The Ballet

PART 1: Miriam

The alarm clock rang with the inane sounds of WZKY’s “Morning Zoo Crew” laughing at jokes that weren’t funny. They banged on pots and pans, farted, shouted profanities, and attempted a variety of “comedy” bits, all loud, all scatological, all seemingly designed to annoy you so much that getting out of bed was worth it simply to turn them off. This was Miriam’s thought as she bolted upright in her bed and banged her iPad alarm with her fist. I don’t know why I listen to that noise, she thought.

It was going to be a long day. She had meetings scheduled every two hours, and her first one was just a couple hours away. Enough time to take a leisurely shower, get ready, and still make the train. She put on a pot of coffee, turned on the shower, let it run for a bit to heat up, and stepped in for an eye-opening steam bath. After a couple moments, she closed her eyes and began to pray. This was a regular habit, even though Miriam didn’t really consider herself religious. But she’d discovered that, for her, the only way to deal with the noise and rush of the day was to start the day in silent meditation. She wasn’t usually praying to anyone or for anything, she would just close her eyes and take in the warmth of the water. Maybe she would think, Holy God, or Universal Energy, or whatever is out there, if you’re out there, help me get through this day without ripping someone’s head off. She wasn’t sure this was an entirely appropriate prayer, but she figured it was better to pray for calm and serenity than for the disembowelment of the people who constantly pissed her off—although there were plenty of people pushing that religion of revenge. Which is pretty much why she didn’t consider herself religious.

Miriam turned off the shower, grabbed her fluffy towel and dried herself off. She got dressed in her regulation white skirt and blue top, had a quiet cup of coffee, left her apartment, and started walking to the train station a couple miles away. Her neighborhood was nice in the morning, a row of old brownstones in a gentrifying, tree-lined neighborhood. She liked her little community because it hadn’t been forced into ethno-social blocks by the government yet. There were blue- and white-collar workers, and lots of people from different cultures. This wasn’t entirely unusual for the city, but it was becoming more rare for cultures to mix now that the government had decided the separation of racial and economic classes would alleviate crime. Oh, the politikniks never came right out and said that, but redistricting and other laws made it obvious that the people in control had every intention of keeping control, by making sure nobody else could ever rise to a position of power. It was the beginning of the new, cruel global empire, and everyone knew it, but was too busy trying to put food on the table to care or do anything about it. What could be done, anyway? The politicians had the power, and owned the weapons, the technology, the land, and the media. Best not to grumble. Life is suffering, after all, Miriam thought.

But the idea of losing her little slice of paradise bothered Miriam deeply. She was good friends with the dozen or so people she shared the row of houses with. They would often get together on Friday nights to tell stories about their weeks, and share some incredibly delicious food and drink, each person bringing the best of their heritage with them. She looked forward to finishing work and returning home to her little island on Fridays, her own little world of peace and tranquility, her own little bastion of cultural diversity that proved the politicians didn’t have any idea what they were talking about. Or maybe they did, but that thought scared her witless. Which, she supposed, is exactly what they wanted.

The walk to the train station was the last quiet moment of the day. She breathed deeply to take in the crisp, clean morning air, to listen to the sounds of the birds, of children leaving their homes for school, of couples saying goodbye for the day. Once on the train, she’d be bombarded with advertising on the large screens where windows used to be, so she walked deliberately, focused on the glory of nature.

To pay for the global mass transit system, the city, along with other major cities around the world, had recently retrofitted all the glass windows in their trains and buses with a new, electro-synthetic technology that allowed the panels to be transparent to the outside, or display advertising. If you paid extra, you could access the Net and use the windows as touch screens, but very few people could afford the fee. Occasionally, the video would be turned off so you could see outside (and you could always pay for this privilege as well), but normally, the ride was a bombastic assault to the senses, mind, and spirit.

Today, Miriam’s entire hour-long commute was completely dominated by advertising for bleach, expensive cars, expensive houses, a variety of self-help schemes (which always seemed to benefit only the person who came up with the scheme), new and legal designer drugs for everything from enhanced reality perception to completely altered reality perception (it’s good to keep the masses in a glazed stupor, she thought), the ubiquitous political advertisements for politicians who over-promised and under-delivered every single election, various ways to change your appearance (always for the better, of course), and superstar athletes and actors urging her people to join the state religion, iGod. The calming effects of Miriam’s morning were already wearing off, and she’d only been out of the house for half an hour.

She put her briefcase under her seat and slipped on a pair of state-provided Googles, a mash-up of eyeglasses, headphones, and brain stem stimulation that, for the most part, allowed her to shut out the rest of the world by choosing any scene she liked. Googles, named for the company that controlled the flow of information around the world, were altered reality generators, of a sort. They allowed you to choose or create a scene, and see, taste, touch, smell, and hear it as if you were there. The advertising that interrupted the scene every 10 minutes usually broke the mood, but it was better than the constant bombardment on the train’s vid-windows. “The lesser of two evils,” Miriam said aloud, surprising herself and the other passengers.

Finally, the train pulled into the terminal. There was no pushing or shoving to get off, everyone lined up single-file and left the train in an orderly manner. The least bit of commotion would trigger the sensors that were planted all over the city. Nobody wanted to trigger a sensor. The flying sentinels that appeared when a sensor was triggered shot first and never asked questions. If a sensor went off, people were being too physical or too loud in a public space. Once a sentinel had you in its sights, there was no point in running. You’d be shocked unconscious and foaming at the mouth on the ground by the time you took the first step. In the city, there was little violence anymore. In the city, there was little vibrancy anymore.

Miriam left the station and started walking to her office. The state had retrofitted every building in town with electro-synthetic screens much like the ones on the train, only on the buildings the ads, exhortations to join iGod, and political messages were 200 feet tall and as long as a city block. Impossible to ignore, over the last 25 years or so, most everyone had joined the state and signed away any privacy rights to Google. People did this willingly at first, lured by the bright shiny promise of convenience, but then, after the state realized access to what used to be private information could help them “organize” society “more efficiently,” people were coerced into signing away their souls with the even better promise of new homes, new jobs, even new spouses and families if they wanted. Most of these promises were actually kept. For some reason, that just made Miriam feel worse.

Miriam and most of her friends from the brownstones were among the last holdouts. They hadn’t joined iGod, and refused to give any information to the Google state. This made them outcasts at best. They knew it was just a matter of time until they were declared outlaws, some fake charge brought against them to force them to goose-step in line with the rest of the zombies who were too apathetic or too worn out to care anymore. The funny thing was, Miriam cared deeply. Her neighbors cared deeply. They were old enough to remember the days before the Google-iGod state, when windows were windows instead of billboards, when people could live where they wanted and associate with whom they wanted, when people dated and fell in love and made lifelong commitments to each other, when religion was about a higher state of being, instead of about being controlled by a higher State. The question that kept running through Miriam’s mind today was, do I dance with the state, or sing a new song, and probably suffer the consequences?

PART 2: Noise

Twelve-year-old, (almost thirteen, he would tell you) squatty (but strong, he would tell you), black-haired, black-rimmed glasses, hipster connoisseur, Noise jumped off the swing just as it reached the point of falling backward, at that perfect apex where time stands still and the world appears to move more slowly. He landed perfectly, his feet square on the ground, his arms outstretched over his head like a triumphant gymnast, his porkpie hat firmly planted on his head. The other, mostly younger children gleefully applauded, then ran off to play on the merry-go-round.  

Saturday was Noise’s favorite day of the week. There wasn’t any school to worry about, so he and his friends played around the enclave all day long. There was a pretty nice park in the middle of the neighborhood, with swings, a huge sandbox, and chess tables. A mixture of grassy and brick areas and walking paths meandered their way across the enclave, embraced by a canopy of ancient trees that blossomed with the birth of a softer, more gentle world. This was the Friday night gathering place for community feasts, the temple for weddings and funerals, the playground for children, and for their children’s children. The park was their holy place.

Noise’s friend Josh called out playfully, “Come on, Noise! We’re going to play Emperor of Dirt! Come topple my evil regime!” Everyone either laughed or groaned at this suggestion. They had been playing this game since they were all able to run in the park together. While they’d played less frequently over the years, every now and then Josh would still call it, just to have an excuse to climb the dirt hill. Josh loved dirt. He loved that beautiful, earthy smelling dirt hill that grew larger every year, when rain and wind should reasonably have diminished its stature long ago. But some combination of falling leaves and the very wind and rain that should have taken it, just seemed to empower the dirt mound. After a decade, the mound was high enough that standing on its peak, one might just be able to grab the branch of the Apple tree overhead.

Josh wrangled his way to the top, his blonde, shaggy hair turning dark from the amount of dirt he was kicking up, and declared, “I’m the CEO! Now you all have to do what I say! Consume, peasants!” He shouted, echoing the state slogan emblazoned around the planet. Some of the younger kids rather happily did as they were told, and began eating handfuls of dirt. Noise and the others scrambled up the hill, joined hands around the dirt mound and sat down. Josh grabbed a low-hanging apple, sat down at the top of his dirt hill, and took a bite.  The taller kids grabbed some more apples and passed them around to the rest of the crew. They sat there, telling stories, giggling and laughing, for a long time. They could smell food from their kitchens, pies cooling on window sills, and clothes hanging out to dry. They were poor, and they knew that, but they were happy and relatively carefree.

For most of the children in the enclaves, life was good. The corporate state knew that without a firm foundation of children, the highly regulated and controlled society they’d created would topple like bowling pins hit by a canon ball. The threat of war had been eliminated from the planet, and weapons of all kinds were impossible for anyone other than government officials to obtain. The kids were physically safe. Their psychological well being though, well, that was another matter.

The state needed a regular supply of consumers, so children were indoctrinated into consumerism from birth. In school, on vid walls, in nursery rhymes and books, children learned that if they were loyal to the state, the state would be loyal to them. They were taught that wanting more and newer stuff was a good value, and that working hard, or even cheating to get what you want, was not only acceptable, it was encouraged. Those who accumulated the most could hold public office; perhaps even represent their enclave in the Body Corpotik, the corporate-controlled group that represented all the enclaves in the world. If a one worked hard enough and acquired a truly amazing amount of stuff, one might become Supreme CEO someday.

