Reconstruction

winning story for its July 2023 Flash Fiction Contest

The sun was setting behind the trees, and the air had a faint orange haze and a smell of smoke from some faraway summertime forest fire. Ezra was in the last house in the neighborhood, rifling through the effects of a long-dead old woman. His bag already held a couple of cans of sardines and corn from the kitchen cupboard, but food was not his main concern. He picked up every book on the bookshelf to judge if there was any obvious merit. His wheelbarrow couldn’t hold everything, but there could be a hidden phrase in literally any of them.

He dumped some of them into his bag and began searching through the papers in the rolltop desk. He gave each a quick look, separating out the bills and financial statements from personal letters, notes, and aborted attempts at poetry. He took the latter. He made one last quick pass over the drawers when he noticed what looked like a slanted floor on the inside. A false bottom! He carefully pulled one side up with his fingernails and stopped cold. There was a small book printed on cheap, yellowed paper bound with staples. On the front, in Gothic font, was the title “The Emphasized Gospel of Matthew.” Ezra delicately opened the front cover and saw it marked by its owner: “Ella Schmidt, Aug. 1928.” He wiped his dusty hands on his coat. The best ablution he could do for now. He carefully picked up the book and placed it in the bag, at the top. Time to go. 

Ezra carefully stepped out onto the rotted wood of the front porch. With one hand he pushed the screen door wider, its broken arm mechanism unable to assist him. The other held his bag of moldy books. Once on the desiccated lawn he placed the contents of his bag into a wheelbarrow, where they joined their decrepit brethren from the other houses on the street. He grabbed the arms of the wheelbarrow and began to start back to the inn. He was being a little careless in not having his sidearm at the ready, but–

“Hey you!” Ezra turned and saw a short-barreled shotgun in his face. He looked up and saw a matted black beard, and above it the craggy face of his robber. He must have been hiding behind the house. “Don’t even try to fight back!” The robber’s other arm quickly reached behind him and took the pistol from its holster, then tossed it onto the roof of the neighbor’s house, then with that same arm shoved Ezra into the porch, knocking the wind out of him.

 “Now what have you got?” He rummaged through the wheelbarrow, with his shotgun still trained on where he estimated Ezra to be. “What is this? Garbage?” He dug his muscular arm deep into the barrow, carelessly crumpling and tearing pages until he found what he sought. “There we go!” He pulled out the sardines and canned corn, grinning with satisfaction. “You’ll have to do better than to hide your goods in a bunch of trash! Good day!” The man gave the wheelbarrow a playful kick, knocking its contents into the dust.

Ezra watched as the man walked away, dropping the cans into his satchel, not even bothering to keep the gun trained on his victim. Ezra breathed out a sigh. He got up, set his wheelbarrow upright, and slowly picked up his papers, dusting off what he could. He had no food to bring back, but the Gospel of Matthew was still there, if a bit crumpled and torn. And maybe there was something else in his pile of papers, who knows? “The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” 

When he had finally reached the inn, it was nearly dark. Rahab and Ruth spotted him through the ironsights of their rifles as they watched from the roof. Only men of good will were welcome to stay at the Wicket-Gate Inn, and there were precious few of those. “You’re cutting it close, Ez!” Rahab shouted. “We’re about to lock up for the night!”

“I know, I’m sorry. No food today. But I found something good, I think.” Ruth saw that Ezra was worse for wear, but didn’t bother to ask why. Why else? What was so good?

Ezra left his wheelbarrow at the gate, which for security reasons was narrow enough that only a single man could squeeze through, barely. Ezra picked up an armful of his papers and squeezed inside, dumping them on a long dining table before returning for more. On the wall, written in charcoal, was a large chart titled “Known Passages.” There were forty odd rows, labeled with titles: Luke, John, Thomas, Exodus, Corinthians, Job, Jubilee, Ecclesiastes, Enoch, Psalms, and Tobit among others. Next to the titles were lists of individual chapters and verses.

Ezra slumped at the table in front of his pile, sneaking a quick look before he would have to take his turn at the watch. He wanted to see if anything in the pile had a new fragment to add to the list. His hand passed over the Gospel of Matthew. He had never seen a book of the Bible in its entirety. If it was one, he hadn’t heard of this book. He cursed. He knew he was on a fool’s errand. Books like Leviathan or Agamemnon or Julius Caesar, said to exist only in fragments, were impossible to recover in their entirety. Yet the Bible seemed different. There were so many copies, and they weren’t destroyed accidentally. And it was quoted so often. But who could believe that the sum of all the still extant fragments in the world could bring it back? He idly flipped to the last page and read it:

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

His eyes watered as he closed the book. He could believe it.