Omphalos

by Harper J. Cole

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor continued, the air of professional detachment she usually wore with such poise seeming to slip ever so slightly. “For one of our people, the mind loosener would only have made them speak the truth. Your body and mind are alien; the results were unexpected.”

  “That’s okay.” Even now, banal platitudes came easily to Gypsy. “Can I rest up for a bit?”

  “Yes, of course. Let me free you from the chair.”

  Soon, Gypsy was on her feet. She felt deeply sick, but lied and claimed to be fine when asked. Koli reassured her that breakfast would be brought to her room, and that she herself would check back in regularly. Then, mercifully, the Anasadans left.

  Gypsy slid straight into bed and closed her eyes, eager to get to work on her new task, yet fearful to try. She felt sure she would never again know peace unless she could come to some definitive and reassuring conclusions about the nature of the afterlife. It was a mammoth assignment.

  I think I might be in trouble here, were the words that flashed through her mind.

  She was right.

  * * *

  In the days that followed, a gnawing despair overtook Gypsy Cumberland. Her experience with the Anasadan mind loosener had broken the fragile dam holding back her OCD, and an angry current of suppressed fears had come flowing through. One by one, her attempts to reassure herself failed, often after offering a brief illusion of progress. Firstly, she told herself that any being advanced enough to have sculpted Heaven and Earth must possess a far more sophisticated comprehension of morality than any human. Such a being would know better than to inflict supernatural tortures on even the cruellest of people. This seemed reasonable to her, and she optimistically declared the problem solved.

  Unfortunately, the gnawing feeling of doubt remained, and Gypsy soon felt compelled to re-examine the matter. I’ll just go in and check that I haven’t missed anything, she told herself, then spent the bulk of the next three days sat in a corner of her cell, eyes closed and head in hands as she tried in vain to close off all negative possibilities with a 100% certainty. Inevitably, she could not, for how could anyone really hope to psychoanalyse God? Might He not be cold? (Gypsy soon moved beyond considering just the Christianity of her childhood, but still used the masculine pronoun out of habit.) Might He not be removed from human suffering, unempathetic? He’d done little enough to help her, after all.

  That led her on to consider her own morality, and whether she deserved a place in Heaven or Hell, assuming that they existed. There must be so many worse than me, she decided. Murderers, rapists, dictators. I don’t even eat meat. Again, this prompted a brief feeling of reassurance, and again it did not hold. The more Gypsy thought about her life, the worse it seemed to have been. Lots of criminals are too addled or ill-educated to know what’s right. I’ve always known what’s moral, but I often don’t do it. Maybe you need to fulfil your potential to get into Heaven. Have I done that? I let Mum ruin her life looking after me; I’d probably have let Annie do the same thing, or even Dr. Koli. I’m a parasite. And being vegetarian doesn’t save any lives, it just avoids taking them. Is that really enough for a ticket to Heaven?

  Then she spent an hour wondering whether her antibodies killing germs counted as murder, followed by three days worrying about a snail that she’d accidently trodden on back when she was nine, and whether she oughtn’t to have noticed it was underfoot.

  Gypsy’s obsessive mind gained such a laser focus on the question that the previous puzzle (of God’s morality, or lack thereof) soon faded into the background, along with everything else. The fate of her soul now seemed to rest entirely upon The Snail Incident. Had the snail passed through her field of vision? Had she consciously noticed it and failed to act accordingly? She curled in on herself physically and mentally, forcing her mind back a quarter of a century, searching, searching…

  But there was no certainty to be found, and with each failure her despair grew.

  Even the rational part of Gypsy, which could appreciate that her fears were rooted in unchecked OCD thinking, could offer no cause for optimism, because there seemed no plausible way for her mind to be set at ease. At least, not before death. This was the logical conclusion to her constant worrying, her lifetime of submitting to superstition.

  Perhaps, she told herself, I did well to make it into my thirties before it all finally collapsed. This was always going to happen sooner or later – I could only turn my mind from this destination for so long. Losing my meds started me sliding, and the Anasadans messing about with my head pushed me over the edge.

