Crazy that he thinks of Jim now and how he knew so many years ago in the English Room that words were futile, that the reality of God was not something that could be argued in debate class but would come around again to gob smack his flickering faith. He can now admit the faith flickered. He thinks of how he would like to drag Jim out to this orchard for cosmic education but the vindication would be hollow for the horror of its meaning. Then he remembers how the shock of Jim’s teenaged strength had disheveled him in semantic blitzkrieg to the point of shunting off "God" and pinning his allegiance firmly on "heaven", the inner-light. He’d never even thought of God since then, what a ridiculous detour!
"Jesus I didn’t think you were real!" Tommy says. "I just thought…"
His dad’s voice echoes: Giant automated machine.
"YOU BELIEVED IN THE CATALOG GOD," God says, searing words into the surrounding darkness. "TO FILE AWAY YOUR FINGERSNAPPING WISHES – HARDLY EVEN A MOLECULE OF THE TRUE DIVINITY. OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH."
"Oh God, you are God!" Tommy wails.
The Godclown looks back with a smile that is a grimace. Tommy can see that God feels totality and is stoically smug in the emotional aggregate – thus He must grimace. Tommy feels like he’s looking at himself sick from syrup, saturated with synthetic chemicals that unravel the mind at high doses and shatter the solid psyche which reforms as the theological basis of the Holy Duality, himself and the Clown, God and the man. No, the boy. He could only be a boy, a trembling little boy before God, because the Clown confirms God’s reality by being the only image that could shake him to his soul, the ultimate power of that one specific sight, holy hell!
Holiness is Sickness beyond death, eternal illness, the unfinished organic project, a half-breath hell. And how did he escape again? Or did he? No, he knows now, his life has been bricks between the blanks, as meaningless as Tetris blocks in the game with no victory, only high scores. God’s face-paint informs him that he’s scored a pathetic 6000, below even OTASAN on level five. The blank is all that’s real, all that’s left when the game’s over.
God contains the blank. It’s sickening, but in horrible necessity for all he knows and desires, God is a guardian against it. God knows the blank intimately and is the only buffer from its chilling proximity – only He can save Tommy from it. But Tommy sees in God’s paint-rimmed eyes that the buffer is temporary. He knew this in the cough syrup coma as a provisional gnostic flailing through a million years of temporary. He forgot that time could be dilated only so far… that the price of returning to his fresh four-year-old Tommy body was to enter life’s final chapter: the prelude to finality. God’s funny face says all of this in the language of verboten medicine he’d nearly purged from his memory. Nearly’s never good enough, the boomerang returns with its razor edge. There was no Santa Clause and there seems no room for heaven in the Holy Duality but there is always God the Clown, the face on the bottle, the face of destiny.
How well fingersnapping had served him when it was sustainable – to fill the cracks.
But now there is only God’s eyes burning with the power of being the buffer to the blank, seeing and being all that could be accomplished given the full comprehension of mortality and the desperation that would age to perfection like vintage wine. God is a living martyr to life itself. Tommy hates this hideous Clowngod but loves Him more because he knows that if those eyes stopped burning he would be FACE TO FACE with the blank and that would be the end of everything. Love for the Buffer is the most painful and true love he’s ever felt, eclipsing his love for the inner-light. This is the outer light. The only light. The final light.
Wait, he thinks. There’s a more benign feeling that seems to blank out the blank: the power of Scuffy! But he’d lost that protection from the Clown-container-of-the blank for accepting sprite aid – the help that had brought him here! No, the void of Scuffy is a blank that’s been etched deep into his life and the brick above it was a violation of the rules of this Tetris level, a talismanic traitor to reality. He knows Scuffy would ward off this encounter but that could never be allowed to happen, it would be ungodly. He must deal with God.
God stares and Tommy stares and the Clown disappears in semantic dissolve, there is only God, God with makeup that is no longer makeup but His Skin, frizzy hair that is nothing but God Hair, no hair, just Godhead, the omega, the gestalt, indivisible except for the crack that is him, the disgusting split in that beautiful life-affirming Buffer, the waste-of-life, the
"ASS-CRACK," finishes God. "YOU HAIRY ASS-CRACK. THAT’S ALL YOU ARE, HIDING YOUR PIMPLY FACE IN YOUR LICEY BANGS. GET THAT HAIR OUT OF YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT ME."
Tommy brushes his hair away with a shaking hand.
"YOU SHOULD BE ON CRACK FOR ALL THE GOOD YOU’VE DONE."
"I d- I didn’t think you would ever want me to do drugs," Tommy stammers, choking on air, nearly retching, feeling as if the words are pulled out of him.
"NO, YOU HAD BETTER THINGS TO DO, BUT YOU DIDN’T DO THEM SO WHAT DOES IT MATTER?"
What a question for God to ask, Tommy thinks. Is it rhetorical? It must be, it’s fucking God!
Then God laughs madly, tittering like a metabolic function. It sounds like the dry cackle of millenarian laughter, an unstoppable nitrous high after which nothing exists but the vocal end of the belly spasm, meaning laughed out. God goes on to speak while continuing to laugh. Between the laughs are well-defined meaning, bloody points speared into Tommy’s consciousness. The Clowngod can make anything mean everything.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
"You called me down– "
"NO, IN THIS ORCHARD. SO FAR AWAY FROM HOME."
God’s tone, between the clownish punctuation, has become that of a sad and disappointed patriarch – a father who doesn’t ask questions to gain information.
"Um, well, I think maybe this is my home now," Tommy says.
The cowering boy’s meek reply stokes God’s burning eyes into a violent flare though Tommy can only see this peripherally. God has condensed into an angry light and he knows that to look directly into it will bring unimaginable pain. But how can light be angry? It’s not the sum and yet it is, the sum of an angry God. The Clown is a mask, a maddening teflon mask, impossible to peel off any place. He will have to accept the sight of the Clown, and of course it’s divinely perfect because the light of the Buffer is too blindingly beautiful to stand. The Clown diffuses the light as only that conjunction of baggy clothes and painted skin could.
"YOU SHOULD BE BACK AT YOUR REAL HOME. PRACTICING YOUR BEETHOVEN."
