Death and destruction. That’s the only way to describe what I see everywhere around me.
Bloated corpses rest on the beach as if in deep sleep. The smell hits my nostrils harder than the sight of them. I couldn’t believe what my God had done, and what my dad stupidly helped Him do.
My name is Prophel, and I’m the fourth son of Noah. I was in charge of leaving the ark to make sure land was habitable after God rained down murder for weeks and weeks. I didn’t know what to expect, but I know I could have never anticipated what I saw on that day.
I ran back to the ark in tears.
“Dad, dad, dead people are everywhere. Women, children… my friends!”
My dad stoically proclaimed that our God had a plan.
I thought to myself, “Plan… yeah right. This plan is just evil.”
It was just when that thought entered my mind that something changed in the morning sky.
The lights were like something I had never seen before. So many colors wrapped around the world as if to tie up a gift. It was beautiful.
“See, son? God had a plan all along,” my dad said. “We’ll call it a rainbow.”
For everyone aboard the ark, including my three brothers, this rainbow made everything better. They knew that God would never drown his creations again. But I just couldn’t help feeling that it simply wasn’t enough.
Not being enough was something I had felt often in my household. My brothers, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, are well-known in our community. As for me, however, my family hides me away. That’s why no one will ever read this diary I’m writing.
My dad says it’s because I’m “different.” I think he’s scared of the fact that I like other boys, and our God doesn’t seem to like that.
As my whole family stood staring at the bright lights in the sky, I snuck off the ark once again, but this time, never to return. I decided in that moment I could no longer be part of a faith where our God drowns everyone but one family, and then hates a member of that family just for loving people of the same gender. If He hated me so much, why did God make me this way?
I instantly knew what I had to do.
This “rainbow” was powerful, but why should it only belong to God?
So I began my lifelong mission. Everywhere I went, I made rainbows using the water leftover from the flood. I sprayed the water into the air as I danced, creating mini rainbows just above me. I projected light through sea glass, making majestic rainbows that displayed onto the rocks where the bodies once were. I used colorful paints to cover the mountainsides with images of the rainbow.
After about 30 years of doing this everywhere I went, I met a woman who shouted at me from a rock above where I was dancing in water, creating rainbows.
“Hi, friend! I could tell this was a safe space because of the beautiful lights you have made for us,” she said.
“Do you mean the rainbow from God?” I asked her.
“No, I mean the rainbows from you. Thank you for giving mankind this symbol, and putting it where it belongs.”
And that’s how I stole the rainbow for all people, and especially as a safe haven for everyone who has been discriminated against based on who they love.