At first, corporate control of the global political, economic, and social system was subtle. But as time went on and racial and economic enclaves were created, people quickly realized they no longer had any say in social or economic systems. While there was a small resistance at first, they couldn’t compete against the armies of the corporations, and were quickly eliminated. The state then went to work obliterating the resistance from people’s memories, keeping them drugged up on an ever-increasing flow of high tech gear, chemical-laced food, houses, cars, and both legal and illegal designer drugs. Then, they started constantly blaring advertising and propaganda from train and building vid-windows, further weakening a person’s resistance. Once the state developed iGod (and coerced people into joining), the masses had been completely opiated. This took many decades, but now, the idea of revolution had become so foreign, that the word revolution itself had virtually disappeared from the language. The state certainly made sure it had disappeared from any reference materials.

In truth, the state had always done what it wanted, anyway. All any of the companies that ran the government had to do was purchase votes. For a new house, a new car, a new vid screen, an entirely new life, the state could get everything it demanded. Once, when it was time to vote on putting a dam across the Yellow River, even though the dam would displace three million people and pollute the river forever, the state just offered new homes to anyone who voted “yes” to the proposal. Since the people that lived around the Yellow River were all poor, they had no votes, and since the people that did have votes had never been to the Yellow River, there was no contest. The state: Winner. Communities along the Yellow River: Destroyed. The people: Displaced. The Yellow River itself: Dead.

But these were things few people realized any longer, and the children were fairly oblivious to the oppressive system in which they lived.  Sitting on top of their dirt mound, sharing their apples, they were happy. As Josh stood up to dust himself off and take the last few bites of his apple, there was a sudden, deafening BOOM and a bright orange explosion across the sky. The children looked up and saw a mass of fiery balls hurtling toward them very quickly, and creating a noise that sounded like fingernails across a chalkboard. “Scram, everyone!” Noise called out instinctively. “Meteor storm!” All the children covered their ears, scrambled down the dirt hill, and headed for their houses, trying to out scream the screaming meteors. Josh and Noise ran together to Noise’s home and slammed the door behind them. “What’s going on?” Noise’s mother called from the kitchen. The two boys ran to her and breathlessly talking over each other, tried to explain they’d seen a meteor headed toward the enclave. Delilah gathered the boys and took them to the basement, quickly texting Josh’s mother so she’d know he was safe. Her message made it through just before the electromagnetic energy from the meteor scrambled the telecommunications system and killed her communicator.

Meteor storms were fairly common. Over the years, as the state created more and more pollution in the name of growth and profit, the atmosphere had grown dangerously thin. As a consequence, more debris from space made it to earth before burning up in the sky. In the parts of the world where the corporate moguls lived, there were early warning systems, shelters and sirens. But in the enclaves, where the people the state considered unimportant, useless, or atheist (meaning they weren’t members of iGod) lived, there was nothing but destruction.

Through the noise of the meteor storm, and the rumbling of the house as one meteor after another hit earth, she heard something.. They all heard something—a voice—faint, but definitely a voice. It was coming from Delilah’s communicator even though the meteor storm had just interrupted the signal. “What’s the voice saying, Mom?” Noise asked. Delilah listened carefully. She could just barely make out the softest, most desperate plea: “Help us,” it said. “Help us.”

The voice disappeared as a meteor made contact and shook every home in the enclave to its foundations. Wherever this one hit, it was close, and it was big. Most of the time, the meteors were the size of basketballs. They did some damage, but in general the storms passed and left little rubble in their wake. But this was definitely different. And that voice. Was it just a crossed signal due to the electromagnetic storm? Delilah scanned different channels on her communicator, and found it again, a barely-there voice repeating, “Help us. Help us.” She looked at the channel and caught her breath. It was the frequency reserved for state use. Her com shouldn’t even be able to receive that channel. Hacking into it was punishable by death. It must be the meteor storm, she thought to herself. Please let it be the meteor storm mixing signals, she prayed. Because she knew that if someone had hacked into the state frequency, Sentinels couldn’t be far behind. The last thing Delilah wanted was Sentinels in their enclave.

Trying to hide her nervousness, Delilah took the boys by their hands and said, “Let’s thank God for keeping us safe, then go check on our friends.” The three of them joined hands and prayed. Josh asked Delilah if she thought iGod would answer their prayer and keep everyone safe. “We don’t pray to iGod, Josh, you know that. Noise and I, your mom—all of us in this enclave, we simply believe in God. God loves us, and helps us find the courage to live our lives differently. Our God—the only true God, is ancient, and has always existed. iGod is a creation of humans.” Josh sat and quietly thought about this. It didn’t make much sense to him. His mother and father had tried to explain the same thing to him, but he couldn’t see the point in believing in a God who didn’t give you stuff. iGod could give you anything you wanted! What had this other God ever done for him? If this God of his parents was so great, why did the people who said they believed in—what, it? Him? Her? Why did they seem so upset all the time?

Noise stood up. “We have to go find that voice,” he said. “It’s important. It’s really, really important.” 

Part 3: The Body Corpotik

The Ripple Effect

From the time Toby was old enough to walk he and his dad would go down to the pond at the back of their property to skip rocks. It was one of Toby's favorite things to do. Toby’s dad would find a nice smooth, flat rock on the shore and skim it across the pond, counting how many times it skipped. “One, two, three, four…” Then, after the rock plunked into the pond, Toby’s dad would count the ripples the rock made. “One, two, three, four, five…” The two of them would watch as the ripples expanded out across the pond.

They took turns skipping rocks and counting ripples. At first of course, Toby would only get a skip and a ripple or two. As Toby grew up though, he could get as many skips and ripples as his dad. While they skipped rocks, they talked. Toby was always interested in science. He wanted to be a paleontologist (who didn’t?), then a biologist, and now, as his thirteenth birthday approached, a physicist. He was fascinated with the workings of the universe.

Toby and his dad walked down to the pond. The two of them picked up the best rocks they could find and skipped them across the pond. After both rocks made several skips, they fell into the water with a satisfying "sploosh". The ripples intersected each other, sometimes one ripple changing the direction of another, sometimes joining together and making one ripple, most often creating even more ripples. “What do you think about that, son?” Toby’s dad asked.

“What do you mean? It’s simple displacement, dad!” Toby responded, somewhat surprised by his father’s question. “You know that!”

“I know,” Toby’s dad said. “But I’ve been thinking lately that the way these ripples affect each other says a lot about the way the universe works, don’t you think? Life is a series of ripples we create, effected by and affecting everyone else’s ripples.”

Toby thought about this quietly for a minute while they continued to skip rocks. He noticed the intricate patterns the ripples made as two initial splashes turned into an interconnected network of circles, all dancing in sync to the rhythm of the pond, creating and responding, always in motion, constantly changing.

Toby’s dad said “You’re becoming an adult now, and it started me thinking about all the changes I’ve gone through in my life. You’ll start thinking about all the changes you go through in your own life someday, too. I remember when I was thirteen. I thought I knew everything!”

“So you weren’t any different back then, I guess!” Toby joked sarcastically.

“You’re a funny boy,” Toby’s dad said laughingly. “Listen, I’m just going to tell you the one thing that’s surprised me the most, something I never would have thought of when I was a teenager. Probably something I never would have thought if I hadn’t been introduced to the Bible.”

“I knew this would get religious,” Toby said. “I believe in God, dad. I always go to church with you and mom!”

“I know you do, Toby,” his dad replied. “I’ve been thinking about what believing in God really means though. Does faith cause us to create a different sort of ripple in the world? I’ve learned that every action in our lives acts like those ripples the stones create in the pond. The way we treat other people affects the way they treat other people, and the way those people treat others, and so on. Who knows where the ripples of our actions stop, or the lives they change—for better or worse? If we really do believe in God, isn’t it our duty to create ripples of love and change?”

They skimmed rocks silently for a few moments while they both thought about this idea. 

“In school we studied something called ‘The Butterfly Effect’” Toby said. “You know what that is, dad?”

“Sure! That’s a great example. A butterfly flaps it’s wings in New York, and the miniscule air fluctuations it causes interact with millions of other small things, and eventually there’s a typhoon in Japan.”

“I don’t wanna cause any typhoons, pop!” Toby said, only half-jokingly.

“Well Tobe, what if it’s a typhoon of change for the better? Do you remember what pastor said in church this week? That we’re supposed to be the change we want to see?” 

“I remember. He stole that line from Gandhi.” Toby countered.

“I think he gave credit. Anyway, what do you think that means?” Toby’s dad asked.

“I have a question, dad,” Toby interjected, “Why did we stop skipping rocks?”

They both laughed.

“I get what you’re trying to say,” Toby said thoughtfully. “Be conscious of the way I act and treat people well, because we never know how our actions affect others, who then affect others, etc., etc., etc. Create ripples of love and don’t by a typhoon.”

Toby’s dad replied, “That’s true. But I think there’s more to it. For people like you and I who believe in God, I think it means we have a duty to our faith—a duty to God to create ripples of love in the world. To help others however we can. Maybe this means you make beautiful music, maybe this means you build houses or serve coffee, maybe this means you join the Peace Corps. 

“I just think we go through too much of this life without paying attention, especially to the people society so easily discards.” Dad was getting serious now.

“Well you know dad, there are only so many hours in a day!” Toby said. “We’re not going to change the world on our own!”

“That’s what I’m trying to say, son. We can’t do this on our own. We need each other. We need God. You’re going to go through a lot of searching. You’ve always been such a bright, curious kid. As you get into high school and college, you’re going to find it’s easy to forget God. I don’t want you to discard God offhand, because it’s really easy to get pulled into the lull of the world and miss an opportunity to change it instead.”

“What do you want me to do?” Toby asked, getting exasperated, “I’m thirteen! You’re laying all this responsibility on me and I can’t even drive!”

Toby’s dad was silent for a minute and then said gently, “I just want you to remember this conversation sometime. Remember that you are loved—by your mother and I, and by God. I want you to remember the love you’ve felt from us, and be able to return that to the world. I want you to create ripples that, along with all of God’s other people, change the world with love.”

Toby’s dad picked up a rock and skimmed it across the surface of the pond, and they both watched the ripples flow gently outward until they covered and changed the entire pond's surface.

The Lotus Blossom

One day, many centuries ago, a little Hindu boy named Arujani was playing outside, when he stumbled upon a lotus seed pod, with some seeds still left in it. Excitedly, he took the pod home to his mother and asked if they could plant the seeds.

