Thrillers, Chillers, & Sci-Fi Killers Whether or not you believe the bible is true, it contains stories that trigger imagination.

Water Wife

In my dream, the cage doors are open, and animals rummage about everywhere.

Shoving through throngs, I yell for Noah and Shem and run to secure our food.

In the storeroom, I startle a party of foxes and groundhogs. They dart into overturned crates leaving their feast of dried figs.

A pair of wolf mates is less responsive. The female gives a token growl and then returns to paw for leftover scraps in our oven, which is now an unrecognizable heap of ash and overturned stones.

I grab a bread board and bang on it with a paddle, but the noise only causes the couple to shift their position and continue their quest on the other side.

Usually at this point in my dream, I notice my feet. They are submerged in rising water. All about me, small animals struggle to swim or stay afloat. Our boat is sinking. Noah says its our punishment, because we, too, have failed to please Maker. I cry with sadness and plead that it’s no one else’s fault but mine that the animals escaped their cages. I ask Noah to tell Maker this fact and plead our case, but he refuses.

Somehow I know at this point in my dream that if I cry to Noah, I’ll wake up because I always hear his voice saying, “Izzie! Izzie? Wake up.”

Only this time, strange words spoken by another voice comes, “Iscah, I’ve called you. Get up. Come and see.”

I wake, and beside me, Noah still sleeps. No one else is in the room.

I turn over, deciding I must have dreamed a new part to my dream, but then I hear the voice again. It calls me by my full name.

“Iscah, I’ve called you. Get up. Come and see.”

I sit and push back the covers. Perhaps I hear Shem or one of the others.

When I step free of the bed, I’m forced to grab the wall to brace myself as the room pitches forward. It’s an all too familiar sensation caused by the boat rising on the swells and then falling back down into the deeper valleys made between the forming waves.

Noah grumbles something, flops onto his back. He remains in his preferred position and launches into deafening snores. With his nasal songs, the boat rolling, and my strange dreams, it’s likely to be another sleepless night.

The increased motion of the boat worries me.

Are we to see another great storm?

It’s been many months since we encountered the catastrophe. After the forty-day span of it, we spotted bodies and debris for days, but that too subsided. For months, we’ve seen nothing but flat endless water and an occasional gentle rain.

I stagger my way across creaking boards and down to the far end where the steps lead to the lower level. There I discover the reason for the thudding noises.

From a window opening, I see a latch on the covering has come loose.  Before securing it, I take in the expanded view, searching the gray rolling water for a morning horizon as I always do.

Something is different. It’s nothing I can see, but it’s what I feel.

There is wind. Strong gusts whip my hair across my face.

Except for the storm, the last time I felt wind was when I climbed the small hill behind our home. It was so hot, but Noah wanted to make an offering. Maker had spoken with him and he was in a trance.

When the offering was made, Noah told me all that Maker had said to him even though I heard nothing. I remember wondering why I had not heard the words, and soon, as we walked back, a steady breeze began to blow. Before we reached our home, the wind turned into gusts that that sent stinging sand particles into the skin on my face.

I’d give anything to feel the sand of my homeland again or even just once hear Maker’s voice talking to me.

But it seems as if such things are not meant to be mine.

My destiny is to live in a water home and be the wife of a man who serves the water king.

Our small home roams constantly, but every day when I open my eyes and see the horizon, it seems as if we’ve not moved at all because the view is always the same.

Gripping the window ledge, I close my eyes and will away the water. In my mind I can see my cozy home from before the flood.

Hot tears fall on my cheeks.

So does a breath. “Iscah, I’ve called you. Look and see,”

I jump in terror at the sound and sudden nearness of the voice.

My eyes fly open.

What I see next is impossible. A sky flamed by stars more brilliant than I’ve ever known appears. It’s not the same sky I viewed just seconds ago.

Squinting, I see another marvel. In the east there’s a thin orange line of dawn. Then, as the boat rises and crests on a new wave, a small jagged form, dark and solid, appears and interrupts the line.

Is it land?

Is it land?

Is it land?

“Iscah, I am with you. Soon you will be home. Trust me.”

Keeping a tight grip on the ledge, I sink to the floor and cry even harder.

It is Him.  Maker speaks to me, too!

For many days, the wind continues to blow. It dries up the water to reveal the land of my new home.

Water Wife

(A poem written by Noah’s wife, Izzie, when she was aboard the ark at 601 years of age.)

I do not think that I can stand,

another day without some land.

It is not right, it is not fit,

For matron me, to ride a ship.

I long for home of days before,

And not the rain of ten times four.

I wish to tell you grandkids this,

That life strays sometimes far amiss.

Yet even then,

With God’s great plan,

A dame can stand

Beside her man.

(Momma told me there’d be days like this, and that’s why I’m telling you, dear.)

My story & poem, “Water Wife,” was inspired by Genesis, chapters 6-8

My new blog series, Bible Snaps, are short fictionalized accounts of the more chilling stories in the Bible. Some are even “science fiction” type stories that reference biblical disasters that seem to conflict with the laws of nature.

If you follow along, there’s a couple things you should know.

My “Bible Snaps” aren’t an attempt to settle the question, “is the bible true?” Each person must decide that on their own. My goal is to jump into the head of bible characters and try to imagine living the experience described in the story and then use fresh and personal words to tell it.

My other goal is to keep these posts “snappy” quick. In doing this, I might only “snap” a portion of the bible story to tell, but I’ll always give you the bible reference so you can read the actual bible text that inspired me.

There are also other reading options on my website.

If you don’t like my Bible Snaps Stories, then check out “Five,” my medical Sci-Fi supernatural thriller story. All 67 episodes (blog posts) are now available, and if you read them from beginning to end, you’ll have read the entire book and will be ready for my sequel, “Six.”

If you don’t like “Five”, then read my other short stories on this blog- (search word, “un-proverbial”) or Psalms blog posts. All of these were posted before January 2015.

Just read me. I’d be honored to have YOU in my audience!

One final thought.

Why do I re-tell the “bad” or chilling parts of the Bible?

We live in rough times. Many people suffer under injustice. It’s good to see how the Bible, an old book that many value as true, contains many helpful stories of people who were oppressed yet managed to live, survive, and thrive. 

Don’t take my word or anyone else’s word about the Bible. Give it a read for YOURSELF. You may be surprised by what you find.

Thanks,

Ann