Wasteland Memoirs

I was finished with my main morning duty- walking all the way to the desert’s oasis to gather two big buckets full of water and bringing them back to the Wild West Paradise Hotel. I completed this task a little earlier than usual. While I stood proudly, wearing a cool face underneath the blazing desert sun, I was deciding what wasteland chore I should do next. But all I could think about was my wife and how she wasn’t next to me in bed last night. I always worried about Marjorie when she stayed overnight at the Scarlet Apple Palace. She and the three other ladies dance in front of many men whose eyes are likely glued to the ladies’ short skirts.

I often pondered over the numerous ways those men could give Marjorie trouble, especially when she worked overnight. But ever since I met Marjorie, she has enjoyed dancing. In exchange for her talent, the audience gives her snacks such as kettle potato chips, and sticks of beef jerky. The audience also gives the other dancing ladies snacks of course. After ruminating about my wife’s safety and well-being for a little while, I decided to do the five mile walk over to the Scarlet Apple Palace, even though my legs were very sore from carrying large buckets of water already.

When I trudged inside the Scarlet Apple Palace, my eyes were searching for Marjorie. “Good she looks well, and her spirits are up,” I thought to myself as I found her dancing with the other ladies on the stage. As I was scanning for Marjorie, I spotted the dustiest Bible in the whole world next to some near empty bottles of whiskey hidden inside a dark wooden cabinet. So, I walked behind an abandoned bar area to grab the Bible. Ever since God rescued me from that massive atomic bomb, I felt a strong desire to read God‘s word. Therefore, I took it since I couldn’t find a Bible where I was staying. I was starting to read a passage in Isaiah when another man snatched it from my hands.

“Hey what are you doing with that?” I yelled.

“I might need to barter for food, weapons or ammo out in the wasteland there must be some religious person willing to give up their most valuable possessions for this,” The stranger explained.

“Well, can I please have it back? I might not even take it home with me if it belongs to this place. I’ll ask around. I wouldn’t want to steal a Bible and neither should you,” I pleaded.

He held the Bible against his chest and sprinted through the doors of the Scarlet Apple Palace. At this point, my legs were heavy, like they were fifty pound weights I was dragging around on the floor, so when I was trying to run, I ended up slowly marching. After stretching my legs a little, I could finally build up to jogging speed to catch the Bible thief. However, he was just a dot nearing the edge of the horizon by the time I was running out of the building.

While I was struggling to put one foot in front of the other, in the middle of the desert I heard masculine voices shouting: “Hey! Come over here! Hey! We always need new members; come over here! Once I saw the men and their tent, which was a large thick piece of cloth held up with tall cacti, I walked over to them. The moment they saw me walking over they waved their arms around with the same vigor as signaling where to land a plane.

When I made it over a few minutes later, I greeted the group of four men and asked them a question:

“Hello, have any of you seen a man running across the desert who is holding a Bible?”

One of the men spoke up: “Yes I have. In fact, I tried to invite him over to our tent.”

Another man interjected: “But he wouldn’t come. Instead, he said while he was short of breath: ‘I have to run. I have the only Bible in this godforsaken desert and people will give me food, ammo, lighters, and buckets of water. They’ll give me anything useful so they can read it in my enclosed protected porta potty in which I call home.”

Then I questioned: “But which direction did he go when he was nearing the edge of the horizon? Did any of you see him go that far?”

One of the men in the group remarked: “I think he turned right when he was that far out do you guys agree?” Three other men nodded their heads. Two of them inquired to me: “Why are you asking though? Do you want his Bible?”

“Yes actually. God rescued me from the atomic bomb tested at the Yucca flat test site. He rejuvenated my body so I could run quickly for a long time. He led me to this fallout free desert. Because of all this, I want to learn more about my savior before the bomb. I’ve been going to church every Sunday, but it almost didn’t know why now I know exactly why to worship the Messiah Jesus Christ.”

“Good for you, man, but the four of us believe in smoking marijuana and finding the atomic bomb goddess.”

“The atomic bomb goddess?”

“Yes, we believe that a giant woman gave birth to the Earth, which was at first a giant star in our belly. Since the atomic bomb came, we believe that mankind summoned her human form through that explosive device. We’re about to look for her. She has to be radiant and incredibly beautiful.

“Wait what? What in the world did you just say?” I asked while wearing a look of utter skepticism and confusion.

“Clearly you need to be enlightened.” One of the men remarked, while extending his right hand to give me his handmade marijuana cigarette and a match in his left hand. I gently shoved his hands away and said no, while another man in the tent gave me an ultimatum I couldn’t refuse.

“Well if you can tell me where the women are out here, all four of us will help you find the man who stole your Bible.”

