Balaam, the Gray Prophet Read online

  Balaam, the Gray Prophet

  By Stephen Beam

  © copyright 2014 Stephen Beam

  The right of Stephen Beam to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  Balaam, the Gray Prophet

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Stephen Beam 2014

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers consent in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  Table Of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1: First Meeting

  Chapter 2: God’s Dream

  Chapter 3: Bad News

  Chapter 4: Once More With Feeling

  Chapter 5: The Trip to Moab

  Chapter 6: Balaam and Balak

  Chapter 7: Making Mojo

  Chapter 8: Twisted

  Chapter 9: Gray to Black

  Foreword

  The ancient biblical story of Balaam and his talking donkey unfolds once again in a distant apocalyptic future. Here, gaps are filled, details inserted, and spiritual mysteries revealed.

  The world finally broke, shattering into small autonomous units. Small tribal communities, not nations, composed the world’s social order. Life was simplified, not by plan, but by necessity. The unbearable complexity and multitude of laws that governed nearly every aspect of human behavior were enforced by tyrannical, warring states. This situation eventually brought down the world. The social monster consumed itself. The wisdom humankind struggled so hard to win, was lost. Now the world must start anew and rediscover timeless truths. Ancient wisdom was once again new.

  In the circle of time, God used unlikely men and women to accomplish His ends. Balaam the prophet was one of them. He was broken man, yet he was chosen to be an instrument of the Lord, furthering the divine plan in a decaying world. Balaam was God’s instrument - despite himself.

  Chapter 1: First Meeting

  The Pethor community grew up around a small river that held just enough water to sustain the town’s population. Mickey entered the Pethor Bar that broiled beneath the relentless desert sun. Temporarily blinded, it took awhile for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside. When they did, he pitied poor Pethor. If this was the best watering hole they had, it wouldn’t help his depression any. Perhaps a few shots of the locally fermented grain would numb his sour attitude.

  He’d been sent here by Balak, Chief of Moab, to meet with the legendary prophet Balaam: a man of strong mojo, a man with the power to bless and to curse. Mickey scratched his stubbled chin while deep in thought. His boss was strangely gullible for a man who’d risen so high and fast in the social ranks. Balak was either a charming innocent or a manipulative con. In either case, he had the charisma to win over Moab, a land of great wealth. Mickey never had the charm to rise very high in the ranks. He was low on the rung amongst Balak’s personal elite. He was in Pethor because Balak knew he was hungry, willing to twist arms and bash heads on the cheap. But Balak wasn’t a cheapskate. He was just careful.

  Mickey sat down on an oddly misshapen barstool. The round vinyl seat didn’t properly accommodate his butt, and from the looks of it, nobody else’s either. The bar counter was a rough-hewn rectangle of granite. Blue light-emitting diodes dotted its surface. These LEDs, along with a few hanging light strings, were the bar’s main source of illumination. The ceiling and the walls were corrugated tin. Concrete pillars were placed in the corners and midpoint along the walls. The smoky atmosphere was gray, muting the already dim light. This bleak interior was maintained by malfunctioning troops of nanobots, badly in need of reprogramming, leaving in their wake objects twisted and malformed.

  The male patrons wore dark clothing designed to keep sunlight out. It made them blend with the smoke filled air. The few women patrons were obviously prostitutes, naked but for thin tight shorts. They displayed their large breasts and long legs, enhanced by reconfigured DNA. Most of them worked as temple prostitutes, serving the local priests by acting out ordained erotic rituals. Mickey’s congregation back in Moab had its share of temple prostitutes too. But these Pethor whores were more pitiful than sexy. He avoided eye contact with them as best he could. Drinking local whiskey and smoking homegrown mutant tobacco were the unifying factors that blended religious virtues and hedonism among the people of Pethor.

