“Please turn your hymnals to page 109 to sing Come and Dine. God is calling us to come and dine with him at his sweet table, those who are weary come even as we sing.” It was just another cool bright Saturday morning worship service. My sermon I had written the night before was incomplete, as I had fell asleep writing it. As I stood behind the podium I looked across the crowd with an exuberant and intent look on their faces as they looked at me. It was a look that was saying, “when do we start?” I then after a two minute pause bowed my head and prayed that the Lord would help me sort out these words on this page in front of me. After I said amen, it was like someone turned on a projector with we should be ready to lay down our wants and help those around us in need, plastered on it. I started with a bible verse and stated, "Just as Jesus, our Savior, gave his life for you and me, we need be ready to give our lives for others." What I did not know was that the Lord was preparing me for the time that was to come.
That night after a delicious supper of spaghetti and meatballs, we all sat down on a golden couch with flower designs in front of our TV that was mounted on the wall above the fireplace. We pulled up a creation video as we usually did on Saturday nights. Just as the microwave beeped signifying that the popcorn was done, I head a knock on the door.
“Who would be here now daddy,” Jewelll asked with her blue eyes looking at me confused.
“I don’t know, Jewelll.”
I opened the door that had been there so many years to see pair of men in black suits. They were from the FBI and that they were there to inspect my latest machine to secure it for a US patent.
"Mr. Reynolds. I am Jack McCullum and this is my partner Michael Short, we are from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. May we see your Electro-Matter converter?"
“Sorry, I don’t do business on the weekends gentleman,” I said sarcastically. I continued, “Anyways when did the FBI start going around bothering private inventors about their inventions? After all, the patents office never said that they would send anyone. I have to ask you to leave my land." I started to wonder what how these people had found out about what I had been working on for the past five months in my shop. The electro-matter converter was designed so that I could try to make a replicator like off of the starship enterprise on Star Trek.
As soon as they turned to their large black SUV, the one named Jack stopped two feet from the door on the porch and he said, "John, never forget, Justice will be served for the death. Those you love for the one who I loved. This is the true reason why I came here." As they walked to their car, I was shocked, so shocked that I stood there with the stark realization that Jack was still alive.
As soon as they sped down my driveway, my wife, Angela appeared out of the bathroom in her flowing blue gown wondering who was at the door.
"Just someone who was lost," I said.
She looked at me with her electric blue eyes and said, "John, is everything alright?"
We moved into my office to talk. Her look told me that she knew the seriousness of the situation. I then told her the story of Jack McCullum as I knew it. "Jack was the head of the Arachna Project and designed suits for repair for Synolvia's Research space station, Beta. That was about the time that the Western Rebellion had started. When Dalton launched his plane, the Sparrow, the president of America retaliated with a show of force. He launched anti-aircraft missiles just about the time we had launched a shuttle into space that would never make it to see if Dalton was still alive. Jack and his wife Lara barely made it to the International Space Station and soon became the new crew of the Sparrow. With that led to protecting it from the US Air Force. While covering for the Sparrow’s take-off, Jack and Lara were wounded to the point that they lost too much blood; thus, they both fell into comas. After thirty minutes in the Medical Bay on the International Space Station, Lara's and Jack's vitals disappeared. Just tonight at the door, though, was Jack. Still alive, he threatened the lives of our family because of his hatred for me."
She returned with a fear-filled question, "What are you going to do?"
I sat there, and the air was so thick with tension that you could slice it with a knife. I thought about what I was going to do, and then I knew what it was. I thought about My wife and the years that we had been married, and then I thought of Jewelll this afternoon when her brown, straight hair shone in the afternoon sun that was filtered through the trees, and her electric blue eyes. I would miss her and her mother. They looked so much alike.
