The glorious city, the New Jerusalem, is resplendent in it’s
height. Upon Mt. Zion
Outside the
gleaming courts of Yahweh, however, Jerusalem
is still being reconstructed, as is the Kingdom. No more than 15 miles away from Jerusalem ’s center, in a
suburb of the continually growing city, the polished streets are exchanged for
filthy, bloody remnants of the Great War.
Maria walks quickly upon the dirty
streets, wishing she had worn her sneakers instead of her fancy leather
sandals. What a way to make a first
impression, she mused. Dirty feet,
sweating, hair all out of place after walking fifteen miles from the
Center. Is this the best way to meet the
Emperor? Certainly it is not the most
efficient way to work. I’ve just wasted
hours walking the streets, looking for a cluster of well-dressed Ministers—wait,
there they are…
She catches
up to the group, walking quickly out of an alley. At the fore is the Emperor, with the rest of
the group walking briskly behind him.
She sucks in an anxious breath, and strides forward to introduce
herself.
“Chan,” she hears the Emperor speak, clearly and steadily,
“whose building is this?”
“Yasser Muhammad’s, Lord.”
“Does he have the resources to get it up to code?”
Chan glances at his hand-held computer and hits a few
keys. “Yes… but he owns many buildings
in this area. I don’t know how many of
them are below standard, but he certainly wouldn’t have the resources to get
them all up to code, if they are all in the same shape as this one.”
“Send a Minister to Mr. Muhammad and inform him that he is
to work in partnership with Mr. Jacob Eli.
All the buildings are to be in code in a year. And please send another message to Mr. Eli,
informing him of his partnership with Mr. Muhammad.”
Chan presses more keys, then mentions, “Mr. Eli, I believe,
is not in good relationship with Mr. Muhammad at the moment.”
The Emperor smiles.
“An opportunity. Wonderful. Please note that after two weeks, should
Misters Eli and Muhammad not be in cooperation, then they will be required to
attend mediation toward forgiveness and the completion of the Emperor’s
goals. Got that, Chan?”
“Yes, Lord.”
The Emperor begins to walk to the next block, but notices
Maria standing before him, in shock.
“Hello, Maria.”
Maria quickly gets on her knees and raises her hands before
him, “O Sovereign…”
The Emperor interrupts her, “Please, we don’t have time for
that now. We have work to do. Have we met before Maria? You are Maria, correct?”
Maria begins to stand, “No, my Savior…”
“Tut, tut… Lord will do just fine. Well, it is good to meet you. I’m sure you will work out fine. And I’m sure you have many questions. Go ahead to the back of the pack and… um,
Drew? Could you please explain things to
Maria?” He turns his head toward Maria and whispers conspiratorially, “I find that Anglo males like to lecture, and
you have some catching up to do.” Then he almost shouts across the line of
heads, “Drew, be sure to listen to
her!”
A blonde-haired man in casual clothing steps forward and
motions Maria toward himself. The
Emperor stops her, “Maria, one other thing.
I need a lot of folks to follow me right now—there is so much to
do! The work isn’t overwhelming but it
requires effort. Next time, please use
public transportation.” He glanced toward her feet, “And use footwear that will
be more comfortable for walking!” He
turns away quickly carefully examining the next block.
Maria walks
up to Drew with a questioning look. He
smiles and says, “So, you haven’t been on the Walk before?”
“This is all so confusing…”
“It’s not so hard.
Our Lord is interested in making changes throughout the Empire and he
plans to do it one neighborhood at a time.”
“I don’t want to oppose our master, but this is so
inefficient! And so… undignified.”
They have to jog for a moment to keep up with the rest of
the pack.
Drew says, “You are probably wondering why he is walking the
street instead of making determinations in the main hall of judgment? No doubt we all would prefer to see him
there, receiving the glory that he deserves.”
“Well, yes. It seems
so strange for our Lord to be here in this… ghetto.”