Tommy gasps. The most shocking thing about this statement is that he knows it’s not meant to be taken literally. It’s THE symbol, the one thing that could instantly and totally cue him in to the intended theme, the theme that’s been with him his whole life, the one he’s most successfully avoided facing: the theme of failure. God is brutally efficient in activating specific memory patterns with an economy of words. He pulls previously unknown files from Tommy’s brain with verbal triggers. It’s like God is in fact the real owner of the brain and "Tommy" is a cluster of cells in an obscure lobe somewhere. This sorcery is like Candie’s pipe times a million, with sadistic intent and no magic, just the raw power of omniscience.
Tommy’s abandonment of the Moonlight Sonata at age thirteen is now filling the space around God in hyper-reality and that wonderful day of yardwork is spoiled, fingersnapping nostalgia to become branded blasphemy. God allows him to see it extrapolated to infinity, what he should have done forever out of grasp behind the curtains of his bedroom window, lost opportunity, sod and sunlight and failure, sod and sunlight and failure, sod and sunlight and failure for centuries, millennia, just another ill-thought-out eternity, cruelly composed of fond memories.
"STOP IT! STOP IT!" Tommy says, breaking into tears. "YOU SON OF A BITCH, STOP IT!"
God snatches away this small slice of hell, returning the surroundings to merciful blackness. Tommy is appalled to discover how quickly God can make him wish for the end. But just as quickly the end expands back into its full stature, no longer a merciful interruption but a voidful demon, with God’s burning eyes being the Buffer, the source of all light and power, the hideously vital ally. No, he no longer wishes for the end.
Tommy stares back at God, the silent burning buffer, avoiding the eyes. God says nothing but Tommy feels His gaze. Prompting him, compelling him to speak. He opens his mouth and says the first thing that comes:
"Hey listen, I know I abandoned the music. I wish I hadn’t. But you know my life’s alright now. I’m happy – ever since I ran away. It’s been good. Nobody’s calling me names or disrespecting me. I have what I need and I don’t need video games or even licorice. I made a friend although she’s gone, back in the forest. But I was thinking, maybe I could get a job here at the mansion. This orchard, I’ve got a good feeling about the place. It seems to be where I belong. Like it could be a new life for me."
"A NEW LIFE." God says. Tommy feels a wave of sickness rip through him like his blood is bracing for a wallop. "A NEW LIFE. JERKING OFF TO SPRITE PORN? HOW LOW CAN YOU GO TOMMY? NOT EVEN HUMAN PORN!"
Another flash of previously unimaginable emotional pain for Tommy as God performs His monstrous trick of turning heaven into hell. Through tears, he whimpers back: "Sprites are better than humans."
"SPRITES ARE MYTHIC CREATURES. HUMANS ARE FULLY REALIZED. HUMANS ARE A CHALLENGE. THE CONQUEST OF A HUMAN IS A THRILL YOU HAVE NO CONCEPTION OF YOU LARVAL FAILURE. HUMANS ARE FOR MEN. SPRITES ARE FOR BOYS. GIRLY BOYS."
"Candy was no mythic creature," Tommy sobs. "She wasn’t out of any goddamn storybook!" God remains strategically silent, seeming confident that Tommy is choking on his own delusions. After half a minute of him ripping himself to shreds, God continues:
"YOU’RE A DISGRACE. HOW CAN YOU BE CONTENT WITH YOUR LIFE? HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN WHAT THEY DID TO YOU? HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YOUR PLACE IN THE PYRAMID? IF I HAD ALL THAT "DEVIL-WORSHIPPING" MALARKY PINNED ON ME I WOULDN’T ACCEPT IT. I’D REQUIRE SATISFACTION."
Tommy feels like he’s being gored. The life he’d managed to sever instantly after flipping out and escaping into the woods is no longer a phantom limb but bloody guts spilling out of him. How can he live when he loathes his insides? Tommy groans and turns away. The darkness is chilling but it’s the only consolation.
"PATHETIC. THEY SPREAD ALL MANNER OF NASTY RUMOURS ABOUT YOU ON A DAILY BASIS. THEY PARODIED YOU, USED YOU FOR THEIR AMUSEMENT."
Tommy is remembering, remembering the cartoons they used to draw about him, tape to the walls of the hall, each one outdoing the last, culminating in story arcs about hiring the terminator to travel into the past, whack his parents, and retroactively abort him. It was one of the few things he’d managed to block out before the woods. Why must he remember?
"GIRLYBOY, ALL THE SATANIC SLANDER. AND YOU’RE JUST GOING TO FORGET IT AND MOVE ON? WHAT ABOUT THE PACT YOU MADE IN GRADE TEN? YOU SWORE TO TAKE REVENGE ON THEM."
Ah yes, the pact with himself, a unity of being, true focused selfhood, the man against the void. For a few minutes he’d felt immense power, a new kind of power, something stronger than even the inner light: the power of total conviction and pure will, knowing he would get his revenge whatever the cost. But something had broken the spell. It was the memory of a character from a childhood cartoon – no specific character, just an amalgam of several – some facsimile of a Saturday morning baddie, gibbering mad and screaming: "I’ll get you – if it’s the last thing I ever do!" And then he’d laughed helplessly cutting the power to ribbons. He’d laughed for a solid two minutes. But when the laughter stopped there’d been nothing left.
Tommy can’t bear to look at the void anymore, he turns back to God and discovers there is anger rising in him. The fear is still there but God seems skilled at egging him on. Surely God must intend to provoke.
"What did you want me to do, shoot up the school on graduation day, then blow my head off? Is that martyrdom?"
"NO, IF I WANTED YOU TO DO THAT, I’D BE SATAN, AND I’D HAVE ANSWERED THE FAUSTIAN PLEA YOU MADE IN GRADE NINE AFTER GETTING BEAT UP BY MARK CAUTHON IN THE BATHROOM."
Tommy might as well have been pummeled again, against the void, by God’s burning recapitulating voice. It was another memory that had been entirely blocked until now. Details flood in – the tiles. His blood on the tiles. The low-pitched laugh, Mark motherfucking Cauthon laughing – worse than the cartoon memory. Now he knows why he can’t enter a public washroom without getting violently ill.
