Chapter 77 - O glaube, mein Herz, o glaube

The Plotskies’ night of quiet desperation dissolved brick by brick, until we were left floating in the void. Andalon had dissolved, as had I. I was the void, and the void was me. The Plotskies, too, had changed. Transfigured. The scales fell from their souls. They did not shed their bodies, so much as they absorbed them, shrinking into a triune stillicide of light and love. Their life-pain was still there, and it always would be—but, like their souls, it had been transfigured. Now, it was but one voice in a greater harmony, and it ruled them no longer. The souls’ refulgence shone upon the darkness, slowly rising higher. But this was not midnight’s darkness. It was the last breath before the smile of a new dawn.

Andalon’s words reverberated through me.

You build worlds for them in your head, and that’s where they’ll be, forever, safe and sound, instead of in Hell with the darkness.

I wanted that for them. The Plotskies had suffered enough—but I’d be lying if I said I knew how.

“You just do it, Mr. Genneth,” Andalon said, “I know you can!”

“But how?”

“You go!” she answered, gleeful and encouraging. Andalon didn’t need a body to shine.

I spent a moment in thought, pondering the vistas of this family’s life, but only a moment. I chose one almost instantly. It was a no-brainer. Call me presumptuous, but I was pretty sure I knew what would comfort them most, and that was because it was the same thing that I wanted.

To go home.

I’d seen the Plotskies’ home in a memory, but I didn’t dare send them to that painful recollection. Instead, I took the memory and fashioned from it something that was old and yet new. The scene reified one layer at a time. The void brightened as it turned the blue—a windswept sky. The brightness unified and ignited, shining tender, mid-morning sunlight through the drifting clouds and over the grassy hills and the glittering seaside as the land unfurled from the line at the horizon

A home coalesced in front of the Plotskies. Its architecture was just at the edge of the old new, and had been built with love.You could see it in the roof’s bold, blue, barreled tiles, and in the lathe-and-plaster walls that held them up, the color of honeyed cream. You could see it in the ornaments dibbled along the walls: a grid of tiny niches; here, a round window—a porthole for the sky—there, a diamond window, in the middle of the veranda. Floral patterned tiles framed the garage’s rickety old door. Grand windows on the main wall let the sun peer in and greet the family as it faced a new day.

The rest of the neighborhood quickly filled in. It started with the adjacent properties and then spread in an outbound wave. The details became fuzzier with the distance, just like in the memories from which I’d pulled them.

In a moment, I stood before the Plostkies once more. Within this mental realm, their forms were now fully physical, though they differed from the ones I’d known. They all looked a little younger, Babs and Jed most of all; they must have shed a decade, each. Standing there left me feeling a bit lightheaded. I wasn’t just seeing with my mental body’s eyes, I saw the mind-world as if through the Angel’s eyes. Every nook and cranny of their home was clear to me, inside and out, and all at the same time.

The neighborhood was rife with tall trees. It was a potpourri of species and scents: cypress and cedars, dogwoods and elms. Birds chirped peacefully on the branches. The sunny breeze soughed the through the leaves and needles—a soft serenade.

The Plotskies looked at themselves, and then at one another, and then at their surroundings, and then—at last—at me.

“Did you do this?” Ileene asked. She couldn’t quite believe it.

I nodded, chuckling nervously, running my fingers through the hair at the back of my head. “I guess I did.” I fidgeted my lucky bowtie.

Andalon watched the proceedings attentively, though not without shyness. She’d set up a highly defensible position—standing right behind me—and she was constantly peeking out and around from my legs.

I met Ileene in the eyes, stammering. “I… uh… I made this for you,” I said. “You can live your lives here. You can be happy.” I nodded. I spread my arms, showing off my construction. “Welcome to, um… the afterlife.”

It was a beautiful day. But, as beautiful as it was, save for us, it was empty.

That won’t do.

It’s kind of empty, isn’t it? It was Mr. Plotsky’s voice, but it took me a second before I realized he hadn’t said anything at all. Those had been his thoughts.

I’m hearing his thoughts?

I’d need to figure out how to change the settings responsible for that.

But, first things first.

As long as I was going to be playing god, I might as well give the Plotskies some company. The results left much to be desired. Babs’ soft yelp of alarm made that painfully obvious, as did Ileene’s poorly concealed snickering.

Beings had popped into place all across the land. The best looked like statues pulled out from a river after a thousand years’ erosion by the current. Others were beveled, faceted like gems. The shoddiest of my creations looked like stick figures in dire need of a diet. These pseudo-people went about their day, speaking to one another in hackneyed niceties, walking pets that didn’t always look like dogs. I was pretty sure I saw a giant green polygonal chicken walking down one of the more distant streets, and I had no intention of exploring whatever part of my psyche was responsible for it. That could wait for another day.

“There,” I said, trying to sound resolute, “now you’ve got some company, in case you want it.” Briefly, I averted my eyes.

I felt inadequate.

Andalon poked out from behind me. “You did good, Mr. Genneth. Focus on the poslitives.”

The positives, eh?

