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When the hail stopped and cucumbers began to rain from the sky, Geraldine dropped her laundry basket and fled to the shelter of the front porch. Kneeling in prayer as green missiles splattered onto the ground and thudded into the gutters, she knew it was a sign from God.
For minutes the unnatural rain continued, cucumbers knocking sheets off the clothesline and smashing against oak trees. Cucumbers tumbled across the porch steps and spun on the stone walkway. Geraldine shouted her prayers to be heard over the cacophony. She continued praying until the last one fell.
She hoped Elroy was safe, but Elroy was a God-fearing man. Certainly the good Lord wouldn't smite such a man with produce.
After the squall, the air smelled sweet and clean. Wasps hummed over piles of smashed vegetables. Birds trilled from the trees.
Geraldine waited until her heart stopped pounding. When she felt sure the cucumber rain was really finished, she crossed herself, then left the porch and began gathering intact cucumbers in the hem of her shirt.
If this was the beginning of the end, the cucumbers might well be gifts, sustenance to assure her survival in the coming end times. And she wasn't about to risk God's wrath by wasting them, even if they had scared the breath right out of her.
Inside, Geraldine dug up cartons of canning jars from the basement and then set about scrubbing the cucumbers. She kept a few aside to eat fresh. Elroy liked cucumbers on his sandwiches. But she'd pickle the rest so they'd keep.
It was only too bad that it hadn't rained peaches. Elroy so loved pickled peaches.
While she boiled the pickling solution, she wondered about the end. What if it rained vegetables for forty days and forty nights? Maybe Elroy should build an ark.
By the time Elroy's old pickup rumbled up the driveway, she'd canned twenty-five jars of pickles and had sliced another two cucumbers for dinner. She'd packed some essentials and photos of her parents in an overnight bag, which she'd set by the door just in case they needed it. She'd also given serious consideration to an ark but doubted that Elroy had the wherewithal to complete it. Besides, where would they find animals to march in two by two?
Coming inside, Elroy grinned at the pickles, a fox-in-the-henhouse grin if ever she'd seen one. Geraldine slapped a dishtowel towards him.
"You got the cucumber rain," he said.
She huffed. "Not right to smile at our Lord's gifts, Elroy."
"The Lord's gifts?" he said. "More like Old Man Halloran. You ought to bring him some of these pickles."
"And why would I do that?" Putting the dishtowel down, Geraldine put her hands on her hips.
"Because they're his cucumbers."
"They're God's cucumbers," she said. "A sign of the end times."
Elroy brayed laughter like the devil himself. Geraldine lifted a jar of pickled cucumbers, the solution still warm inside, and hugged it to her chest to ward against whatever evil had touched his heart.
"They're Farmer Halloran's cucumbers," he said. "Haven't you been watching the news? A tornado swept right through his crops, sucked up bushels of cukes. They was wondering where those would come down. There's a live cow in the Johnstons' old Elm tree."
Geraldine stared at her day's work, a day at work for the Lord. She loosened her grip and the jar of pickles fell to the ground, smashing at her feet.
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