Apathetic God

by Ian Withrow

  “You still haven’t given me any clothes. Is this part of your plan?”

  “Sorry! I had a rather distracting evening… anything in the dressers is fair game.”

  “Thanks”

  “Not a problem, I’m heading into a staff meeting, I’ll write when I get out, k?”

  Lauren pouted a moment before moving to pick through the clothes available. She settled on a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a tank top and headed downstairs to address her next concern, breakfast.

  The creaking of the wooden stairs covered the quiet sounds of cooking, so by the time Lauren saw the man in the kitchen it was already too late.

  “Good morning ma’am! I am Edward Warvington, at your service.”

  Lauren jumped. An elderly man in a dress shirt and slacks was addressing her from behind a pair of thick spectacles.

  “I took the liberty of preparing eggs florentine for you this morning. How do you take your tea?”

  He seemed harmless enough, particularly considering he wore the same floral apron that Valerie had used the night before.

  “Um, hello. Lauren Corvidae, nice to meet you, sir.”

  He beckoned her to follow him to the kitchen and she did so.

  “The pleasure is no doubt mine. Your tea, madame?”

  “Oh right. Is it like, green tea? I don’t usually put anything in it.”

  He looked askance at her.

  “N-no my dear. It’s a proper black English tea. I’ll just get you some cream shall I?”

  She shrugged.

  The man puttered around the kitchen and produced a cup of tea as promised, complete with a saucer and a tiny spoon. He brought over a tiny pitcher of cream and poured a dab into the cup. The end result looked like a cup of coffee to Lauren, who nonetheless thanked him.

  She took a sip under his watchful gaze, and was pleasantly surprised at the taste.

  He nodded with satisfaction and continued cooking.

  “So you’re Edward. Valerie told me you’ve helped her family out for a long time.”

  “Ah well, it’s something of a family tradition. I recall when Mr. Chatwick was just a baby, and so naturally I’ve continued to look after our mutual friend, Valerie.”

  “Mr. Chatwick? You knew her father as a baby? That’s incredible.”

  “Well, I hesitate to describe my age as incredible, but I do appreciate that my dear.”

  Edward set down a plate in front of her with a neatly folded omelette filled with spinach and fresh tomatoes. It was picture perfect, and Lauren devoured it while he spoke.

  “Yes, well, caring for Valerie hasn’t been easy. She had some rough times, and she’s responsible for a great many gray hairs on my head. But she’s the granddaughter I never had, and I love her very dearly.”

  Lauren nodded.

  “Which brings me to my next question, and I do apologize if this seems indelicate. I… have never questioned Valerie’s lifestyle, nor her choices. I knew she was different ever since she was a baby, whether her father wanted to admit it or not. Now, I say that to say this - I know you have your secrets, and what you do with them is no business of mine. But now you have one of her secrets too, and that is my business.”

  Lauren sobered as he spoke.

  “You must be very careful with her, ma’am, she cannot heal so easily as you.”

  “Sir, Mr. Warvington, I have no intention of hurting Valerie. I care very deeply for her, in a way I didn’t think I’d ever be able to.”

  He gave a relieved nod.

  “Well, good, then I wish you both all the happiness in the world. I do apologize for being dramatic, but I have seen her in pain and I do not think my old heart could take it again.”

  Lauren smiled, she felt like a prom-date getting ‘the talk’ from a nervous father.

  Ding. Ding-ding-ding-ding.

  Valerie’s phone was inundated with messages.

  “Are you at the house?”

  “Is Edward there?”

  “Nevermind, call him, tell him you need a ride right now. Tell him to take you to the Lake House.”

  “Don’t turn on the TV”

  The messages came in as fast as she could read them.

  “What’s wrong V, are you ok?”

  A loud pounding at the door startled them both and set Lauren’s heart thumping.

  “Well how rude, we have a doorbell for heaven’s sake. Please wait here ma’am, and I shall send whomever is at the door on their way.”