His mother said, “Oh! Of course! The lotus is a very special plant. Do you know why, chookra?” (Which means “little one” in Hindi)

Arujani said, “I do not, mother, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

With a smile and a little laugh, his mother said, “Indeed I am! The lotus flower grows from the depths of a mud-encased bed, just a few inches below the surface of a lake or a pond. As it grows, it reaches ever up towards the light, the petals of the flower closed so tightly that no water or mud can get in. Once the lotus is floating on top of the muddy lake, the sunlight opens its petals, and the flower blossoms, ready to receive the warm, nourishing love of the sun. Out of the dirt and mud comes something pure and beautiful. Isn’t that interesting, little one?” Only half paying attention, Arujani said, “Uh, yeah. Very interesting. So can we plant these now?” His mother laughed, and together they walked outside to a nearby pond, waded into the water, and dropped the lotus seeds into the muddy bed.

“Now what?” The little boy asked.

“Now we wait,” said his mother.

“Wait for what?” Asked Arujani

“For these seeds to find their path out of the mud.”

Every day after they dropped the lotus seeds into the pond, Arujani would rush to the edge to see if he could make out any growth. But every day, he saw nothing. If anything was happening in the mud, he sure couldn’t tell.

“Mother,” he said, “I think perhaps the seeds have died. How long has it been? Many moons have passed, yet I see no sign of growth.”

“Patience, my dear Arujani,” his mother said. “Growth takes time! You were not born able to walk and find lotus seeds and ask so many questions! It has taken 10 years for you to become who you are now. It will not take that long for the lotus, but it’s forming beneath the surface even now, even though you can’t see it. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“Yes mother, growth takes place beneath the surface. It was an obvious metaphor,” Arujani said, somewhat defiantly. “Perhaps,” said his mother, “but you need to understand the significance of the lotus blossom and what it means for our people!”

“Why do I feel another lesson coming on?” Arujani asked.

Smiling patiently and tussling her son’s jet-black hair, Arujani’s mother said, “the lotus represents purity and beauty, my child, and the unfolding petals of the flower that floats above the muck and mire suggest the expansion of our own spiritual awareness as we grow from infants, to children, through adulthood and old age.” Arujani thought about this for a moment. “So, let me get this straight,” Arujani began, “are you saying that we should stay above the muck and mire? That’s no fun! I love playing in the mud!”

“Of course you do!” Arujani’s mother proclaimed. “All little boys love playing in the mud. I’m still speaking in metaphors though. Did I lose you?” She asked wryly. “No, no, you didn’t lose me. I was just hoping we were finished so I could go see if this lotus was blooming or not… and maybe play in the mud!”

Unfazed, Arujani’s mother continued: “The lotus also represents hope, Arujani—that from the depths of our often muddy and messy lives, spiritual growth still occurs. Even though you love playing in the mud, Arujani, you still desire a bath afterward, do you not?”

Arujani thought about this for a minute. Then another minute. He kind of liked being covered in mud, but he had to admit his mother was right. Eventually he wanted the mud washed off. “Yes mother, it is true--once the mud starts to cake and dry, it’s not much fun anymore—it’s just annoying.” Arujani’s mother said, “That’s a good start. Now think about the lotus—it grows through the mud, but never becomes muddy itself. Once the bud of the flower works through the murky water, it floats gently on top, finally opening its petals—clean, brilliantly colored, and perfect—untainted by its muddy birth and muddy existence.”

“So you mean that the flower won’t have to wait for a rainstorm or a gardner to cleanse it? It was born and will blossom perfectly?” Arujani asked. “That’s correct, Arujani. Eventually the lotus will bloom, and it will be perfect, just like you,” said his mother. “I’m not perfect, mother. Please! My grades are average and I like to play in the mud.” Arujani said this somewhat dejectedly; he was starting to think he should be more like the lotus blossom and maybe work his way more carefully through the mud. Arujani’s mother laughed out loud. “But that is perfect, chookra. It is what little boys do. And life is about more than grades, it’s about what you learn through the trials, not the grade on the trials themselves.”

“So you don’t mind if I fail my exams?” Arujani asked, knowing full well this was not what his mother meant. “You know better than that, Arujani. And you know very well what I mean. Like the lotus, our life is full of adventure as we allow our spirituality to unfold. Like the petals of the lotus, we are many-faceted creatures, and like the lotus, our journey to spiritual awareness is perfect as it is, no matter what path it takes. Do you know what our job is in life, Arujani?”

Arujani thought for a moment, knowing this was going to be a trick question. “Well, papa raises cows, and you cook magnificent meals. Uncle Krishna is in the army. There are lots of jobs! I think I’d like to grow lotuses. Which reminds me—do you think that lotus is blooming yet?” Arujani grabbed his mother’s arm and began pulling her outside.

As they walked toward the pond, his mother continued her lesson: “We all have different careers, but our career is not our job. We have one job on this earth, my love, and that is to allow our own lotus flower to fully bloom.”

“I know where you’re going with this, mother,” Arujani said as they walked hand-in-hand to the edge of the pond. “Like this lotus—hey! It’s floating on the water’s surface!” He said excitedly. “And there are many more, too! They are beautiful!”

“Yes dear, exactly,” Arujani’s mother said. “There are many more lotuses, all over the world, all working their way through the mud and into the light. There are millions of us, born as clean as we ever will be, working our way through the mud of life, and simply waiting to blossom.”

“To blossom so we too can feel the warm light, mother?” Arujani asked.

“To blossom so we too can be the warm light, Arujani,” she replied.

REALITIES

Chapter 1

I awoke to the sound of a muffled argument in the apartment next door. The walls separating our units acted like amplifiers instead of sound barriers—an effect that was more intentional than any of us could have realized at the time. I flipped on my lights to be welcomed by the dank, water-stained walls of my self-inflicted prison. A single fluorescent strip buzzing and flickering along the length of my ceiling exacerbated my claustrophobia.

My room was overcast, like the sepia-toned world I lived in, like my entire life. Covered in smog, polluted beyond belief, riddled with thoughts and actions I wished I could forget. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t a nice person. I’d done things to survive that shamed me, that led me on a destructive path to self-imposed exile. At least here, I couldn’t hurt anyone. At least here, I couldn’t hurt myself. Here, in this dark spot, I was alone with my guilty thoughts, left to wonder where I had gone so horribly wrong, left to repent. Left to consider if I could really change.

I rolled out of my mothy sleeping bag onto the hard concrete floor, and started my daily exercises—several sets of push-ups, sit-ups, and squats that left my knuckles and knees bloodied. Then, my adrenaline flowing and my energy level rising, I walked into the hallway to use the community bathroom and showers. The showers were always busy in the morning, but I avoided the rush hour and had them to myself. Not that the showers were anything to crow about. Walls made more of mildew than tile, water that was lukewarm on a good day, ice cold in the winter. The bathroom was more smoggy than steamy, a result of poor ventilation, but also more intentional than I realized then.

I lumbered my way back across the hall to my room, leaving a trail of mediocrity behind, following a trail of sorrow ahead. Someone had once told me that simply thinking about my life would change my life, but after six months here, most of it spent considering my past, all I wanted to do was run away. I wanted back in the game. I could barely resist sprinting back into the world of lies, cheating and stealing I’d always lived, quite successfully. Could I really change? I had my doubts. But I’d made a promise, and for all my faults, I never broke a promise.

As I finished putting on my shoes, I was knocked out of my contemplation by a nervous knock on my door.  I opened the door and an icy chill ran down my spine. I was frozen in place, unable to speak or move. We both stood there, silently staring into each other’s souls. Time stood uncomfortably still. “Are you going to invite me in?” She asked, finally breaking the silence. “Of course. I’m sorry. Come in,” I nervously stutter-mumbled.

“How did you find me?” I asked quietly as I sat down on my sleeping bag. She pulled up a corner of the floor next to me. “I’ll always find you, Gabriel. You can’t hide from me. You can’t hide from him. You know that.” She gently stroked my face, but her touch burned me like acid. I grabbed her hand and forcefully threw it back at her. Out of sheer frustration, I lost my temper and yelled. “You tell him I’m not coming back! Ever! I said I was out. I can barely live with myself as it is. I was just getting to normal—or at least, where I think normal is. Then he sends you to come after me? Why can’t he just leave me alone?”

My sister laughed. “Oh Gabe, you know it doesn’t work that way. You’ll never change. You can’t ever change. That’s why he chose us! We are the deceivers! We are the keepers of secrets, the puppet masters of the powerful and mighty. We do not fall, ever. We do not quit, ever. We do not leave. Ever!”

Silence. I had no response. My heart felt like it was the size of Jupiter, so full of regret it was about to tear through my chest. She was correct, of course. Nobody ever left the service. You were born into it, and you were in for life. But the life of lies and secrets and manipulation wore on you. I was tired. For what seemed like thousands of years we’d been messing about with civilization, pushing people—pushing entire nations one way or the other. For us, for those with no guilt or shame or conscience, for the unconnected, people are so easy to manipulate. Convincing a group of people to think or act a certain way is like using your hand to move water back and forth in a bathtub. Effortless.

“He expects me to bring you back to the mountain today.” She said. Dejected, I wrapped my arms around my legs and pulled my knees to my chest. I put my head down, and I cried.

We sat silently in the back of the cab, watching the buildings brushstroked into muted hues of greys and blues as we sped by, my mind racing just as quickly. I suppose I always knew this day would come. Maybe that’s why, after five years, every day was still such a struggle for me. I fought returning to the mountain every moment I was gone, and now, the mountain had come to claim me. Why couldn’t they just leave me be? The service had nearly everyone in their control anyway, consciously or not. What difference did one loner make? But, I knew the answer to that. The Boss still told the story of a loner thousands of years ago that almost brought the entire system down. Oh, that he had! What a different world this would be! But people are weak, and they couldn’t keep their heads clear enough to fight us. The service regained control easily enough. I was ashamed to admit I played a large part in quelling that thought rebellion. Creative thinking is the archenemy of conformity, and the service thrives on conformity.

My sister jabbed her pointy finger sharply into my stomach, making me wince. “Hey!” I shouted, slapping her hand away from me. She said, “You think too much. That’s what got you into trouble in the first place. Cheer up! You’re coming home and he has a big welcome back party planned for you!”

