“Wha?” Andalon asked. “Why would you say that?” She was rife with concern.

I looked over to her, and then averted my gaze downward, briefly fidgeting with my red-polka dotted, lucky yellow bow-tie.

“I don’t…” a deep breath quivered in my chest, “I really don’t think I’m cut out for this.” I shook my head. “It’s not like I have a degree in being a vessel for the afterlife.”

Andalon tilted her head at me, quizzically furrowing her brow.

“It’s not like I don’t have problems of my own I need to deal with,” I said. I gestured at the surrounding chaos.

My chaos.

“I mean, just look at all this!” Relaxing my arm, I sighed. “I don’t think I’m going to make for a very good afterlife. And, after what happened with the Plotskies…” I groaned, “I feel like I can’t do anything right.” I looked Andalon in the eyes. “What’s the point of continuing to hide my condition if I can’t do the very thing that made me do it in the first place?” I shook my head. “I’m not helping anyone. You could argue I’ve only been making things worse.”

To be fair, as usual, I’d been unwittingly working to make myself even more miserable than I already was. In pulling stuff out of my memories, I’d gotten a fresh taste of what it had been like to live through what I’d experienced: all the joy, bemusement, boredom, sorrow… pain. As the saying goes, it was like my life was flashing before my eyes. It reminded me of all that I’d lost. Every smiling patient I sent back out into the world stood as a count against my futile, feckless efforts in the present. I wasn’t even living up to the person I used to be, let alone the person I wanted to be.

“Why not?” Andalon asked, having heard my innermost thoughts.

My posture slumped. “What’s the point of trying if there’s no hope of success? What’s the point of fighting a battle that can’t be won? I don’t think I’ll be able to keep going,” I shook my head, “not like this. I’m already losing my humanity… I’ve lost my father, not to mention the rest of my family, too, and now, I think I’m even losing my convictions. At this rate, what’ll I have left? Nothing, I’ll have nothing. I’ll be a ghost in my own body.”

I cried.

“I can’t help the living; I can’t help the dead, either. I can’t help myself.” I reached out to Andalon. “I can’t even help you.”

“Mr. Genneth…” Andalon’s eyes watered and trembled.

“Maybe Pel was right… all the psychological conferences and neuroscience seminars were a waste of time. Instead of traveling for work’s sake, I could have spent that time at home with her and the kids. I could have helped Rayph with his homework. I could have been there when Jules needed a shoulder to lean on because she’d been getting bullied by the Tronskin sisters, or Jessica Eigenhat. ” I gulped. “I could have taken the time to remember our wedding anniversary. All of those things… all of them would have been victories. Real, concrete, victories.” I shook my head. “But now, I have nothing—not even a chance to make things right!”

I flailed my arm in disgust.

Ileene was like Pel in more ways than one. Both women were grounded in their Lassedile faith. Pel just had the wisdom to keep from getting drawn into the dark depths of fundamentalism. At least, I hoped she did. Ever since Rale died, Pel had been leaning more and more into her faith, and all the attendant accessories: augury, palmistry—even psychics. She’d reached her nadir near the end of her pregnancy with Rayph, where she’d lock herself in the master bathroom in the middle of the night up and have videophone calls with psychics she’d met on the internet, hoping for some kind of miracle—a guarantee of our child’s safety and well-being, whether it was for the one she was about to bring into the world, or for the one who now dwelled in what we both prayed was Paradise.

Ironically enough, Pel’s consultation of psychics did lead to a genuine miracle: it led Margaret and I to discover we actually agreed on something. (Margaret was just as shocked at this turn of events as I was.) To her credit, for all her faults—and, let’s be honest, Margaret Revenel was almost entirely ‘fault’—at least my mother-in-law was able to recognize that psychics were, as my 12th grade literature teacher would have put it: bunk.

So, the woman wasn’t entirely irredeemable.

But Ileene didn’t even have that. The young woman had no support to lean on. She’d spent her life searching for one, only to get swindled in the process. The only remedy for bad family was time spent with good family, but Ileene didn’t have any of that. A person was the reflection of all the people that helped them along the way. Had I not met Pel, or if I hadn’t had Dana to guide me through my tender years, I might not have made it as far as I did. And that’s what made my powerlessness and mediocrity so devastating. I was a parasite, taking aid and consolation from the people around me, but without creating any in return for the people who needed it.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

People like Ileene and her family. People like my father. People like Merritt and Cassius and Bethany and Kurt and, God—

—I sniffled and wept.

I rubbed my hands on my eyes.

Andalon curled her legs underneath the branch upon which she sat. “But that’s not true, Mr. Genneth! You help lotsa people, ‘specially Andalon!”

