"So anyhow," the fashion model said, mouth full,  "we all gathered at the guy's radio station a couple of hours before the big event.  Number of other people there, too.  Some from our university's free-thinkers' club, some from the four-twenty community, even a few holy rollers from the Baptist Student Union.  The press was there, too."

As she downed her wine, Dr. Green sipped his own.  "Dare I inquire what happened next?" he asked.

"Well, waiting, we tied the helium balloons to the blow-up dolls and shot the bull with the reporters.  And we counted it down.  Five, four, three, two, one.  And right at six P.M., we released, and voila! The Rapture!  Fifty anatomically correct inflatables ascended to heaven!"

The fashion designer's bushy mustache spread like eagles' wings over his grin.  "If only I'd known, Storm, I would've recorded the news report," he chuckled.

She waved that off.  "It's all right, Dad, Channel 11's got it online.  Posted our videos on our vlog, too.  And the looks on the stupid fundies' faces?  Priceless.  And we left some shirts and pants on the sidewalk to confuse 'em."

Storm's father leaned in conspiratorially.  "Poor saps no doubt must've hid under their beds on that one."  And he put his fingers to his lips in mock terror.  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?"

"Not necessarily," a young man said coolly.

The designer's bald forehead wrinkled on that.  "Eh? What's that?"

Picking at his mushroom fettucine, Les Safer looked over his Buddy Holly glasses at Storm and her father.  "You know, I did read and hear from lots of places online and broadcast that pretty much all of the regular churches and Christian groups decried that guy's prediction. Said that no one on earth knew when Jesus would come back.  Matthew...."  He fiddled in his jacket pocket.  "Matthew 24:36, I think."

Storm looked at him askance.  "So?"

"So any prediction with a numbered date is bogus.  And it's unfair to brand all believers as fools just because one know-nothing on the air touts an off-base prediction and the other media grab it and run with it."

Storm's father snorted at that.  "That verse sounds like first century CYA to me.  Or rather, CTA. Cover Thy--"

"Hey!" Storm interrupted.  "Jesus H. Christmas won't come on an actual numbered date and time, huh?  Well, I predict he'll come back at lunch time tomorrow!  And if not, then two P.M. Sunday.  Or maybe three A.M. Monday, 4:57 Tuesday, midnight on Weasel Stomping Day--"

"Yes, yes, we see what you did there," Dr. Green said.  He spread his hands.  "We all have to believe in something, I suppose."

"Well, I believe we need another bottle," Storm said.  She snapped her fingers at the waiter. "Garçon! Where's our Merlot!"

Grimacing, Les masked his sigh as a breath to cool his coffee.  Quietly watching the waiter scurry to the other tables, he knew the poor fellow was overloaded as was.

"Oh, come now, we haven't even finished this one," Dr. Green offered with a smile.

"Well, we can't have that," Storm's father beamed, taking the bottle.  "Wasted wine's the worst alcohol abuse there is.  Lester, old boy, your glass is still bone dry."  He quickly reached over and filled it up.

Les looked at the glass.  "I'm sorry," he said, "I'm not feeling so well; could I be excused a moment or two, please?"

The designer glanced back oddly, but nodded yes.  Les pushed up from the table and headed off for the washrooms.  About four minutes later, though, he slipped out and discretely left the restaurant, headed for the parking lot, unlocked his lab's hybrid/biodiesel car remotely, and got in the driver's seat.

Les bent his head forward.  He didn't know what to do.  Yes, this man was big money, the one buying dinner, and someone who could make or break Safer-Greenwear. But the things he was saying, what he felt -- did Les have to enter a contract with him?

Reaching in his pocket, Les got his mobile phone to call his dad for advice.  But he hit a wrong button on its QWERTY keyboard and went into his office menu by mistake.  The cursor highlit his Bible application.  His thumb nearly hit the red exit button....

No.  This wasn't a mistake.

Clicking in, he automatically brought up Psalm 1.

"1.  Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2.  But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
4.  Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6.  For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish."

Les bowed his head.  "I am Yours," he whispered.  "Please help me be righteous."

Tap tap tap.  Les looked up to the side window.  Dr. Green was there, gesturing for him to roll down the window.  He reluctantly did.

"Got lost on the way back?" the doctor asked dryly.

"Sorry, Doctor.  I was--"

"You were ditching me and our hosts," the doctor broke in.

"I wasn't going anywhere," Les protested.  "I'm the designated driver, I just needed a moment to recover."