“I’m sure. The Lord
says that to understand the needs of the poor, one must be with the poor and
speak to them. And it doesn’t help to
bring the poor into the glorious Center to speak to them. It intimidates them too much. So he goes incognito, so to speak, to the
poorest places in the Kingdom and improves people’s lives one by one, block by
block.”
“I am never one to question my Lord’s decisions, but
wouldn’t his time be better served by making policy decisions, and allowing his
Ministers speak to the people?”
“He says that he never makes a single pronouncement without
speaking to at least a hundred people who it will effect. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust his
Ministers—you’ll see that we are essential to the running of his government—but
he says that only the poor can speak to the needs of the poor. Even those who were once poor, like us,
forget what it used to be like. What I
have never understood is that he says that he cannot even trust himself. That every decision must be checked by
personal experience by those who must live with it. This doesn’t mean he does what each poor
person says—that would be chaos.
But…wait. See what he’s doing now?”
The Emperor had noticed a group of children playing in an
empty lot. There were maybe seven
youngsters—they were moving so fast that at first it was hard to determine
their number. The Emperor stopped at the
edge of the lot and crouched down, looking at them intently. They were playing a game with a metal, round
garbage lid. They each had a stick and
were all attempting to roll the lid from one side of the lot to the other. One child would roll the lid a ways, when
another child would confront her. The
first would attempt to roll the lid around the second, while another child
would block the attack of the second upon the lid. The second succeeded in knocking the lid away
and then the lid fell, flat on the ground.
“Ali, you made it fall, we get the advantage!”
Ali stepped aside, and the first girl deftly used her stick
to prop the lid upright and continued to roll it toward her goal.
The Emperor walked toward Ali, and the boy started, as if
the Emperor had snuck up on him. “Hello,
Ali. Are you winning?”
Ali stared at the Emperor and asked, “Are you one of those
Ministers?”
“Not exactly.”
“You glow like one. I
saw a Minister once. But he was rushing
by. Whew!” Ali motioned his arm quickly forward.
“I know. Those
Ministers are too busy to talk to anybody, huh?”
“Yeah. So what do you
want?”
“I just want to talk to you for a minute. I won’t take you out of the game?”
“Nah. I’m in penalty
for five minutes. I knocked the disc
down.”
“Ah, that’s a disc?”
“Not a real one. It’s
a garbage lid. But we love playing disc,
so we got this.”
“I see. Where do you
live, Ali?”
“With my mama. Our
house is over there.” He points west.
“You live in a house?”
“Not a real house.
You know, we got a room in a big building.”
“Do you have any other family?”
“I got two sisters.”
“How many rooms does your apartment have?”
“Two. And a kitchen.”
“And does your mom work?”
“She stays at home all the time.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s always tricking people.”
“Tricking people? At
home?”
“Yeah. She always
tells us that when she’s tricking people, we can’t be there, so she sends us
away. I hang out here with my friends.”
“And what do your sisters do?”
“There’s one, there.
With the stick. She’s too good.”
“I see that. Did she
just make a goal?”
“Uh huh. That’s why
she’s jumping and all that.”
“How many points to a goal?”
“Three. One point for
an advantage.”
“Uh huh. So could you
show me where you live?”
“Well, my mama’d be pretty mad at me.”
“She doesn’t like strangers coming by?”
“She doesn’t want anyone at home unless she brings them.”
“That makes sense.
Could you ask her if I could come over?”
“You want me to go right now?”
“Well, I know you’re in the middle of the game.”
“We lost already. My
sister always wins. I guess I could go.”
“Maybe you could bring her to me.”
“I’ll ask. If she’s
done tricking the guy.”
“Just go get her.”
Ali runs to her sister and tells her he’s going home. She begins to command him and he ignores her
and runs away. She yells to him, to no
avail. As Ali runs around the corner,
the Emperor begins jogging after him.
Maria turns
to Drew, “What is he doing?”
Drew begins
to chase the pack, following the Emperor’s lead. “C’mon!
