an allegory

There once was a man who was never born, but simply created for a convenient allegorical purpose. This is his story as I've heard it told:

A catastrophic flood hit his hometown and the water rose so quickly and so steadily that this man (let us call him Arthur, for reasons of our own) became stranded in his house. Soon he climbed onto the roof to escape the rising waters. Luckily, Arthur possessed great faith in God and more importantly in God's proclivity to answer the prayers of the faithful. So, kneeling on the gritty shingles amid swift brown currents, Arthur begged God to save him. Then he stumbled to his feet and watched the flood without fear.

A man, Arthur's neighbor, paddled by in a canoe, which got stuck on the rain gutter just long enough for the neighbor to extend Arthur an invitation to join him, but Arthur waved the man on, while he stood and waited for God's saving miracle. After a while, his legs ached from standing, so he sat on the ridgepole of the roof and watched the swirling, foaming water rise over the lower edge of the roof. But Arthur felt no fear.

Soon a large, yellow raft, powered by an outboard motor pushed along against the current: rescuers looking for those stranded in their homes. Arthur smiled pleasantly at the Christian example these poncho-wearing rescuers set, but he waved them away with a shout barely heard above the motor and the rain. God will save me, he told them. Away they chugged. Still Arthur waited, and he had absolutely no fear.

The water started lapping his toes and then his bottom. Before the strength of the current could grab him a ladder fell in front of Arthur's face from a helicopter up above. He stood on the precarious roof and waved cheerily to the pilot, but refused the ladder. He knew God would send a miracle to save him. When the helicopter left, the man climbed onto his chimney to give himself a little more time. The river swallowed his roof and rose along the bricks of the chimney, row by row.

The story as I heard it ends with the man drowning. He then rebukes God for not saving him. Predictably God recounts the canoe, the raft and the helicopter. What more could you want? God asked. It must have been a tough lesson for Arthur to learn. But it would have been tougher had Arthur figured it out before he died. As he watched the unstoppable flood creep ever nearer, knowing that nobody else would come and that it was his own fault.