

Moses went on: “Doyle mentioned how books are like a magic door into the minds of the most interesting people that have ever walked the planet. I’m not sure ‘magic’ is the word I would have used, but…well—he’s right. Some in my day would have done anything to spend a day with Joseph—with Abraham. We couldn’t. They were long dead. They couldn’t read about him either. There weren’t any books back then! Even after I finished my account of mankind’s Genesis, the scrolls weren’t easily accessible to the people—weren’t in abundance. I wrote it by hand. We had the recital of the law, but if they could have had it in hand, maybe—” He stopped the sentence before finishing the thought, and then paused for about ten seconds before going off on a tangent. “…and I’m a horrid writer. It’s only by Jehovah’s undeserved kindness, and his miraculous ability, that I indirectly became, along with Paul, the most widely published writer in history.”

“I really liked the book of Genesis. I read it growing up,” I said with a smile.

“It’s the work of Jehovah—the history we needed to hear.”

“Not just that,” I insisted. “The writing style was exciting. Genesis was always my favorite when I was growing up! Some parts were confusing to me as a kid of course, but that just made me want to dig deeper—dig in more. As an adult, I did have trouble wrapping my brain and heart around all the accounts and Jehovah’s decisions in certain areas,” I said, going off on a tangent of my own. “It must have been a good way to separate the honest-hearted from those that just wanted to write off Jehovah as a strange cruel God without investigating further.”

“I understand what you mean,” Moses said to my relief. “I’ve heard of the wild talk—what they claimed they knew about Jehovah in the last days. They took his actions completely out of context and slanderously smeared him as sinister.”

“The killing of all the firstborn Egyptian males and livestock—even the children. It did disturb some. It disturbed me before I knew all the factors behind it.”

“They forget that the Egyptians did the same thing! A generation of Hebrew males were mercilessly wiped out eighty years before. Jehovah should have taken vengeance for that and more considering the two-hundred and fifteen years his people endured under the crack of the whip. His sense of justice measured one man’s life as equal to another man’s life—something the Egyptians, by their actions, clearly did not believe. The spilt Hebrew blood was crying out to Jehovah. He could have wiped Egypt out like he did Babylon, or destroyed all of the Egyptian children. Instead, he just paid back eye for eye and nothing more. In fact, even though the Egyptians murdered with out warning when they wiped out the Hebrew male, Jehovah mercifully gave the Egyptians nine opportunities to turn back before he finally acted. In that day Jehovah proved that he hears the cry of his people. Many of the generation that witnessed that genocide grew old and died. They didn’t get to see Jehovah take action for the wrongs committed eighty years before the day of judgment.”

“Many grew up, grew old and died all within the span of the last days in my generation—a similar test of faith.”

“Yes. But Jehovah did finally act—when he knew the time was right.

“There were many Biblical accounts like that—where on superficial analysis—Jehovah could seem unjust. I wonder if He was using the same approach as our Messiah Jesus used when asking to drink of his blood or implying that woman was like a little dog,” I asked. “Maybe he was testing our sincerity—our appreciation?”

“He wanted us to dig for the truth. There is divine wisdom in how those scriptures were written. I may have been the pen, but he was the writer. It was beyond me.”

“I understand your modesty and you wanting to give Jehovah all the glory as much as I understand a good speaker giving credit to Jehovah for an excellent talk, but surely your work in carefully writing those books is worth something! Jehovah gave you hands to write and a brain to think, but you chose to use those tools, for him instead of against him, out of your own free will.” 

It felt weird trying to compliment Moses. 

“I’m sure it wasn’t always that easy either—especially when the nation you were leading treated you like trash,” I continued. “At what point does humility—even genuine—get in the way of giving credit where credit is due?”

Moses smiled and said, “You sound like someone I know.”

“Really? Who? Joshua?” I asked, sarcastically flattering myself.

