Ark Read Free

do my homework I’ll have the $50 entrance fee.” He told her that he’d already found the description for building the ark and the entire temple in Exodus. “In fact, it’s in here twice.”
    “Why’s that?” asked Kas, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
    “First there’s the instructions from God to Moses. Then there’s an account of the building of it, as if it was written by a stenographer. Not at all what I expected.”
    “So you think you can make the drawings?”
    “I need some research,” he answered. “I need to know how big a cubit is, for starters.”
    “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” she said demurely as she wrapped herself around him, kissing his neck.
    “Corrupter!” said Jim, as he pulled her close. “I’ll never get to Heaven with you around.”
    As they began to make love Jim realized that his headache was almost gone. An hour later, over breakfast at Benny’s Grill, Jim found himself unable to stop thinking about the Ark. Kas was talking and Jim pretended to be listening. She finally realized that her banter was being ignored.
    “All right, Jimmy,” she sighed. “What’s wrong?”
    Jim didn’t answer. He stared at his eggs and wondered about life and times four thousand years ago. What were the Hebrews doing out there in the desert? Was it a desert then? Had they come from Egypt as Egyptian craftsmen? Did the Hebrews have their own ways of doing things, skills that made them desirable as slaves? Or were they simply tradesmen like himself? These were factors that determined how things got built.
    Foremost of the questions was the unit of measure that the builders of the ark might have used. His dictionary had said that a cubit was a unit of measure based on the length of a person’s forearm from elbow to the tip of the middle finger, maybe seventeen or eighteen inches. But if the man building the ark used tools, what unit were these tools sized to? Was there a standard? Jim was beginning to absorb the depth of his ignorance.
    Fingers snapped in front of his eyes. “Jim,” Kas said. “The waitress wants to know if you want more coffee.”
    Embarrassed, Jim looked up to see a black woman in an apron holding a pot of coffee.
    “Still asleep, hun?” said the woman. “A little more joe might help.”
    “Sure,” said Jim, apologizing as the woman poured his free second cup. He eyed Kas. “I think this ark thing is going to be harder than I expected. Just because there’s a description in the Bible doesn’t mean that I’ve got all the data I need. I mean, what’s a cubit?”
    Kas had a good head for remembering numbers. “I seem to remember hearing once that a Babylonian cubit is eighteen inches,” she offered.
    Jim raised an appreciative eyebrow. “That makes the ark twenty-seven by forty-five inches. But would they use the Babylonian cubit?”
    Kas sighed. “I hate it when you get a bee in your brain like this,” she said. “We’re going to be talking that ark for the rest of the day.”
    Jim took a sip of coffee. “Well, just sitting down and reading the Bible isn’t going to be enough to give me a working diagram of the ark.”
    “Then Lou wins the bet?” she laughed.
    “No way! I could do the drawings today but I want them to be accurate. I want numbers.”
    Kas smiled broadly. “Lou’s going to demand his money if you can’t make those drawings.”
    Jim grumbled as his attention returned to his plate.
    When they returned to the apartment Jim wasted no time. He spent the rest of the morning at his drawing table with the Book of Exodus opened next to him.
    At noon Kas announced that she was going to visit her mother in West Chester. Hearing her plans, Jim put away his sketchbook, saying he didn’t want to spend the weekend at the drawing table.
    “I need to get out of here, too.” He yawned and stretched. “Jeez, I feel like I’ve been to work and to church at the same time.”
    “Not the best way to spend a Saturday,” said Kas as she headed for