“A party planned for me? Really…” I said rather icily, thinking somewhat sarcastically, the prodigal son returns. “Listen—I’m not gonna say he’s happy about what you did, but he said this happens every now and then, and usually people come back stronger than ever. He’s assumed you went away, had your thought time, and decided to come back with a vengeance, if you know what I mean,” my sister said, laughing at her own terrible joke. “Sarah, I’m done with vengeance.” I could barely whisper the words over my lips. I may well have been done with vengeance, but I knew vengeance wasn’t even close to being finished with me.

We arrived at the airport and made our way to the private jet waiting for us. On board, as usual, he’d ordered an incredible spread: white linen tablecloths and napkins, bottles of Champagne (Veuve), a selection of gourmet cheeses (all hand crafted). After awhile, there would be a full seven-course meal. The flight was long, and Lou always made sure we traveled in style. The real perks of being in the service were all the little material things—the best life had to offer was ours for the taking (we never asked permission). Ours was a life of power and privilege, and few ever thought twice about it. Yet, every now and then, one of us—someone like me, would start to wonder, what is the point of all this?

And generally speaking, that’s when all the trouble began.

Chapter 2

I was seven years old. The sun shone brightly on the fields of the Lord. Sarah and I ran through the tall grasses, reflecting golden rods of honey-drenched light, laughing gleefully with the other children. We weren’t running anywhere in particular. In fact, we were just running around like crazy kids. The unofficial and unannounced game was to zig-zag in a frenzy around each other, running as fast and as crazily as possible without crashing headfirst into a friend and falling flat on our butts. This outcome was embarrassing and gave you a massive headache, like brain-freeze times infinity. Sarah smashed straight into Lou—probably not an accident on either part. They laughed and embraced, two souls meant for each other from creation. Those were the golden days of our youth.

And they were long gone.

Sarah poked me awake. “Would you please stop doing that!!” I begged her. Another old childhood habit, Sarah had been poking me in my side with her bony finger since she was little. The sharp jab was usually followed by a demand. When we were kids, it was “Get up and play!” Today though, it was “Get up! We’re almost there. You should seriously clean yourself up!” She forced me into the bathroom to get ready. I can’t say I was agitated. It had been years since I’d been in a bathroom that was anything more than a mildew and mold cell with yellow or green running water. Not so on this plane. A sunken tub, a hot-lather shaving cream dispenser, and windows I’d never seen on a plane before that offered panoramic views of the mountain ranges, valleys, and never-ending blue skies of our home. I settled into the tub to soak and shave. After some time, I changed into one of the suits in the closet, looking very much like my old, devilish self. I wasn’t yet sure how I felt about that.

I rejoined Sarah, who took my hand in hers. “It will be okay. He’s excited to see you. We’ve all missed you.” I shifted uncomfortably in my seat to watch the approach into the mountain. Flying into the mountain—in particular landing, was not for the faint of heart. Not that he ever hired someone with a weak heart. Or any sense of heart, for that matter. As we entered the landing tunnel, darkness enveloped us, and my heart stopped beating for a moment or two.

As we deplaned, the hangar lights flipped on with a loud and sudden CRACK-ACK! We could smell the ozone burning in the air, and had to cover our eyes to adjust to the intensely bright, white light. Sarah held my hand as we took the last step, and my feet touched ground on the only place I had ever known as home—a place I hated as much as I loved. “Gabriel, our brother!” His voiced boomed as he walked toward me. I imagined us once again as children, playing all day without a care, no idea what fate had in store for us. No idea just how powerful and power-hungry he would become.

“Hello Lou. Why did you come after me?” I said as we embraced.

“Gabe. Seriously?” He asked, shaking his head and laughing a little. “I love you! I can’t let you live in squalor and poverty like one of them! I had to come and get you.”

“You didn’t. Plenty have left before me. Thousands, in fact. You could have let me be. I’m tired of being revenge for hire.” He put his arm around my shoulder and the three of us started walking out of the hangar, into the central valley, lush with a mind-boggling number of plants and animals, the sanctuary of the Sanctuary, the fields of the Lord we played in so very long ago. “You’re not revenge for hire, you know that,” Lou said. “It’s much bigger than that. It’s about balance and encouragement, crime and punishment, life and death, the beginnings and endings of everything. It’s not revenge. It’s balance. There’s a difference you’ve never understood.”

“I don’t want any part of it anymore. It’s a stupid game—the constant testing, the constant failures. The system is stacked against them. They can never win,” I argued. “But that’s where you’re so wrong,” Lou explained. “They’ve already won! They just don’t understand. Our job isn’t about punishing them, it’s about keeping them aligned. Sometimes that means we have to get a little... physical, I suppose.”

I understood what Lou was saying, but he had let the power go to his head. Too often, his way of helping meant torture, war, famine, or a combination of all the cruelties he could imagine. Lou relished his position a little too much, and it suddenly dawned on me that he was no longer happy being a pawn in the game—he wanted to control it.

We sat at a table outside in the garden, eating lunch. It was the most magnificent and delicious meal I’d had in years. Living as an ascetic had certain spiritual benefits, but it had done nothing for my palate. Food—especially this food, from this incomparable place, tasted like stars gently rowing through a chocolate sky. “Do you remember your first job?” Sarah was wistfully reliving another time, long ago, I thought long forgotten. “Remember how excited Mom and Dad were when you got the call? They were through the roof!” She exclaimed, almost jumping out of her chair. “Do you remember my first assignment?” I asked my sister. “Do you remember how difficult it was? How I felt afterward? How I locked myself in my room and refused to come out for a week? I was only 13, Sarah! And I know I was born into this life—apparently a life I cannot escape, but if we’re simply going to be used as alignment tools, then why give us feelings? Why give us a conscience? Why not makes us robots? No creature should ever be used, Sarah. I’ve lived with the others. They’re not what we’ve been taught. They’re not that different from us. They don’t deserve what’s happening around them. We’re all pawns, being moved around by forces we don’t even realize exist, much less understand.”

“Thanks for the lecture, bro,” she said sarcastically. “I know all that. I just don’t care. I love my job! I loved finding you! I love being a bishop instead of a pawn. Besides, we do good work here, Gabriel. Important work. The universe would implode without us!”

“That’s Lou talking,” I said. “The universe will long outlast all of us, and doesn’t need anyone—especially us, interfering with it. Look what that’s done for Earth. Nobody listens, Sarah. No creature in the universe pays attention, even though help is offered all the time. Direction is offered all the time. We can’t control what’s going to happen. Lou can’t control it. These processes were started before the invention of time, and move to a groove beyond manipulation.” Besides, I thought to myself, the beauty of creation is its syncopation, its ability to adapt and adjust and improvise. The beauty of life is the constant surprise of a new riff.

“No, Lou is right, Gabe.” Sara always took his side, even when we were kids. “Everything is disorder and disarray, potential lost and unpredictability. It is not the natural order of things. Lou’s working on something big, something that will get everything in its proper order—something that will change everything.”

“I’ve heard that before, Sarah. So have you. Things didn’t work out so well then, and if he starts a revolution...” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t even finish the thought, because the images in my head were horrifying. If Lou was seriously considering a revolt, the only real damage would be done to all the innocents caught in the crossfire. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t given up on this foolishness. But such is the lust for power and control I suppose. It makes us do things we know are doomed from the beginning.




Chapter 3

I missed Josh. He always had a way of calming Lou down, of softening his approach. Without Josh around, Lou lost his equilibrium. Not that Lou was necessarily wrong about the state of certain realities. There were many dimensions where the indigenous species had completely forgotten where they came from. The consensus among us was that the transition into matter caused a disconnect in them that it didn’t cause in us. Most of them felt alone, perhaps even abandoned. None of them had any idea how the universes really worked, or any concept of the complicated depth of “reality,” a word we’d stopped using eons ago. Lou took advantage of that ignorance. Josh tried to help them but they simply couldn’t understand what he was talking about, so Josh left that plane of existence forever. Frustrated and morose, he left all of us, and left Lou to his own machinations.

“Get up, Gabriel.” Lou’s voice shook me out of my reverie. I’d been sitting under the Tree, basking in its creative glow, warming my soul to the light beams that permeated the garden. I never understood how Lou could be so aggressive living in such a peaceful place. When I was here, I just wanted to focus on eternity. Lou, it seemed, had other plans. “I said get up. It’s time for you to get back to work!” Lou demanded as he tucked his hand under my arm and lifted me straight up, almost pulling my shoulder out of the socket. “Hey!” I yelled, surprised by the pain.. “You’re kidding me, right?” Lou laughed. “That hurt? What’s got into you, Gabe?”

“Call it a conscience,” I said.

“You can call it what you want,” Lou retorted, “but that doesn’t change the job at hand—or the fact you’re weak. Let’s get you back up to speed. Go see Hannah.”

I must have done a double take. “Is there a problem? You do remember Hannah, don’t you?” Lou asked through a sardonic smile. “Of course, Lou, of course. It will be good to see her,” I said quietly. Except, it wouldn’t be good to see her. I’d made such progress while I was gone. It had taken years of work, years of study, years of integration with the others. Years of assimilation. I no longer saw them as cattle for the slaughter. They were interesting, unique, intelligent—and utterly, completely lost. Like Josh so long ago, and only yesterday, I felt sorry for them. Unlike him—actually, thanks to him, I knew better than to intervene directly. I’d been working hard to change their timeline, and making progress, little by little. They were waking up, which would make Lou’s plans much more difficult to realize.

But Hannah? She could unravel everything.

-----∞-----

I remember years ago in the garden. Josh sat cross-legged, hands in his lap, levitating over the ground—just a few inches, but enough to impress the other kids. He was the image of serenity, and he could connect just like that, without so much as thinking about it. Sit down, close his eyes, and click he was completely tuned in. We all crossed our legs, put our hands together, and closed our eyes too. Soon, I was enveloped in what I can only describe as love. An almost unbearable love—complete, non-judgmental, a love that is as happy to let go as it is to hold on, a love that compelled me to just sit and be, a love that was active with or without my cooperation. In those moments I more than understood. In those moments, I simply was, and it was glorious. That ability has saved my sanity more than once over the eons. That ability ultimately saved Josh from a torture I still find unbelievable in its cruelty.

Back when we were children I couldn’t sustain the connect for very long, though. None of us could then. I remember coming back to this consciousness, to this reality point, to find only Josh and Lou were still deep in levitating meditation. The rest of us would sit silently and wait as they both returned to this plane, smiles on their faces, their bodies all glowy and their minds quiescent. Josh took Lou’s hand and stood up. We all joined hands in a circle and started to sing as we finished the days meditations and prepared for studies, the Light of the Universe shining throughout the sanctuary, a literal enlightenment in song and prayer.