  Edward headed for the door and Lauren tried to shake the terrible feeling she had. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she ducked around the corner and out of sight of the front door.

  Lauren felt her chest tighten uncomfortably.

  She pulled the white lace curtains open over the sink in the kitchen, only to be confronted with the lense of a large black video camera.

  “She’s over here!”

  Lauren jumped back, her mind racing. How had they found her here? Someone must have seen them outside. She kicked herself mentally. She should have known better.

  “Ms. Corvidae, Ms. Corvidae will you make a statement?”

  Lauren heard the front door slam shut and Edward returned, a stony look on his face.

  “Ma’am, you have my deepest apologies. I want you to know you may shelter here as long as you like. I will do my best to deter our unwelcome guests.”

  “No, thank you. This is my problem.”

  Lauren slipped her phone into her pocket and gave a defeated sigh.

  “P-please tell Valerie. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  Edward nodded solemnly and stepped aside as Lauren passed him on the way to the door.

  Lauren reached for the doorknob and paused, her hand hovering a few inches away from it. She thought about bolting. Could she make it out a window upstairs and into the sky? Would she be able to evade the cameras? For how long?

  Ding.

  The phone in her pocket felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. The weight of Valerie’s safety fell heavily on Lauren’s shoulders and she steeled herself for the frenzy to come.

  Someday, she reassured herself.

  Lauren wrenched the door open and braced for impact. Sure enough dozens of reporters were crowded around the doorway, all jamming microphones at her. Their garbled shouting made it nearly impossible to distinguish a single question amidst the flood.

  “Stop, Stop!”

  Lauren held her hands up and silenced the unruly group. Recorders and microphones hovered near her, waiting for her to speak. In the distance she could see traffic pouring into the tiny town.

  “Please let’s... let’s try to keep this somewhat organized.”

  She thought back to the press conferences she used to do with her State Department escorts. Lauren cloaked herself in borrowed bravado, copied from Valerie’s casual confidence.

  “I’ll answer a few questions, but then that’s it. Got it?”

  The crowd grumbled, but seemed to assent.

  “You, um, with the glasses there.”

  “Yes ma’am, Daniel Jay, BBC Wales. What brought you to Britain?”

  Lauren was surprised at what felt like a softball question. But then she realized she didn’t have a good answer.

  “I... wanted to get away. I needed some time out of the spotlight, to sort things out for myself.”

  “So it had nothing to do with your romantic relationship with Valerie Chatwick?

  Chapter Seven

  Lauren was a fish out of water. How could he have possibly known about that? The sharks before her smelled blood in the water, and she was once again bombarded with questions.

  “How long has your relationship been going on?”

  “Is homosexuality the root of your feud with the Catholic Church?”

  “Did you know Ms. Chatwick was a reporter when you began your sexual relationship?”

  What?

  Valerie was a reporter.

  Not a photographer, a reporter.

 
; Lauren stood frozen, her mind reeling. She had never before felt so truly betrayed. Lauren clutched at her chest, physically stunned at having her heart so completely cut out.

  The voices of the reporters blended into a high-pitched whine, like steam escaping a kettle.

  Ding.

  The tiny, almost inaudible sound of the phone in her pocket broke through the cacophony and snapped every one of Lauren’s senses into a state of hyper-clarity.

  Lauren reached out and roughly grabbed the collar of the reporter who had broken the news.

  “A reporter for who.”

  Her voice trembled with rage.

  “I-I beg your pardon?”

  The man stuttered with shock at her violence.

  She shook him roughly and shouted her reply.

  “Who does she work for!”

  “Th-the BBC.”

  “Where.”

  “BT Tower, in London.”

  Lauren shoved him back into the crowd. She clenched her fists with rage and snapped her wings violently open. Her buffeting limbs knocked a few reporters over, but she paid them no mind as she leapt into the sky.