"I WANTED YOU TO GET REVENGE BY LIVING BETTER. BY BECOMING A SUCCESS, THE MAN YOU COULD BE IF YOU BOTHERED TO PUT IN THE EFFORT. I WANTED YOU TO BECOME THAT SUCCESS AND THEN SHOVE IT IN THEIR FACES. YOUR REVENGE WAS TO TORMENT THEM WITH THAT LATER IN LIFE WHEN THEY’RE PUMPING GAS AND FLIPPING BURGERS FOR A LIVING."
Oh yes. That was part of the power. God is kaleidoscopically reorganizing his neurons but his true self still stands aside from the repatterning, sick and horrified. He remembers the idea that had occurred to him during the tenth grade pact – the beautiful simple revenge of living better and making his abusers aware of this moral victory in subtle, intelligent ways. But the laughter overpowered. The laughter still overpowers and there’s no humour in it anymore. Tommy laughs humourlessly, thinking of Jim again.
"You know for a deity you’re pretty naïve. Maybe in a perfect world, a world of karmic justice, they’d be ‘pumping gas for a living’, but in reality they’re successful. If there’s one thing I learned at that fucking school it’s the assholes always win and the nice guys finish last."
"IF YOU REACHED YOUR POTENTIAL, YOUR RELATIVE SUCCESS WOULD MAKE THEM LOOK LIKE SQUEEGIE-WEILDING STREET BEGGARS EVEN IF IT WASN’T THE CASE. AND SINCE WHEN ARE YOU A ‘NICE GUY’?"
Another surge of sickness. The futility of arguing with God. God is going to body check him against the void again.
"YOU’RE JUST AS MEAN AS THEM. JUST NOT AGGRESSIVE ENOUGH TO GET WHAT YOU WANT. YOU SENSED THE POSSIBILITIES OF SUCH AGGRESSION BUT YOU COULDN’T FOCUS JUST LIKE YOU COULDN’T FOCUS ON YOUR MUSIC. YOU SAT IN YOUR ROOM AND FANTASIZED ABOUT REVENGE. YOU PLAYED MARIO KART, IMAGINING YOUR VIDEO OPPONENTS WERE YOUR REAL ENEMIES. BECAUSE YOU HAD NO WILL. YOU CHOSE TO BE POWERLESS. BUT IF YOU HAD THE POWER YOU’D HAVE USED IT. YOU STILL WOULD. I KNOW YOU."
"No!" Tommy yells but God knows him to frightful precision. But he’d navigated into the woods on his own. He’d willed himself to do that much. The woods was a place for the dissolution of vengeance. He would strangle Mark Cauthon to death with his bare hands – not before force-feeding the bastard his own pureed testicles. But that is because he’s not in the woods anymore. He’s in the hall-of-mirrors with God.
"YOU WERE A FAILURE IN THE PAST AND YOU’RE A FAILURE IN THE PRESENT. WHERE IS YOUR MUSIC? WHERE ARE YOUR IDEAS? YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW FOR YOURSELF. AND YOU CAN NO LONGER HIDE FROM YOURSELF."
Tommy’s anger flares again, rivaling the fear and pain. God spoiled the party, soiled the purity, the newly-won happiness. God yanked it away like a cheater’s ill-gotten trophy.
"I had a dream," he says, stony, defiant. "Before you fucked into my life. It kind of went nightmare but I was at peace with myself… for a while. I think I can be again. I’d much rather try here than pick up the pieces of that shitty life I left behind."
"YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT! I GIFTED YOU WITH A SHITTY LIFE SO THAT YOU COULD OVERCOME IT. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE BENEVOLENCE OF THAT ACT. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE REWARDS THAT WOULD HAVE COME FROM TRIUMPHING OVER THE ADVERSITY OF YOUR SITUATION, THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS! NO, INSTEAD YOU ADAPTED TO IT. YOU LEARNED TO LICK IT UP."
The metaphor is as apt as can be. The neuronic repatterning doesn’t seem quite like manipulation. It’s more like the natural dissolution of years of filters, cleaning the plaque out of his synapses. But the plaque, filthy as it was, was a pillow, a comfort. The bare neuronic charges in stark electrical interface are nearly unbearable.
"YOU LAPPED IT UP, YOU THRIVED AS A LARVAL LOSER. THAT DISGUSTS AND INFURIATES ME! YOU WERE MEANT FOR SO MUCH MORE! YOU WERE SPECIAL! YOU WERE DESTINED FOR GREATNESS, EVER SINCE THE COUGH SYRUP!"
The syrup. The words tumble out of God’s paint-rimmed mouth as he knew they would eventually and Tommy shudders, shrinking back into meek mode.
"My parents told me you saved my life when I overdosed," he whispers.
"WISE PARENTS YOU HAVE. BUT I’M BEGINNING TO WONDER WHAT I SAVED YOUR SORRY ASS FOR. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO DESERVE YOUR SALVATION?"
"Some benevolent, loving, father-figure deity you are," Tommy sulks.
"WHO SAID I WAS BENEVOLENT AND LOVING?"
"Well how about Jesus for starters?"
"JESUS? DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THAT FALSE PROPHET."
"If he was a false prophet why did you let him live?"
"ARE YOU KIDDING? I HAD HIM CRUCIFIED IN HIS THIRTY-THIRD YEAR! IT WAS A BRUTAL DEATH BUT NOT EVERYONE TOOK THE LESSON. IT STARTED A SILLY HUMAN TREND CALLED ‘MARTYRDOM’. ENTERTAINING FOR A WHILE BUT THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY WAYS TO TORTURE A DELUDED ZEALOT TO DEATH."
"And is that what you have in mind for me then?"
"TOMMY TOMMY TOMMY… YOU WERE A PROMISING CHILD. BUT SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY YOU MADE THE DECISION TO SQUANDER THE REST OF YOUR LIFE."
"Hold on a fucking second. That’s bullshit! I never made a decision. I didn’t wake up one day and write a formal proposal to ‘squander my life’. It just… It just kind of happened. Okay? What’s it to you anyway?"
Tommy can’t meet God’s eyes but he sees the buffer flare in peripheral, the wrath of God. He tends to gets wrathful when Tommy asks questions he knows the answer to. But Tommy wants to hear it in words and God obliges.