  But I was always walking on a precipice.

  As her mental state deteriorated, so too her physical. Morning after morning she woke early, sick with worry and dreading the mental chores that lay ahead. Anxiety flooded her body with adrenaline, causing nausea whenever she tried to eat anything – it often took half an hour to force down a single leaf or root. As a result, she began to lose weight, and she’d been on the thin side to start with.

  It wouldn’t take much to finish me off, she thought one day, while walking above the surface with a guard whose name she hadn’t troubled to learn. A sliver of Anasade was visible on the horizon, but she no longer yearned to be there – after all, there was no escape from the thoughts in her head wherever she might go. There’s a ledge over there; if I walked up to it casually, the guard wouldn’t suspect what I was planning before I jumped off. It looks a pretty big fall … oh, but the gravity’s lower, it might not kill me. Maybe if I took off my mask at the same time, flung it away? I’d have breathed loads of bad air before they could get me back inside.

  It’s the only way the pain will stop.

  She drifted towards the edge, uncertain what to do. Twenty feet away, ten feet away. The guard hung well back; he couldn’t interfere from there. Perhaps the Anasadans didn’t really have much suicide in their culture, and he didn’t realise the danger. Five feet now. Four, three … strange, to stand so close to the edge and feel only a faint shimmer of vertigo. It reminded her of something.

  Yes. Kerin, the rooftop. Annie. I promised her not to give up. Because of what Mum sacrificed to keep me alive.

  I never break promises.

  Moved by an impulse that seemed to come from without as much as within, Gypsy drifted away from the precipice. Just for a second, the tightness in her chest seemed to clear, the clamps about her lungs to ease. The terrible feeling of suffering in isolation was attenuated.

  It couldn’t last, but at least she had an idea of how to deal with it. With her mother gone and Annie out of reach, Gypsy would have to open herself up to her jailors, and speak aloud the second to most difficult three-word phrase she knew.

  I need help.

  * * *

  “I’ve been reading up on your condition,” said Dr. Koli a few days later, tapping her shieldsman thoughtfully.

  “Oh, thanks. I thought you said there was nothing about it in the archive we gave the Ramirans, though?”

  “Yes, all but the most basic medical data was dissolved. Our own psychiatric journals refer to a very similar condition, though. Based on what you say, it’s much less common with us, but I did find some writing on the subject.”

  Gypsy grimaced ever so slightly. “Okay. By the way, ‘dissolved’ sounds a bit unnatural the way you just used it. I think probably ‘expunged’ would be better. Or ‘redacted’, maybe.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is it your move now?”

  Even without glancing up from the board, Gypsy could feel Koli regarding her in that cool, clinical way she had. “You know it is. Are you trying to change the subject away from your condition?”

  “Ahhhh … maybe.”

  “Because it makes you uncomfortable?”

  “Maybe.” Gypsy shook her head. Make an effort, now. “I think that I’m afraid to try, too. I mean, right now I have hope – you might be able to cure me. Once our therapy sessions are over, I’ll be left with nothing. Unless they work.”

&nb
sp; “They definitely won’t work if you don’t try.”

  “Yes, sorry. You’re right. Back on Earth, my sessions went nowhere because I wanted a magic solution rather than a difficult process. Please, do tell me what you found.”

  “Very well.” Koli pushed one of her foot soldiers a single square to the left and sat back. “Our name for OCD is mowramazashilochi: that means mindtrap sickness in your language.”

  “Pretty accurate name.” Even as Gypsy nodded, her eyes were flicking over the board. The Matan game of Jigadi fascinated her. It was much like her beloved chess in many ways, with carved wooden pieces populating a board divided into small squares. There were several quirks that made it a challenge to master, though: defensive walls, indoor areas with different rules, and a piece called the archer, who could bring down any enemy she had line of sight to, unless the shieldsman was standing in a square adjacent to her target. As the archer started the game with only two arrows in her quiver, their deployment was crucial.