“No. Jehovah,” Moses replied with a straight and honest face. “Jehovah always found a way to paint me in the most positive loving light possible. When I read the scriptures, I can’t help but feel that all my flaws we’re left out and only the good parts left in. You may know of my sin when I abused my authority at Kadesh. I treated the people with contempt and didn’t give glory to the God that gave me glory. In other words, for a moment, I’m portrayed as I was—an Israelite. I was an imperfect man—a man that lost focus at times, lost patience sometimes and just wanted to lose it sometimes. Although that may have been the peak of my errors, there were many more stupid habits and personality flaws I constantly had to work on. Sometimes, I even had to pray to Jehovah for the desire to want to work on my flaws since, at times, I just didn’t care! I definitely often needlessly angered and annoyed loved ones—ones who just wanted to serve Jehovah and do the right thing. All of that’s not written in the account. I’m grateful to Jehovah that he included at least one of my most grievous errors so that future generations could see that I was a man like anyone else. They could have a warning to those taking the lead. Most importantly, the glory could now go to Jehovah and his perfect Messiah—the greater Moses, the Immanuel—Jesus Christ. He in-turn glorified my God Jehovah in the best way possible. I can’t tell you what a joy it is, finally, to call myself—not a Jew, Hebrew, or Israelite—but a Christian. I am a Christian, like the beautiful Witnesses of your generation. I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

“Your modesty as to character comes as no surprise from a man who was noted in the book of books as the ‘meekest of all men,’ I said with a satisfied smile, “but certainly I’m not sure if all would agree with the criticism of your writing.” 

At this point I pulled out an article I read recently from Zion’s Weekly and began quoting a section out loud to him. 

…I always knew I should read the Psalms and try to meditate and discern what I could learn about Jehovah and the valuable lessons from them, but it was never anything that I considered especially beautiful writing. Since, the Psalms were the largest portion, the largest book in the Bible, and since I felt it contained a lot of repetition, I found them especially hard to get through… I always viewed them as important to take in and healthy for the spirit—but healthy in the same way that broccoli is healthy, yet difficult to eat! 

That all changed once I spent time with the newly resurrected ones from the generations when these Psalms were written. They explained to me the context, explained the original linguistic and artistic nuances and how they flowed in the original Hebrew. While this revelation opened up the Psalms of David and Asaph in new light, what I found to be particularly interesting and a highlight was the ninetieth and ninety-first Psalms written by Moses. I didn’t even know that Moses wrote any of the Psalms! Although, nostalgia and novelty may come in to factor here, many of the earlier generations, and those of the final and of the newer post-paradise generations that are versed in the original Hebrew agree that, poetically speaking, this is one of their favorite Psalms of all. 

“The post script mentions this is a reprint of an earlier article and that since news of your resurrection, interest in your Psalms have increased. Now they are the most popularly mentioned of all for those wishing to learn the Psalms.”

“I’ve read that article,” Moses said with smirk. “Heard the writer has gotten used to eating broccoli too.”

“When I said ‘learning’ the Psalms, I meant just that. I heard David is helping people learn to sing and perform them in their original languages to the original melodies,” I chuckled, put the article away and slumped back into my chair. “If it weren’t for these perfect surroundings, I’d wonder if David were growing envious of you as Saul grew envious of him.”

Moses laughed back. “I doubt it. He’s my boy! He comes from a good bloodline you know,” Moses said returning the joke.

“But—you were a good writer,” I continued with hesitation. I think I just wanted to push him to the point of admitting it! “As a writer myself, that’s the new light I find interesting.”

He was quiet for a bit and then finally replied, “Well, thank you young man,” and took a sip from his beer. I expected a denial of this fact—maybe a speech trying to explain how he was a poor writer. Instead, his gracious response was refreshing. It gave me a brief moment to think about what true humility actually is—and what it is not. 

—

As the evening pressed on, I finally got out my notebook and the questions I had prepared for the interview he had requested.

“I suppose my first question is: Why? Why did you specifically request an interview with me when so many others have requested to meet with you?”

“Many want to see me, but first I want to answer the questions that most people want to know so that you can publish it to others who aren’t able to meet me in person.”

