by Davi Cao
“Glory to heavens, we’re here to make Paradise come,” another one said.
Angeline and her cornucopia waited at the fringes of the two-thousand-strong caravan. Watching as they closed their eyes in preparation for prayer, reciting words of their own then the speech they heard from Laura, she respected their moment.
“Work is heaven, it turns bitter into sweet, it gives us honey to drink, I thank you, my God, for the chance to exist, to use my hands in your favor...”
Ten minutes of collective meditation and Laura herself got a pack of food and shared it with those around her. People at the outskirts grabbed their meals and sat on the floor under the unrelenting sun piercing the universe’s walls from one extreme to another.
“Here, my sister, grab some.” Angeline offered a woman a piece of cake just taken from her box.
“Thank you, my dear one,” the woman said, accepting it. Her first bite made her body shiver with pleasure. She swallowed the rest with maximum priority, licking her fingers and nodding at Angeline, who watched her, with a shy smile.
“Wow, what did you do?” a man on her side yelled. “She’s the witch! You took food from the witch! The Devil has tempted you, why did you do that?”
“I... I didn’t... She’s just a woman, she shared food with me... It was so good, you have to try it too...”
“Shut up! You don’t speak anymore until we talk to the prophet. You’re dirty and weak, we should clean you up. Didn’t you see she has these things circling her?”
“No, no... I’m not dirty, we were praying, and everybody was sharing, and she was sharing too. My lady, do you have more? Please share it with them too, show them how good it is, I beg you.”
“Of course, sister.” Angeline closed her box and opened it again. She got a substantial chunk of filet mignon, a strong smell capable of weakening the defenses of all those around. “Here, it’s yours, all of it, I’m sharing with you. This is what we can have on Earth if we get back now.”
“Oh... She’s dangerous, she is...” The man fought his nose’s will, inebriated by the perfect scent. “I won’t take it, no, I won’t. I fell for the Devil once, and once is enough. I’m smart now. I want salvation, I want to work. This food here, this simple meal in my hands, it is bland, it doesn’t smell so well, but I bought it with my own money! I made it happen with my work, not with... Not with magic! Get out of here, you evil one! Get out, now!”
“Out, out!” others said by his side.
“We don’t want you here, we don’t want your magic! We want honesty!”
“But this food is real, she tasted it, she’s fine! I eat it all the time, it’s the most wonderful feeling, you have to—” Angeline tried to say, standing before the sitting group.
“Get away!” The man got up to push her, clenching his fists.
Angeline backed away, received in the arms of her few remaining followers. They left toward their truck, separated from the crowd who ate together and waited for sleeping time. Gathered around her followers, Angeline addressed their loyalty.
“You must find a way to return to the rest of the people. They won’t get back to Earth, so we must part our ways. Stay here, they’ll greet you warmly. I give up,” she said, staring fixedly at their eyes.
“Angie... We don’t want to—”
“Do as you wish. But I’m going alone.”
She grabbed two cotton sheets and walked away from her followers.
The col.locs served the purpose of human walking platforms. It birthed people and felt their steps, sleeping better with the caresses of those who wandered. Angeline got away from the rest and, seeing nothing but mountains and valleys in the horizon, she walked alone.
Her ou.uo orbited her waist in the full bliss of existence, glad to have one who energized their cores. The whole caravan back at the trucks prepared to get up to their oasis and sleep under the trees, as the sun would take a couple of weeks to set down and they needed shadows to ease their tiredness. But Angeline walked with an energized body, not one bit tired. If she kept her feet on the floor, she didn’t even have to drink or eat.
“Whatever you did to her, you managed to transform her into a native one,” Colin said, walking by her side with crossed arms.
“I think I got near that, yeah.” Dalana laughed next to him. “It took me just a while to understand what Ai.iA used to base her humans. Our Angeline here is going to walk forever now.” She spun around herself while walking by Angeline’s side.