"Rubbish.  I saw you slip a fiver and single under your plate.  You weren't coming back in and we both know it."

Les let a sigh through his teeth and looked straight in Dr. Green's eye.  "Truth was, Doctor, I WAS ill.  I was very sick and tired of hearing those two kick Christian belief around like a soccer ball."

"So what if they were?  You can't take that seriously.  They've guzzled a bottle of wine between them.  And it's not like you have any skin in that little..."

And then, Dr. Green squinted at Les' phone.  "And what, pray tell, is this?"

Les held it up.  "What's it look like?"

Dr. Green stared at the scripture.  He blinked.  "It looks incongruous."

"Actually, it's New International."

"You never told me you were a theist.  I thought you were a scientist."

"I am.  So were Galileo, Copernicus, Rene Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton, Max Planck, and my heroes Gregor Mendel and George Washington Carver.  Believers all."

Dr. Green looked skyward and shook his head.  "What a time to learn this.  Mr. Safer, this is not a particularly good time for this debate."

"I agree.  That's exactly why I bailed.  I don't enjoy debate and I didn't want to hang around and let some intellectual bullies kick Ditchin's or Hawkens or whoever in my face."

Dr. Green's face twisted like he'd just smelled chili dog flatulence.  "Intellectual?!  Those two?  And even if they were Voltaire and Shaw, you'd hide away in your little cloister while I do the heavy lifting negotiating with them?"

"Doctor..."

"No, no, no, don't 'doctor' me.  This is in vino veritas, so you'd better shut up and listen before I deny it all when I sober up.  Now I don't know or care if you believe and pray to Jesus or Yahweh or Allah or Vishnu or Baal, Tiamat, the Great Green Cat in the Sky or nothing at all.  That's not in my bailiwick.  And it hasn't hurt our work in the slightest.  But even this atheist sinner knows lying's wrong."  He leaned in, and parsed each wine-scented word.  "And I.  Detest.  Intellectual.  Dishonesty.  If your faith and their antipathy to it are what will scotch this multi-million dollar deal for you, I think I deserve to know now."

Les stared back up at the doctor.  Then he rolled the window back up, opened the door, got out and closed it behind him.  

"Truth is," he said, "if it were only me, I wouldn't have even have looked them up, let alone gone to dinner.  He's your contact, not mine.  And if we actually get into something needing my signature, my heart's not gonna be in it."

Dr. Green nodded.  "Right, then.  Well, they haven't asked for you to recant or renounce anything just yet, have they?"

Les locked and pocketed his phone.  "Not yet."

"Then let them break the deal over this, if they do.  Let them be the prejudiced ones.  At the very least, man up, go in and give them a proper goodbye."

Les looked back.  Then steeling himself, he headed back in with the doctor, sending a silent prayer for the right thing to do.

***

Dr. Green and Les headed back to the fashionistas' table.  Pop!  The designer had pulled the newly arrived bottle's cork.  

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"I'm okay," Les said, "thanks for asking."

"You were too slow," Storm taunted tipsily as she pointed at Les' wine glass. "Gulped it down while you were away."

"Not to worry," the designer said, as he produced a clean glass he'd swiped from another table.  Putting it by Les' plate, he poured the wine in.  "1969.  Your parents probably weren't even in grade school then."    

Les looked at the glass, then back to Storm's father as friendly as he could.  "Sorry, sir, but... I don't drink."

Storm's father cocked his head.  "How's that, now?"

"I have to drive us, anyway."

"I've got that.  But you said you don't drink.  Why not?"

Dr. Green broke in:  "There's also our car, remember.  Hate to leave it behind."

"Bah," Storm's father waved that off.  "The manager and I are friends.  He'll let you park here overnight."

"And our driver could drop you off," Storm offered.  And she cracked a crooked, sly smile at Les.  "Or maybe you could crash with us."  She winked.

Les' forehead wrinkled.  "I--"

"Aw, c'mon.  You're not religious or anything, are you?"

After a knowing glance to Dr. Green,  Les folded his arms like Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone.  "What if I were?"

Storm's father snorted.  "And what if I were a walrus?  Besides, didn't Jesus turn water to wine?"

Les pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and tapped its keyboard.  "My mother was a nurse, and my dad was a science teacher," he said simply.  "They're missionaries now.  Brought medical and school supplies to the natives in Central America and the Asian Pacific jungles."