"YOU FOOL! YOU ARE MY CHILD. YOU ARE MORE SPECIAL THAN YOU KNOW. THAT IS WHY IT PAINS ME SO MUCH TO SEE YOU WASTE AWAY. YOU KNOW WHO I AM. YOU KNOW I FEEL EVERYTHING. YOU ARE HURTING ME BY CLINGING TO YOUR MEDIOCRITY."
Now sharp tendrils of guilt are cutting into the neuronic kaleidoscope revealed by the edge of God’s surgically probing voice. Tommy considers snarking something along the lines of: "don’t you have better things to do", or "shouldn’t you be saving some poor Malaysian villagers from a tsunami", but he knows how petty and stupid such comments would be in the face of God, and stops himself.
"So what, did you just come here to tell me how much I suck?" Tommy asks. "Is this punishment?"
"NO. THIS IS NOT PUNISHMENT." Something changes in God’s eyes but Tommy won’t dare look at them. The voice softens. "LIKE EVERY BAD TURN IN YOUR LIFE, THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY. BUT THIS IS ONE FOR WHICH I’VE TAKEN THE TROUBLE OF BEING PERSONALLY PRESENT SINCE IT APPEARS YOU NEED THE PUSH. PATHETIC, BUT I STILL DEEM YOUR LIFE SALVAGEABLE. WELL… NOT THIS LIFE. I HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU."
A chill rips through Tommy but the fire is warm. The buffer is almost bearable. Almost. But the chill comes again, along with a vague feeling of déjà vu. And another surge of sickness but there is a slight ecstatic tingle to it.
"I’M OFFERING YOU A DEAL," God says. "AND IT’S GOING TO BE A GAMBLE. YOU MUST TAKE A RISK AT LONG LAST. IT WILL BE THE FIRST STEP IN FORGING YOUR NEW PERSONALITY. I WILL CONFRONT YOU WITH THE CHOICES YOU REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE."
"My new personality?"
"LISTEN CAREFULLY TOMMY. THE DEAL IS THIS: I AM OFFERING YOU A SECOND CHANCE. A NEW LIFE. LITERALLY. I WILL REINCARNATE YOU. YOU WILL START AGAIN AS A CHILD BUT HERE’S THE HOOK: YOU WILL MAINTAIN CONSCIOUS CONTINUITY. THERE WILL BE NO BREAK IN YOUR THOUGHT PATTERN. YOU WILL BRING YOUR TRUE SELF WITH YOU – ALL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING, EMOTION, AND YES, RIGHTEOUSNESS, THE LITTLE YOU HAVE LEFT. YOUR MIND WILL NOT BE ALTERED IN ANY WAY. YOUR BRAIN WILL BE INHABITING A NEW BODY. A FRESH BODY. AND NOT ONLY WILL YOU BE GETTING A FRESH START, YOU WILL BE GETTING A HEAD START. DECADES OF EXPERIENCE AND REFINEMENT OF PERSONALITY FOR AN INFANT VESSEL. HOW DOES THAT STRIKE YOU?"
Tommy is struck dumb. Finally he manages to whisper: "You can do that?"
"OF COURSE."
"Holy shit. Holy motherfucking shit. You’d do that? For me?"
"I MOST CERTAINTY WOULD. YOU ARE MY CHILD. I WILL DO THIS FOR YOU BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE YOU FLOWER INTO THE MAN YOU CAN BE: A STRONG MAN. A WISE MAN. WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT. I AM RE-OFFERING THE GIFT YOU THREW AWAY SO LONG AGO BECAUSE I AM MERCIFUL THAT WAY. REMEMBER WHEN YOUR MOTHER TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE A PRODIGY? REMEMBER PLANNING OUT YOUR PRODIGIOUS PATH, YOUR CAREER? I AM PUTTING YOU BACK ON TRACK, THE FAST-TRACK. IT WILL BE LIKE THE LAST TWENTY YEARS NEVER HAPPENED EXCEPT THAT YOU WILL COME INTO YOUR NEW LIFE ARMED WITH ALL YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THAT MAY BE OF USE… AND ALL THAT MAY BE A HINDRANCE. THAT IS YOUR CHALLENGE. IT’S NOT A SILVER PLATTER. YOU COULD SCREW IT UP AGAIN. BUT IT WILL BE UP TO YOU."
Tommy’s head is swimming. It’s a nauseas carnival ecstasy with the added weight of the power he’d felt in that moment of sworn vengeance. The possibilities flood in, pumping excitement into every corner of his cortex. Being himself, twenty-something year old Tommy, in a child’s body – having that jump on society! It would be devilishly fun, and what a second chance! No card for that in Monopoly! The closest thing would be landing on Boardwalk with a bank full of cash. No, it would be more like taking a wad full of cash back to the early stages of the game and buying up the best property before the other players.
Then he notices that the void isn’t so black anymore. In fact it’s not a void anymore. It’s the dirt of the clearing, barely visible, barely brown, but visibly textured. God is still in front of him, internally luminescent in his frilly clown clothes, a massive distraction. But around him, Tommy finally sees a hint of purple and mountainous forms on the horizon. The sun is rising. The orchard is becoming real again. The orchard. What about the orchard? He can’t leave the mansion unexplored. He’s come so far. He must know what kind of help is wanted! The sly, fractional sunlight brings with it the billowing lure of the mystery. In his head, he hears the pipe of Candie. Tears come to his eyes. But God is still there. And the deal is still on the table.
"Aw fuck, that’s… that’s very tempting," Tommy says. Tempting? I’d be a fucking idiot not to accept! Who gets an opportunity like this?
"NOT MANY ARE CHOSEN," God answers. Damn thought-reader, Tommy thinks. It seems an uncouth thing to do. But he guesses if he were God he wouldn’t bother being polite either. "ONLY THOSE WHO ARE WORTHY. YOU REMAIN WORTHY BUT ONLY BY A HAIR – BECAUSE OF YOUR POTENTIAL, NOT BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU’VE DONE WITH YOURSELF THUS FAR. YOU WON’T GET A THIRD CHANCE, I ASSURE YOU."