  Mickey scanned the room, occasionally glancing at the picture of Balaam he kept on his cellphone. He saw no matching faces yet. He walked over to an ancient jukebox. On first glance, the jukebox was pristine. On second glance, the entire surface was pitted with tiny holes. A handwritten sign said this machine was modified to work with spoken commands. Mickey leaned in close and spoke to the shiny brass, chrome, and glass device. “Play trance music. Something extremely hypnotic.” He doubted the music would actually elevate his mood, but figured it was worth a shot.

  The barroom door swung open. Sunlight filled the room and sliced through the smoke filled air, a toxic curtain that seemed parted by the very hand of God. But instead of revealing heavenly mansions of light, a dark figure stood silhouetted in the glare of the open doorway. Mickey squinted at the man, trying to make out his features.

  The dark figure looked across the room, spotted Mickey, and walked over to sit on the empty barstool next to him. All the while he stared silently into Mickey’s eyes. He knew who Mickey was, even though he’d never seen his face before, either in flesh or photo. Balaam had seen Mickey in his dreams, dreams sent by the Lord Almighty. A holy light danced inside Balaam’s thoughts unbidden: the very light of YHWH, creator of dreams and dreams within dreams. The Lord’s divine presence made sleep for Balaam almost irrelevant. It no longer mattered much if he was sleeping or awake. Day and night blended together inside him. His inner life had become his outer.

  Mickey considered leaping from his barstool and running back home to Moab. The guy sitting next to him was truly unnerving, but he needed the extra coin this gig would bring. The creep wore a gray hoodie that cast his face in shadows, much deeper and darker than any shadow in the barroom. Mickey glanced at the picture of Balaam on his cellphone, though he really didn’t need to. He knew who this creep was, even without clearly seeing his face. Silence became a palpable presence between them, turning into a challenge. Who would be first to speak? Who would lay out their agenda and break the stare-down?

  It was the dark hooded figure that first broke the silence. He spoke only one word. A word Mickey had never heard before. “YHWH,” Balaam said, pronouncing it with such precision and reverence it frightened Mickey.

  “What?” Mickey asked. A shiver ran from his toes to the top of his head. Involuntary muscle contractions shook him so hard they threatened to topple him from the barstool. What the hell just happened? How could a single spoken word thrust him so far out of his familiar reality? He felt dizzy, but, strangely enough, his depression lifted a little. Maybe the distraction from Balaam’s strange word had helped him, a foretaste of the prophet’s mojo. He called for the bartender, who’s badge stated he was also the owner, to pour him a shot of house whiskey.

  Balaam spoke again from under the darkness of his hood, “The word I spoke was YHWH, which is God’s name. He is creator of heaven and the heaven of heavens, and everything in them. Know this: I only do that which the Lord commands me. So tell me, what does Balak want?”

  After slamming
the whiskey down his throat, Mickey gestured to the bartender for another.

  The bartender refilled Mickey’s glass and asked, “Do you want to keep the bottle?”

  “Why not?” If he was going to drink medicinally to soothe his nerves, it was best to keep the bottle handy. The burn of alcohol comforted him, promising quick relief. Its heat ran from gut to head and loosened his tongue. “Have some whiskey, Balaam.”

  From beneath his woolen hood, Balaam’s eyes were the only facial feature visible. A subtle twinkle flashed across his pupils. Balaam said, “Sounds good. Bartender, another glass please.”

  Quickly Mickey formulated a plan: get Balaam a little high. Loosen him up a bit. That was always good diplomacy. Mickey poured the whiskey into Balaam’s glass. This was going to be an easy job. “Cheers,” Mickey said, and knocked glasses with him.

  One of the harlots came over to Balaam and touched his chest with a bare breast. She wrapped her right arm around his shoulder and put her left hand on his thigh, an attempt to ply him for drinks. Mickey saw this and it angered him. He had to get rid of her. “This is a private party babe. Hit up someone else.”

  “Maybe mystery man doesn’t want me to leave,” she said.

  Balaam didn’t make any move to push her away. Instead, he raised the shot of whiskey to his lips, sniffed its aroma, then gave it a casual sip rather than downing it all at once. He asked Mickey, “What does Balak want of me? You haven’t yet said.”

