Left Vanished by Chelsea Temple

I feel like Otis from that old show my grandmother used to watch. If it wasn’t at one time in black and white, it wasn’t allowed on her television screen. The cops here know me by name. Though unfortunately, I’m not allowed to let myself in and out as I please, and the local sheriff is no Andy Griffith.

               The concrete block that acts as my temporary bed is cool against my back. The thin mattress works better as a makeshift comforter than a relief from the hardness beneath me. The blanket is wrapped around the thin pillow offering my neck some support. It’s almost comfortable enough to sleep, but in my state, my eyes refuse to close.

               The guy in the cell next to me is singing “Proud To Be An American” in a fit of patriotic glee. The caged clock on the wall says 2:37, and I wonder if I can request something new. Pat his nose or twist his ear to get a new song or at least, get him to sing in key like I’m tuning a guitar.

               Two cops sit at the desk in the front of the room. Our local police station is small, with two holding cells with just a handful of cops. For serious offenses, you are shipped off in the morning to the local jail, but most of the time, if you are in these cells it is to wait for a slap on the wrist. Slap on the wrist or guillotine of personal freedom? I guess we’ll find out in the morning.

               I reach out to touch the bars separating me and my singing companion. I touch the cool metal and close my eyes. The man changes songs from “God Bless America” to “Amazing Grace” and I think, “I did it”.

               Then he goes silent.

Blessed silence.

               And I feel the pull of sleep when I hear something solid hit the side of the building and Tony Anderson, the local deputy, starts yelling.

               “What the…. What kind of? Jerry, you have got to see this. Jerry…. Jerry! JERRY!”

I open my eyes, and the world is suddenly different.

               A car has pushed through the wall of the building. It is steaming and the cold air of the night is mixing with the heat of the small fire now burning at the base of the broken car. Tony is already at the door of the vehicle looking for the drunk driver behind the wheel, but no one is there. I sit up from my bunk and look into the cell next to me. The singing minstrel is no longer there.

               “Where,” I wonder.

Tony touches the hood of the car, then spotting the fire he runs to get a fire extinguisher to put out the flames before they become a problem.

               “What is going on?” I ask. “Where did the other guys go?”

Tony rubs his bald head over and over again like he’s in a game of Simon Says. Suddenly he stops as if someone gave a silent command.

               “It’s impossible,”

If it’s possible, the top of his bald head blanches, turning as pale as his face. He pats the gun at his side, and without hearing my shouts runs toward the door.

               “Wait,” I shout. “Don’t leave…”

The “me” hangs in the air between us untouched.

               I am the only one left in the room.

I start humming “God Bless America”, still wondering where the man vanished to.

               Periodically people knock at the door. Strangers stick their heads in the door, but upon seeing no cops, the hopeful looks fall from their faces, and they leave without seeing me. I stay under the mattress. I’m not naive. I know what this is.

               The news is on, and slowly, the reports start rolling in from those that are left. They are calling it The Exodus, but those here in Southern Mississippi are aware of what this is. Seven letters. One word.

               Rapture.

Chelsea Temple is an English teacher from East Tennessee. Her favorite part of having a relationship with the Lord is that she always has someone to see her classic "side-eye" look. She believes that the Lord appreciates her humor while she tries to appreciate all of his. She attends Lyons Park Missionary Baptists in Church Hill, Tennessee.