by Shawn Inmon
“How is it possible that a single action by someone as insignificant as me could cause an entire new dimension? I can’t believe that.”
“That’s the thing about reality. Whether we believe it, accept it, or deny it, it is. You may choose not to believe in gravity while on Earth, but the apple still falls. If it helps, think of a spider spinning its web. Now, think of yourself as that spider, and each new life, each dimension that was created to accommodate it, is a new strand.”
Carrie blinked. Again, she touched her forehead in confusion.
Bertellia gestured toward a bench facing the lake. “On Earth, the many belief systems contain both truths and falsehoods. It is the way of things.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.”
Bertellia continued on. “There is no heaven, as you were taught about it. No hell. There is life, ongoing life. The indestructible force in the universe is the spark you carry within you. The essence of who you are. It’s in all of us, and it is eternal. Congratulations. You have eternal life.” Bertellia pulled her lips back from her teeth in what might have been a smile, but the effect was unsettling.
“But there is a God, right?” Carrie bit her lip, regretting the question as soon as the words escaped her lips.
“How do you mean? An Old Man with a beard, sitting on a throne, passing judgement? Or just an amorphous, omniscient, omnipotent being?”
Carrie looked away, into a horizon that never seemed to end. She had never liked being talked down to, and it felt as though that was all that had happened since she opened her eyes in this new place, wherever she was.
“There may very well be some being like that. I don’t know. I suppose that what we call the Machine is the God you think of. It is the Creator. If there is another, I have not been privy to that presence. There have been rumors of the Being of Light, perfect light, for as long as we have been capable of thought.” She shrugged, eloquently.
“You know I’m completely lost, right? If there’s a test coming up, I’m going to flunk.”
Chapter Nine
The next day was Saturday, so Michael knew Tess wouldn’t be in. When he woke up, the house was still quiet. Michael hid both the book and the knife back at the bottom of the toy chest and went down the hall to the bathroom. The clock in the hall bathroom said it was 8:15.
Don’t know what time they got in, but it must have been late. Michael had read until after midnight, but hadn’t heard his parents’ arrival. He had become absorbed in the story of the three women and their trials and tribulations, and had a difficult time putting it down.
Back in his bedroom, Michael hunted through his drawers for something that didn’t look like school clothes. Five minutes later, he was dressed and downstairs, where the only sound was the ticking of the kitchen clock.
I think I might die of boredom if I don’t figure out something to keep me occupied.
He found a pair of Keds by the back door and laced them up.
The clouds had parted and sunshine poured through the window.
The Hollister home sat on a lot just shy of an acre, which meant the backyard was enormous. It was surrounded by a low cedar fence painted the same sparkling white as the house. A greenhouse sat in one corner, the interior lined with potting shelves. There was a garden shed with large sliding doors, where the gardener kept the lawn mower and edged. At the rear of the yard was a sprawling oak tree with ladder steps built into its trunk, which led to a small tree house, also painted white.
I’ll be damned. I’d forgotten about that. Something killed the tree and Father had it taken down, when? I think I was in fifth or sixth grade.
Michael walked under the tree and looked up at the underside of the structure. Neat rows of two-by-fours acted as a foundation, with plywood on top of that.
Professional job. Not something he did. He’s never driven a nail in his life.
Michael tested the first step. It was rock steady. A moment later, he stood on the small deck that circled the tree house. He pushed open the door, which creaked loudly as if it hadn’t been opened in some time. The interior was empty, aside from a throw rug Mrs. Hollister had insisted be put in. She couldn’t bear the idea of Michael sitting on dirty wood.
Michael nodded. I can use this. A place to get away. I can’t see either of them bothering to climb up here. Perfect.
By the time his parents woke up, Michael had moved some pillows and blankets from the linen closet, several flashlights and lanterns from the garage, his copy of Valley of the Dolls, and a few of the other trashy novels his mother had hidden away.
This will do for now. Got to figure out a way to get a library card, though, so I can get something good to read. Well, and I’ve got to figure out a way to get to the library. It sucks being a kid. I’m at the mercy of everyone around me.
The tree house had a small window on the wall opposite the door, which allowed him to look down into the neighbors’ yard on the south side. He remembered the Parkers lived there—an old couple who rarely left their house. He searched his memory, trying to remember who was on the north side, but came up empty.
I remember there were a few different people in and out of that house, but I can’t remember who lived there when I was little.
Michael went back out and stood on the small circle of decking. The property to the north was overgrown, with a weeping willow tree acting as the centerpiece of the yard. Rhododendron bushes had grown into rhododendron trees and were taking over much of the yard.
There was a large wooden deck attached to the back of the house. With a start, Michael realized there was a man standing on it, in a pool of sunshine, wearing what looked like pajamas. He was moving in an odd, coordinated way, as though dancing with himself. At one point, the man struck a pose with one arm extended toward Michael, the other hand tucked against his chest.
Michael made eye contact with the man, who didn’t appear to be embarrassed in the slightest to be seen dancing with himself in his pajamas. He gave an almost imperceptible nod to Michael, then continued on with his movements.