Tommy is seized with violent shivers of excitement as he anticipates this new life. Mischievously, he imagines shocking his kindergarten teacher by engaging in complex philosophical discourse with her. Fast-track to the academy. Laying his hands on every piano in sight, getting back on the punishing arpeggio regime, this time with focus and prodigious talent to smooth his stardom trajectory. God’s answer echoes: Not many are chosen. Maybe some of those extraordinary historical figures, the visionaries seeing three moves ahead, the impossibly talented or wise beyond their years… maybe they’ve been "chosen" by God in such a way too. Maybe he’s about to become one of them! Mozart incarnate?!
But the sun is rising. The purple horizon is now pink and the clouds above the mountains glow red in the crack of light. The ground is solidly brown and the trees are green. The light is starting to rival God’s luminescence. The scene is gorgeous. Tommy hasn’t seen a sunrise outside the forest since the journey began so long ago. How can he leave at a time like this?
"IT’S YOUR CHOICE. YOU CAN STAY HERE IN THE ORCHARD AND EKE OUT A HUMBLE LIFE, OVER THE HILL AND PAST YOUR PRIME. ANSWER THE HELP WANTED AD, GET SOME MENIAL JOB, SUPPLICATE TO WHOEVER LIVES HERE. BE A SERF, NEVER TOUCH A PIANO AGAIN, NEVER TOUCH A WOMAN, NEVER PLAY YOUR HARDCORE REPERTOIRE. NEVER BE THE MAN YOU ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU COULD BE. SELF-MEDICATE WITH WEAK SPIRITUALITY AND SPEND YOUR NIGHTS DREAMING OF SPRITES…"
Tommy frowns. This isn’t a fair summation. Is it?
"OR YOU COULD TAKE MY OFFER AND ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE OF A NEW LIFE."
He looks past God to the radiant mountain peaks. Yes the scene is beautiful. But it’s just a sunset. Not a new life. There’ll be sunsets in his new life, presumably. He’s enjoyed the forest, communed with nature in a way that may inspire glorious symphonies one day. He’ll take that experience and use it. There will be other beauties post reincarnation. Beauties of the flesh, beauties he’d scorned. Already feeling the optimism that will fuel the triumph of the next incarnation, he’s about to take the plunge and accept the offer. He’s on the threshold of flipping the switch. But God, with perfect timing, reveals the final devilish detail of the deal:
"THERE IS ONE, WHAT YOU MIGHT CALL, CAVEAT."
"What is that?" Tommy asks, feeling like the air’s being sucked out of him.
"IF YOU ACCEPT MY OFFER AND CHOOSE YOUR NEW LIFE, IT COMES WITH A GUARANTEE."
"A guarantee?"
"THE GUARANTEE OF DEATH."
That feeling again, the medicine taste, the spacious alien geometry of the cough syrup coma. The ness of sick. "What does that mean?"
"IF YOU TAKE THE DEAL, YOU ARE ACCEPTING REALITY. AND YOU ARE ACCEPTING ALL THAT COMES WITH IT. THE MIRACULOUS OPPORTUNITY I OFFER TO THOSE FEW WHO ARE CAPABLE OF GREATNESS BUT HAVE SPOILED THEIR CORPOREAL VESSEL HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE. TOMMY, WHEN YOU’RE DEAD, YOU’RE DEAD. THE GUARANTEE IS OBLIVION. LIVE PROUD, LIVE STRONG, LIVE AS LONG AS YOU CAN. BUT WHEN YOU FALL, THAT WILL BE ALL."
It’s finally out. Tommy sensed it coming but it’s still a cruel blow, especially coming from God.
"No heaven? No afterlife? Nothing? What about the light? The shaft?"
"THE SHAFT IS IN YOUR MIND AND NOWHERE ELSE. YOU’VE SEEN WHAT I AM. YOU KNOW I AM THE BUFFER, THAT I KNOW THE VOID. I AM GIVING YOU THE GIFT OF HONESTY THAT GOES WITH THE OPPORTUNITY. NOT MANY ARE CHOSEN TO FACE THIS TRUTH. YOU SEE WHAT POWER COMES WITH THE GNOSIS OF THE BUFFER. THE POWER TO FLOWER. IT’S THE ONLY THING THERE REALLY IS IN LIFE AND IT PAINS ME WHEN IT’S NOT USED BY THE FEW ARE WORTHY. THAT IS WHY I GIVE THEM A SECOND CHANCE."
He feels like he should be flattered here but the emotion welling in him is a vast sick sadness like his negative emotions are pooling in an oceanic flood. The fingersnapping! The inner light! All his righteousness melting into a lake of tears, freezing under the vacuous chill. So cold.
"But what if I stay here? Does the guarantee still apply?"
"IF YOU STAY HERE YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. YOU ARE TAKING YOUR CHANCES IN A GODLESS WORLD. YOU WILL HAVE NO GUARANTEE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. YOU WILL HAVE TO BASE YOUR DECISIONS ON THE PATTERNING OF YOUR OWN FEEBLE BRAIN. AND HOW WELL IT’S SERVED YOU SO FAR." God chortles. "SO YOU SEE WHAT A STAGGERING WASTE OF AN OPPORTUNITY IT WOULD BE. BUT IT’S YOUR CHOICE. AND YOU KNOW…" The fire flickers into a subtle change of hue: "IT’S ALSO YOUR CHOICE WHETHER I’M RIGHT OR NOT. MAYBE I’M WRONG."
"What? How can you say that?"
"OH, I’M JUST MAKING SURE YOU’RE EQUIPPED WITH ALL COGNITIVE OPTIONS. FREE WILL IS THE GAME I’M IN. I MADE YOU A GUARANTEE AND I STAND BY IT. BUT YOU MUST DECIDE WHAT YOU BELIEVE. THIS IS A TEST OF FAITH."
"Faith in the void?" Tommy whispers. The buffer burns with approval.
"IF YOU STAY HERE YOU WILL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN. YOU WILL HAVE REJECTED MY OFFER AND MYSELF. YOU WILL DIE AS A PEASANT SERF HOPING DESPERATELY THERE IS SOMEHOW SUBSTANCE TO YOUR CHILDISH AFTERLIFE FANTASY RIFE WITH CATALOGED FINGERSNAPPING WISHES."
God repeats the phrase fingersnapping with such naked contempt, Tommy wants to cry. But his tears remain frozen – the vacuum present in God’s guarantee is chilling him to the bone.