“That was wrong, you know that? You’re lucky I was too enamored of her freedom to let you act this way.”
“Otherwise what would you do? Come on, it’s easier to admit that you liked it. If you didn’t, you’d have changed her back by now. Do I have to remind you of your powers all the time?”
“I don’t want to mess with her! What I like about Angeline is exactly this... This capacity to annoy me. To do what I wouldn’t do, to become increasingly different than me, and still... And still want to be with me.”
“So, you like me too, after all? I guess I annoy you, and I still want to be with me.”
Colin closed his eyes and held his laugh. “I like you, Dalana, yes. But it’s not the same. I love this woman here, and I’m learning to accept whatever she chooses to do with her life.”
“Too late for that, huh? Look at where you brought her.”
“This was just a way of fighting the effects of your doing, not hers. You keep messing with her, and I have to try to fix it.”
“So, fix it now. Or do you want to follow her wandering in this col.loc forever and ever?”
“No... I’m curious, you know? I want to see what happens back there with Laura. What if they find something? What will they do? I wish I didn’t care about it, but I do, I think it’s a human’s burden.”
“A Creator’s burden. We all have it. I’m curious too, and I wish Angeline could get back to the caravan.” Dalana ran ahead of Angeline to cross her immaterial existence.
“How can we do that? If I speak to her the way I speak with Laura, would that work?”
“Aren’t you dead in this world? I think she’d be delighted to chat with you again, after suffering so much from your loss.”
“No, no, forget it, I’d feel awkward. Hey, why don’t you talk to her? You have a way of convincing people to do stuff.”
“In fact, I do think of a way of getting her back to the group. But it doesn’t involve speaking to her directly. Are you sure you want me to try that?”
“Hm, will it be another one of your Utopian concepts?” Colin smirked at her.
“Always, my dear.” Dalana raised her arms up to the sky.
The mist around Angeline’s ou.uo became denser. It ascended, whitened by the transfiguration of matter. High above her, the mist became a mass of clouds, darkening by the second, the more vapor it received from the ecosystem below.
It spread sideways, preparing the way for a storm whose amplitude would reach countless times more than Angeline’s own body influence. It rained upon her. Water, drops of water, clean, cold, falling from a protective layer of clouds that shielded her delicate skin against the scorching sun.
Colin took a shower, his clothes soaking with the rain that crossed dimensions, Dalana running around making waves with her spine in the way of her messy cultural habits.
“This is good... I feel... Light-hearted. It’s good to see the rain in a planet without water,” he said, blinking his lazy eyes.
“It is, isn’t it? Just rain, a simple rain, a rain of satisfaction. What a pretty concept.” Dalana smiled with lazy eyes, the happiness of an enlightened being.
Angeline turned her palms up, she offered her face to the water drops, she opened her mouth to feel the taste of its liquid wonder. She laughed alone, loud giggles that fueled a dance on her own, jumping and spinning, running away from the rain, and the clouds followed her, they took shadow, freshness, and well-being wherever she went.
The mountains behind her deflated, slowly in the
ir gigantic pace, revealing a dark spot composed of thousands of freckles. She held her cornucopia tight on her chest and marched toward the sleeping caravan.
Like a storm coming, thunders cracking and lighting bolts striking at the floor, Angeline approached the camp with a box of infinite food in her arms and the smile of a general with the bigger weapon. Tents spread on the rubbery ground had faces in it, people who opened their eyes to watch the incoming force of nature.
Pilgrims up in the oasis, high over the trucks' big wheels, rolled sideways until they got to the ledges and had enough view of the woman who walked alone, bringing clouds. Vapor rose from the spinning disk that orbited her, she, the witch who came back to poison them all.
Before they could react, water dropped on their faces, on the oasis' dirt and charmed them with the sweet smell of plenitude, of a world where rainwater and dirt combined to animate life. It brought them shadow, a dark layer of clouds filtering half the sun’s light. More than anything, the storm brought them joy, it filled their hearts with peace.
