The Methuselah Project Read Online Free PDF Page A

she’d worn to some church service that morning. This thin-faced matron would summon all the orphans into the activity room, where they dragged three-legged stools with chipped green paint into semicircles radiating out from her.
    Even now Roger could imagine Miss Hawkins addressing the pint-sized assembly, where she would conduct her own version of a children’s worship service. In her high-pitched voice, she would narrate Bible stories about Noah building the ark; about Joseph being stripped of his colorful coat and being sold into slavery; about Jesus feeding the crowds; or about the apostle Paul and his life-threatening missionary journeys throughout the Roman Empire.
    As the Wehrmacht truck bounced and swayed across Hitler’s backyard, Roger continued down memory lane. Out of all the stories old Miss Hawkins had ever taught, the one that had always captivated him most was the account of how Jesus, promising to return to earth someday, ascended from the Mount of Olives and rose up to heaven.
    In his mind’s eye, Roger pictured himself as a child listening to that story and then craning his neck to stare skyward through the tall, streaked windows of Sunshine’s activity room. The untouchable heavens. He dreamed of soaring through the air, especially on days when the clouds had resembled gigantic bunches of cauliflower solid enough for a boy to clamber up and explore.
    “Children, always remember to pray,” Miss Hawkins had admonished them weekly.
    Roger grunted again. He hadn’t thought about that wrinkled little lady for years. Surely she was long since dead. But if she were alive and could see her former pupil right now, she would no doubt waggle a bony figure and chide, “Remember to pray, Roger. Remember to pray!”
    His mood turned sullen. Yeah, he’d prayed at Sunshine Children’s Home. For a while. Mostly he’d prayed that his mommy and daddy—whoever they might be—would remember to come back and fetch him out of there. They never had, and his young self had lost trust in the power of prayer. Little Roger Greene had remained a ward of the state of Indiana until the age of twelve.
    The unintended train of thought, spurred by the civilian’s probing, reawakened the questions of his origins. Who exactly was he? He supposed that he was the result of a teenage girl’s secret tryst. Or maybe the poverty of the Depression years had played a role in his abandonment. As a child, he’d wondered whether one or two women on the staff at Sunshine knew more than just his name and birthday, but the workers had remained tight-lipped. Whenever he’d asked about his family or how he’d ended up in the home, they would sigh or shrug or reply, “Hard to say, Roger,” before changing the subject.
    No matter how many times Roger had tried to ignore his curiosity, it eventually crept back to haunt him. Even though he’d tried to squelch it with school and sports and flying, he’d never succeeded in totally blocking the questions from his mind.
    His thoughts glided forward to the Tucker years. When old man Tucker and his wife had agreed to take him home to their farm, he’d been excited that someone wanted a boy to love and appreciate. Wrong. The Tuckers already had two sons who had grown up and marched off to the Great War, never to return. Roger was just an extra pair of hands, milking the cows and bringing in the hay. That was no family.
Just a place to live and earn my keep until I was old enough to hit the road.
    Roger shook his head to throw off the gloomy memories. When he opened his eyes, his German captors were regarding him as the truck jolted and bumped along the road.
    He let his eyelids drop again. Unbidden, the cracking female voice echoed down the corridor of time: “Always remember to pray.”
    Maybe that worked for some people, but not for him. Or did it? He recalled shouting a distress call for divine help just before his Thunderbolt had burrowed into that stand of trees. He’d been surprised to