  “You already know,” Mickey said nervously, upset by the harlot’s intrusion. “Somehow you already know more than you should.” To be effective, Mickey needed to keep cool. The vibe that now surrounded them wasn’t going in his favor.

  “The Lord speaks to me,” Balaam said, and finished his glass. He pushed it towards Mickey for a refill. The harlot kept rubbing Balaam’s thigh, but he continued to ignore her.

  “I believe you,” Mickey said, and refilled Balaam’s glass while giving the whore his most stern look. It did no good. She didn’t have the social grace to leave where she wasn’t wanted. Mickey shook his head in disgust, reached inside his pocket, grabbed the gold coins offered by both Moab and Midian as down payment on Balaam’s diviner fee. He laid them on the counter and said, “You’re a legend when it comes to the mojo of blessing and cursing. We need your help. ”

  “What exactly do you want of me?” Balaam asked, continuing to ignore the harlot’s annoying advances.

  “The Sons of Israel lay waste to any domain their god tells them to, slaughtering anyone and anything standing in their way, be it man, woman, child, animal or plant. Balak knows he can’t stand against this gang. He’s scared, and he needs your help. Come with me to Moab and lay a curse on the Sons of Israel. Make them weak and helpless.” Mickey pushed the coins a little closer to Balaam and added, “These gold coins are a mere pittance - a gesture of good faith. The real money’s waiting in Moab when you finish the job.”

  The harlot moved from Balaam’s side to reach for the coins on the counter. Mickey grabbed her wrist, twisted it nearly to the breaking point, then shoved her away. She stumbled and nearly fell but managed to remain upright. She rubbed her wrist and said, “Alright. No need to get rough.” She walked off, fading into the smoky darkness.

  Balaam swept the gold coins towards himself, counted them, then put them inside his hoodie’s large front pouch. In a softly cryptic tone, he said, “You have others with you. They sit at a nearby table… watching. I want all of you to stay the night in Pethor. Tonight, the Lord will visit me in a dream. In the morning, I’ll reveal to you what He said. But this one thing you must understand: I can’t say other than what the Lord says.”

  Where Mickey had originally laid the coins on the counter, it now transformed from rough granite into glossy marble. The nanobot maintenance crew was acting on damaged code, re-molecularizing the countertop. The bartender walked over to this zone of morphing and whacked it hard with the palm of his hand. The struck surface rippled concentrically outward like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond. A few seconds later it solidified, returning to its original rough granite finish.

  Mickey and Balaam watched the bartender with concern. Nanobots can quickly become dangerous and difficult to remove after they malfunction. Even an EMF blaster might fail to stop them once they go rogue - especially the cheap ones. They tend to lack proper human safety code.

  “Shit!” The bartender shouted out in pain. He quickly pulled his hand away from the counter. His fingers rapidly grew twice their normal length and thickness, like overinflated balloons ready to burst. He shook his hand violently, a vain attempt to rid himself of the microscopic machines.

  “I’ll call emergency,” Mickey said, and woke his cell phone and tapped the screen. The phone intelligently assessed their situation and location and beamed a message for help. A few minutes later the front door burst open, flooding the bar with light. The emergency team, three men wearing shiny white jumpsuits and transparent bubble helmets, entered the bar. They carried EMF blaster guns that automatically sensed and marked targets. The team cautiously approached the bartender and signaled to those nearby to step away. Mickey and Balaam left their barstools and walked towards the exit.

  The emergency team fired their blasters. Powerful electromagnetic radiation poured over the countertop where the morphing had occurred. The bartender, grimacing in pain, yelled out, “All these ‘bots are bad. Go ahead. Wipe everything.” Then he turned to the customers and said, “Everybody leave. We’ll reopen tomorrow.” He knew the bar should have been sterilized at the first sign of renegade nanobots, but even cheap nanobots weren’t cheap. No nanobot came with a warranty, even the expensive ones. A new batch would have cost a fortune.