“Get the frequently asked questions about Moses out of the way? Avoid repetition?” I asked with a wink.

“In a way—yes.” Moses readjusted his seat. “In this book I was reading by Arthur Conan Doyle, he mentions a good point. In his time, people could spend time with those already dead.”

I raised an eyebrow as he continued.

“You had books. You could read. If you spent an evening reading the accounts of me or Abraham or Jacob or Paul or even the Christ, you could say you spent an evening with those people. Not only spent an evening with them, but spent an evening with them speaking the most profound and relevant things that they had ever spoken. People used to ask me which person had the greatest affect on my life. My loving wife Zipporah? My mother?”

“It wasn’t either of them?”

Moses tilted his head. “Sometimes, I felt that the person that had the most effect on me was a man I’d never met—a man that died before I was born.”

I leaned forward with curiosity.

“A man blameless and upright,” he said looking off into the distance. 

“Job,” I said with a smile and leaned back in to my chair. 

“I worked hard to trace all things from the start with accuracy—get all the details of the story. I spent so much time thinking about him and his story that sometimes I felt like I knew him.”

“There were definitely many from my generation that had these, your writings at their fingertips, but didn’t open them and didn’t read them. They’d often be the same ones that would encourage their children to be excited to meet these Bible characters in the New World—even reprimand them if they mentioned they weren’t interested.” I paused and thought for a second before continuing. “I would know because honestly I was one of those parents. In school, growing up, they always stressed the importance of learning to read and reading a lot. They didn’t stress so much that choosing what you read is just as important as the ability to read. They stressed education—so called ‘higher’ education, but that’s it. ‘Higher.’ They were more interested in altitude than content.”

“I was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians you know.”

I smiled and cupped my drink between my palms. “And?”

Moses motioned towards the horse he was riding earlier, which was now freely grazing. “They knew one or two things about chariot racing—how to deal with a horse.”

I smiled and folded my hands over my stomach. 

“Well there was a lot that I learned,” he continued. A lot of interesting thoughts—philosophies. Confusion. Frustration. In the end—well—I think Paul said it better than I could. And Solomon? A striving after the wind? Yeah. Yeah, that works. He that increases knowledge increases pain. Maybe it’s because the knowledge and advancement humans made in the old world was mixed in with so much mental and spirit-poisoning sludge that any imperfect man who wanted to dive in would be destined to get at least a little ill. The conclusion of it all—just fear God and keep his commandments. It’s better to be called stupid and be a lowly one without an education than to have the pain that the nihilistic fleshly human conclusions bring you to. Better a living dog than a dead lion. Right? Only to the man who knows how to put his pride in the right place.”

“And you? Did you have to fight any of the bad traits you picked up from your Egyptian education?”

“My mother Jochebed did what she could. She didn’t want to live in that pagan environment, but she did what she had to do in order to save my life. I read in the completed Holy Scriptures about Timothy and read about many in your times that lived in divided households. I lived in a divided household of another type—divided between the teachings of my two mothers. The daughter of the Pharaoh adopted me and loved me—called me one of her own and a blessing from the gods. It was said I was a divinely beautiful child, I was taught in school by some that I was divine—found in the reeds of the Nile like their so-called great god Horus. It went to my head at least a little.”

“You were found and saved from the Nile, not just by any Egyptian family—you were saved by the daughter of Pharaoh herself. I could understand why some could believe you were at least from the gods.”

“Even though I did have those prideful feelings, I also felt pity for my people—the Hebrews. I knew, I just knew, Jehovah had some special high purpose for me. I learned about the days hundreds of years before—the days of Joseph when the Hebrews were respected by the Egyptians because of his example and help. Their hearts grew colder over the years and racism crept in. Finally it was racism to the point of genocide. They wanted to keep our numbers down. We were getting strong from working in that mud—stronger and more dangerous of a threat to the Egyptians. Learning about the fall-from-grace history of Jehovah’s people, the genocide, seeing the people beaten an abused before my eyes and the sense that I was part of some divine plan all had a cumulative effect on me. I wanted to free my people!”

