A Change in the Weather

Race of Theologians

Perhaps it should have been mentioned before that Triu Efflia was a floating restaurant, upon whose doors every party arrived by raft, pontoon, kayak or canoe. Our two heavenly-minded intellectuals had come via their own individual inflatable red-cross relief boats — who would have guessed?.

The restaurant didn’t truly float, but merely rebarred itself deep into the stream and surrounding eddies. Like some elaborate “Golf N Stuff” pinball maze the course labyrinthing around the establishment in rectangles and circles was populated with tiny fencework in the blue-green currents to guide diners in and out through different lanes.

Christopher had entered his first and was oars up in moments of balancing himself onto the craft. He was a natural at equilibrium, having surfed and skateboarded in youth.

Nicholas, the clumsier athlete, fell into his neoprene float. Disliking to be beaten by those he little-admired, however, he oared quickly into the tight angling exitways, announcing as little exertion as possible, or “being the duck” as it were. When he began to gain on Christopher’s parallel lane, the Calvinist reached forth a paddle and quietly clawed the back of the lead boat.

Every time each man turned a corner, the currents aided or flanked them. And a point approached where their paths would diverge and then lead again at a different juncture towards the controlled waterfall — they called it a water-drop — which would manageably spill them down to the chapel grounds where fewer and fewer folk resided any longer. All other patrons just ejected to smoother water planes, which led back to so many different cottages on the bends of that wild aqua-marine worm.

It’s true that certain citizens of “merit” had controls on some of the waterflow and upspout in that sluice. But the official word said those spigots had been locked off a year and a half ago, due to the growing popularity of the successful restaurant.

The really observant stewards of that province (the conspiracy theorists), however, said that once or twice the elements themselves seemed to loosen the valves and the large irrigatory vein would upswell or downrise by significant degree in a matter of moments. Were it a ghost, or an angel or a daemon, who knew?.

Most diners had heard they faced such a risk by venturing to the happy bistro. But it was no more danger than jumping on a Boeing to go see your grandparents. Engines could massively fail, but so rarely did they.

This particular day seemed a convergence of normal and strange events then. For the instant each racer broke the bounds of that strange corral which cordoned in the cuisinary attraction, two anomalies occurred, but in the reverse order you would expect.

The first is that some prescience ignited beneath that smooth carpet of water when the valves ruling tide levels started superflowing the conduit. The second was that gloomy clouds began forming like hyperspacing motherships in the atmosphere. The whole development seemed to happen on rewind. For in not much time the newly formed nimbus were weeping profusely on a crick which was already enlarging.

Nicholas was first to notice the changes. He was what you called “a worrier” any way. He was aggresso-aware of his environs as a rule.

Christopher started getting wet before he noticed the water-speed increasing; his instinct was to fix his hair. And he did.

The other theologian had brought a bag with a translucent raincoat and began putting it on, whilst steering with the other arm. Both were still trying to beat the other to the waterdrop. Each man was sensible enough to strap into waist constraints at this point in case the river chopped too much.

The next oddity was how the water was starting to change color, like certain people’s eyes which vacillate from green to blue, or even hazel to black. In this case the wet turquoise was obsidianing, and this to the extent that the men were beginning to pick up their own reflections in the stream.

Nicholas noticed it first and thought that his medicine regiment was not working. He kept staring back at the water on both sides of him, hoping to the find the normal non-reflective green. He had no particular problem with a black lake, but was beginning to remember that this river only went that color when it was gorged and flooding.

Christopher, with acute vanity, was leaning over his raft to view his profile. Normally, the boat would have laughed at such a modest threat. But then, for no clear reason, Christopher was further inclined to let the sterling cross on his neck jump out from his undershirt and dip itself into the drink.

Strangely enough, when the silver icon of torment dunked beneath the now waves, it instantly snagged on something, like an angler’s line that hits where a bass is waiting. He felt an instant tug at his neck and then one at his midsection where the aquatic seatbelt had him. It seemed implausible that anything that high in the water could have pulled at his weight from a necklace as small and breakable as the one he wore. And Christopher’s waist constraint was really just folded velcro. And yet the theologian felt he was being torn in half and so he began to violently pull himself away from each tension — all this in milliseconds.

The giant life-preserver flipped! All Christopher knew was he was upside-down in his skiff, still somehow tethered to it. The river was quite black to his eyes, but he could see enormous bubbles and something like his hand and arm flailing about in that ocean seeking a way to right the situation. Stupidly or smartly, he reached for the necklace that had dangled the Lord’s Cross, but it had in fact snapped and was gone. He knew he had less than a minute to figure out what to do with himself in this perilous down under . . .

This is the Character in conflict with His Environment/Society/World portion of Zane Dickens and Paul Mansfield Conflict Challenge

It is part two of my first entry on the Argument of Two Theologians over Dinner here:

Diet of Worms. And open-air Religion | by Fox Kerry | Microcosm | Aug, 2021 | Medium