In the end, nobody went to jail. They found that Mr. Brittlesworth's testimony was 'inconclusive', so nobody was charged with anything. When the interrogation finished, the police were finally paid and could afford gas for their vehicles. Maybe the only good thing out of this whole mess was that Andrew, Anne, and Mr. Brittlesworth were escorted home on different cars, which meant Andrew wouldn't be harassed by Anne for at least a few hours.

Joddy was the one driving Andrew home. Andrew had questioned him about the absurdity of the whole interrogation process and about if the police were just going to send him home to live next to a corpse, but Joddy had stayed silent. Midway through the trip, Joddy made a sharp turn to the Metropolis, pulled out a pack of cigarette and offered them to Andrew. When the college graduate refused, he brought the cigarette pack close to his mouth, shook it until one popped to his lips. The cigarette lit itself up because logic.

After they drove for another ten minutes, Andrew looked out the window and realized he wasn't going home. He was looking at the scummiest, most terrible places in town on the side of the road: an abandoned warehouse where the drug addicts hung out and smoked trees, an underground tunnel full of seasoned mafia, and a Taco Bella restaurant.

"Why are we going this way?" Andrew asked.

Joddy took a puff of his tobacco. "I'll drive you to the Ministry of Immigration and you'll need to apply for emergency departure right away."

"What?"

"If you want to stay alive, you do what I say."

Joddy went on to explain how Anne had raised a billiion dollars and bought out the whole police force, and how they would not help Andrew on anything. He told Andrew that framing him for slander was the best outcome he could've managed, because it got him jail time, and jail time meant he was safe from Anne until his release.

"Then why are you helping me? If the police force is in Anne's hands now, doesn't it mean you're betraying her? Don't you fear the consequences?"

Joddy let out a pompous laugh. "I'm not just any cop, you idiot." He stopped his car in front of the Ministry then searched the backseat for a piece of paper with scribbles on it. "Get in and apply for emergency exit. This is the written approval from the Police Department, confirming you'll be escorted like a political head."

Andrew entered the Ministry building and finished his administrative procedures in an hour. Joddy's car was still parked in front when he walked out. The policeman rolled down his window and said, "Good. Just enough time to go to Iwanma's funeral. He was my favorite brainless jock. What a shame he died."

"He has a funeral already? And how do you know him?"

"Don't you get it? I'm the physical manifestation of Jod in this dimension."

Joddy Ferdinand was Jod all along? Andrew's mouth hung opened in shock. How did he not figure it out? Andrew nodded to himself, amazed by the Joddy's ability to hide his real identity as Jod.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Wait. What do you look like? The other characters got massive walls of descriptions, but I only know you have a bushy mustache."

"You don't need to know how I look like. I'm a male character. Nobody's gonna care."

"I bet the readers do. Please leave your comments below if you want me to tell you how sexy Jod's abs are."

Iwanma's funeral was plain anđ simple. There were a couple dozens of people standing with their heads down near the entrance to a church. Maybe it was them showing respect, or maybe they were terrified of what was coming. A coffin was pulled from the hearse by six strong men in suits. The silence dwelled as they entered the church. It wobbled as they carried it to the front and placed it down.

The priest asked everybody to go up and give a short speech. His friends and family walked to the chancel, each of whom gave an inspiring speech of how not bad a man Iwanma was. Joddy was asked to give his sermon. He walked to the stage, hands dramatically clutching the microphone.

"Iwanma was. . ." He said in his deep voice. ". . . pretty cool, I guess. Sucks that he died. Better luck next time."

Everybody cried.

"Together, we've shared many fond mutual avenues, like that one time in high school when I walked down the hallway and saw that he was walking on the hallway too. That one time I found out that despite all our differences, we all share the same thing. The oxygen we breathe."

Everybody cried louder.

Andrew returned to his seat next to Joddy and listened to other people's speech with intent. But he'd made a crucial mistake: he didn't cry.

People in the church started turned to him and shook their head disapprovingly. "Monster," one of them mouthed. The priest closed his eyes, made a praying handsign, and recited. "May God have mercy on this lost soul. May he find peace and extirpate the devils within him."

"Why is everybody looking at me like that?" Andrew frowned in confusion.

Joddy pushed his head to the ground. "Face down and mourn. Start sobbing."

"Why? I can mourn without sobbing."

"Don't be heartless. A man is dead. You have to pretend you cared about him."

Andrew tried his best to cry, and eventually a single tear rolled from his eye to his cheek. But then as the speech went on, he sobbed uncontrollably as if his eyes were a broken dam.

At long last, Andrew understood the power of tears. They were such a binding force that pulled humanity together. Everytime he shed a tear, he felt like he knew the other person's suffering better. Through crying, he understood what Iwanma had been through and how his life had been tragically cut short. Andrew told himself that next time something dreadful happened like children starving in Africa or tsunami hitting Indonesia, he'd show his support by crying more.

When Andrew finally calmed down, he turned to Joddy and was shocked to see the stoic expression on the man's face. "Why are you not crying?" Andrew asked.

"Men can't be depressed," said Joddy. "They don't cry."

"You just told me to cry earlier!"

"You're Hispanic, not a man," Joddy scoffed.

Joddy Ferdinand being a prejudiced asshole wasn't an act; it was just who he was. Andrew swore to himself that he would never become as prejudiced as Joddy. Only cops like him can be that discriminatory, he thought.

It was finally time for farewells. Everybody lined up along the nave, waiting for their turn to look at Iwanma one last time. There was a slide cover on the coffin on top so people could slide it out of the way and look at the dead man's face. Andrew was the first in line.

His footsteps grew lumbering, as if the weight of the world was cast on them. The sadness engulfed his soul, seizing him inside an ocean of despair. He was glad he could feel these emotions. It made him realize he was just as human as anyone else, and not a monster.

But when Andrew slid the cover, he was shocked.

The corpse wasn't inside the coffin.

"So. . . Iwanma didn't die?" Andrew's lips quivered as he muttered. He had spent so much time crying and spiritually connecting the Iwanma's lost soul. All that grieving was for nothing?

Is the universe playing some kind of prank on him? Why didn't Iwanma die? Was Andrew's sadness a lie this entire time? Was sadness a real thing at all? What if sadness was just a social construct, and Andrew didn't have an emotion on his own? What if he couldn't actually feel anguish, and was a monster all along?

The more he thought, the more depressed he became.

"Oops, sorry." One of the muscular men who carried the coffin earlier spoke up. "We got the wrong coffin. Lemme go fetch the real one for you."

They replaced the empty coffin with the real one, and Andrew dashed to the steps to open the cover. This time, Iwanma was really inside it, dying peacefully inside the casket with his eyes and mouth gaped open.

Andrew's face lit up. His emotions were real all along! He was capable of grief, and he wasn't a heartless demon!

He blared as he ran out of the church, "Iwanma is dead! He's dead! Hooray!"

People stared at Andrew as he skipped through the streets in joy, chanting 'Iwanma is dead'. However, his happiness didn't last long. He spotted a glimpse of some pink curls and a rocket launcher along with them. He froze from the spot. Pink Anne is here.

Joddy ran outside of the church and grabbed on Andrew's arm. "Don't you fear death or are you just that idiotic? Time to run, NOW!"