I first heard this quirky story on This American Life. As part of his collection of stories, Beware of God, Shalom Auslander tells the tail of a battle between faith and skepticism through the eyes of two fur-brained creatures.
Waiting for Joe by Shalom Auslander
In the beginning, he was always on time. But it had been a long time since the beginning, longer than either Doughnut or Danish could remember.
"I don't get it," complained Danish. "Isn't it time?"
"It's time," answered Doughnut.
"It feels like it's time."
"it's time."
Danish paced anxiously back and forth. Of course it was time! He didn't need Doughnut to tell him that it was time!
"So where is he then?" asked Danish. "If it's time, then where is he? I don't understand. Either he knows that it's time or he doesn't. Does he know that it's time?"
Doughnut sat curled up inside their cold, empty feeding bowl, focused intently on the doorknob of the apartment front door, believing with all of his heart that at any moment the doorknob would turn, the door would open and Joe would appear.
"We cannot pretend to think that we know what Joe knows and what Joe doesn't know," pronounced Doughnut with a sharp twitch of his nose, "we must only believe with all of our heart that Joe knows."
"I bet he doesn't know!" said Danish. He rose up on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted. Breathing heavily, he lumbered over to the water bottle that hung in the far corner and drew a few drops into his mouth.
"You nonbelievers are all the same," scoffed Doughnut. He pushed some dry cedar chips into a small, comfortable mound and settled down upon it.
"As if you were the first hamster to ever doubt him!" he said. "The first rodent to ever think, really. Who else but you - with your keen intellect, your contrarian insight, your moral bravery and conviction - who possibly could come up with, 'What if Joe doesn't?' 'What if Joe can't?' Clothe your fear as integrity, Danish, but Joe knows who believes and Joe knows who doesn't. Joe is here, Joe is there, Joe is simply everywhere. 'What if he never comes back! What if he's forgotten us! What if he's died!' You look around at all your plastic-tube highways, and your fabulous Habitrail, and think you are special. But do ants not build anthills? Do bees not build hives? It is not what we build that make us unique, it is what we believe; it is that we believe at all! Doubt, my dear Danish, is no great achievement; it is faith that sets us apart. Besides," added Doughnut, "he left his wallet on the front table. He's got to come back."
"He did?" asked Danish.
He stood up on his back legs and squinted through the glass. "Where?"
Doughnut walked over and stood beside Danish.
"There, on the table."
"Where?"
"There!"
"That?"
"Yes!"
"That's not a wallet, you idiot."
"Of course it's a wallet."
"It's a book," said Danish.
"It's not a book."
"Sure it is," said Danish. "I can read the spine. Along Came a Spider, by James Patterson." He dropped down and shook his head. "Oh, no, he does not."
Doughnut squinted a moment longer.
Damn.
It was a paperback.
Why would Joe abandon them? Why would he leave a sign for them right there on the foyer table, and then make it not a sign? And why James Patterson? What did it all mean?
"He does not read James Fucking Patterson!" cried Danish. "Our Salvation! Our Provider! We must be out of our minds."
"It's a test," Doughnut said, as he curled back up in bed. "He's testing our faith."
Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass wall until he became exhausted. He took a drink of water, climbed up into the plastic tree house and curled into a tight, angry ball.
"I happen to find Patterson thought-provoking and suspenseful," Doughnut said after a moment.
"You what?" asked Danish. "Did you just say you find James Patterson thought-provoking and suspenseful? Jesus Christ. Open your eyes, Doughnut. Don't you see what he's doing to us? Holding our food over our heads like this? Dangling our fate before us like a banana-raisin-nut bar tied to the end of the stick? Look at you, Doughnut. Are you so desperate to believe in Joe that you're actually defending James Patterson?!!"
"I thought Cat and Mouse was a taut psychological thriller," said Doughnut.
"Oh, bullshit," said Danish.
Doughnut closed his eyes. Hunger stubbed sharply at his stomach, but he would never admit it to Danish. Where the hell was Joe?
Danish rummaged frantically through the seed shells and shavings that covered the floor of their transparent little world. "He isn't coming!" he said, looking for even a sliver of a husk of a shell of a seed. "He isn't coming."
Doughnut nestled deeper into his bed, eyes shut tight in fervent concentration.
"May he who has fed us yesterday," he prayed, "feed us again today and tomorrow and forever. Amen."
"Yes!" Danish suddenly shouted. "Ya-ha!"