He turned the phone their way, and let them see a picture of flock of dark-skinned small smiling children, gathered around a middle-aged man in a Hawaiian print shirt.  "That's my dad in Guatemala.  He helped install an electrical system in that dirt floored school.  If we hadn't developed Greenwear, I'd probably be helping him hook up the stove now."

He hit a button.  His dad showed his bare back; it had several gashes, cigarette burns, welts, bruises and scars.  "From Burma.  Junta sure didn't like what Dad was doing.  He ended up jailed, beaten down, even shot at, and he still stuck with helping displaced people until the regime finally deported him."

He pocketed the phone.  "My mom and dad left comfortable jobs with benefits and security to show those folks Jesus' love and sacrifice.  The love they've shown me.  The love that inspired me to study His creation, beauty and design in plants.  The love that I'd like to share in some small way with our new clothing and material."

He put his hand on the table.  "And with all respect, in my book, getting myself blitzed and trashing this gift called my human body is NOT the way to show thanks."

Silence spread over the table for a few moments.  Finally, Storm broke it.

"Then that means you prob'ly don't do weed or E either."  She shook her head.  "Y'know, you need to do it with a girl worse than anyone I've seen.  You're too rigid."

Les frowned quietly.  "Is this flexible enough for you?  By your leave.  Or without it.  Thank you for dinner, sir.  I'll be in the car, Doctor."  And he turned and left.

The designer arched an eyebrow.  "Well.  He sure didn't take that well.  Perhaps, Doctor, we can arrange something without having him directly involved?"

"Terribly sorry," Dr. Green said.  "But he's the inventor and idea man on Safer-Greenwear; I'm just a backer and business partner.  I couldn't sign on anything without him."

***

Dr. Green watched the stripes on the road zip by as the headlights lit them.  "Well, that deal's sunk like the R.M.S. Lusitania."

Les stared straight ahead as he merged onto the interstate.  "I want to say I'm sorry, but sorry, I'm not.  That girl's last crack tore it."

"Well, don't be, then.  You shouldn't, anyway.  She was out of line, snockered or not."

"What about her dad?  He pulled the purse strings."

"Doesn't it say in the Bible that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?"

"Actually, it's 'a good tree doesn't yield bad fruit, a bad one doesn't yield good fruit."

"Close enough.  You were right, incidentally.  He stiffed the waiter on the tip.  Don't worry, I covered it."

"Well, bully for you."

Dr. Green looked at Les.  "You really do believe it will happen one day, don't you?"

"What, Christ's return?"

"The Rapture, yes."

Les kept his eyes on the road.  "I got no idea when.  Nobody does.  But the Bible says it will.  'If' is not a question here.  It'll take everyone by surprise then."

"Hmph.  If only you were as cocksure on everything else as you were on that, Safer-Greenwear'd be a household word by now."

"It's not me that's sure, Doctor.  It's Christ."

"Oh?"

"Yeah.  I can still be a sinful jerk.  We all are.  And nothing I can do by myself will please God.  I'd never make it to heaven on my own merits.  But when Jesus died on the cross, He paid for my sins.  And if anyone truly repents, trusts in Jesus alone, and asks Him to forgive them, He will.  Bible says that's the only way into heaven.  Without Him, I couldn't do a thing."

Dr. Green sniffed.  "So where was he when you ran out of the restaurant like a scared child?"  

Les stiffened.  "I didn't feel like arguing with--"

"This 'turn the other cheek' business has made you believers wimps."

Les' tone turned icy.  "I'll tell my dad that next time Mom's giving him a backrub.  May I quote you?"   

Dr. Green simply grunted.  Les added, "He was with me when I went back in to face those two.  And you in the parking lot."

Dr. Green turned and stared.  "So are you calling me the enemy, then?"

Les' thumbs tapped on the steering wheel.  "I'm afraid on this one, I can't quite call you an ally."

"Now that hurts.  Look, Les, I might be an atheist, maybe an agnostic on a good day.  But that comes with being a scientist.  I can consider the data I can sense, measure and record, and that's it.  Metaphysical and supernatural things are not in our department.  And yes, I know Planck, Carver, Mendel, Newton and all your heroes were believers, and there's nothing at all wrong with that or them."  He searched his pockets for a breath mint.  "But they didn't put Bible verses or hymn verses on their data sheets, they put data.  Now, again, if you feel a need to believe in a higher power or intelligence, that's no skin off my nose.  In fact, I guess I should be pleased that you didn't compromise your principles for money.  I know that's been sorely lacking in the scientific community lately.  Especially when politics get mixed in.  But something you'll have to face is dealing with people who don't agree with you.  I mean, I haven't ostracised you because you have Monster Thickburgers when you think I'm not looking, right?"  Dr. Green found his Deltoids.  "Right?"  