A child jumped on the first water puddle formed in the oasis and laughed at the mud splashing on her shins. Her mother clapped hands, asking for more, and as the little one repeated her action, her parents hugged each other, out of sudden love for everything, thankful for being together, released from the pressures of their needs, because the rain did that, it cleaned them of their want, it fulfilled their incompleteness.
On the rubbery ground, a small pool began to form in a crater by the tents’ side. Clean water, crystalline, rising to form a basin perfect for swimming. Clothes soaked, shoes useless against the slippery ground, people undressed to their underwear and played with the water, and dove in the swimming pool and had fun and greeted Angeline with indifference, for she brought the rain and the satisfaction, but she had a spinning ecosystem around her waist and a cornucopia held on her chest.
“This is wrong... Wrong again, don’t be fools, don’t fall for that woman again!” Laura said, getting down from her oasis to face the overjoyed crowd. “Don’t trust what you feel, it’s wrong to feel good this way.”
“It’s just water, oh, holy one. It’s natural, it’s not magic,” a follower said, rolling on the ground, splashing water.
“Wrong! She’s the storm’s bearer, and it’s not just water.” Laura held the follower’s head and hit her own forehead on his temple.
He flinched in pain, taking the hit with the docility of a worshiper. “Now you see it?” Laura said, looking straight into his eyes.
“Ouch... I do... Ok, I remember pain now...”
“You can't get away from it, not until we find our true Heaven, which is not this one. We need pain to remember that, always pain to avoid falling in temptation.”
“Thank you for saving me again, Laura.” The worshiper knelt under the rain, his long hair covering his eyes. “I don’t feel well anymore, and I see the devil’s work in her coming.”
“She’s using the rain to lure us into her trap. We should wake the others up. Help me bring them some pain.” Laura grabbed a cane from a colonist by her side and used it to strike at his arm. “The rain is temptation! Pain will waken you up! You must not feel good with it, you must restrain from celebrating what comes without effort!”
The man stared at her with the eyes of a scared puppy, nodding repeated times with a low cast look, massaging the muscles in his arm to soothe his pain. The rain became gray in his mind, water entering his eyes and soaking his best clothes, a nuisance of a world he wanted to forget.
“I should have guessed things wouldn’t turn up alright. Look at this, Laura’s banging people’s heads against each other.” Colin hit his palm on his forehead.
“But that’s the fun of it, isn’t it? Watching the unpredictable unfold in front of your eyes. That’s a Creator’s joy!” Dalana opened the gap in her front pocket to fill it with rain water.
“I’m not sure anymore. Things are escalating too fast for my tastes. It’s a simple goal, you know? To have Terra back. And here I am, in another world, watching people fight for things that won’t matter to them, only because I said so.”
“If nobody dies, I don’t see why we should stay away from it. I mean, it’s this or watching eternity unroll in front of our conscience. Or we can play games, or talk forever, your choice.”
“Never mind, I’m curious, I admit that. I’m just fearful for Angeline, that’s all.”
Knocking people back to their senses, Laura gave a predator’s stare when Angeline became visible among the cheering crowd. She offered her infinite food and people denied her, keeping a distance from the witch, although bathing in the waters brought by her presence. The more rain that fell, the more vapor climbed up from the woman’s ou.uo, dust turned into hot water droplets, falling again and vaporizing later instead of evaporating.
“You, you need pain, you need to wake up more than any of us, to remember what life was about before you were taken by the Devil!” Laura screamed, stomping toward Angeline, her heavy steps gushing water with every hit.
“It’s you who must forget about pain and remember how good life can be.” Angeline held her cornucopia tight on her chest, raising her head. “I bring you the rain we can only find in our Earth. If we get back, we can have it for free, and it will be great. Rain doesn’t need hard work.”
“She’s tempting us, see how bold she’s become now that her mask has fallen.” Laura turned back to face the crowd gathering around them. “I say we banish her. We were kind enough to allow you to sow the seed of your evils among us, certain that it would only serve to strengthen our will, but I say no more of it. Leave us alone, I command you!”