"BUT I AM STILL ALLOWING YOU THE OPTION OF CLINGING TO YOUR DELUSIONS."
Tommy scowls. He’s not signing on to this gnosis yet. The forest was enchanted and his "delusions" brought him there. Maybe he will stay in the life God declares to be mediocre. But he didn’t like God’s use of the word "supplicate" in describing his orchard destiny. And if he only has one life to use...
"DO YOU KNOW HOW OLD YOU ARE TOMMY?"
"Twenty-one, twenty-two. It’s gotta be around there."
"YOU ARE THIRTY-SIX. LOST TRACK OF SOME TIME THERE, DIDN’T YOU?"
A sledgehammer to the gut. Vertiginous sickness.
"How can I be thirty-six? It can’t have been that long goddamnit!"
"TIME FLIES… WHEN YOU’RE FUCKING AROUND WITH SPRITES IN THE WOODS."
"Fuck… I’m thirty-six already?"
"YOU WASTED YOUR PRIME WANDERING IN THE FOREST WITH NO DESTINATION. YOUR BUDDING TALENTS HAVE ATROPHIED. NOW YOU CAN’T PLAY A C MAJOR SCALE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. YOU’LL HAVE NO PRODIGIOUS CAREER. YOU’RE PAST YOUR PEAK IN EVERY WAY, PHYSICALLY, INTELLECTUALLY, SEXUALLY. THERE’LL BE NO YOUNG GIRLS FOR YOU DIRTY OLD MAN, I KNOW HOW MUCH YOU LIKE THEM. YOU’VE GOT TO GET THEM WHILE YOU’RE FRESH. YOU’RE BECOMING DECREPIT, YOUR BODY’S FAILING. IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE MY POOR BOY. YOU’RE NOT HEALTHY. YOU THINK THOSE MUSHROOMS WERE LIFE ELIXIR?"
Each word daubs him with decrepitness like death’s paintbrush. It’s the physical version of his brain’s filter dissolution. He’s seeing his body as it really is, just as his naked brain had been revealed in God’s repatterning verbal triggers. He feels horribly unhealthy. He feels the organic entropy of reality. He sees himself, scrawny, ragged, with thinning hair – a walking corpse. Thirty-six!
"REMEMBER THE DEAL. WITH CARE FROM THE BEGINNING YOU CAN CARRY YOUR BODY THROUGH YOUR NEW LIFE FOR FIFTY, EVEN SIXTY YEARS AS A TEMPLE, A TEMPLE REFLECTING THE DIVINITY OF YOUR SOUL. AND BY THEN, IF YOU REALIZE YOUR POTENTIAL, YOU’LL HAVE SKILLS, RESPECT, AND RICHES BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION. NOT BEYOND THE PALE FACTS OF THE IMAGINATION – IT’S THE TEXTURE I WANT YOU TO EXPERIENCE, THE DETAILS, WHAT YOU’D NEVER THINK TO FANTASIZE, WHAT YOUR STUPID FINGERS WOULD NEVER MAKE REAL. YOU DON’T THINK YOU LIKE THE TASTE OF PUSSY DO YOU?"
"What?"
"YOU’VE NEVER TASTED CANDACE COLVIN’S."
Tommy is appalled at God’s coarseness but an involuntary bolt of lust strikes through him with a vertical endorphin rush. The last name. God was right on it. He’d never even imagined her pussy – her gorgeous blond hair had been the main attraction. Well that and her tits. They went well together.
"YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL BECAUSE OF YOUR DAMNFOOL IDEA OF SNAPPING YOUR FINGERS BUT BECAUSE YOUR IDEALS ARE DIVINE, MORE THAN YOU KNOW – AND THE UNIVERSE IS PLAGUED WITH SHODDY IDEALS. BUT THEY ARE NOTHING WITHOUT TEXTURE. IF YOU ACCEPT MY OFFER YOU’LL KNOW WHAT I MEAN. IF YOU DON’T, YOU NEVER WILL. WHAT A MONUMENTAL WASTE."
God falls silent for a long stretch of time. Tommy takes in several deep shuddering breaths. The mention of Candace has got him charged up. The mention of the voidal guarantee is still chilling him to the bone. This counterpoint is a grating cognitive dissonance.
"I’VE GIVEN YOU ENOUGH TIME TO PONDER. THE DEADLINE FOR DECISION IS… SIXTY SECONDS."
"What?!" Tommy wails.
God extends an arm from a frilly sleeve, wrist out. An oversized digital watch in the shape of a daisy with a green-glowing LCD counts down from 60.
"IF THIS WATCH REACHES ZERO, I’LL BE GONE AND YOUR CHANCE WILL BE OVER."
Oh the cruel bastard, Tommy moans. The buffer burns beautifully, a microcosm of God’s abysmal guarantee, the grim reality of death. His opportunity is ticking down to its end and he watches this like a deer caught in headlights. Deadlights. Deadline. But he can still accept! There’s still time! If he takes the deal he can inflate the microcosm into a macrocosm, a new life, a final lunge for greatness! With – with – oh God, oblivion, can he even comprehend that? Panic, nervous system haywire and God is fading. The clown becomes transparent in the clearing, revealing the mudspotted grass field behind. But he can still see the buffer, the final point of light, as God fades. After having seen the terrible beauty of the buffer could he live with its passing?
30 SECONDS.
A part of him dwelling in some stinky basement of the brain, a reptilian creature that is so intimately connected with his true self he can’t name or personalize it, has slithered into his foremind. It doesn’t want to believe God or the guarantee and will fight God’s gnosis with its last drop of strength. The reptile is more powerful then anything he keeps in his regular roster of selves and more base than even that which allowed him to drive a nail through Jayson’s hand. It fights its way into his consciousness, easily overcoming the God-fearing tremulents. Tommy knows that God intended this struggle all along.