“You can watch any of your favorite movies or shows, and any ones that I’ve seen,” I said. I scratched the back of my head again, and then bowed. “I apologize in advance if things look off, or if surfaces have the wrong texture, or if the NPCs feel stale. I’m still new at this. If you need anything, just ask.”

Wait, do they even have a way to ask? I guess it would be another item I could add to my to-do list.

Then Babra Plotsky stepped forward and pecked a kiss on my cheek, and all my bad feelings went out the window. I also blushed beet red.

“You sweet, sweet man…” There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you.” She whispered. “Thank you for giving me back my daughter.” Babs turned to look at her husband and daughter. “And thank you for giving my daughter back.”

The other two Plotskies nodded in agreement.

“I’m sorry for calling you a demon, Dr. Howle,” Ileene said. Then, stepping forward, the young woman bent down, slightly—resting her hands on the knees of her tomboyish jeans—she turned to Andalon.

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

The little hands brushed up against the back of my coat suddenly clenched tight.

“I’m sorry for attacking you. I was hurting.” Ileene closed her eyes. “I was afraid. I know it’s no excuse.” She bowed her head. “Thank you for helping us. I… I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Looking down, I watched Andalon lean out from behind me, her lips pursed in concentration. Then her eyes widened.

“If Miss Leen takes Andalon to the Kware-ee-umm and tells Andalon about the spiky urch and all the swimmy stuffs, then…” she flashed a devious smile, “maybe.”

Ileene gave the blue-haired girl a wry smile. “Maybe?”

Andalon blinked and then looked up at me. “Oh, and Mr. Genneth has to come. That’s important. Really, super ‘porptant.”

Ileene nodded. “It’s a deal!”

Andalon got very, very excited after that.

— — —

There was something poetic in our trip to the aquarium. The trip ended up being one of those perfect days, the kind you write home about. After all the drama, nothing less would have sufficed.

Seeing Ileene in her element was a revelation, and not just for me. For the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Plotsky truly saw their daughter at her best, striving to become the person she yearned to be.

The hundreds—if not thousands!—of hours Ileene had spent at the aquarium made my work a cinch. I didn’t need to ‘build’ anything; I just plucked it all straight from Ileene’s noggin. By the time we were finished, I’d won Andalon a giant hummingbird plushie, which I had to hold for the rest of the day once Andalon got her hands on a plastic mug from one of the aquarium’s kiosks. The fruity slushie that filled it—one of Ileene’s favorite treats—got rave reviews from Andalon, to the point that I was forced to make the mug eternally refilling. One very big mess later, I wised up and added the stipulation that the mug was incapable of spilling or overflowing. The end result was that Andalon was convinced that fruit slushies were superior to water in every way, and Ileene had a hell of a time trying to explain to the little spirit girl why sea creatures preferred to live in water, rather than in fruit slushies. Our day ended with the Plotskies disappearing with the aquarium right as they walked out through the entrance and away into the sunset.

I hadn’t anticipated how much the experience would affect me. I saw Rale in Andalon. I saw Rayph and Jules in her, too. Our aquarium trip reminded me of what it had been like, back when I had only just begun my journey down the road of fatherhood. Compared to adults’ worries, a child’s troubles seemed almost beautiful in their simplicity. Children didn’t see the web of interdependencies that made everything complicated and horrible. I think that was why a child’s pain was so potent. They had yet to be hardened; to them, every pain seemed like the end of the world. Being with Andalon at the aquarium reminded me of what it was like to live with that, and enjoy it vicariously. And, I longed for it. I missed the simplicity. I missed my family. I missed what it felt like to be with them. Maybe it was because I’d been simpler back then, too.

Passing out of the darkness, I returned to the light and my changing body, which, through my doppelgenneth, I’d guided back to Staff Lounge 3. I sat on the floor, on the rug, with my legs splayed out in front of me. The compartment of my hazmat suit which held my tail fit onto the sofa like a puzzle piece snapping in place

I felt like electric fire, or maybe burning electricity. It was pure exhilaration; the shimmering peak of an addict’s high.

Andalon sat on the table, with her knees folded beneath her. She watched me with curiosity.

“That… was… amazing…” I said, panting, even though I didn’t need to.

It just felt right.

Andalon pleated the skirt of her perpetual nightgown with her dainty hands, smoothing it against her thighs.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Psychiatry… being a mind doctor, I mean…” I shook my head, “It’s a tricky business. If someone’s leg gets broken, you put them in a cast—maybe screw some nails into their leg to hold the pieces of bone in place. If someone has tuberculosis—that’s a really nasty coughing disease—you inject some antibiotics into their heinie. But…” I chuckled, and then sighed, “diseases of the mind are nowhere near as simple. Some conditions can be treated using pills, but that only helps up to a point, and, more often than you would like, it can cause weird new problems of its own.” I shook my head. “Even so, for every mental condition you can treat with a pill, there are two others that pills would barely faze. There’s no drug that can take away the pain of losing a loved one, though that certainly hasn’t stopped people from trying. I could get a guru and use ayahuasca with a patient and take them on a journey through the Godhead’s eyes and hear all the colors of the rainbow, but that won’t make the slightest difference in rehabilitating a sociopath who enjoys making others miserable. Then, there are people like Mrs. Elbock, for whom their troubles are written into their physiology; they’re treatable, but only in science-fiction. And, ugh,” I sighed, letting my shoulders go slack, “Holy Angel, I wish there was something you could do to help someone overcome a rotten upbringing.”