He pulled a brown chunk of apple from beneath a small mound at the back of the cage and raised it victoriously overhead. Without even stopping to knock off the stray bits of cedar and pine needle that stuck to its sides, Danish opened his mouth wide and dropped it in. He made quite a show of chewing it, "hmm-ing" and "ohh-ing" and "ahh-ing", finally swallowing it with a loud, dramatic gulp. He smiled, patted his stomach, and burped. A deep, long belch of satisfaction.
He washed it down with a few drops of water and slid down to the floor with a contented sigh.
Doughnut watched Danish. A silent mix of jealousy and distain on his face. His stomach groaned. Where the hell was Joe? Doughnut stood up and stomped over to Danish, who looked up at him lazily.
"Well?" demanded Doughnut.
"Well what?"
"Well maybe you could give a little thanks." said Doughnut.
"Thanks?" asked Danish. "To who?"
"To Joe, Danish. To Joe."
"For what?"
"For the apple he gave you."
"The apple *he* gave me?" asked Danish.
"I found that apple myself."
"Do you think the apple just grew there?" Doughnut shouted.
"How did the apple get there, Danish? We searched this cage a thousand times and never found a thing! That apple was a miracle! A gift! Joe heard my prayers and he brought forth upon this cage a holy apple."
His stomach grumbled.
Danish belched again and rubbed his belly with pride.
"Except Doughnut that, you didn't get any food. You asked, I received. Seems like a strange system to me."
He sucked a piece of apple rind out from between his teeth.
"Not that I'm complaining. You know what? Next time why don't you ask him for a carrot? I simply must start getting more fiber."
"Joe grants food to those who need it most." replied Doughnut bitterly.
Danish tired quickly of Doughnut's lectures. Particularly when he was hungry, which he suddenly was. Again. He got back up and began searching again through the rough cedar chips that covered the floor. Doughnut dragged himself wearily back to bed. The miracle of the apple had made him ravenous.
Doughnut would never admit it. He was ashamed to even think it, but lately, he'd begun to doubt. Lately, Joe and his mysterious ways were beginning to tick him off. It was the same thing with him every damn day. Begging, thanks, begging. Verse, chorus, verse.
"Why me?" wondered Doughnut. It must've been his own fault. He must've sinned. He must've angered Joe. Just last week he had questioned why their litter wasn't changed more frequently.
"Perhaps there's a cedar shortage." he'd ask Danish sarcastically. "It is a hardwood, you know."
He had even complained out loud that their cage was too small. The hootspa! Some hampsters didn't even have a cage, let alone a habitrail and and an exercise wheel. How could he have been so ungrateful? He barely even used the blessed exercise wheel. A beautiful exercise wheel, that any hampster would love, and Doughnut had only ever used it once.
He was ashamed of himself. No wonder there wasn't any food. Why should Joe give him anything more when he couldn't appreciate what he had already been given? Doughnut closed his eyes and silently thanked Joe for starving him in order to show him the error of his ways.
"Forgive me," he prayed. And with that, Doughnut hurried out of bed and climbed onto the exercise wheel. He ran as fast as he could, huffing and puffing and puffing. Regret and retribution nipping at his heels.
Danish, meanwhile, was going mad. He'd been tricked, tricked by Joe! He was even hungrier now than he'd been before he'd eaten Joe's cursed apple!
"Oh yes, very good Joe! Yes, quite witty." shouted Danish. "Well done old boy! Touche!"
Back on the exercise wheel, Doughnut could run no more. He stumbled back to bed. Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until they became exhausted. Doughnut prayed.
And behold! Suddenly, the doorknob did turn. The apartment door did open, and Joe did appear.
Danish peed in excitement. Doughnut crapped in fear. Joe was thin and pale and he wore a rumpled brown suit. The badge hanging from his chest pocket read "mail room". There was a woman with him too. A woman Danish and Doughnut had never seen before. She had thin hair and thick glasses. And she and Joe wrestled through the doorway as one, groping and feeling and rubbing each other as if each had somehow lost their keys in the other's pants pockets.
Joe groaned and tore open her blouse. Danish and Doughnut pressed their noses to the glass. "There better be apples in there." said Danish.
"Forgive me, Joe, for doubting you." prayed Doughnut.
Joe lifted the woman into his arms. She threw head back and laughed. And as they headed down the hallway toward his bedroom, Joe switched the living room lights off with his elbow.
Darkness.
Doughnut looked at Danish. Danish looked at Doughnut.
"We have brought this upon ourselves." said Doughnut.
Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted. Doughnut prayed.