You want to see what happens. I
think something’s brewing.”
As the
Emperor jogged, keeping an eye on Ali, he shouts, “Alyssa!”
A woman in
the middle of the pack shouts back, “Yes, Lord?”
“What is
the current law on prostitution?”
“Relocation,
entrance into Work Assessment.”
“Thank you,
please keep up, I’ll need you on this one.”
“Yes,
Lord.”
“Ali runs
fast—keep up!” The Emperor runs ahead to
match stride with Ali.
Maria turns
to Drew, “What is the Emperor doing?”
Drew replies,
“Well, the motives of the Emperor are difficult to gage,” he says through soft
pants, “but I think he’s planning on a personal assessment.”
“Assessment?”
“Of current
policy.”
“Obviously,
the boy’s mother is involved in prostitution.
The Emperor’s policy is to find prostitutes alternative work, but this
one slipped through the cracks. He wants
to find out why.”
“Why
doesn’t he just call the police and have her relocated?”
“I don’t
know. Let’s find out.”
The whole
pack remains unseen as they enter a run down tower and occupy a lobby the paper
of which is falling off of the walls.
The smell of urine fills their nostrils, and dark stains mark the
floor. The Emperor speaks, “Chan? Who owns this building?”
“Yasser Muhammad, Lord.
Same as the last building.”
“Interesting. Please
make an appointment for me to see Mr. Muhammad.
We need to speak directly to him of the gifts he is offering the
community.”
Above them, they hear Ali cry, “MAMA! You done?
There’s a Minister want to talk to you.”
They climb up the stairs, following Ali’s path.
As they
approached the open door (Ali, as all young boys, has yet to learn to close
doors), they could hear Ali’s mother speaking quietly but harshly, “What have I
told you about coming during the day? Shut
up and close the door!”
The Emperor
motioned toward Alyssa, “Approach with me, please.”
Just as the
mother was closing the door, she saw the Emperor and Alyssa. “Oh dear God.”
The Emperor
smiled, “Yes, that’s right. Could you
let us in, please?” The mother stares
for a moment, and then turns away, sits on her worn couch, face in her hands.
The Emperor
leaves the door open, sits on the floor, and Alyssa stands next to him. They interview her for an hour. At first Janice refused to say anything, but
eventually she believed him when he said that she is not in trouble, he just
wanted to hear her story. After it was
clear that he already knew all of the shameful facts of her life, she lit into
him, blaming him for her situation. The
work assessment was a fraud, she asserted, they had no intention of helping
her. They had no idea of her needs, so
she left and went back to the ghetto.
Eventually she got this apartment and got what work she could to support
her children. Yes, the work happened to be
illegal, but what could she do?
The Emperor
bows his head for a moment and then returns to Janice, “I want to apologize, my
dear. I know that it was never your
intention to leave your children on the street as you attempt to make rent and
food through this shameful method. You
have been through my system and I have failed you and those who are like
you. I hope that you will help me
correct this situation right now. You
are essential to my plans in assisting other women, that none of you would ever
have to face this situation again. Are
you willing to help?”
Janice
looked stunned, and simply nodded. The
Emperor smiled and said, “Thank you, so much.
You don’t know what this means to so many people. Alyssa?”
“Yes,
Lord.”
“I’d like you to pack Janice and
her children and bring them to the palace.
We need to do a full evaluation of her situation and of where the system
failed her. Perhaps it is in a single,
uncaring worker, but perhaps the work assessment didn’t find her qualified
work. Whatever the case, I want to make
sure that she is cared for and evaluated fairly.”
“Where will
I keep her, Lord?”
“In your
apartment. You will be granted another three rooms, adjacent to your own. Your current
task is to evaluate her situation, following up on every contact. We must rush this, so I want a full report in
a month.”
Alyssa’s
eyes went wide briefly, then responded, “Yes, Lord.”
The Emperor
smiled. “Fine!” He turns to the pack, still standing outside
the door, “Shall we go on?”
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