Those were the real times of magic, when anything we imagined was possible, when we were working together as a single unit with a single purpose. Those were the times before now, long before now. I couldn’t believe how much the Sanctuary had changed. At least the garden was the same. Not that it was possible to affect the garden. The One made sure that could never be destroyed. Not that Lou hadn’t tried. That first rebellion was worse than the worst nightmare. We weren’t prepared, because nobody had ever imagined it possible. For as long as time had existed, we had been trained in the garden and sent into various universes as guides, mentors, sometimes protectors, never meddlers. But a takeover—a coup against reality was beyond our imagination. Why would you try? For what purpose? Simply because you wanted to run things? That sort of thought showed a complete lack of understanding about existence—we never run things. Nothing is being “run,” everything simply is! Goodness knows, that was one of our very first lessons in the garden! I never understood what got into Lou. After The Eternal One had beaten his revolutionaries and banished him form the garden, I asked Lou why he had done it, and the only reply I received was, “Because I had to.”

What the hell (no pun intended) was that supposed to mean, especially to a child? It made no sense to me, and it still doesn’t make sense. But even though The Eternal One won the battle, s/he lost the war. Lou was, for all intents and purposes, Emperor of a very large realm of reality, and everyone in that realm was at his command, whether they realized it or not. For the last many years I had been trying to make every creature in this realm aware of the evil that had taken root in them and their reality. I was leading my own rebellion, and my army was every sentient being in Lou’s sphere of influence. But it’s hard to wake someone up when they don’t know they’re sleeping.

The sight of Hannah’s tower in the distance broke me out of my somewhat wistful reminiscence. Sara’s hand trembled in mine as we walked out of the garden, through the hangar, and across the plain toward the monolith Hannah called home, office, church, school. Her lair was no medieval stone tower, like the kind attached to a castle. Hers was timeless and sleek, like a giant, shiny steel sewing needle plunged into the ground at an impossible angle, so reflective it nearly disappeared into the environment. It was as cold and unmoving—unmovable in fact, as Hannah.

“Thanks for coming with me, sis. Also, thanks for bringing me back to this mess. It’s just, you know, fantastic to be back here, about to be brainwashed into compliance” I said with all the sarcasm I could muster. Sara looked down at the ground, and I thought for a moment she was crying. Then she said, “You know Gabe, you brought this on yourself. What did you think you were doing? Rallying the humans? Leaving your job? I think maybe you got a little full of yourself and decided to take matters into your own hands. That’s not our job. Our job is just to follow orders!” She was clutching my hand harder, and it felt like the talons of a Falcon ripping into my skin. An angry Sara was not a good thing.

“I think you’ve forgotten who we swore an oath to. It wasn’t Lou,” I remarked. “Our job, as you call it, used to be to inspire—to whisper beauty gently into the ears of other creatures so they would dare to dream in unimagined colors. So they would dare to create the impossible, so they would see beyond the four dimensions that keep them imprisoned in a sliver of reality. So they would wake up and take their rightful place in the multiverse, co-creators, not cattle.”

“You sound like Josh,” Sara said, letting go of my hand. “And like him you put too much faith in the lower creatures. They ignored him, why would they pay attention to you?”

“They’re not lower creatures, Sara!” I could barely maintain my calm. “They were created from the same place as you and I, in the nurseries of the stars. They have a divine claim, just like us. They’ve just been kept from pursuing theirs. Yeah, some of it is their own fault—they can be greedy, vicious, untrustworthy. But you and I both know their current situation is as much our fault as theirs. They’re in Lou’s grasp, and they don’t even know it. It’s hard to fight back against something you don’t even realize is controlling you.”

Before Sara could reply we heard the loud, shrieking scream of Vultures circling overhead. We looked up and realized we were at the needle, at Hannah’s, and the door was open. 

As we stood outside the needle I noticed how much it’s shiny reflectiveness made it seem like a tear in the fabric of space-time, as if a lightning bolt thrown by the hand of mighty Zeus ripped it’s way across space and time, and finally landed in the garden. Our garden was certainly ripped apart.

Hesitantly, I took a deep breath and we walked inside. 

Inside Hannah’s needle there was another universe, an entirely different realm. Entering the needle wasn’t simply like walking in the front door of an interstate gas station. That’s a different atmosphere. In the gas station, the soul-sucking fluorescent lights and the amalgamation of odors (all of them offensive), was almost always jarring after hours on the road. Entering the needle was nothing like that, but it was even more disquieting. It was absolutely silent in the needle. No ambient noise, no chirping crickets, just you and your noisy thoughts.

There were no benches in the anteroom, and no decorations—just a sleek, metallic, gently upwardly curving nothingness, lit by a small sliver high up the cone. I couldn’t tell whether the light was natural or unnatural. Sara looked at me, took both my hands in hers, and quietly said, “I have to go. I’m sorry, but I hope Hannah brings you back to us. I love you, Gabe. Get better.” She was so sincere. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I am better. You’re the one who’s sick. So instead I said nothing, gave her a hug full of brotherly love, and watched as the door slid closed behind her.

I sat down on the polished steel floor, leaned against the wall, and waited. This was Hannah’s first step, making you sit in solitary until she thought you were worn down enough to be trained. I had been hoping we could skip this, because even when I was a kid I could wait in here forever. Hannah always had to come get me. I could imagine another reality and truly believe I was there (and perhaps I was), until I either chose to return, or someone in my main timeline shook me out of it. So I could spend hours in Hannah’s waiting room. I liked to wait. Every time I went to see Hannah, she had to shake me back into the needle. She hated my ability, because it meant I didn’t brainwash as easily. Knowing the fabric of reality is as thin as a hair makes taking any single timeline seriously difficult. Even while I was with the humans, I couldn’t really know if it was “real” or “other real.”

I often wondered what was happening on my alternate timelines while I wasn’t there. Were my other selves getting into trouble, or behaving better than I had ever behaved? And if there were an infinite number of me, doing an infinite number of both right and wrong things, would that mean that ultimately, everything was okay, no matter what I did, because somewhere else I would be doing the opposite? Do my selves cancel each other out? Or are those infinite copies of me, in an infinite number of other realities, suspended in action while I’m conscious somewhere else? Maybe Sara was right. Maybe I am broken. Because all I can think is, what is reality other than what we pretend it to be?

Someone was poking me in the side. “Sara! Would you please stop doing that!” I yelped as I returned to the needle. “Not this time, sweetie!” Hannah said buoyantly. Her big, beaming smile made me laugh. “Hello, Hannah,” I said as she helped me off the floor. I had to admit, I wasn’t that upset to see her. Hannah was a lovely being. There was no vengeance in her, just loyalty and a desire to do her job well. She had been our teacher, mother, and friend. Her methods were brilliant in their subtlety, and softened by her round, buoyant face, icy blue eyes that pierced through our souls, and that mess of curly, mostly blonde hair mopping across her forehead and hanging down the length of her curiously long torso. That hair seemed ready to explode into complete pandemonium any second. She taught us everything Lou wanted us to know, and everything the Boss wanted us to know, but somehow, by the time she was done with us, we all ended up working for Lou.

“I’m somewhat surprised to see you back here, sweetie,” Hannah quipped with a wink.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Well,” she responded, “it’s just that if anyone was going to make it out of Lou’s grasp, my faith was on you. You were gone a long time. A lot has changed in five years.

“Really?” I asked. “It doesn’t look like anything has changed. Lou’s still plotting to take over the universe, and that’s still the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. He’s still manipulating the humans and using them as his personal army of unconscious, unwittingly willing counterparts, and that’s still the most abusive thing I’ve ever heard. What’s changed?”

“I’ve changed, sweetie. Two years ago one of them found their way here. I don’t know how, but I suspect our real boss had something to do with it. Subtlety, you know? That’s always been Her/His way.” Hannah paused and closed her eyes for a second, then she took my hand and the next thing I knew, without walking any stairs or taking an elevator, we were at the point of the needle in her office. “I wish you’d teach me how you do that,” I said. She smiled gently and looked out the panoramic windows across the entire garden and valley, silent and contemplative. I’d never seen Hannah like that before.

I’d always been fascinated with Hannah’s ability to sort of “poof” from one place to another. Some of the others could do that as well—contort space and time to appear wherever (and whenever) they wanted. That was not one of my gifts. If I wanted to travel, I had to do it just like the humans, by physically moving from point A to point B. Fortunately, people like Hannah could take others with them on their journeys, so many of my kind had careers as couriers, sort of transports for beings instead of packages. The problem was that Lou often used these gifted beings to move the humans around without their knowledge, which had caused the humans to create all sorts of wild stories about flying saucers and aliens. Of course, in a way, I suppose we were the aliens. We were certainly alien to the human race any longer, although there was a time they had forgotten when we all lived, worked, and even worshipped together.

But those days were long in the past, and forever in the future.

Hannah handed me a glass of icy cold sweet tea as we sat on her unreasonably comfy loveseat. “I’d never met a human before, you know,” Hannah said softly. “I knew they looked like us, but I had no idea the depth of their curiosity, or their abilities. You know they can do everything we can do, don’t you, Gabriel?”

“I realized that after living with them a few weeks. Some of them are more fully aware than others, but none of them realize their full potential. Not a single one. How is that possible, Hannah?” I asked. “How do you completely forget who you are? Whose you are? How can you not sense there is more going on than the physical?” Hannah sat next to me and took my hand in hers. “I know what you think, Gabe,” she said softly. “You think Lou has done something to them, or that the Supreme Consciousness has done something to them to make them forget.  You think they’re slaves. But the truth is, nobody has done anything to them, including themselves. They aren’t being manipulated. Lou has certain ideas about how the multiverse should be organized, but he’s not playing games. He might be afraid of them—afraid of their violence. Lou is just trying to keep us all safe, sweetie,”

“I’m not falling for that old line, Hannah,” I said, dropping her hand and standing up in a minor act of rage and rebellion. “Lou uses the humans—all the humans, on the thousands of human planets in the millions of human realities. He wants to be the Supreme Consciousness, and recreate the multiverse in his image—with him as King and everything else subservient to the all-powerful Lou.”