“And a few years later you would,” I chimed in.

Moses looked at me straight in the eye. “A few years? 

“Um—I…”

“It was more than forty years after leaving Egypt that I was allowed to return as Jehovah’s tool. That’s how long it took for Jehovah to refine me—undo what was taught to me by the Egyptians—to humble me. Did you catch the error in my thinking? I wanted to free my people. My people? They were the same race as I was, but they weren’t my people any more than the Egyptians were. Jehovah created them and allowed the joys of life for them just as much as he did for us Israelites. But the Hebrews, they were his people—not because they deserved it—but because Jehovah saw an opportunity in this situation to prove exactly how powerful of a God he was. If he had used me when I was younger—around forty and with Egyptian prestige—many could have thought the revolt was successful because of my skills, Egyptian knowledge and connections. Instead, Jehovah brought me back as an eighty-year-old broken down old man in the clothes of a shepherd. When I made the request to go make a sacrifice to Jehovah, it would have looked especially ridiculous if it weren’t for the miraculous hand of Jehovah giving the new young snobby Pharaoh a beginning clue as to the power of the God behind this old man.” He pointed and pumped his right thumb toward his chest when he said ‘this old man.’

“I guess I had forgot it was that long. Forty years in Midian?”

“Forty years of life as a shepherd—a life completely the opposite of my Egyptian lifestyle. Imagine being a big time CEO until you were forty and then spending the next forty years working as a janitor in a foreign land until you were eighty. That was my life.”

“Maybe by that time, at that age, you gave up and thought that Jehovah didn’t have special plans for you? And that’s when he chose you? When you were eighty. I always forget that part. Thank Jehovah you were closer to perfection in those days.”

Moses squinted his eyes toward me. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you died at around 120 years of age—you guys lived longer back then.” I hesitated. “Right?”

“You mentioned just a second ago that I am especially well known now for writing the ninetieth Psalm. Do you know what Psalm ninety says?

No, I didn’t and yes it was awkward. 

“‘The span of one’s life is seventy years, or eighty if one is especially strong,’” began Moses. “And yes, of course I was talking about my generation. We already grew old and died at seventy or eighty at that point. I died when I was a hundred and twenty, but I was an exception. I know that the scriptures mention that even at the time of my death, my vitality, eyesight and strength had not fled, but that doesn’t mean that I felt the same way as I did when I was forty!”

At this point, I felt a little too embarrassed to ask any further questions, at least for a while. Fortunately, after a brief pause, he continued of his own accord.

“Do you find it strange that the Moses from the Holy Scriptures enjoys reading Arthur Conan Doyle?”

I burst out in a spurt of sudden laughter before gaining composure and realizing he must have been trying to make me feel comfortable again.

“You didn’t think, I just sat around all day only reading the Law all the time did you?”

I laughed a little more. “No—I. Well—yes, I do think it’s a little strange,” I finally admitted. 

He smiled back at me. 

“I think dinner is almost ready,” Moses said getting up from his chair. 

I was startled at how abruptly he ended the interview—although it felt more like a conversation.

“But—there’s so much more I want to ask you about: The Ten Plagues, receiving the Ten Words, the Red Sea, Korah, you killing the Egyptian, the forty years in the wilderness!”

He gently smiled and me and squeezed my left shoulder once with his right hand.

“It wouldn’t be proper Israelite hospitality if I didn’t feed you and let you spend the night here. Miriam has already prepared a room for you. We can talk while taking a walk out in the field tomorrow morning. Now, I’d like to shower and eat. Our chef is amazing.” 

“I’m glad I got to talk to him about his cooking passion earlier,” I said in acceptance of his offer. “He’s got some interesting thoughts.”

“I heard the menu is especially good tonight,” Moses said as he turned to walk—indicating to follow him.

“That so?” I asked while rising from my chair as well.

“Yes!” he exclaimed with his back to me, walking toward the main house. “It’s no manna of course, but not everything can be heaven-sent. Right?”