  Lauren’s eyes narrowed and a scowl fixed itself firmly on her face as she blazed towards London’s towering skyline.

  She wanted answers.

  The tower was easy enough to find. It was, after all, more than 500 feet tall and had ‘BT’ on it in large blue letters. Lauren angled herself downward, ignoring the crowds gathered below her. She pulled up at the last second, landing forcefully in front of the doors to the building.

  People began to crowd around her immediately. The look on her face must have clued them in though, because they kept more distance than usual.

  Lauren gave the ornate glass doors a violent push, shattering one and badly cracking the other as they banged off of their respective doorstops.

  Bystanders shared alarmed looks as she strode through the glass and into the lobby. A small contingent of security guards rushed towards her but seemed hesitant to actually apprehend her.

  “Valerie!”

  Deep down she knew it was ridiculous to be screaming at the top of her lungs in the lobby, as though Valerie would be there to hear her, but it was cathartic.

  “Ma’am, I need you to calm down now alright?”

  She threw the guard a poisoned look and continued calling for Valerie.

  The crowd in the lobby gathered as curiosity drew people in despite the shouting and broken glass. So far, her anger kept them at bay.

  She headed towards a desk helpfully labelled ‘information.’ Her tiny bubble of security personnel traveled with her, still unwilling to engage.

  “You. Where does Valerie Chatwick work.”

  The secretary, a blonde with wide, horn-rimmed glasses looked nervously back and forth between Lauren and the nearest guard.

  Lauren felt a strong hand on her shoulder.

  “Really Ma’am, you’re disrupting-”

  Lauren shoved the man with her wing, hard, and sent him sprawling on the tiles. She spared a glance over her shoulder to see he was a police officer, and promptly returned her attention to the woman at the desk.

  “Now.”

  Lauren growled the word and the young woman ducked her head and started typing furiously. The phone at her desk rang. She seemed unsure how to react, but when it didn’t stop she lifted the receiver.

  “BT Tower this is Joyce. Y-yes sir.”

  A series of high-pitched whistles could be heard from outside, no doubt policemen on their way to intervene. People in the crowd were murmuring and pointing upward, drawing Lauren’s eyes. A series of massive television monitors lined the walls above the plate glass windows wrapping the lobby.

  Lauren’s face was plastered all over them beside Valerie’s. The screens cut back to a panel of news anchors who were animatedly discussing the images.

  “Hey. Hey, turn that up.”

  Lauren slapped her hand up and down on the desk when Joyce didn’t move swiftly enough.

  “...Our very own Valerie Chatwick, renowned photographer and long time BBC correspondent. We received this security camera footage from the private dock of Reginald Metzger, an executive producer and family friend of Ms. Chatwick.”

  Lauren turned sheet-white, then blazing scarlet as the monitors filled with a high-definition video of her and Valerie sitting on the deck of the Liebeslied in their skimpy bikinis. Lauren watched herself straddle her companion and the kiss of passion they shared on-screen hit her like a punch in the gut.

  The video repeated several times, while the posh newscasters commented on every lurid detail.

  “We were able to sit down with Mrs. Chatwick today for a brief interview that unfortunately experienced several technical difficulties…”

  “Ma’am, I need you to calmly turn ‘round if you please!”

  A stern, authoritative voice shouted from behind her.

  She turned and saw four policemen standing fanned out before her. Behind them the crowd inside the lobby had grown considerably.

  “Thank you ma’am. Now, you need to exit the building. We’ll have to bring you ‘round the station for vandalism of private property.”

  Lauren narrowed her eyes. She saw laughter and judgement in the eyes of the crowd. She watched them look back and forth from her to the screen and whisper to each other while they pointed. She bristled with anger.

  “Now, ma’am.”

  She took a sudden step towards the officer, and smiled internally when he flinched. She drew closer, until her face was just inches from his own. She squared her shoulders and lifted her wings slightly, overshadowing the man before her.

  “Suppose I say no,” she threatened.