Hmmm. A weirdo in the neighborhood. Along with Father, that makes at least two.
Michael spent most of the rest of the weekend in his little tree house, only coming in to the house to eat or sleep.
Mr. and Mrs. Hollister didn’t miss him.
Chapter Ten
“There are no tests here. Or, our entire existence is a test, depending on how you look at it,” Bertellia said.
“Have I mentioned that listening to you feels like opening a series of fortune cookies?”
Bertellia ignored this. “Think of the universe as a series of layers,” she said. “You were on one layer on Earth. Now you are on another. Simple.”
“Nothing is simple. I lived my life, at least part of it, over and over. I became acclimated to the idea that I would start over each time I died, but this is going to take some getting used to. I thought I knew what was coming, if I ever got out of that infernal loop I was in. It sure wasn’t this.”
“You were a believer. The more strongly you believed, the longer it will take you to adjust. But as I mentioned, it doesn’t matter if you believe in it or not—reality is. When you were a baby, your crib was your entire world, but as you grew older you realized there was more. In the same way, when you were on Earth, you looked at the universe through the tiniest pinhole. Now you have grown again, and you look at the universe through a keyhole, instead of that pinhole. ”
“But you see it all?”
Bertellia shook her head. “Oh, no. The first step to real growth is accepting what you do not know. I might see the universe through a small window instead of your keyhole, but I am aware of how limited my vision is.”
“Okay. For the moment, I’m going to forget about everything you’re saying that I don’t understand, which is pretty much everything. Now that I’m here, what do I do?”
“You have enough Life Accumulation to move on. In fact, you had enough several lifetimes ago, but you were
stuck in the loop.”
“I’ve noticed that you have a knack for answering questions in a way that tells me nothing.”
“I could always go away and come back in a few millennia and see if you understand better then ...” Bertellia trailed off, her voice remote.
I suppose once you know you are truly eternal, there’s not much more to threaten you with, is there? Behave, or we’ll make you really bored for a really long time.
“What I mean is, what do I actually do here? Mow the lawn? Feed the swans? Sit around on a bench and contemplate my navel and all the inscrutable answers you give me?”
“If you’d like. Is that something that would appeal to you?”
“No.”
“We all have work to do here to pull our own weight. I can train you for the Temporal Relocation Assignment Department, if you’d like. If not, I can pass you on to Rampartine. She can train you for the Cosmic Organization Group. It’s the filing room for the known universe. Honorable work. Of course, everyone would like to be on the Karma Delivery Service, but there are rarely openings there. You’d be waiting half of eternity just to get an interview. You can also choose to be reborn on Earth, if you’d like.”
Carrie considered. Another life. New possibilities, but new ways to mess up. I am tired of the terrible things that happen on Earth. There is beauty, but so much ugliness. I don’t want to spend another lifetime with self-induced amnesia, wondering what the answers are to the Big Questions. I don’t want to take another ride on that merry-go-round.
“Let’s just continue on with the idea that I don’t understand anything you are saying, but I hope I’ll catch up later. If you want to train me for the Temporal ...” she trailed off uncertainly.
“Temporal Relocation Assignment Department. Earth Division, to be specific.”
“Yes. That. If you want to train me for that, I’m willing. When do we start?”
“We already did, of course.”
Chapter Eleven
Michael stayed up late into the night, either reading or staring at the light under the crack of his bedroom door. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to let him catch me sleeping when he comes. After midnight on Sunday night, his vigilance was rewarded. He heard quiet, slippered steps approaching, then pause outside his door. Michael pulled the knife out from under his pillow and slid it under his blanket. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pajamas, then gripped the handle again. He lay down and half-closed his eyes.
The door slid open. His father was silhouetted by the light down the hall. A thin man, he cast a long shadow into the room. He was in the same blue and gray striped pajamas he had been wearing when Michael had killed him so many times. That memory gave Michael strength.
Clayton Hollister stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He took half a dozen steps and stood beside Michael’s bed.
I should just jam this knife right into his crotch right now. It would be delightful to see him fall to the floor, wondering what the hell just happened. But then, I’d have to start over again. I need to make it through this.
Clayton reached his hand out for Michael.
Michael sat straight up, surprising Clayton.
“Hello, Father. We need to have a talk. For once, I’m glad you’ve come creeping into my room like the pathetic pervert you are.”
Clayton stepped back as if he had been slapped. “Michael!” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “Stop it!”
“No, you’re going to stop it, Father. Here’s the way it’s going to be from now on.”
Goddamn it, I hate the way I sound. My missing teeth make me lisp, and it’s hard to sound tough when you’re a lisping eight-year-old.
Michael cleared his throat and tried to pitch his voice in a lower register to keep the tremble out of it. “Here’s the way it’s going to be. You are never going to come back into my room again. If you need something, send Mother or Tess. Neither of them will try to fuck me. I can’t say the same for you.”