15 SECONDS.
His brain explodes in confusion and chaos, fight-or-flight fugue state, contrapuntal dissonance. Gnosis erodes and it comes down to a trembling roll of the dice. God continues to fade revealing the orchard scene. But isn’t it just a little too… unreal? Too… fairy tale? The gingerbread house – too saccharine idyllic like the dream that had awakened him to God’s reality? Wouldn’t he really like to storm that high rise, conquer, bang Samantha and Candace together? Oh God, two girls, better than the void…
10 SECONDS.
God is nearly invisible. The gnosis is gone. He has his ordinary mind back and only his gut to go on. And God is making him gamble for the highest stakes imaginable. Memories are hazy in his rickety analog hard drive. Can he believe God? Can he accept the chilling reality of the void? The end? But not yet! Not yet! The buffer! He finally allows his eyes to look directly into the buffer – THE OMEGA OF BEAUTY! HE SEES! THE CLEAREST SIGHT HE’S EVER SEEN AND GOD IS FADING BACK IN ANTICIPATION –
"I accept! I accept goddamnit!" Tommy screams and God is back, grinning ear to ear, face paint cracking. Tommy collapses on the ground, wracked with violent sobs. The tears are flowing again. He feels like he must have died. His heart exploded. God is mortal. GOD IS MORTALITY. His power comes from facing death’s reality. Now Tommy will become an instrument of God.
"AND YOU WILL FORGET GOD. YOU MUST. IT IS A MERCY, I ASSURE YOU. YOUR DESTINY IS DIVINE ATHEISM."
"Oh God," Tommy groans. "What have I done?"
"YOU HAVE MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE. YOU HAVE PROVEN YOUR FAITH IN THE VOID. YOU TRULY ARE A CHILD OF GOD."
Tommy’s body shivers with inhuman oscillation. So the test is complete. Tommy believes in the blank. The blank bastard. To forsake all fingersnapping. Funny that he’d based his spirituality around the afterlife without God only to eventually accept the opposite.
"CONGRATULATIONS. SO YOU’LL PLEDGE TO DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME, I TRUST."
Tommy nods.
"I DON’T WANT YOUR PLEDGE. I JUST WANT YOU TO DO IT."
"I will," Tommy says and swallows hard. He feels some grievous psychic injury: the chill of the void splintered deep into him – but also relief at having made the decision. And a power is slowly welling in him, swelling his capillaries with potential. He can feel his brain changing – opinions are now morphing alchemically. When he closes his eyes he can see the paradigm shifting in kaleidoscopic abstraction. He is mesmerized.
"THERE IS ONE SHORT ORDER OF BUSINESS BEFORE YOU LEAVE THIS LIFE."
"What is that?" But Tommy can sense the shape of it. It’s being slowly defined by the kaleidoscope. Themes start to emerge. Sinews of a social consciousness. The visuals become the scaffolding of words. Quotations from Kapital.
"YOU HAVE SOME BAGGAGE THAT CANNOT BE BROUGHT THROUGH."
Baggage… Something from the past is coalescing in the kaleidoscope. A cartoon cover of a manifesto. His manifesto. His avatar, rendered in smudged graphite: a scarred body with a fuck-off face, a ragged gray jacket with a Soviet star on the lapel, and a veiny hand with a firm grip on the punishing stick. His other hand is snapping its fingers. His downtrodden self stands proud in poetic isolation, eternal injustice. It was his most prized drawing, the perfect self-portrait. He kept it in a special box in the closet of his bedroom. And under the cover the pages flip inside his head: the words – wonderful words of loss, of being stripped away to graphite by reality’s cruelty, right down to the avatar, the picture of the inner light. He remembers his manifesto.
And below the words in that kickass stack of text, the music! The music to counterpoint the text, a media-melding summation of indignation, perhaps eventually to be an opera. A rocking comic opera with sarcastic Shostakovich-like orchestration, absolutely righteous rage against the injustice of life. POETIC INJUSTICE! That was what it was called!
He hasn’t thought of it in ages. It was what had kept him alive in those awful days of social-scholastic torture. In the absence of effective revenge it had been something to live for. It was going to be his alternative artistic statement – deliberately going against the grain, every aesthetic principle. It was a masterpiece of grotesquerie – not classically disciplined and virtuosically perfect. No, it employed another order using every failure. It was brilliant!
Tommy imagines taking this work back with him to his new life – he could never reproduce it but he could expand on it with the technique he will hone to perfection in reincarnation. Yes! Surely God can reproduce it.
"YES I CAN REPRODUCE IT. IN FACT, I HAVE."
God is pointing straight at Tommy like he’s supposed to turn around. He does and sees his special box, ten paces in front of him. He runs toward it, pops open the handle, and finds his manifesto, exactly as he remembers it. Grinning deliriously, he flips through it. The brilliance is back! And under the manifesto is a copy of Scuffy the Tugboat.
"YOU WERE GLORIFYING YOUR MEDIOCRITY."
"What?" God has jerked him out of his nostalgia. He turns back.
"IT WAS A WRECK. A WHINE. IT DISGUSTS ME."
"Fuck you!" Tommy hollers.
"IT WAS NO GOOD TOMMY. IT WAS NOT FOR OTHERS. IT WAS INDULGENT AND PRETENTIOUS. IT WAS NOT BRILLIANT. IT WAS BABBLE."
Oh you cruel bastard, Tommy thinks again. He should know better than to cling to an old scrap of heaven while God’s hanging around. God has the tendency to subvert those.
"It wasn’t babble!" he protests. "It was my statement! I could make everyone understand what it was like for me – especially if I honed my techniques."
"IT’S CONTRADICTORY TO YOUR NEW PARADIGM. IT WOULD BE UNHOLY TO FUSE YOUR OLD FEEBLE PHILOSOPHY WITH THE STRENGTH OF YOUR SOON-TO-BE CULTIVATED SKILLS. I WANT YOU TO DESTROY IT."
"What? But I loved Poetic Injustice! I still love it! I want to bring it back with me!"
"I WON’T ALLOW THAT. IT OFFENDS ME. IT’S PHILOSOPHICALLY INCORRECT. IT’S GODLESS COMMUNISM."
"Oh, my work is communist is it?" Tommy says with a snort.
"YES. AT LEAST HAVE THE STONES TO ADMIT WHERE YOU STAND PHILOSOPHICALLY. OWN UP TO YOUR IDEOLOGY."
"Okay, maybe it is communist. What of it?"
"IT’S A SUMMATION OF YOUR FAILINGS. IT’S WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS. THIS ISN’T THE PATH I’VE SET YOU ON – TO REPEAT YOUR MISTAKES."