I shook my head. “This feels different to me, Andalon. You said I’m going to house the afterlife within me. I don’t want to become someone else’s Hell.” I ran my fingers through my hair and groaned. “I feel like I’m being asked to play God, and… I don’t know how to do that. I don’t think I’m going to be good at it.”

“Maybe Andalon would be good at bein’ God,” she said.

“Let me guess,” I grumbled, “you’d want to turn everyone into wyrms?”

Andalon clapped her hands, giggling in delight. “Yep yep yep!”

My eyelids popped open. “Wait, really?!”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Andalon help! Andalon make wyrmeh, then everythin’ is better! Andalon like wyrmeh, and wyrmeh like Andalon. And there’d be no Darkness, so everyone can be happy for ever and ever!”

“If there was no fungus to fight against,” I asked, “how would you turn things into wyrms?”

She lowered her head for a moment. “I dunno.” Then she looked upward and pointed. “But, out there, maybe Big Andalon knows.”

I nearly agreed with her on that. If anyone knew anything about God and godhood, it would probably be “Big Andalon”—the totality of Andalon’s consciousness, out there in the ether. After all, I still wasn’t certain whether or not the Godhead truly existed, but I knew for a fact that Andalon and her greater self existed. So, at the very least, she was someone I could ask.

Andalon crossed her arms. “Well, Mr. Genneth… who do you think would be good at it—at bein’ God?”

I never would have guessed my life’s most interesting encounters with theology would have happened as an adult. I felt bad for my kid self; younger me would have had a blast with brazen speculation of this sort, though I highly doubted my teachers would have agreed. I mulled over Andalon’s question while I stared into the great, gray horizon beyond the clockwood.

I propped my fist beneath my chin,

“Honestly… I don’t know. I don’t even know if God is good at being god.” I smirked. “That’s why I found myself two new gods to worship: Jordan Gallstrom and Kosuke Himichi.”

Kid me would have gotten in trouble at Sessions School if he’d dared to say something like that. Though, at the time, he’d yet to discover either of them.

“Who are they?” Andalon asked, meekly curious.

“Artists,” I answered. “Gallstrom has been dead for over a quarter of a millennium; he was a composer of music.”

Gallstrom really was like a god to me. I’ll never forget the moment I first heard the slow movement from his Clarinet Sonata—the first one, in G minor. I was ten years old at the time, and had just discovered Mr. Himichi’s manga. My dad had been listening to it on the radio, and I had to stop reading from Sina and the Wind as the music filled the living room. I didn’t move a muscle until the music was over, by which time I was crying a little. I’d asked Dad what that was, and he told me, and he went and got me a rental clarinet the very next day.

More than any other composer—and I knew boatloads of them—Gallstrom’s music was kind. It was like a visit to grandma’s house, or sunlight filtered through the trees. There could be shade or severity, but then a soft wind would blow and caress the leaves and pull them away, and then the light would shine through the gaps as the music smiled at you, a humble, hopeful smile. His music was a comfort to me, and for that, I would be eternally grateful. And the fact he had the same name as my father—Jordan—did not escape my young self’s notice. I’d listen to Gallstrom’s music when my father was away, and, suddenly, he wouldn’t feel so distant to me.

One of the highlights of my youth was getting to hear Filmore Ultava play Gallstrom’s Intermezzos (Op. 103) on the grand organ at the Melted Palace during a Sessions School field trip. That one concert almost made Sessions School worth all the trouble it caused me.

Almost.

“Mr. Himichi, on the other hand,” I said, continuing my elaboration, “he’s still very much alive, though he’s definitely getting up there. He’s the guy who created Catamander Brave.”

Andalon gasped, awed by this revelation. “He made Cat?” she said, covering her mouth. “He must be like… really really super wow smart-smart.”

“He’s… very artsy, yeah,” I said, nodding as I chuckled.

Himichi’s godhood was in a category all its own. He was to Dana and Mom what Gallstrom was to Dad. My sister had been the one to introduce his work to me. She’d done it with her typical flair, walking up to me one evening and, without any warning or fanfare, handing me a copy of Himichi’s Rain-Lee and the Canyon of Sighs with little more than a “Here you go” to let me know that’s she’d just given me something wonderful. My relationship with Kosuke Himichi was different from my relationship with Jordan Gallstrom. With Mr. Himichi, I didn’t just worship the work; I worshiped the man who’d made them. He was my god; he was one I followed. I hinged on his every word. Even now, just thinking of his works and what they meant to me had a palpable effect on my inner state.

For once, I used my newfound powers to intentionally delve into my own memories. As I slipped back into my past, things “clicked” for me in a way few experiences had ever “clicked” before. It was like I was there all over again, in the flesh, except, this time, as a mere observer, though it didn’t make the slightest difference. The impact was the same, just as fresh as when I’d originally lived it.