  Gypsy had lost her first few games against Koli, but managed a draw during their last session; this time, she believed she might be winning. The challenge so engaged her brain that her other troubles almost vanished for a moment; alas, the realisation of this fact brought them thudding back into place. I hate this thing in my head, thought Gypsy, not for the first time.

  “…does that sound familiar to you?”

  Gypsy abruptly realised that Koli had been talking to her for some time. Too embarrassed to ask the alien doctor to repeat herself, she instead nodded. “Erm … yes?” That seemed a fairly safe answer.

  Koli’s clinical gaze held Gypsy for several seconds – the mathematician had no doubt that her inattentiveness had been observed and noted, but Koli simply nodded reassuringly. “Let’s talk about your central problem – the mythological concepts of Heaven and Hell, and particularly your fear of the latter. Where were you first introduced to these ideas?”

  Gypsy squirmed uncomfortably, and thought the word Heaven seven times over in her mind to make her feel better. “I was taken to church sessions on Sunday afternoons. It was supposed to be a social activity for me.”

  “Taken by…?”

  The simple question stymied Gypsy, and she looked pleadingly at the doctor.

  “Taken by someone you’d rather not name, as you’d feel like you were blaming them for the harm that resulted.”

  A grateful nod. “It’s no-one’s fault. OCD and religion don’t mix.” Eager to move away from the troubling thought, Gypsy plucked the remaining arrow from her archer’s quiver and tapped the doctor’s berserker lightly on the head with it. Now she could go on the attack.

  “You hope to be reunited with loved ones in Heaven. What do you believe might happen in Hell? What sort of tortures might be there?”

  “I don’t know. To me, I guess … I guess it represents pain and loneliness. I don’t like being cut off.” Abruptly, a single tear formed at the corner of her right eye. She tilted her head back to prevent it from running down her face and giving her away. Fear roiled within her belly, and she tried to think of nothing but the Jigadi game. It didn’t work. A second tear joined the first, their combined weight enough to set them in motion. Gypsy wiped the evidence from her cheek and longed to be a child again – or an old woman, senile and with not enough mind left to torture herself with. How else might she find peace?

  “When my people still lived on Srisade – the world you call Mahi Mata – many of our religions held that the souls of the righteous would be drawn down into the soil upon their deaths, finding oneness with the Earth God, Vitana. But for the wicked? The reverse. Their spirits would rise … very slowly, no more than the height of this room each day. Intangible, they would have no way to anchor themselves to the earth, no choice but to watch the living shrink from view and hearing below them. The fields and cities of their ignoble lives would fade to smudges of grey and green, Srisade itself become a globe, then a circle, then a point. Perhaps they might see other unworthy spirits at first, but their trajectories would never be quite the same; it might take years, but these ghostly companions would drift from view as well. Eventually, there would be nothing but exile in the blank nothingness of space, and the knowledge that somewhere below, home was still moving farther and farther away by the second.”

  Gypsy shuddered. “Horrible.”

  “Fictional. Our spirits, if we have them, die with us. There is no other life, fair or foul, no Hell to torment the wicked. Once we understand this, we can begin to build a philosophy for this one true life.”

  “That sounds nice, but it’s not so easy. I mean, the problem is that I do want Heaven to be real. It has to be if I’m going to see my mother again.”

  “Do you think it possible that your insistence on believing in Heaven is making a disbelief in Hell harder to achieve?”

  Gypsy considered. “I suppose that does make sense.”

  “Yes. To let go of Hell you must let go of Heaven. Let go of the whole fantasy, Gypsy. I’ve seen how you tap your plate seven times before you begin to eat. I’ve seen you kneel in prayer to a deity that cannot hear you. How much of your life has been wasted on superstition? Let it go, and choose reality.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve seen religious people, and it looks like it brings them peace. Their faith, I mean. I’d like to be like that.”

  “But you’re not like that.” Koli nudged her shieldsman a square to the side – a wasted move, so far as Gypsy could see – and leant back in her chair, choosing her next words carefully. “What would satisfy you?” she asked at length.

