April Anomalies A-Z: Og

It isn’t discussed very often; preachers don't like to talk about it, for obvious reasons, but the flood, Noah’s Flood (though that is an altogether inaccurate title) wasn't entirely successful.  The plan was that the deluge would kill every living thing on the face of the earth – with the exception of Noah and his family.  But there was one other unexpected survivor:  King Og.

Gigantic King Og watched with bemused indifference as Noah and his boys built their “toy” boat and he laughed as they herded the various animals below deck.  But he stopped laughing when they pulled the doors shut.  And when the rain started to fall, King Og began growling and snarling.

He was tall, enormous really.  So when the waters began to rise, he wasn't immediately concerned. He was still standing in front of the ark starring up at the skies when the waters were ankle deep (which was waist deep for everyone else.) When the waters reached his knees (and the rest of humanity was either treading water or running for the hills) King Og began to pound on the sides of the ark. 

He watched as mothers struggled to hold their infant children above the rising waters.  He watched as desperate men attacked the ark with pikes and swords attempting to get on board.  Their blows were turned away by the pitch covered wood; their attack was futile and came too late.  They too were drowned by the flood waters.

The rain continued to fall; the waters continued to rise, and soon the rising waters lifted the ark.  As it began to float away, brave King Og grabbed the stern with his enormous hands and, hand over hand, he climbed aboard, squeezing the boat between his thighs to stay in place.  The vessel rocked with his added weight, but it was a stable craft, well designed to ride out the swelling waves. There, atop the ark, he rode through the angry fury of the storm.  He howled with the winds.  He shook his fist at the sky and he cursed the lightning.  The ark was rolled and tossed about on the waves, but Og kept his grip. 

Day after day he clung to Noah’s ark (though it was difficult to determine days and nights because of the impenetrable cover of storm clouds that covered the sky).   Once, after what must have been weeks, when King Og was very hungry, he punched a hole in the roof of the vessel and grabbed an ox.   He ate it raw and bloody and bellowing as he clung to the boat with his other hand.  When he reached in again for more, Noah and his family beat at his fingers with rods and clubs and he almost lost his balance. 

When the rains finally stopped and the waters began to recede, King Og, exhausted from the ordeal, slipped from atop the ark and floated on the waters himself.  It wasn't long, however, before he felt the bump of solid land beneath him.  He’d come to rest on a small island, what was once a mountain peak.  He could see in the distance that Noah’s floating zoo had also been grounded on one of the island peaks.  Noah, observing the giant through his spyglass  watched King Og climbing carefully down the mountain side, but never saw him again after that.

Many years later – hundreds of years later – when he was very old and very tired, when he'd reached the point in life when he spent most of his days asleep in his famous giant iron framed bed, King Og made one last valiant march to battle.  He rode out with his generals and his assembled armies to meet the Israelites as they invaded his land, but that was a flood he would not survive.

This is part of April Anomalies A-Z, a creative writing exercise and not intended to be an altogether accurate picture of the creature described above.