"Jesus fucking Christ." Tommy scowls and kicks the dirt. God says nothing. Tommy paces. Stares back at the box. Takes a good look at his graphite avatar, scrawny, Soviet. The empire that died with a whimper. The switch. He flips. The raging kaleidoscope finally gives way to transparency. No more bullshit. He turns on himself, his former self.
"Fuck the art," he says. "That’s Tommy’s art. Tommy’s dead."
God beams a clownish smile at him. "PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE IT OFFICAL. SYMBOLIC ACTS CAN BE REWARDING."
God has produced a can of gasoline and a book of matches from nowhere. They are set in front of him. Tommy picks up the can and douses the box, lid open, soaking his manifesto. Then he lights a match and throws it in. A ball of flame billows up and the paper instantly blackens. Tommy stares into the fire, feeling euphoria blossom inside him.
"Die you loser FUCK!" he screams. "I don’t need you anymore!" He starts chuckling, then laughing wildly. He likes the sound of his laugh. It sounds like a different person, a cauterized person. Sparks and glowing ashes swirl into the air. The box fades and vanishes.
***
"NOW IT’S TIME TO GO," says God.
"So soon," Tommy whispers. He looks around the orchard. A brilliant sliver of sun can be seen poking above a mountain peak. Light streams into the valley, emphasizing the fresh chlorophyll of the cherry trees’ highest leaves.
"Is there any chance I’ll encounter my younger self in the new life?"
“I WILL SEND YOU INTO ANOTHER QUANTUM FRAGMENT – A DIFFERENT BRANCH ON THE TREE OF FRACTAL POSSIBILITY. A CLOSE ONE BUT THERE WILL BE SOME DIFFERENCES. YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO PREDICT THE FUTURE AND MOST OF THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW FROM THIS LIFE WILL NOT BE PRESENT. BUT IT WILL BE A FITTING PLACE FOR YOUR TRIUMPH, I ASSURE YOU.”
"So you’re really going to reincarnate me?"
"YES. IT’S TIME."
"Will it hurt?
"THAT’S THE KIND OF QUESTION TOMMY WOULD ASK. ARE YOU STILL TOMMY?"
"Fuck no. Bring it on."
God beams his red-rimmed smile. Tommy’s heart races with terror and opportunity. God’s words bubble up in his brain. Respect. Power. Triumph.
I thought I was trapped in an Ayn Rand novel before, he thinks. Now I’m deliberately venturing into one. No, fuck that. This is a Tom Lewis novel. I’ll do it my way.
Tommy waits for God to transport him – he has no idea what to expect. But as he waits he begins to feel an imperative, an itch in a muscle he can’t locate. Something compels him to feel the blank, use the blank, explore its cracks to see where they lead. Is this the method? He is getting swept up in some kind of process as the déjà-thread unspools, settles around him like black-ops paratroopers. He can’t tell where his will ends and God’s begins.
Now a liquid sensation – he feels like he’s swimming. The world is blurring in a mindblowing way, the orchard scene bubbling and stretching and warping hyperdimensionally. He realizes that it’s not space but time that is liquefying, causing a visual cross-section of its unbounded space to twist and smear in tandem with the dance of his chronologically shearing mind. And somehow he’s experienced this before! Not in the cough syrup coma. "Before" that, but time is not linear anymore so it’s not really before.
Then the most chilling sensation he’s ever felt as the warping world twists into nothingness. All is black and he is face to face with the void. Shake off the blank, he thinks. SHAKE off the BLANK! He is flailing, not navigating, and God is nowhere to be felt. Is this death? Was God’s deal a sham?
Blind agony beyond physicality blooms in the void. Where is the inner light? If God’s deal is a sham, surely at least the light is real! This is the black field he dreamed of under the chestnut tree back when he was an apprentice visualizer, but where is the shaft of heaven? Ah heaven, how could it not be here? Forget heaven, he would settle for the orchard, he would settle for the school, he would settle for a speck of light! The desire to snap his fingers – but fingersnapping is heresy in the new paradigm of divine atheism! If he could snap his fingers he thinks maybe he could get those dreams back. Maybe all he needs is one final snap of the fingers to cement his life’s catalog – NOW – when it counts the most, if his younger self will forgive his betrayal.
A feeling of flesh, a fingertip, the tiniest accumulation of tactile data detectable – the only thing in the void. He presses down on it. A sound, A SNAP! A split. A violent tearing in two, of what he doesn’t know. A part of him is gone, snapped right off. But something else is felt. A warm spot in the ether, the spot that feels strangely feminine, a dollop of estrogen. She can reach it. Just a little further – to light and substance and –
***
CRACK!
It seems like lightning, bright beyond light, loud beyond sound, pain beyond feeling. She is on the ground. Her arms and legs are twitching violently, out of control. She’s biting into her tongue. Blood and saliva are flowing down her chin. Vision is a gray blur. Her eyes have rolled back.
When they roll forward again things come into view: a field of grass sloping downward, thick rain pounding the ground, and suburban sprawl at the foot of the hill. A flash in the sky and the burn sears into her whole body, her brain. She tastes burning, smells burning, hears burning and a scream from the houses below. There is a soccer ball tumbling down the hill.
What is this? she thinks. What is this world? How can I live here?
The burn crisps out her consciousness. She is reunited with the blank.
***
"I told her not to play outside in the storm! I TOLD HER!"
"It’s your fault we didn’t get the lightning rod!"
Shrill bickering voices, unhinged, and a bright light. The hospital again. Déjà vu. Has it really been a whole life since those eight ounces of Nyquil? Her eyes open. She is hooked up to machines. Again. Just like coming out of the cough syrup coma. The past life… It’s still there, accessible in memory! It worked! It really worked! God came through! And so did… she?
Yes, she feels like a she somehow. She doesn’t know how she knows but she does. And a two-torsoed beast is standing in front of her bed, the grim woman clutching a teary-eyed man. Who are these idiots? Not her parents damnit! But they are. External paternal maternal love radiates out of them and bounces off her burnt body.
"Tiffany!" the father wails, arms outstretched. He is restrained by a nurse.
Tiffany? Tiffany? Jesus God. It’ll have to go.
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