The Seventh Day Read Online Free

machine, leans there, as if a weakness has come too suddenly upon him. I believe this thing we have done has damaged him.
    â€˜You must fly,’ I say. ‘You must take your machine now, Jonjan.’
    â€˜You are a prisoner of their tomorrow juice and you don’t know it,’ he says. ‘I should have known it. I should have known.’ And he sits, his back against his machine.
    â€˜You must not sit there.’ I pull on his arm, try to lift him.
    Again he looks to the roof. ‘Forgive her, Moni, for she knows not what she has done.’ He sighs, and I think he sleeps!
    I run from him.

    (Excerpt from the New World Bible)
    Came the dogs then to feast upon the dead. And the dogs died. Came the rats to feast upon the dogs and the rats thrived.
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    Came the wailing of the damned and the stench of death upon the air, and it covered all of the land.
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    And fear became man’s daily bread, and panic his fresh water.
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    But from the priests and the law-makers, from the builders and the engineers, from those who knew arms and much of armaments, from the scientists, the surgeons and others of great knowledge, great wealth or important position or occupation, one hundred and twenty-five had been chosen.
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    And they had prepared a place for them, and they had taken with them abundant stores from the storesheds and water enough, and that with which to purify both air and water.
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    And they had taken with them medicines and books, tools and arms. And they had locked themselves secure in a building beneath the great southern city where they might remain safe from airborne and manborne disease.
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    And as rats in a hole they waited for the seventh day to end.

THE REMEMBERING
    There has been a length of many days between the grey men’s comings. It has been the time they name the Resting Phase, which comes after the Harvesting. How many days I do not know, only that I must swallow no more yellow pills during the Resting Phase and that there are blue pills after it. Only that their grey hands do not intrude during the Resting Phase.
    Granny once said to me: ‘Time is a gift. Never question or measure a gift, girl.’ The Resting Phases are gifts. I do not measure them. I know only that the day of Jonjan’s coming was the day of the first golden pumpkin flower, and today we have many fat green pumpkins. I know that the spotty calf was not born on the night of that wondrous happening in the barn, and now he has grown and may not suck more milk from the brown cow, for Pa steals all of it to make his cheese.
    And that is all I know.
    The grey men came again last night and they were not pleased with me. Lenny likes me to please them, for in their giant flying machine, they bring him a great plasti-wrapped gift from the city, and they bring a wheeled machine which they use to lift their gift to the earth and carry it to the generator shed. I have watched the unloading of it by night, and watched Lenny opening the cords and seal by day.
    Inside it he finds many things. There is corn for the stock and plasti-cans of cornbeans for us. There is fruitjell and the grey oil spread, packets of crispbites and much, much cornbread. There are potatoes and carrots, paper towels, containers of chem-wash, pills for Pa’s aches, V cubes for Lenny, and sometimes overalls, boots and sandals. Always there is the cordial.
    Each bottle is wrapped individually and safe in city newsprint, then packed with more newsprint into a carton. The cordial is mine, thus the crumpled newsprint is also mine.
    I have handled Lenny’s V cubes, just for a moment. They are less than a handspan in both height and width and on five sides there is a prancing dancer. On the sixth side they have made a map of many paths and colours. I do not understand the pleasure of these cubes, though Lenny likes them well. He sits on the verandah rocking in Granny’s old chair, squinting and smiling at the figures, then he