“No!” Angeline said. “If God is on your side, he’s on my side too, for I bring the rain. I’ll stay and offer your people a chance to get back home and make a better world where it matters. All of you, listen to me! If you go with Laura, you’ll find others like us who don’t think like us and you’re going to slave them. You’ll work, you will, but it will be at the expenses of others. You don’t need it, you can—”
“No More! Shut her up, someone take her out of here!” Laura yelled, pointing at her, narrowing her gaze.
Two followers held Angeline by the arms and struggled with her. She didn’t cede to their advances and fought back with squirming arms, pushing them back when freed from their grip. Others joined the attack, managing to take hold of her cornucopia.
“Don’t drop it, no! Open it, keep it for yourself, don’t—” she said, both her arms held back.
They crashed the honeycomb box on the rubbery floor to no avail, the box still intact and glowing. Laura hit it with her cane, failing to hurt it. She gave it to a stronger person and watched in bliss as the man tore the first pieces of the box with powerful strikes of his stick.
Angeline, despaired by her loss, contorted her limbs in captivity and a lightning strike fell from the clouds above her, hitting a tree on a monster truck’s oasis. The sparks and the loud noise of electric discharge scared the thousands circling the prophets.
“Witch! Kill the witch before she kills us!”
“I say banish... I say banish her, no, don’t—” Laura said, overtaken by the advancing crowd who hushed for Angeline before anyone could think of a counter plan.
They kicked Angeline in the legs, they punched her face, her stomach, they slapped her arms and crushed her fingers. On the ground, a kick behind her neck made her unconscious. Her hair waved from side to side as they unloaded their rage on the bearer of temptation, having the one chance in a lifetime to fight the Devil in flesh and bone. Lines of hundreds fought for a chance at the front, where they could give their one kick, the best punch they could ever give in their lives.
They killed Angeline.
Laura pushed people back.
“Stop, stop! We’re not like this, we don’t kill! Repent, all of you, repent!” she said, her mouth gaping, gasping for air, fingers spread wide on her cheeks.
“But she was the Devil!”
“She was a person like you and me, only she was confused and lost. Nobody deserves death.” Laura froze them with divine pity.
Angeline’s body lay covered in blood. Her teeth dripped from her broken jaw, her eyes were hidden under swollen lids, her hands had fingers bending sideways and lacking pieces.
Colin screamed when he had the first glimpse of her remains, and before he could wish for the world’s destruction, Dalana held him tight and turned him around.
“Don’t do that, please, don’t...” she whispered, feeling moist take over her lids.
He took a deep breath.
Dalana touched her cheek on his neck. She waited for the rain to stop so that a tear could roll from her eye, so that he knew of her sadness. “She will live again in your world... She'll have a perfect life,” she said.
Colin tried to turn his head back to Angeline’s dead body, stopped by Dalana’s hand on his temple. People behind him took Angeline from the ground and started moving with her to one of the monster trucks. An unending stream of people passed by the Creators’ side, while Dalana held Colin with care and Colin stared at all the faces of his own creation crossing his way.
“I’m going to destroy it,” he said, his cold voice making Dalana flinch.
“You’re not, please. You created it. Leave it be.” Dalana shook her head, framed by his neck and collar bone.
“Not my world, not New Terra. I’m going to destroy Ai.iA’s world. I’m going to become the dominant one. Enough of fooling around.”
∙ 19 ∙ First colony
The trucks' speed grew faster than intended. Something pushed them forward, not just the accelerator. Drivers braked, pushing their feet down the pedal with strength, sweating by the worrying thought of losing control of such giant machines. Someone screamed from the oasis on the top of a truck.
“Mountains are rising!”
Vehicles hushed downward, not on plains anymore, the land around the caravan swelling up to the sky, a chain of high peaks forming under their wheels.
