Genesis 1:2

2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

He had spent his entire life in defense of the literal interpretation of the Faith.  None understood this commitment to his belief. As a youth he was patronized, as a man he had been ridiculed, and now, as he entered the winter of his years, he was pitied.  But the grizzled man knew that if he could convince just one person of the validity of his belief, his lonely existence would be justified.  He would read the Bible from beginning to end and prove that the only valid interpretation of the text was a literal one.

And so he retired into the corner of his study and sat down on the purple velvet chair behind the grand mahogany desk.  In the centre of the desk lay an overly ornate leather bound bible.  The old man ran his fingers across the decorative cover, letting his hands roam over the edges of the folio to trace the gilt gold lettering on the spine.  He inhaled deeply as he lifted the heavy title page and gingerly turned over the frontispiece.

Here they were.  The literal words of God.  He opened the book to the Book of Genesis.

He  read the first verse.  He was happy.  It was the beginning, and his dreams of the completion of his work seemed close at hand.

And then he read the second verse.

What did this mean? Was the earth without form, or was it void? Why both?  Why was it necessary to specify this And If the earth had no form and was therefore void, how could “deep” exist? And for that matter how could there be a surface on which God could move?

He slammed the book closed.  Surely this was a bad translation.  Surely this was man misunderstanding and reinterpreting the Words of the LORD.  He pushed his chair back slightly and reached in the bottom drawer of the mahogany desk.  He pulled out a cheap, octavo paperback and flung it across the folio.  He felt a little like Dr. Faustus.

He read the first verse.  He was happy.  It was the beginning again, and he was happy.

And then he read the second verse.

The verse made more literal sense, now. The draftsman had made sure of that. But something was missing.  The words now felt as empty as the state of pre-creation they described.  The literal meaning of the words was not true enough.  How was this possible?  Anxiety overwhelmed him.

His heart began to palpitate wildly in his chest as the fear of what this signified seized him.  He clutched his chest with his right hand, trying to ease the pressure there.  He felt light-headed.  The literal interpretation of this verse was wrong.  His entire system of analysis was wrong.  Everything he had believed was wrong.

He had wasted his life.

His breath was broken, and he stole it in gasps.  And suddenly he realized that what he thought was a panic attack was something more severe. The pain in his chest was now unbearable.

As he slipped beneath the desk, beneath the Bibles, he knewt:

He was not Enoch.  He would not walk with God.