  He took a deep breath and put a hand on the handle of a short black baton at his waist.

  “Please ma’am, don’t.”

  Lauren turned, calling his bluff, and stepped back to the secretary.

  “I believe I asked you a question.”

  “Ma’am, I’ve been told to have you escorted from the building.”

  The girl was whispering, visibly terrified.

  Strong hands grabbed Lauren’s arms from behind. She could feel the officers try to wrench her hands together behind her back and she struggled violently against them. The crowd, excited by the sudden change in energy, pressed in against the tiny struggling group.

  Lauren’s face was pressed against the polished surface of the desk as she pushed against the men holding her down. She could see the reflection of the side of her face not crushed against the cool glass. Her ebon hair partially obscured the wild look of hate on her face, but the bottomless black depths of her eyes reflected the darkness of her anger perfectly.

  Lauren couldn’t help but think of all the times she’d exhausted herself trying to help people just like these. How many hours of sleep deprivation and hunger and exhaustion she had spent for them. The cost in blood and tears and years of her life. A debt unpaid. An equation unbalanced.

  No good deed goes unpunished.

  So be it. Lauren wished she could take it back. She wished deep in her heart that she could take back the gifts she had so freely given these ever-hungry scavengers that were clinging to her. But the people holding her were too strong, and her struggles were in vain.

  Lauren screamed at her own impotence. A feral, ear-shattering cry to the heavens that somehow, miraculously, cast the room into total silence.

  She felt the hands holding her go limp and release their hold and she returned shakily to her feet.

  Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her eyes. She felt different. Like someone had pumped her full of adrenaline and then hooked her up to a power outlet. Every muscle in her body was taut and flooded with energy.

  Lauren stared at her hands and arms, nothing had changed physically, but she felt a pump in her muscles like she’d just finished an intense workout. Her vision blurred in and out of focus with every heartbeat.

  The TV in the background seemed over
ly loud, blaring out against the silence of the room. Why was the room silent?

  She focused her attention on the secretary in front of her. She was slumped face down on her desk with the phone still hanging off the hook. She wasn’t the only one, everyone in the room was laying out on the floor in a heap. Their bodies, once pressed together in fevered excitement, were now limp ragdolls littering the floor.

  Lauren’s confusion took some of the fire from her temper. Her vision was lurching back and forth between what she would call ‘normal’ and a sort of magnified, incredibly sharp image. Like she was looking through a telescope.

  “Hey. Hello?”

  She tapped the desk, leaving a spider web of cracks in the glass unintentionally. She looked at her fingers in surprise and then back at the secretary’s head. No response.

  “Hey! Wake up!”

  Fed up, she lifted the woman’s head by her ponytail. She was surprisingly light, almost weightless, causing Lauren to lift her much more forcefully than she intended.

  The woman offered no resistance, and when Lauren finally got a look at her face she let go immediately. The secretary’s face showed the same fear and confusion as a moment ago, but her unfocused, lifeless eyes took Lauren by surprise. As if to confirm her condition, the girl’s face bounced off the desk and she slid out of her chair and onto the floor.

  “Oh my god.”

  Lauren’s heart was still thumping, pounding like a jackhammer as she tried to sort out what exactly had happened. She pushed back from the desk, inadvertently sending it squealing several inches across the polished floor.

  People who had been standing outside and trying to get in were starting to react to the sudden turn of events. Sirens were going off in the distance and dozens of cellphone cameras were snapping away furiously. In contrast to the roar of a few moments ago, everyone’s voice seemed reduced to a frightened whisper.

  “…Getting word of some sort of event now. They are encouraging the staff here to shelter in place. We will stay on the air until required to halt our broadcast. We have Erika Severns reporting live from the base of BT Tower here in London. Erika?”

  Lauren looked up to the screens and saw herself from a third person perspective. She cast around for a moment until she identified the two-person news team standing outside with a camera trained on her.