One morning, Nora awoke to a whispered voice. The words "build an ark" lingered in her mind, but looking around her room she saw no one, so she rolled over to catch a few more minutes' sleep.
"Build an Ark!" This time, Nora leaped up, skin aprickle, at the distinct, more forceful command. "Who's there?" she managed to croak from her suddenly dry mouth.
"It is I. The one who is. And I command you, Nora, to build an ark."
Gathering her wits, Nora spoke again: "Assuming I know what an ark is, and assuming I could build one, why would I do it? How long would I have? Who's paying for this? And why me..."
The voice interrupted Nora: "You will do it because I have said you must! The world is wicked and I have decided to wipe it clean and start anew. You are my choice for this task and that is all you need to know. You will have three months from this very morning to build the ark, and whatever you need to meet this deadline will be yours when you ask."
"And animals...am I supposed to gather animals onto this ark?"
"Of course. So make it big. I will leave plans on your dresser. Three days before the three months are up, your passengers from the animal kingdom will begin to gather. Now, no more questions. Get to work."
With that, Nora could tell from the silence in the room that the mysterious presence had left her. She knew the exchange had been real. She knew the task was real. She knew her time was short and that her endeavours would be substantial. But weariness overcame her sudden sense of purpose and she returned to the oblivion of sleep.
Later that day, having showered and eaten a substantial meal, Nora went to her dresser to consult the plans and get down to work. The plans were detailed and daunting, they included illustrations with measurements in units she had never heard of. "Hmm," thought Nora, "looks like I'll need to do some research to make sense of these. But I have much to do around here if I'm going to be able to devote the kind of time that this task requires." And with that, she sat herself down on the couch (laptop perched on her knees) and finished the movie she had been watching the night before, while also reading through her e-mail and various social media exchanges.
A few days later, Nora made her way to the library with the plans. She spent a good part of her time there translating the plans into her own sketches using measurements she understood, and thinking about the materials she would need. She also spent some of that time daydreaming about what it would be like when the ark was finished and she was adrift in an empty world surrounded only by animals. Before long, she snapped back to alertness and saw that hours had passed. "I'm exhausted," she thought. "I'll finish this up tomorrow".
The next day Nora meant to return the library, but instead went out with some friends who were heading over to the mall. She justified the trip to herself as an opportunity to scout out some of the supplies she'd need for the time on the ark. She bought a calendar, a sweater, and a really cute belt. Getting home that night, she hung the calendar on the wall, circled the big day just under three months hence, and counted how many days she had left. "Eighty-five days! That's a ton of time. What am I worried about? I'm going to drive myself crazy if I'm at this for so long. I'll buy the materials I need on the weekend and start building the ark next week."
But the weekend passed, as did the next weekend and the one after that, before Nora returned to the task. In that time, she found a vacant plot of land on which to build the ark, and discovered her bank account had been filled with just enough to buy the land and the supplies. So she bought the land and ordered the materials and supplies she'd need and made arrangements for their shipment. They would arrive three days hence and she would still have more than two months to build the ark. "No prob," thought Nora.
For the next few days after the shipments had arrived at her construction site, Nora got up every morning ready to start building the ark. But something always came up that kept her away from the job until it was too late in the day to get anything meaningful done. Her nighttime ritual now included crossing another day off the calendar, counting the number of days left, and reducing her estimate of how much time she'd need for construction.
Days turned into weeks until one morning Nora awoke with her heart pounding. With complete clarity, she had suddenly seen that she was now in trouble. With just less than a month left to build the ark she remembered that she hadn't accounted for the time it would take to load animals onto the ark. Plus, she had forgotten that she'd need to build cages for the animals, and a place for herself to sleep, and...
She headed over to the site with a purpose that morning and she got down to work. But after only a few hours on the job, she realized that she had no hope of doing this on her own: "I'll hire a crew! That will save me weeks." So she returned home and got down to the task of finding help.
After a few more days, she had secured a general contractor who would hire the crew of carpenters, plumbers, and the like. She shared the plans with the general contractor (without explaining why she was building a big boat in an empty field) and told him he had two weeks to do the job for which he and his crew would be paid handsomely. They shook hands and Nora returned home confident for the first time in days.
Two weeks later, she returned to the site expecting to see a completed ark (with ten days left to load the supplies and the animals). Instead, she saw that the job had started, but that the ark was nowhere near completion. "I need three more weeks," said the general contractor, "it's turned out to be a bigger job than I thought".
"You have one more week," said Nora. "Get it done by then or I won't pay."
A week later, she returned to a deserted construction site. The partially-built ark rested atop some scaffolding with materials and supplies strewn about for as far as Nora's eye could see. "Three days," she thought with resignation, "if I focus for three days I should be able to make this seaworthy. The animals don't need pens. I'll load only the essential supplies. And I probably have until the end of the third day so that should be enough time."
When finally the deadline had arrived, Nora had in fact done nothing further. Her dawning realization of the hopelessness of her situation had paralyzed her for the three remaining days. She had sat in the shell of the ark listening to music and playing games on her phone. Animals wandered the field around her waiting for something to happen.
Finally the mysterious voice spoke to her again: "Nora. I gave you a task - the most important task anyone has ever been assigned. I gave you three months and unlimited resources to complete the task. And now I return and I see that the job is not close to being completed. You have failed."
That was more than Nora could take: "Failed? I failed? The crew I hired let me down. The animals came too early and got in the way - I didn't see any of them pitching in. The plans you left me were indecipherable and you didn't check back in on me to see how I was doing, so how was I supposed to even know the deadline hadn't changed? Give me a few more days and I'll get the job done despite all of this."
Thunder rumbled in the distance as the voice said "It's too late. The storms have begun. Good luck Nora." Then the voice fell silent.
"Stupid disembodied voice" thought Nora as she grabbed a few of the smaller animals and some boxes of food, boarded the partially assembled vessel, and sat down in misery. "All I need is a few more days."
Suddenly a great and powerful Genie appeared, snapped his fingers, and the ark was magically completed and fully loaded with supplies and animals. Nora and the animals were safe and humankind survived.
Hurray for Nora! She did it! And she didn't miss her deadline!
(And that, dear readers, is the world we have created for our children: Everyone gets a trophy; homework deadlines are extended willy nilly; and there is no such thing as a zero. Good thing we have great and powerful Genies to bail us out.)
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