Still silent.  He turned back to Les.  "Oh, don't pout like a five-year-old chi--"

And he saw Les was gone.  His Greenwear clothes lay draped on the bucket seat, with his glasses atop his blazer.

Then Dr. Green snapped his head forward.  The car was headed right for an off-ramp divider's bushes and trees.

"JESUS CHRIST!!" He wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right and stomped across for the brake pedal.

It wasn't enough.  Screeeeech-crunch! Azelea flowers, leaves and branches smooshed on the windshield and an oak's trunk caved in the car's front end.  Pfoomp! went the airbags that caught the doctor.  The safety belt did its job, too, smacking him back in his seat.

Oh, please let that be the Merlot, he thought.   Please let that be the Merlot talking!

But his banged-up knee hogged the conversation.  With a groan, he reached over, turned the key to off, opened the passenger door, and staggered out.  He stumbled a little when his aching left leg touched the ground, but at least he could put weight on it.  He fumbled for his iPhone.
  
Smash!  Creeeak-CRUNK!  Two more vehicles wrecked.  A pickup truck collided with the guardrail on the bridge overpassing the highway he'd left.  Back there, an 18-wheeler shunted into the concrete support, jackknifed and blocked off both lanes underneath.

Snapping to, he hit 911.  "Yes, this is Dr. Eaton Green!  I'd like to report three accidents by the Highway 106 Summit exit!  A tractor- trailer under the bridge, a dark blue Nissan pickup truck ON the bridge, and our own white Subaru hybrid station wagon on the off-ramp divider!"

"Please remain calm sir.  Are you all right, any serious injuries in your party?"

"Knee's banged up, but I can still walk.  But my colleague, Les Safer... oh, you're not going to believe this."

"Believe what, sir?"

Dr. Green took a breath as he limped to the pickup.  "My friend simply vanished!  He was driving right beside me, I looked away for a second, and when I looked back, he was gone!  Just his clothes and his glasses on the driver's seat and that was it!  No one at the wheel at all!"  The phone was silent.  "Sir, are you still there?"

"Yes, sir, we're still here," was the unsure reply.

"I'm checking the pickup truck now... License plate XYD-201... great Jonas Salk."

"What is it, sir?"

"I see two more sets of clothes.  Men's wear on the driver's seat, women's on passenger side.  Not a single living trace of either, though."  He squinted at something on the "Please Be Patient; God Isn't Finished With Me Yet" baby-doll T-shirt:  bits of gold.  "She's even left behind her dental fillings and caps!"  He looked away.  "Please, I can't be going insane, I can't be losing my--"

"Uh, sir?  You aren't."

"How's that, now?"

"Sir, I probably shouldn't say this, but we're getting similar reports all over the county.  Fourteen or fifteen calls reporting disappearances like yours."

"Oh," Dr. Green said, sounding like he'd figured out why his internet wasn't connecting.  "My situation isn't life or death just now, so maybe you should prioritise on the ones that are."

"Stay on the line, please.  You've been noted.  Highway patrolman's already on the way, in fact."

Dr. Green hobbled back down to his wrecked car.  Off to the west, he could see a string of headlamps on the hillside like lights on a Christmas tree.  When he got down to the truck, he saw the lettering on the door:  Declaration Trucking, Cana, VA.  And just below it: Colossians 3:17,23.

He had a dreaded suspicion, but as a scientist, he needed proof.  He opened the door.  Just as he thought.  Blue jeans, cowboy boots, light blue canvas shirt, ball cap, and that was it.  No driver.

It all sunk in.  Les was right.  It happened right when they never suspected.

Back at their car, in the driver's seat, he heard a light, rapid electronic tune, with a Japanese singer sounding like Smurfette on speed.  Les' phone.  By the ringtone, he knew it was a dear friend calling from several states away.  Though he felt like he was intruding on someone's private ground, Dr. Eaton Green opened the door, reached to his departed colleague and friend's clothes, dug in the shirt pocket, and picked up the phone so he could reply and deliver the bad news.

And though he feared it might be too late, he whispered, "God pity us all...."