“It sounds like being a mind doctor is pretty hard,” Andalon said.

I tilted my head. “It’s not brain surgery—well, sometimes it is, but I’m not trained to be a brain surgeon—but…” I nodded, “yeah, it is challenging. That’s part of why I like it. Easy progress isn’t really worth mentioning. It’s when you face something difficult that you get a chance to see something truly beautiful. And in the face of an impossible problem, even an atom of progress becomes precious beyond measure.”

Andalon smiled. The expression was far more precious than I’d thought it would be.

“You’re happy right now, Mr. Genneth. I can tell.” She nodded. “I like it when you’re like this.”

“As do I.”

I looked up at the ceiling, through the visor of my torrid, air-baking hazmat suit.

“What just happened, with Ileene and her parents. That really was amazing,” I said. “It makes every session of therapy I’ve ever had look like a joke in comparison.” I looked Andalon in the eyes. “And I say that as someone who’s been on both sides of the therapy chair. With something like this,” I nodded, “I think I really could make a difference. I could help people in ways I could never have dreamed.”

I reached up with my arms. “It feels good to help other people. I needed that, I really did.”

None of the Plotskies deserved what had happened to them in their lives. They were good people. To say that good people suffered because of an absence of God was, I think, as much of an insult to God as it was to those who suffered. That was a pivotal reason why I’d lost most of my faith after Dana died… and then, all over again, after Rale. A loving God wouldn’t turn its shoulder and look away at our heartache, and a powerful God could have made a world that had no need for such horrors.

My agnosticism wasn’t born so much out of a disbelief in the divine as it was out of a failure to see why any God or Gods were worth believing in the first place. If people ended up having to do all the hard work ourselves, what was the point of having faith, other than to fill us up with fake hopes?

And yet…

Old habits die hard.

I looked at Andalon. “I know I’ve asked this question of you before,” I said, “but I want to ask it again. Was what I did for the Plotskies… was that what you meant by saving people?”

Andalon’s expression turned pensive. Clearly, the issue of ‘saving’ people—and or my feelings about it—still troubled her greatly.

“The darkness takes people away, forever,” she said. “I don’t want that.”

“You really can’t stop them from dying, can you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “All I can do is keep them from getting lost forever and ever.”

“But…” she added, after lowering her head to think of the right word, “you can heal them.”

A tear trickled down my cheek.

“If the rest of this wyrm business is anything like this… I…” I dared to smile, “I think I might be able to get used to that.”

She beamed at me. “Really?” opening her mouth in delight.

And I nodded.

I couldn’t quite believe it, either, but… what can you do?

Andalon leapt on me and hugged me tight, brushing her cheek against the chest of my green hazmat suit. And she didn’t phase through.

I could heal them. I could heal the damaged souls. It was a win for me. It wasn’t the one I was looking for, but it was one I’d eagerly take. I could help them. I could give them the kindness, wisdom, and understanding that life denied them. That the Godhead denied them.

I wept. Tears trickled down my clammy cheeks.

I wished I could have stopped death, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop the Green Death from killing. But… I could give its victims peace. I could help them understand that they had not lived for nothing. And that was better than nothing.

I glanced down at Andalon, and she looked up at me.

“I’m still angry with you for turning me into a wyrm, you know?”

She pouted.

“But… if I can use these powers to help people…” my voice broke, “Even if it’s only after their deaths…” I sighed, “that’s better than nothing.”

Andalon batted at my arm ineffectually. I ran my gloved fingers through her sky-blue hair, and she giggled.

There were still so many questions I wanted answered.

What was Andalon? Was the Godhead real, or was Andalon the best humanity was going to get? And if my religion didn’t have it right, who did? Or were we all just clueless wanderers, fumbling through the dark?

I didn’t know, though I wanted to.

All I knew, for certain, was the reality of my own experience: what I felt; what I lived through. And, really, in the end, wasn’t that what faith is all about? Believing, despite the questions?

No matter what, I wanted to be on the side that helped people. As the world shifted around me and within me, knowing that I was making a difference for the better was really the only assurance I had left. And, when the world was ending, assurance was precious beyond measure.

“Andalon…?” I said, softly.

She looked up at me. “Yes, Mr. Genneth?”

“It’s been a while since I had faith in, well… anything… but… I think…” I bit my lip, “I think I might be willing to make an exception. I’ll help you. I want to help you save people from the Darkness.”

There was a pause.

“What is faith?” she asked.

That… was a very good question. I pondered it for a moment before giving my answer: “It means I think your hopes are ones worth believing in,” I said.

Then she hugged me all over again, smiling wide.