She sat quietly for what seemed an eternity, although it was even more difficult to sense the passing of time in the needle than it was in the garden. Seconds, days, centuries—none of them mattered here. So we sat in silence until she finally said, “Lou has been trying to make a point, and he will not stop until he makes his point. I used to think he was right—that there was a hierarchy to the universe, with the being of all being, Him/Her, the Supreme Consciousness at the top, then us, then everything else, which we all felt was beneath us and worthless. But when the human came to see me—confused, frightened, yet so full of imagination and creativity, it suddenly hit me: none of us are different. No matter the species, we are all part of the Supreme consciousness—and this means Lou, too, Gabe. I know this sounds ridiculous, but Lou’s convinced the humans have the ability to destroy the entire multiverse. He thinks keeping them in check is the only way to avoid the end of—well, the end of everything.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I said, stunned. “The only reason the humans seem so violent—okay, are so violent, is because of what he’s been doing to them! Doesn’t he see that? He manipulates and lies to them, and gets them to do the most horrific things to each other, to their planet, to all creation. It just makes the rest of us want to help them more. What about Josh? How come he couldn’t talk any sense into Lou? How come the humans wouldn’t accept him? He was trying to explain everything to them, to snap them out of their sleep. What happened, Hannah?”

She put her tea down and walked over to the window, looking over the eternal plain. She picked up her long mop of hair and tied it in back of her head, which made her hair seem suddenly much shorter. Had it changed length as she tied it up? She still had more magic in her than she let the rest of us realize. I joined her at the window and watched the beams of the sun gently paint the fields and garden below in purples, golds, crimsons, greens and blues, a vibrant pastel masterpiece. “Look at that, Gabe,” she said. “Do you really think anyone can control that? Existence is much more complicated than even we can imagine, much more independent than we imagine, yet also much more connected and intertwined than we imagine. No action happens in a vacuum. Every move you or I make, every activity in the human world, and every exploding and birthing star, planet, galaxy and multiverse is connected with everything else, from the leaf on a tree in the garden, to the single cells that combine to form complicated, living creatures. It’s the idea of separation that really keeps the humans in trouble, and that isn’t an idea any of us put into their minds, Gabriel.” She turned away from the window, took my hand and led me to a doorway I hadn’t noticed before. “You want to think the Supreme Consciousness is in control, or that Gabe is in control. But what if controlling something actually means letting it go?” She asked, as she pushed me through the doorway and I began falling upward, spiraling out of control towards what looked like the thick, black sludge of space. Banished, I thought. They’ve banished me to the vast nothingness.

Hannah sat on her couch and poured the rest of Gabe’s tea into her glass, then finished the drink in one gulp. She put the glass down, folded her hands in her lap, and looked out her window, which now showed a vast, dark emptiness, and Gabriel, gently spinning away.

Chapter 4

Lou shuffled some papers on his desk, not really doing anything other than shoving things around pretending he was busy. The truth was, he was distracted. Hannah had let him know she’d sent Gabe into the void, and while Lou figured that would be the outcome, he wasn’t necessarily happy about it. He loved Gabe and just wanted him to be part of the family again. And if he was going to be totally honest with himself (honesty was not Lou’s best feature), he wasn’t sure he could handle another permanent loss.

When Josh left them all, Lou was devastated. The two of them had been constant companions their entire lives so, when Josh suddenly decided to live in the human world, Lou was shocked. When Josh never returned, Lou’s sorrow was almost unbearable. Almost. In response, Lou simply buckled down and locked any emotional attachments in the depths of his psyche. He turned up the heat on his mission to make the humans his loyal subjects, and eventually, to gain control of the entire multiverse and remake it in his image: strong, organized, and cultured. At least, that’s the way he saw himself.

Lou was shaken from his thoughts by a knock on the huge mahogany door of his office. Carved with intricate patterns of strange, fantastic creatures surrounding an enormous tree, the door was more like a portal between realms than a door between two rooms. As with everything Lou did, this was a calculated move. Plus, the door actually could act as a portal between realms if he wanted it to—if he needed it to. “Come in,” Lou said. Sara walked into Lou’s office and calmly sat on his desk facing him. She took his hands in hers, looked at him intensely, and then, in one unbelievably fast and elegant motion, she grabbed him out of his seat and tossed him over her shoulder. Lou flipped over and slammed into his office door.

And disappeared.

“NO! Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, SHOOT!” Sara screamed. That is NOT what I meant to happen, she thought. Distraught after she found out about her brother’s banishment, her anger clouded her thoughts. She reacted, unthinking, simply wanting to take a swing at Lou, at Hannah, at anyone and everyone around her. As is typical when we act out of rage, things did not go as planned. Instead of banging Lou up a little, Sarah threw Lou at the one object in the office he wouldn’t bounce off bruised and battered: his door, the portal to everywhere. Lou simply went through the door and landed—where? Where would Lou go, Sara wondered. She sat down in his oversized throne of an office chair and looked out his window, frustrated and pissed at herself (and the universe), and had herself a good, long cry.

Chapter 5



“Gabriel, wake up! Wake up!” The voice kept calling my name, louder and louder. A bony finger was poking me in my side. “Sara! For the bazillionth time, please cut that out!” I screamed as I opened my eyes, because I awakened not to Sara, but to something I could barely believe. I must still be dreaming, I thought. 

“Hello, my friend and brother,” he said.


“Josh? Is it you? Am I dreaming?” I spurted. 


“You’re not dreaming my friend. What is a dream but another reality anyway?” Josh laughed. “Wake up!” he commanded, and then we were sitting on a bench in a massive park. At first I didn’t recognize the surroundings. It was a brisk spring day, and people were hurrying by. As I looked around, I noticed the intricate architecture of the Gilded Age and those first skyscrapers being built. There were women carrying parasols and dressed in extravagant gowns, men wearing complicated suits, horses and carriages and newly electrified streetcars sauntering by. Immigrant workers scrambled up multi-story buildings like ants. The smell of their tenements nearby soured the air, a reminder that inside the gilded cage, all was not well. Way to be obvious, Josh, I thought.








I hadn’t been here in a very long time, but I was too emotionally wrecked and physically beat up from all the reality jumping to talk to him about his plans. We sat silently on the bench until I was finally able to mutter a soft, “Where have you been?” Obviously dejected, I said “I mean, I’m glad to see you—shocked to see you, but I’ve got to be honest, I’m also more than a little angry with you, Josh! Everything’s a mess! Do you have any idea what Lou has been doing? You were his balance. With you gone, he’s been absolutely uncontrollable, and many realities are much worse for his wear. I went to the humans, as you did. I thought I could show them they were slaves to their own minds, to their own corrupt ideals. Lou found me—actually, Sara found me, before I could really get things moving. I’d just formed a pretty good group of radicals, too.”








“He sent Sara after you?” Josh seemed surprised. “Youch, that’s pretty low—your own sister as your bounty hunter. You have to admit though, it’s classic Lou!” Josh smiled gently and put his hand on my shoulder. “I find it intriguing you’re so upset about all of this. You know the way things work. Everything is temporal while we’re in it, everlasting while we’re not. Do you remember that lesson? That’s why we can come someplace like this, even though it’s a period long gone for some, still to come for many.” That’s why going to see the humans and trying to awaken them didn’t work for either of us, Josh thought. “I’ve realized something, Gabe,” Josh said. “I’ve learned that trying to change things actually does create change, but that change is subtle, and also much more pervasive than we thought. When the humans killed me yesterday…”




“Yesterday!” I screamed. “Josh! That was thousands of years ago!”




“Huh. Really!” He shrugged his shoulders. “Proves my point then, doesn’t it? For me, that was yesterday. And by the way—getting killed in a timeline? Painful. Truly, brother. Try not to get killed. You’ll just wake up in another reality with a splitting headache and a bad case of amnesia. The humans never get over their amnesia. For us, it fades after a bit—hours? Days? Years? Who knows? The whole getting killed thing was my fault anyway. I pushed them too hard. They weren’t ready in that reality. But here’s what’s interesting, my friend: In this gilded age? Everything is about to change. and in other ages too, everything has already changed.”








I was so confused. I thought I understood this whole multi-dimensional being thing, but I didn’t like Josh’s implication here. “Are you saying that everything you did in another timeline, actually changed this timeline, instead of the one you were in?” I asked, somewhat disappointed in what that implied. “No, you’re still thinking too linear, Gabe,” he replied. “What I’m saying is that whatever we do in one reality affects not only that reality, but also every other instance of that reality. Our actions create an infinite number of ripples throughout the universe. Every ripple is unpredictable and impermanent, yet in some way, every possibility is always being played out, eternally. So while you and I might not think we’ve made a difference, we’ve made a tremendous difference. Everyone makes a difference, whether human or one of the other beings that populate the mulitverse. It’s not all up to us, the way Lou thinks, Gabe. Come with me and I’ll show you what I mean.”






We stood up and began walking toward Hell’s Kitchen, one of the worst tenements in the city. The sun was going down, and as the gaslights began to flicker on, I noticed the shadows of things that never were and already are, the memories of the future dancing on the walls of New York City.






Hell’s Kitchen. The Irish immigrants who populated the area lived in extremely close quarters. The streets overflowed with the filthy, repugnant stench of waste. Days of extremely hard labor working on the new skyscrapers or extending the railroad put everyone in a foul mood by the end of their shifts. A healthy dose of Irish whiskey to end the day did nothing to calm people down. Street fights were common. An ax handle to the head over a clothesline dispute happened at least once every day, and that was a fight between the women. The men used knives and guns.








To attempt to bring some sense of order to the Kitchen, rival Irish gangs developed, largely divided along the same Catholic v. Protestant lines that divided their homeland. As Josh and I entered the neighborhood, our dusters dragging through the stenchy filth, we heard what sounded like a gunshot nearby. Josh looked at me and said, “Here we go. Come on!” And took off toward the sound. “Josh!” I yelled. Seriously? I thought. “You’re running toward the gunshot?” I shouted to him, but it was too late. He had already rounded the corner, so I had no choice but to follow. That happened a lot with Josh. You found you had no choice but to follow.








As I came around the bend, I saw Josh holding a woman in his hands, blood sputtering out of her mouth and running down his arm, mixing into the muck of the street. I rushed to them and knelt beside them. Josh looked up at me, tears running down his cheek, that look in his eye. “Don’t do it,” I said. “Please Josh, it’s not important. Don’t cause more trouble for these people, then disappear on them again. Please. I’m begging you. Don’t do it.”