Clayton stepped forward, hissing, “Now just a goddamned minute, Michael. I’m your father. You will not speak to me like that.” He reached toward Michael.
“Really?” Michael pulled the knife from under the covers. The blade reflected his night-light. “This says I can talk to you however I damn well want. We both know what you want to do to me. You’ve done it before, but you will never do it again. I’m small right now, but I won’t always be. If you ever come back into my room for any reason, I will kill you while you sleep.”
Like I’ve done before.
“So, if you ever want to have a good night’s sleep again, if you don’t want to have to sleep every night for the rest of your life with one eye open, don’t ever come in here again. Go find some other little boy to diddle. I don’t care. Just don’t come back here.”
Clayton opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He closed it with a wet slap. He made a sudden lunge for the knife.
Michael was expecting it. He recoiled a few inches and slashed the knife forward. The razor-sharp blade sliced across the tips of two of Clayton’s fingers. Blood spattered onto the carpet.
“Goddamn it!” Clayton jumped back, jammed his injured fingers under his armpit to stop the bleeding, then glanced over his shoulder to see if all was still quiet in the house. He lowered his voice. “Michael, you little shit. You don’t have any idea what you’re doing. You don’t get to fuck with me.”
“And you don’t get to fuck me anymore, period. If you try, you’ll end up with much worse than a little cut on your hand.”
Clayton took a step toward him, but Michael flashed the blade again. Clayton stopped on a dime, his jaw muscles twitching violently. “You little shit. I will make you regret this.” He turned and silently slipped out of the room.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Michael could no longer keep the tremor out of his hand. He dropped the knife onto the bed. Tears came, and he sobbed convulsively into his pillow, smothering the sound.
Chapter Twelve
One moment Bertellia and Carrie were beside a tranquil lake. The next, they were in an impossibly huge room, surrounded by other people.
Carrie was seated on a comfortable chair, the small desk in front of her empty except for a milky white cylinder.
Bertellia stood beside her. “This will be your work area.”
“Wonderful. And what, exactly, is my work?”
“You will be assigned lives to watch over. They will all be from Earth, and you may be familiar with some of them from your own last life cycle. That often happens. However, they may all initially be strangers to you. I am not privy to how the assignment algorithms work.”
“That seems pretty simple. Is this”—Carrie pointed to the cylinder in front of her—“like a television, then? I’m just supposed to watch what people are doing, like some kind of guardian angel?”
“No, and no. This is your pyxis. Yes, it allows you to see what is happening to those you watch over, but it does much more. Here.” Bertellia touched the cylinder, and the milky white became translucent. She deftly moved her hand in an intricate movement, and a picture with depth and breadth appeared. A young woman, bent slightly, walked a dusty trail, carrying a stick across her shoulders with a water jug hanging from each end. She met another woman heading the other way, nodded and spoke. The words appeared in Carrie’s head.
“She’s speaking English?”
“No, and neither am I. It doesn’t matter. You will always hear what people say in a language you understand. If you thought in Farsi, or Portuguese, you would be hearing that language. Now, watch.”
Bertellia spun the cylinder counterclockwise at a slight angle. The woman stumbled, as though she had tripped over a rock that was not there. The left-side jug of water slipped off her stick and fell to the ground. It did not break, but most of the water spilled. The woman dropped her head. She looked back at the way she had come, calculating. She drew a deep breath, reattached the jug to the stick, and continued on the way she had been going.
>
“Did you do that?”
“I did.”
“That’s horrible! Why would you do that to her? Has she done something to you?”
“Me?” The tinkling, wind-chime laugh. “No, of course not. What could she possibly do to me? I just used her as an example.”
“Then, why?”
“Our job is to feed the Machine. Emotion is the energy we watch and collect, using the pyxis. Did you see her? Anger, despair, resignation, all over something so small.”
Carrie tore her eyes away from the picture of the woman walking and fixed Bertellia with a glare. “Emotion? So, it can be any emotion? Happiness, grieving, fear, anger?”
“Yes. It doesn’t matter. They all move the needle of the Machine equally.”
“And my job is to make bad things happen to them, so they will feel more emotion?”
“No, not at all. Keep this in mind: you will do much better if you do not attach yourself to outcomes. Remember. Everyone you watch over has eternal life, just as you do. They cannot be truly harmed. Think of it this way. If you were on Earth, watching your own children play in your backyard, and you knew with complete confidence that absolutely nothing could harm them, would you worry about whether they were playing tag, instead of hide-and-seek? Of course not. Anything that happens to them on Earth is temporary. In almost all cases, it is better to simply let your people live out their lives. Human beings manufacture enough pain, joy, and contentment on their own, every day. You rarely need to interfere. I simply wanted to show you what is possible. Initially, you will just watch and collect their emotions.”
“Just watch,” Carrie said, dully.
“And detach yourself from the outcome. Your job is to feed the Machine, not babysit. If you cannot learn that, you will not survive here. You will be recycled. Here,” Bertellia said, lifting the pyxis and holding it out to Carrie. “You will need this.”
