from the book Beware of God Stories. I heard it on This American Life. Listen here. It is on the top of my wishlist at Amazon.com.
In the beginning, he was always on time. But it had been a long time
since the beginning, longer than either Doughnut or Danish could
remember.
"I don't get it," complained Danish. "Isn't it time?"
"It's time," answered Doughnut.
"It feels like it's time."
"it's time."
Danish paced anxiously back and forth. Of course it was time! He
didn't need Doughnut to tell him that it was time!
"So where is he then?" asked Danish. "If it's time, then where is he?
I don't understand. Either he knows that it's time or he doesn't. Does
he know that it's time?"
Doughnut sat curled up inside their cold, empty feeding bowl, focused
intently on the doorknob of the apartment front door, believing with
all of his heart that at any moment the doorknob would turn, the door
would open and Joe would appear.
"We cannot pretend to think that we know what Joe knows and what Joe
doesn't know," pronounced Doughnut with a sharp twitch of his nose,
"we must only believe with all of our heart that Joe knows."
"I bet he doesn't know!" said Danish. He rose up on his hind legs and
flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted.
Breathing heavily, he lumbered over to the water bottle that hung in
the far corner and drew a few drops into his mouth.
"You nonbelievers are all the same," scoffed Doughnut. He pushed some
dry cedar chips into a small, comfortable mound and settled down upon
it. "As if you were the first hamster to ever doubt him!" he said.
"The first rodent to ever think, really. Who else but you - with your
keen intellect, your contrarian insight, your moral bravery and
conviction - who possibly could come up with, 'What if Joe doesn't?'
'What if Joe can't?' Clothe your fear as integrity, Danish, but Joe
knows who believes and Joe knows who doesn't. Joe is here, Joe is
there, Joe is simply everywhere. 'What if he never comes back! What if
he's forgotten us! What if he's died!' You look around at all your
plastic-tube highways, and your fabulous Habitrail, and think you are
special. But do ants not build anthills? Do bees not build hives? It
is not what we build that make us unique, it is what we believe; it is
that we believe at all! Doubt, my dear Danish, is no great
achievement; it is faith that sets us apart. Besides," added Doughnut,
"he left his wallet on the front table. He's got to come back."
"He did?" asked Danish.
He stood up on his back legs and squinted through the glass. "Where?"
Doughnut walked over and stood beside Danish.
"There, on the table."
"Where?"
"There!"
"That?"
"Yes!"
"That's not a wallet, you idiot."
"Of course it's a wallet."
"It's a book," said Danish.
"It's not a book."
"Sure it is," said Danish. "I can read the spine. Along Came a Spider,
by James Patterson." He dropped down and shook his head. "Oh, no, he
does not."
Doughnut squinted a moment longer.
Damn.
It was a paperback.
Why would Joe abandon them? Why would he leave a sign for them right
there on the foyer table, and then make it not a sign? And why James
Patterson? What did it all mean?
"He does not read James Fucking Patterson!" cried Danish. "Our
Salvation! Our Provider! We must be out of our minds."
"It's a test," Doughnut said, as he curled back up in bed. "He's
testing our faith."
Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass wall
until he became exhausted. He took a drink of water, climbed up into
the plastic tree house and curled into a tight, angry ball.
"I happen to find Patterson thought-provoking and suspenseful,"
Doughnut said after a moment.
"You what?" asked Danish. "Did you just say you find James Patterson
thought-provoking and suspenseful? Jesus Christ. Open your eyes,
Doughnut. Don't you see what he's doing to us? Holding our food over
our heads like this? Dangling our fate before us like a banana-raisin-
nut bar tied to the end of the stick? Look at you, Doughnut. Are you
so desperate to believe in Joe that you're actually defending James
Patterson?!!"
"Cat and Mouse was a taut psychological thriller," said Doughnut.
"Oh, bullshit," said Danish.
Doughnut closed his eyes. Hunger stubbed sharply at his stomach, but
he would never admit it to Danish.
Where the hell was Joe?
Danish rummaged frantically through the seed shells and shavings that
covered the floor of their transparent little world. "He isn't
coming!"
he said, looking for even a sliver of a husk of a shell of a seed. "He
isn't coming."
Doughnut nestled deeper into his bed, eyes shut tight in fervent
concentration.
"May he who has fed us yesterday," he prayed, "feed us again today and
tomorrow and forever. Amen."
I like that Donut is the holy one =D
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