But it was too late. The woman’s eyes opened. She gasped in a deep breath as life returned to her. She looked at Josh, smiled, and sat up. “Thank you. Thank you!” she said. Then, turning to the crowd gathered in astonishment, she said, “This man saved my life! He can heal people!”








The crowd got on their knees and was silent. This isn’t good, I thought. Then I looked at Josh and said, “You sir, are a major jerk. Why, Josh? Why?” He just smiled at me in that annoyingly beneficent way he had, and pointed across the street to a tall, dark figure in the shadows. As I turned my head to look, I gasped. 



“Well hello, you two. Fancy meeting you here!” Lou said.

Chapter 6

Sara stood near the picture window opposite Lou’s intricately carved door and then took a run at it as fast as she could. She bounced off the door and landed flat on her back. Hard. “Damn!” she yelled as she pushed herself up rubbing her arm. As she got back on her feet, she noticed something about the door. The carving was moving, as if it were alive. She moved close to the door and looked at it carefully. The tree in the center popped out from the door more than any of the other carvings, the leaves in its huge crown gently drifting back and forth, as if being pushed by a gentle breeze. A couple of snakes twisted along the trunk, coiling and recoiling but never making any progress. Mythical creatures of all sorts, never seen in any reality, skittered about the roots. A couple of winged gargoyles hung from the bough, staring menacingly at her.

 She touched the leaves of the tree. They felt like carved Mahogany. She began pressing and punching and shoving everywhere on the door. She even dared to stick a few fingers in a gargoyle’s mouth, convinced she would get bitten. But the door was solid wood. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t make it do anything other than be a door—a door with a moving carving, but a door nevertheless. How did Lou do that? She wondered.

 “That’s not the way it works, sweetie,” Hannah said as she burst into the offce, nearly slamming Sara in the face with the very heavy door. “Get away from me, Hannah!” Sara burst into tears. Hannah took Sara in her arms and let her cry. “Listen,” she said, “ If you want my advice...”

 “I don’t want anything from you!” Sara said angrily through her tears. “This is all your fault!” Hannah sat down on the couch in Lou’s office and sighed. “This has very little to do with me, or you for that matter Sara. Come sit down.”

“Just tell me how this door works, Hannah. I need to stop Lou. I need to see my brother. I need to apologize to everyone. I need to fix this.” Sara said.

“You can’t stop Lou,” Hannah replied. “You can’t fix this, and you don’t need to stop Lou. You think you need to control this? You think you can control this? These boys have been playing this game since they were children. They’ve played it across time and space, thinking—like you, Sara, that they can control things. Control the humans. Help the humans. Enslave the humans. They can’t do any of those things, yet they refuse to stop interfering. None of us can control the paths of our existence, and that’s true for all the beings in the multiverse, human or not.”

 “Well, that sucks,” Sara said. “If I can’t control how my life is playing out, what’s the point of even living? Are you saying I’m just a helpless pawn in some chess game that’s being played without my knowledge? That the three of them are messing up the entire cosmic flow? That makes no sense. And by playing this ‘game’ as you rather callously call it, aren’t the boys controlling the paths of many other beings, including you and I? How can I be in control of my own life if they’re constantly messing with it?”

 Hannah sighed. “You have complete control of your own life, Sara. But yours is not the only life being lived. We exist in a multitude of infinite interactions, some very subtle, others more overt. Everything we do affects other lives—all lives. The actions of every being have an affect on every other being, across time and space, across all possible realities. Just the thoughts of others affect us. Look how the humans believe in death and disease! They believe these things exist, so they do. Their scientists and doctors make discoveries, only just now suspecting that they will always find what they’re looking for, because they’re creating what they’re looking for. They’ve created an entire universe of birth, death and finite lifespans, even though linear time is a fabrication. Even when Josh or Gabe or any of the others tries to show them differently, the humans—and many other beings in the multiverse, continue to believe things that simply aren’t true. Yet, because they believe them, these things come true for them.”

Sara stood silently, considering what Hannah was saying. It was hard to believe that everything that seemed so real could merely be a figment of the imagination. Then again, she remembered one of the games they all played as children, imagining things into being. Like the creatures on Lou’s door, Sara suddenly thought.

 “This little power struggle between Josh, Lou and Gabe is an eternal cosmic dance” Hannah continued. “The humans are often caught in the crossfire, and few if any of them have any real idea what’s going on. Those that do are berated by the rest of the humans, or locked up, or have pieces of their brains carved out, or simply killed. Remember what happened to Josh the last time he tried to interfere? If you try to help them, you could end up the same.”

 “Please, Hannah,” Sara said defiantly. “Are you trying to scare me? I’m not afraid to die.”  

 Hannah laughed heartily. “There are much worse things than death, sweetie. What is death but a transition between realities? No, no, there are much worse things.”

 Dejected and exhausted Sara finally joined Hannah on the couch. She quietly pleaded, “Just show me how to get to them. Please, Hannah.”

Chapter 7

As he healed the dying woman, the crowd that had gathered around Josh grew noisier. A cacophony of requests surrounded Josh and Gabe—requests for sick and dying loved ones, for family and friends, for beloved pets, for themselves. Someone asked, “I lost my leg fighting the Gopher Gang. Can you bring it back?” Another begged, “I have Tuberculosis. Please heal me!”

“Can you fix my mama?”  A little girl asked as she tugged on Josh’s long overcoat. Josh touched her gently on the head, smiled and said, “No, but you can.” Overhearing and shocked, Gabe asked, “What do you think you’re doing, Josh? Please tell me you didn’t just do that.”

“Why not?” Josh asked. “Don’t you think it’s been long enough?”

“No. No, I don’t think they’re even close to ready. You can’t just go around waking people up like that. Look at them!” The crowd was in a frenzy, trying to make sense of what was happening. They watched the little girl pass slowly through the crowd, touching as many people as possible as she walked. They could see a glittering path of light transforming the bleak, dingy brown world of the tenements, as if a painter had taken a brush full of turpentine and dragged it across a dark, soiled canvas, uncovering a new, blank canvas underneath.

As Lou approached the increasingly frenzied scene, he pulled out a shotgun and fired it into the air. The loud retort of the double barrels immediately stopped the crowd in their tracks, but if Lou was looking to intimidate, he had chosen the wrong crowd. The “clicks” of revolvers being cocked sounded like a deck of cards being shuffled. “Whoa, whoa there, friends,” Lou said. “I just wanted to get your attention. I see my friends have stirred up some trouble. They’re very good at that. Now, if you’ll all just go back to your homes, the three of us will settle this and leave you alone. I’m sorry they disturbed your peaceful evening,” Lou said, knowing very well there was never a peaceful evening in the Kitchen.

A voice yelled from the crowd, “This man brought my wife back to life and healed her gunshot wound! What business do you have with him?” Very much to Gabe’s surprise, the crowd closed in on he and Josh, surrounding them while wielding too many guns to count. “What are you doing?” Gabe whispered to the man standing next to him. Well, he was more of a boy really. Barely old enough to shave, he had been working 18-hour days down at the new port near his house. It was this expansion of the commercial transportation system in New York that had brought so many of them to Hell’s Kitchen in the first place. Gabe said, “This guy standing in front of us? He will kill you without giving it a second thought. Do what he asked. Just go home.”

“We’re protecting you,” the boy said. “You helped us, now we help you. That’s the way it works here. That’s the only way to stay alive. You gotta serve somebody, right? So we serve whoever can keep us alive. Right now, that seems to be the two of you, mister.” Gabe gave Josh an exasperated look. Josh pointed at Lou and said “Watch.”

Lou looked down as the little girl Josh had touched approached. Lou looked at her, then looked at Josh. “You’re kidding me, right? You showed her the truth? You’re a bigger fool than I thought, Josh” Lou said. The little girl walked right up to Lou with absolutely no fear and asked, “Why are you so mad, mister?” Lou laughed and ruffled her hair. As soon as he touched her she fell to the ground and started having what seemed to be an epileptic seizure. She shook uncontrollably and began foaming at the mouth. When she collapsed, the crowd went insane and rushed at Lou. Guns were being fired every direction. It was madness as innocent bystanders fell to the ground in pools of blood. Lou simply stood in the middle of the chaos, amused. As people approached him to punch, kick, stab or shoot him, they were stopped short by some sort of invisible wall. No matter what they tried, Lou was always just out of reach.

Gabe couldn’t take it anymore. He closed his eyes, put his head down, clasped his hands together, and in one fluid motion, he drew a flaming sword from seemingly out of nowhere, and threw it like a javelin straight into Lou’s heart of darkness.

Chapter 8

The door in Lou’s office started bulging, as if the creatures were trying to escape their carved mahogany prison. As Sara watched, the entire scene took on a new dimension. The background on the door expanded infinitely inward, an endless savanna of waving grasses beckoning warmly. The savannah was full of life and filled with creatures from every child’s (human or otherwise) imagination. Sara was entranced until one of the gargoyles reached out and menacingly slashed its claws at her. Unflinching, she looked at Hannah and asked, “Um, does this usually happen?”

Carefully watching the door Hannah said flatly,  “No. This can’t happen.” Now the scene on the door started expanding outward as well, the tree beginning to fill the room, the gargoyles much too close for comfort. Sara could feel a gentle breeze on her cheek. Then, the breeze became a gust. “Well, we better do something!” Sara shouted excitedly. So Hannah pushed Sara toward a gargoyle, which grabbed Sara’s hand and pulled her violently into the savannah. The room went silent, and the door settled down, resting motionless in its carved mahogany splendor.

Hannah sat in Lou’s office chair and looked out the window. The panoramic view of the colorful garden and valley calmed her, but she was worried and distraught. Portals like the door stayed grounded in one reality as long as the portal’s owner stayed in tune. If that connection was cut, the door would lose grounding in space-time and begin to create its own, somewhat random reality. Hannah knew something had happened to Lou—something big for the door to react so violently. She was afraid he was dead, and if that was true, there would be hell to pay for many realities. If she was correct, then Sara was the only one that could possibly stabilize the realm.

Hannah left Lou’s office and headed back to her needle. She walked through the garden, her thoughts focused on trying to figure out the recent weirdness. As she contemplated her next, best move, she thought she smelled a vague hint of sulfur in the air.

