Rapture

It was a day not unlike another. The binary stars in the sky shone radiant energy upon the ground and heated the earthen terrain below. Kurt Kilgore, however, would hear something disturbing on this morning.
The crux of which was this…the world as he knew it was bound to end. As with so many other worlds and so many other times, existence as he knew it was set to end. This had been foretold by the prophet, Ford Douglas. The video screen mounted upon Kurt’s wall explicated this point in a trumpeting voice.
“The rapture is upon us. The signs are in everything and those who do not repent shall face the wrath of the Creator. Those who chose the straight and narrow shall be whisked away from the planet with haste. So long”
The image on the screen was a man adorned in gilded robes. It was at this point that Douglas began flapping about a kipper the size of his hand. He shrieked, speaking in tongues. This glossolalia, shrill and percussive in much the same way one would hold a pitch on a glockenspiel, resembles that of some cetacean found in his planet’s 12 oceans.
“Thanks.” Douglas’s effigy bellowed after he felt sufficiently accomplished with his high pitched fricative sonorizations.
Such messages were often common throughout the history of his people, the point of which escaped Kurt. He imagined it could be one of several reasons. Perhaps he thought, it was remarkably like children crying for the attention of their mothers. His alternative hypothesis being that the most salient of messages were the most ominous and in many ways, he was right. Something felt different about this. Douglas had all the trappings of a harbinger of closing remarks. Mostly, he wondered what a kipper was and how one would go about the business of kipping. It might be important.
Kurt, puzzled at the cryptic symbolism of it all, checked his clock which was adjacent to a leak on the wall opposite his video monitor. For reasons neither he, nor members of his species could explain, leak was the word for mirror. He supposed it was some sort of hole between things meant to be kept sealed.
The mirror displayed a young man of twenty. His hair curled across his eyes like a veil intended to shroud its wearer from the outside world’s inadequacies whilst also shrouding his inner insufficiencies from the world. The eyes behind reflected a hazel tone that was as soft as it was forgiving. The ocular cavities sloped to a broad yet regal nose. His brown mustache sat above his lips in much the same way his hair did upon his head. The gravity of it might suppress the less weighty of his words and deflect mordant criticisms. His slender frame was two-toned, alabaster and tan. The doppelganger on the other side had noticed something and so had he.
8:00 am…He realized the time had come to frequent his place of employment.
As he walked, in a most dismissive manner with a quivering concern he uttered these words….
“Today’s a good day for rapture.”
He said so due in large part to his love for a woman. Not one to take things at face value he pondered what that represented. Love, as much as he could surmise about its meaning, boiled down to this: The desire to do anything, including abject humiliation, to get in another’s good graces. Many scientists on his planet disagreed and boiled it down to a soup that was comprised mostly of broth. There, simply put, wasn’t much steak for all the sizzle. Scientists concluded this probably because of their own lack of experience with the matter outside a laboratory…and quite likely in their mother’s basement.

A woman was a female of the species that Kurt belonged to. They often sported longer hair than the males. They had smaller bodies, an adaptation made to belie their more subtle hypnotic powers of persuasion. They had orbs mounted on their chests as well as a chasm between their legs that were the chief progenitors of these powers, second only to their brains. He often thought breasts must have a mind of their own because of their proximity to people he fancied. By the same token, he couldn’t help but be of the mind that undergarments that guarded the former must be equally brilliant.
All together it signified quite a silly sentiment. Kurt was no more in control of his own actions a propos the woman he loved. He was mesmerized by her. The totality of things that made her comprised the totality of his aims for his own existence. She was beautiful, kind and intelligent. Mere mentions of her made his heart do somersaults, back flips, and tumble like a dryer sheet. The judges might award a perfect 10 for these feats were they done by something other than a sanguine sphere propelled only by alacrity. Consumers on the planet would later come to give rave reviews to the dryer sheet as well. A dryer sheet was a small section of porous material that lent its softness and freshness to clothes after one put them in a mechanical apparatus that used an electric heating element to remove moisture from clothes. Incidentally, he fancied his heart to share many characteristics with dryer sheets. It was all to willing to share its weakness with others and generally spent large portions of time being jostled about until its desirable qualities were mined out, at which point it was thrown with all the other refuse, such as movie tickets and pocket lint. He imagined that his awkwardness functioned like a dryer as well. Only it removed wetness from women’s the demesnes of women’s leg chasm, the moisture being a reflection of their interest in copulating with him.
Like the clothes in the dryer, he thought of all the ways he could wear her, the most entertaining way being on his arm. He thought that of all the ways, out would be most likely. Soon enough he would be at work.
Work was rapture worthy as well. In the same way he wished to be relieved of the responsibility of duties as a dryer sheet. Work on his planet was one of the most soul-crushing activities one could engage in. The purpose of it was to gather tiny pieces of paper requisite for one’s survival. Even if a person enjoyed their job, the fact that they had to spend hours of their day as a cog in some nameless machine ground against the teeth of even those most well-geared to handle expropriation.
He worked in a cubicle, a cubicle being, as the name would imply, a tiny cube. The Rapture was slated to happen at 4:20 in his afternoon. He had hoped he would avoid being required to practice his function as a sentient dryer sheet. However, he had a deep seated concern that he might never do so again.
The hours dragged on. The clock laboriously grinding like so many gears in the machine Kurt called employer. With each passing hour, outwardly he expressed his disdain for the world, the girl and prestidigitation of some talking head in a robe. Inwardly, he didn’t feel in accordance with his exterior. He wondered what Earth would be like with the non-presence of people. He reckoned it would be quite bland…like that kipper Douglas had held earlier with no salt. He had no choice but to wait, as much as he found it to his dislike. His chagrin hit its peak at 4:19. He prepared for the worst. An agonizing removal from his corporeal form. A slough off the old mortal coil.
In an instant it happened.
He was enveloped by blue light and suddenly he found himself in a place remarkably like the heaven he always thought was made up to sell self-help books. The ground shone a silverfish gray and the walls were adorned with golden runes. He found the whole enterprise to be quite puzzling. Like a puzzle, pieces didn’t quite fit together easily in his mind. The rapture might have occurred but he was quite alone.
A hooded figure approached him. Nothing could prepare Kurt for the sight he would observe upon the removal of the shroud.
“I am your creator,” uttered the fricative voice.
The being took his, or her, Kurt wasn’t quite sure, hand and revealed itself. Not the sort of revealing oneself that got you removed from the subway, mind you. More like the end of a story that causes that “oohhh” moment.
The gestalt was quite thorough. As thorough as it could be finding that the creator of all things was a sea dwelling mammal. The Creator’s grey skin and blowhole served to explain a lot. For example, why had he never shown himself, why the red herring must be kippered for later use and why religion stunk so much.
The being explained to Kurt that he was in fact the only sentient being on the planet. His presence here was as the ambassador for the race of androids. The being spared his planet because all the automatons all pretended to care for the fate of the planet and in actuality did not, while Kurt pretended to not care, and did.
“You may have one wish” spoke the Being.
“I wish that you grant her autonomy,” requested Kurt
Kurt waved goodbye, “So long and thanks for the wish.”
He was returned to the planet, wiser and more in tune with his responsibilities and more in tune with the former android that you the reader will know only as Her or She. They lived happily after, the puppet girl cut from her strings and the dryer sheet…
And so on….