  “Hold out your hand,” one of the emergency team members commanded the bartender. Wincing in pain, the bartender held out his infected hand. The emergency team member made an adjustment to his EMF blaster, took aim at the nanobot malformed hand, and pulled the trigger. The healing nanobots were released after the sterilization process, and three minutes later the bartender’s hand was restored to normal.

  Balaam and Mickey now stood outside in the shade of the bar’s front porch. Mickey’s partners from Moab and Midian joined them outside. The other bar patrons went home. Since there were no other bars in Pethor, today’s social imbibing of bottled bliss had ended.

  Mickey said to his fellow emissaries, “Let’s find a motel. We’ll wait and hear what Balaam has to say when we meet here in the morning.”

  Balaam nodded approval beneath his hoodie. Mickey and his crew took off down the street to check out cheap motels.

  Balaam untied Eeayore from the fire hydrant, gave her a pat on the back, then mounted her. A donkey wasn’t the normal mode of transportation here in Pethor, but it made sense for him. She’d been a gift from a cousin on his father’s side. What was meant as a joke turned into a blessing. The lot next to Balaam’s house was a grass covered field where Eeayore grazed to her heart’s content. Free fuel forever.

  Chapter 2: God’s Dream

  Dusk turned Balaam’s small white home a deep orange. He dismounted Eeayore and took her to graze in the field next door before he went inside. She appeared to gaze at Balaam warmly, but he refused in anthropomorphizing his pet donkey. The light in her eyes merely reflected his own - a mental projection - much like looking in a mirror. Eeayore was but a warm blooded beast, intelligent, but without true self awareness.

  His house was small, the inside laid out studio style. It was perfect for a lone man like himself. One main room and a bathroom, that’s all he really needed. He cooked meals on an old hotplate atop his dresser. His single bed was small, yet it took up nearly a third of the floorspace. On the side opposite his bed was an old couch. This was where he relaxed, ate, and read while resting his feet atop an old wooden coffee table.

  There were no maintenance nanobots in his house. Things were left to deteriorate at their own natural pace. Maintenance nanobots were subject to decay just as all things
material were. As a mortal made of dust, he felt entropy settling into his bones. He was decaying along with the earth. His old flesh complained from morning to night. Relief came only when YHWH broke through the inertia of matter and touched his mind. The result was a flood of light across his mental landscape. YHWH brought him the big dream, the dream of an eternally holy universe where decay didn’t exist.

  Balaam pulled open the top drawer of his old dresser. He kept canned food in there, consisting mainly of pork and beans. That’s been his favorite food for most of his life. He did a quick inventory, noting he had quite a few cans left. Now, with the new gold coins in his pocket, he could splurge and buy something a bit more exotic. A steak perhaps? He could afford to indulge in a few dreams of the flesh. Maybe even spend the night with a high class harlot, one of the pretty elites from the temple. But he was only joking with himself. He knew such behavior was ungodly.

  Despite what others imagined, his special mojo never brought him wealth. It barely paid the mortgage. His spiritual gifts held him back more than anything else. Whenever he transformed into an oracle, it always came back to bite him in the ass. Whether he issued blessings or curses, both were a double-edged sword. When either side of the blade pressed against his skin, he bled.

  Balaam pulled the tab and took the lid off the can of pork and beans. He placed the can directly on the hotplate heating element, not bothering to pour the beans in a pot. While waiting for them to warm, he pondered his relationship with the Lord. At times, YHWH would sing the world away, and when He did, visions flooded his mind. The path to the future was a carpet woven in gold, stretching from universe to universe, beyond all temporal horizons. It terrified him. He dreaded prophetic visions. To remain ignorant of the world’s fate was of much greater comfort. When he revealed his prophetic visions to the people, no one doubted their veracity. They were always dead on accurate. And though he’d rather hide these prophecies, he always did what the Lord asked of him.