Chapter 9

Gabe and Sara were hiding from me, but I could hear Sara giggle from behind the large Ash grove. “I hear you, Sara!” I shouted gleefully as I slowly worked my way toward her. But I had traveled too far away from the can. Suddenly, I heard a loud “clang” as Josh kicked the can out of the safety zone and yelled, “All ye, all ye outs in free!” Sara peeked out from behind one of the trees and winked at me. “You were so close, Lou!” She said as she took my hand. We walked together to join Josh, Gabe and the other kids to get ready for another round. At that moment, I thought life could never get any better than this.

Lou collapsed to the ground, a great, burning gash in his chest, the sulfurous smell of decay wafting from his wound. The crowd was silent and began to back away, nauseous from the sight and smell, and frightened by the unexplainable events that had just occurred. Josh and Gabe hurried over. Gabe said, “Please everyone, go home for the night. We can take care of this. Things might get worse before they get better. Please, go home.” Most of the people did as they were told, too frightened or too numb to protest. Gabe said, “No sirens. Wouldn’t you think the police would have been called a long time ago, Josh?” Josh knew this place, though. The gangs were the only law here. The police didn’t care about Hell’s Kitchen. They considered it a holding pen for cheap labor and the refuse of society. Besides, there was no respect for the law here—a police officer was more likely to be killed and thrown in the river than obeyed.

Josh kneeled, took Lou’s head in his hands, and wept. Then, they heard a tortured scream of heartbreak and grief that shattered the sky into a billion raindrops. They looked back to see Sara, kneeling in the muddy street, her face in her hands, tears flowing down her cheeks. Her grief was so painful that all reality mourned with her. “Sara!” Gabe shouted, surprised as he ran toward her. “What happened?”

“I should ask you the same thing, Gabe!” She gasped between tears. “What did you do to him?” It started to rain a little harder. Gabe knelt down and faced Sara, whose face was streaked with haunting rivers of black eyeliner, giving her a predatory, feline look that made Gabe extremely uncomfortable. Sara out of control was worse than Gabe out of control. He tried to calm her down.

“I lost control, Sara. I’m sorry,” Gabe said. “He was just…” Gabe didn’t know what to say. It was a stupid thing to do. Now all the humans had seen an obviously supernatural event (or three), and even though Lou looked to them dead, the truth was much more complicated. Now, Sara was here (and Gabe figured Hannah must have had a hand in that somehow), and she was about to blow too, which would not be pleasant for any creature—human or otherwise, within the tri-state area.

Sara just sobbed and fell into Gabe’s arms, exhausted. “I’m so confused,” she whispered. “I know, I know, me too.” Gabe said as he held his sister tightly. Just then, they heard Josh calling, “No time for remorse, no time for regret. What’s done is done. I could use a little help over here, guys. We need to get Lou somewhere out of sight before he wakes up and all these people start telling stories that will not help their situation. You know what I mean?” He said, a little too joyously.

Gabe helped Sara up and the two of them joined Josh around Lou’s seemingly dead body. “We can’t wake him up here,” Josh said. Hesitantly, Gabe said, “I know a place.”

The three of them borrowed a horse and cart, lifted Lou’s large and very dense body onto it, covered him with a tarp, and climbed aboard.

It was getting even darker outside. The rain was pouring down like a series of waterfalls that pooled and flooded the ground below. The streets of Hell’s Kitchen were turning into thick, goopy, muddy rivers. Pulling Lou’s increasingly heavy body through this flood of tears was becoming too much for the horse. Gabe, Josh and Sara walked beside the cart in silence, heads bowed in sorrowful reverence.
 


“Hey!” Someone shouted from around a corner. The trio stopped. “Hey!” Someone shouted again. Gabe cautiously walked to the edge of the building to peer down an alley. There was a young man, waving toward a door. “C’mon!” He said. “It’s safe here.” Gabriel turned to the others and waved them on. Even though it only took a couple of minutes to slog the horse and cart through the uncooperative remains of the street, it felt like an eternity to all of them. And perhaps it was, time being as flexible as it is.
 


After this short eternity they reached the young man, who immediately shook Gabe’s hand. “Welcome back, my friend,” he said quietly, with just a hint of an Irish accent. “Get in the kitchen and I’ll care for your horse.” Gabriel and Josh carried Lou into a kitchen. They laid him on a large, wooden table in the center. Looking around the room Josh realized they were in a butcher’s shop. “I’ve been coming to this place-time for eons,” Gabe said. “I don’t know why. It’s violent and dirty, and full of people so selfish that you wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell you. They’ll use anybody to gain stature and wealth for themselves.”


“Lou...” Sara said quietly.


“Yes, I think so,” Gabe cautiously replied. “Yet, this is a time of invention, and the humans are doing—did—will do—all these incredible things. It’s kind of fun to watch. So I don’t think Lou’s entirely responsible. More likely he just took advantage of a situation. He’s very much like them in that way. Or they’re very much like him. I’m not sure which is which any longer.” Gabe thought for a moment. “I kept coming to different human reality lines to try to help them see, you know? To help them wake up. Time after time, after time. Maybe one or two would understand, like Brian and his wife. So I planted seeds here and there, all over the human spectrum. I didn’t stop to think Lou might have been using the humans differently.”
 


“Either way you’re still using them,” Josh said.
 


Brian joined them in the kitchen. “Horse is fine,” he said. “Gabe probably already told you, but we met when I was a small boy. So was he, then! You age… weirdly. But we don’t have time to reminisce, do we? The best thing for all of us is to get you out of here. Out of the kitchen, out of New York.” Gabe thought Brian seemed different, but wrote it off to the events of the evening.  “My family will help. Just leave. Please.” Brian held back tears, but inside the kitchen there was nothing but broken hearts.
 


Gabe asked “What’s wrong?”
 


Breda is dead. Last month. Tuberculosis. I don’t understand why. She was so faithful, Gabe. So caring. Everyone in the neighborhood loved her. I loved her.” He began to sob gently. Gabe gave Josh a knowing glance, put his arms around Brian, and led him to the table where Lou lay waiting.
 


Everyone in the room was quietly weeping. The four of them stood around Lou’s body like the points of a compass. “Hold hands please,” Josh requested. Brian just stood still, not sure what was going on. Gabe said, “Join us, Brian. Trust me.” And in spite of all the weirdness Gabe had always exhibited, in spite of the completely astounding and unexplainable nature of the night, Brian did trust Gabe. They joined hands around the table and prepared for communion.

Chapter 10

They held hands around Lou’s motionless body. Josh said “Father, give us wisdom.” Sara said “Mother, surround us with love.” Gabe said “Eternal everything, unite us with your presence.” Brian wasn’t completely sure what was going on, so he just stayed silent. He felt his body heat up though, as if the sun was shining through him. At first, there was just a warm glow in his hands. Then, it began to spread up and down his body until he felt entirely enveloped in a calm, peaceful, loving warmth. Eyes closed, he felt himself floating in light, the gravity of his body and the worries of his life non-existent. This was a new place and a very different state of being. Brian opened his eyes and saw the others—Gabe, Josh, Sara, and Lou’s body, below him, holding hands—holding hands with him! How can this be? Brian thought. Then in the blink of an eye, the four of them were sitting around Lou’s body in the most beautiful garden Brian had ever seen. There was a tree that must have been a mile around that reached up infinitely to a sky full of deep blues and misty whites. Brian felt perfectly at peace.

Lou was lying on a mattress of tiny yellow and purple flowers. The flowers bent slightly under Lou’s weight, suspending him gently a foot or so off the ground. Josh put his hands on Lou’s wound. “Hold his ankles,” Gabe said to Brian, snapping him out of his altered state of consciousness. But Brian was starting to panic. He had no idea where he was or what was going on. “Where are we? What happened? How did I get here?  Who…” Brian tried to ask, but Gabe cut him off. “This sanctuary heals all wounds—even yours, Brian.”

“But this guy is dead!” Brian exclaimed. “He has a huge, gaping gash—which is really starting to smell, by the way, in the middle of his chest!”

“Calm down, Brian,” Gabe said softly. “Things are not as they appear. Life and death are not as simple as you think. You’re an eternal being, just like us. We’ve been trying to teach you for thousands of your years. But we’ll explain more later. Right now, Lou is probably in pain—not that he doesn’t deserve some pain, but I’ve been trying to give up vengeance.” Brian wasn’t sure what to say or think, but he had seen Gabe do some pretty strange things over the years, and on more than one occasion Gabe had prevented all out warfare in Hell’s Kitchen. So Brian put his hands around Lou’s ankles, and Josh began to pray:

Holy presence of the Eternal Energy, repair this manifestation of love! We are all wounded, Holy One, yet we also know that your presence heals all wounds. Restore us all, for through you all things are possible. Move us where you would have us serve best, for we are here only to serve love. So be it.

Then there was nothing. No sound, no blinding light, no laser effect binding Lou’s wound together. Sara started to weep, her conflicting love for this being who could be both angel and demon burning her heart to ash.

Lou groaned and sat up, the gash in his chest mending itself. “What took you so long?” He asked. Sara pounced on him and put her arms around him, squeezing him as tightly as possible. “I thought you were lost,” she whispered into his ear. Lou hugged her and kissed her cheek, then pulled Gabe and Josh into his embrace. “I guess we let that get out of hand,” he said. Lou noticed Brian sitting nearby, astonished and confused. “I suppose you have questions, human,” Lou said. Then he asked Josh, “What are you going to do with him now?”

Josh said, “We’re going to show him everything, Lou. Everything. Then we’re going to teach him how to teach, and send him back to show the others. One timeline at a time, we’ll expand everyone’s idea of what it means to exist—in and beyond the flesh.”

“But, but…” Brian sputtered, “you were dead! How..?”

“Life and death are perceptions, Brian,” Gabe said. “When someone seems to die, it is simply a transition from one state of being to the next. Matter doesn’t have a lifespan. Your human life may last 50 or 100 years, but the truth is there are no years, only different aspects of now.”

They all helped Lou stand up and the five of them began walking to his office, eager to start Brian’s lessons.

Postscript

From her high sanctum in the needle, Hannah watched everything that transpired and let out a long, heavy sigh. She walked over to a clear, egg-shaped booth that floated in the air and sat down inside. “Can you hear me?” She asked. “It’s begun.” From all around her, she heard a gentle voice reply “Yes, Hannah. And it is finished.”

END of PART 1