“Well, it wasn’t really my Bible. It belongs to the Scarlet Apple Palace.”

“If there’s a Bible there then are there people in that place? Most importantly, are there any women at this Scarlet Apple Palace place?”

I wanted to lie to these men and tell them that there were no women at the Scarlet Apple Palace. I wasn’t sure if I could trust these men to not give into their impulses.

“What if my wife Marjorie was the supposed goddess? What would they do to her then? Would they drug her out with those marijuana cigarettes and do experiments on her to make sure that she is the ‘true’ object of worship and affection?” That last thought made me shudder a little. Yet, I gulped those worries down my throat and answered: “Yes, a few women reside at the Scarlet Palace.”

“How many?” one of the men inquired with his bugged out, drugged out eyes.

I gulped again then I uttered: “Four, that I know of.”

I was already regretting my decision of telling these men about the Scarlet Apple Palace.

“But, my wife always needs new customers. Maybe one of these guys has a small stash of food he can give to Marjorie and besides, I want that Bible more than anything else,” I thought to myself.

So I and the four other men in the tent, spent the rest of the day looking for a man who happened to live inside a porta potty and was carrying the only Bible in this desert.

A few hours later, I stepped up to the Bible thief, who was next to a porta potty. He grabbed his pistol inside his restroom and shot it at the top of a cactus. Then he uttered in his low, gravelly voice: “If you step one inch closer, you’ll share the same fate as this cactus. Do you understand?”

I nodded; the incoming rush of fear made me unable to speak for a brief moment. I acted like I was confident instead of panicky, but I felt parts of my body sweating that I didn’t even know could sweat. I was quivering on the inside yet it didn’t show on the outside. I thought that I would feel more calm when my life was threatened since I was a soldier. Then again, I’ve never been deployed to an actual combat setting. I had no idea what to do next so for a few seconds, I stood frozen while the goddess-worshiping men surrounded me and looked at me with puzzled, questioning faces.

“I’ll barter for that Bible. Do any of you have some snacks or some ammo?” I asked the four men who surrounded me. They dug out their pockets and found seven beef jerky sticks and seven bullets, fourteen items to give in total. I softly said to these men: “Thank you, now hold out each of your items and keep your hands outstretched. I’m about to reason with this unreasonable man. They nodded then I spoke loudly to the Bible thief, several feet away from me: “How about we barter and these men will give you seven beef jerky sticks and seven bullets?”

“That’s pathetic. That isn’t enough for this first addition king James Bible.”

“You’re right, sir,” I said calmly while frantically searching my pockets for useful and valuable items. I didn’t have any my face as red as a tomato. I nodded as a signal for the four men surrounding me to give me their seven snacks and seven bullets.

Then I walked not one, not two, but three steps closer. Before I could give the Bible thief the fourteen items in my hands and try to convince him to give me the Bible, he shot a bullet directly at me. But one of the four men standing behind me caught the bullet instead. He was shot in the chest when he jumped in front of me. He saved my life and I couldn’t believe it, so I asked him:

“Why did you save my life? We’re pretty much strangers?” Before his final breath, He croaked out his final sentence:

“Because in a way we’re brothers; we’re both survivors of the Yucca Flat incident, and my life is it worth much anyway.”

All I could do was cry silently while holding the limp body of one of the men I met only a few hours before. As his heavy body was slipping from my hands, I was struggling to remember his name so I asked the three men still standing behind me:

“What was his name?” Before I could finish the question, they all replied at the same time “John.”

I then inquired as a whisper, “Why do you guys think John did this?”

“Because he felt like he lost his manhood after he saw his wife and children swallowed by the atomic fire. He ran away without thinking of anyone but himself until it was too late. His instincts blinded him from protecting his family in that moment. So once we formed our group after we moved to this desert, he told us that we would do something he extremely brave and manly to make up for what happened with the atomic explosion.”

As I and the three other men were talking, the man who aimed to kill me was searching for his lost bullets. He thought that he had more bullets lying around somewhere, but he didn’t and he figured that out soon enough.

Unexpectedly that same man uttered, “Fine, I change my mind. You give me the bullets and beef jerky sticks, and I’ll give you the Bible.”

His guilt must’ve made him say that or the fact that he saw the core message of the Bible demonstrated by a courageous man, as we all did that day. That act was even more remarkable because John didn’t believe in Jesus, yet he handled that tricky situation just like Jesus would’ve. Therefore, I was more motivated to not only read, but live out the Bible, more than ever before.

Also, the three men who remained in that atomic bomb goddess worshipping group treated my wife and the other ladies at the Scarlet Apple Palace respectfully. They even took turns opening the doors for the ladies as they were walking in and out.