100 People in 100 Days:i. Ezekiel Jones

His round glasses had days of dust and grime unwiped from the lenses. He did not wish to hide his eyes; rather, Ezekiel Jones wore the dirty glasses for deliberate effect. It made him feel like some madman from the distopian future that roamed a desolate earth. His unwashed hair, though short, and long handlebar moustache only added to this vision he had of himself. The year was 2005. There was constant war, shortages of energy resources, the looming threat of civil liberties being subverted by the government, and the masses tuning out by watching a constant barrage of celebrity news. But there were no ruins of Los Angeles to wander through, no prison colony created from New York City to escape from, and no city of feral children awaiting a savior that could fly them home. It was 2005, and people had been awaiting the end of the world for thousands of years. Ezekiel was just another one of those masses.

Ezekiel wore what he wore every Sunday. Black. Black dress shirt. Black slacks. Black socks. Shiny, freshly polished, black shoes. He did not wear a tie. It concerned some of the members of the Mormon congregation he attended enough that he would wear all black instead of the traditional white dress shirt. So he figured he would not wear the tie, which was also customary, as well just to grind the salt into the wounds.

He sat in the metal fold-up chair. Shifting from one butt cheek to the other trying to relieve the pain. He had been sitting for two hours already, and still had another hour until church would be over. This was the third meeting; one per hour. The first included the entire congregation. The second separated the children from the adults for instruction. This third hour separated the men from the women.

In this particular meeting, there was a guest speaker to discuss the importance of emergency preparedness. The entire lecture came across as an infomercial for ham radio, as that was the speakers specialty. “This will be the only form of reliable communication when the big one hits us. Remember when the ‘95 quake hit. No one was able to use their cell phones or landlines…” Like most religious folks, the Mormons were obsessed with the end of the world. And like true modernists, they knew they could over come Mother Nature with technology.

Ezekiel decided to escape the lecture by dropping himself into a meditative trance. He slumped down in the chair. Dropped his chin into his chest and closed his eyes. He repeated a mantra to drown out the importance of short wave radios.

Forty-five minutes later he lifted his head and opened his eyes. “I have over one hundred double-a batteries in storage. I could run this radio for weeks,” were the first words Ezekiel heard upon coming out of his self-induced trance. Then he raised his arm to ask a question.

“Yes?”

“What’s the point?” Ezekiel asked. The special guest opened his mouth but no sounds came out. “I mean it. I’ve been mediating back here for the majority of class. I’ve seen the future. You’re trying to tell us that the world is going to burn but as long as you have some wheat and a radio and a Boy Scout knife you’ll make it through. What you don’t realize is that you’re wrong. The future is going to be full of people reverting back into animals. Well, the people that want to survive anyways. People still trying to act like people, trying to contract grandma through Morse code are going to find my teeth through their skull because I haven’t eaten in two weeks. The first thing you should do to prepare for the big one or the flood or World War III is to buy a bunch of guns because I’ve just been meditating back here while you’re talking about using reason to overcome the end of the world. I’m feeling real Zen-like right now. And you know what? Forget you’re little walkie-talkie man. I’m at one with the world right now and I’m saying to buy a gun because catastrophe isn’t about testing out how evolved we are. It is about finding out how quickly we can devolve in order to survive.”

Then a debate in regards to how proper Christians should act during times of great catastrophe began. Christ would make us new. Better than the animals. So even during times of great sorrow we can be filled with joy. Faith. God has warned us so we can prepare. Ezekiel sat and listened. Never during his imagined replies of Nietzsche, post-modernism, theology, feminization of man, did the thought that he might just be in the wrong place every Sunday pass through his mind.

Ezekiel had days worth of dust and grime built up on the lenses of his round glasses. He did not do this to hide his eyes. Rather did this for another effect. He wished people to see him as he saw himself. A madman.