  “Erm, satisfy? In what way?”

  “What proof of a blissful afterlife would you accept? If the stone beneath our feet was torn asunder and the image of your God emerged to tell you your place in Heaven was assured, would you live the rest of your life without fear?”

  “Well, yes, in that case…” But Gypsy’s OCD was already at work on the scenario, dissecting and inspecting. “No … it could just be a trick. Some evil being pretending to be God.”

  “And if you died and woke in a paradise identical to the one you’ve always imagined, there to be greeted by your mother and others you’ve lost?”

  “I still couldn’t be sure,” Gypsy realised. “Even if I lived there for a thousand years, I’d be terrified it might be taken away.”

  “Your head isn’t built for faith – the harder you look for it, the further you plunge into chaos. You told me yesterday you felt as though your mind was a house that had collapsed. I’m truly sorry for the role I played in bringing you to this, but it’s as much an opportunity as a tragedy. Build a new house, with stronger foundations. Set superstition aside.”

  “Oh, okay.” Gypsy had seen four different human psychologists, including Dr. Little on the Bona Dea. None of them had been anything like this forceful. She wasn’t sure whether she liked it or not.

  No, I do like it, I’m just not sure whether it’s right. I’ve always been happier with the passive role; someone else solving my problems for me is right up my street. But can something that easy really be the answer?

  “The thing about atheism is that it’s sort of depressing, maybe? Nothing will last, everything we do gets forgotten, death is inevitable.”

  “What makes you think nothing lasts? I’ve always seen space-time as a canvas – what gets put there stays there. Our lives stretch out behind us and before us; works of art, if we paint them so.”

  “Like a story written in invisible ink,” mused Gypsy, her heart lightening briefly. Then her face fell. “There’s still death, though. If there’s nothing afterwards then death kills our ability to appreciate the canvas. I mean, that’s bad, we can’t get around that.”

  Koli smiled gently. “I once thought as you do, but there are ways. And you’re in the right place! Our finest philosophers have tackled the problem since the day we were exiled to the planet below, and Anasade’s best are the best anywhere. I imagine you haven’t heard of koro philosophy? No? But perhaps yo
u remember the phrase I use whenever you wish me a good night?”

  “Ah, yes, I think so: ‘Koroko na ma krisola.’”

  “Very good; your accent is improving. And do you remember what it means?”

  “Erm … something about dying?”

  “In a manner of speaking. ‘I go to my grave’ is the translation I gave you that first time, but it’s a simplification. Ko means I, koro means day, or daily. So, koroko really means, ‘the me of today.’ You understand?”

  Gypsy didn’t particularly, but she nodded as she played another move on the Jigadi board. Yes, she was going to win, no doubt about it. The doctor didn’t have enough pieces defending her royal jewel, and capturing that would end the game.

  “This concept is at the core of our philosophy,” continued Koli, leaning forward over the board. She did not seem discouraged by Gypsy’s lapse of attention. “While we acknowledge, of course, the significance of the person who exists from conception to death, we consider the idea of a daily lifecycle to be a far stronger psychological tool. Each waking is a birth, each new sleep, a death. You see, once we abandon the superstitious dream of a soul, there is really nothing to say that we are the same people as adults that we were as children. All cells have been replaced, our personalities have evolved. Each day, we are a slightly different person.

  “That simple realisation frees us from the fear of death, Gypsy. We have already died countless times – once for each day of our lives. What’s so different about the final death?” Koli wrapped the table with her knuckles and sat back in her chair.

  Gypsy was sufficiently intrigued by Koli’s bizarre statements that she quite forgot both the game and her own, deeper fears. She looked up at the doctor, finding her eyes to be clear and steady. Rather nice, they were, the orange irises flawlessly round.

  I’m pretty sure what she said doesn’t make sense, Gypsy thought. It’s just a question of why. “I think I’m the same person,” she tried at last. “I mean, I remember yesterday happening.”