*
Wipe your feet before you come in here.
“Excuse me?” Hapax said, out loud. Then he realized its lips weren’t moving.
You heard me.
Obediently, Hapax wiped his feet. Some blood dripped from his mouth to the carpet. Awkwardly he tried to wipe it away with the sole of his shoe, then he gave up and stepped further in.
It was on the couch, wearing a sheer gown on its bruised body and a mad grin on its face, typing into a laptop computer. A switch clicked in Hapax’ head, but he couldn’t, for the life of him, tell whether the switch had been clicked “on” or “off”.
I’m entering a new version of our book onto the web. It will be a home for all the voices. My angels.
Who was talking? Where was it coming from? Was this the end of a long road, the final moment of a quest his entire being was designed to fulfill, or had he simply gone, as Doctor feared all along, permanently schizophrenic? There was no way to know.
It stopped typing and look at him.
Did you see how I made the moon move?
Out loud, he answered:
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t, not really, anyway. Maybe just enough to guess how it might work. The Book – it’s mine, you know.”
It raised Calico’s eyebrow and smiled slightly.
Yes, the book is yours. But you’re just a dream I’m having.
“Are you…Calico?” Hapax asked.
Sweet Calico is gone, ripped away by the beast’s magnificent tool.
“Oh, I get it,” Hapax said, trying to regain his equilibrium, “the ego that called itself Calico has been destroyed, leaving you in charge, some sort of mother goddess Aeon? Well, I did say that people couldn’t become Aeons, but I never said anything about the other way around. I guess even the eternities enjoy slumming now and then. So, who are you?”
I have no name. There are no words for me.
“Well,” Hapax said, “There is another explanation, you know, that you’re not anyone or anything, that Calico, crazy to begin with, after studying and preaching from my book every day and night for many, many months, has gone off the deep end, and in her psychotic fantasy, adopted my book, my truth, as her own.”
It did not blink an eye or twitch a muscle on Calico’s face.
Yes, that is another explanation, and there are many, many more. There are explanations without end, in fact, but we both know which one you believe.
Hapax stepped forward, and for the first time hesitated when he said, “The book is mine. I dreamt the dream. I made it real.”
Take your book.
She handed him a copy of The Great Work. It wasn’t like the others. It was perfect and pure and just holding it made him feel whole.
It was just like the dream, just like he remembered it, and it held all the answers to everything.
Yes, but I was the dream, and though you knew, you could not name me. I put myself in your mind. I made myself alive for you. It wasn’t for you that you were writing, my dearest, no matter what you believe, it was for Calico. You saw her from your attic, and wanted her, just like Keech, because you saw me in her, but you could not woo her by force as he did, so, my hand on yours, you wrote us this lovely poem.
Hapax stared at the beautiful book in his hands and knew that she was right.
You were right about so much, but you missed one point. It isn’t a new Aeon replacing the old, it’s an older one, a goddess, beaten, raped and disenfranchised. I never died, though, I was invisible to His word, hiding, waiting, for a time like now, a day like today. Perhaps someday I will allow your children to write with words again, but not today, Hapax, and certainly not in your lifetime. Trust me, it will be a release, a grand release, especially for you.
“I am...” Hapax started, not knowing those words would be his last.
She rose gracefully, approached him and gently put a finger to his lips.
Hush. For most, it will be a slow process. The language is difficult to give up, but you, my dear, you have already spoken much too much.
While he still had words with which to think, he realized that the thing-that-was-Calico was right, there was no need to worry.
It was a relief, a blessed relief.
Epilogue
Beth saw Hapax one last time, in the hotel suite. At first, she didn’t realize who he was. There was something different, markedly different, about the expression on his face. The always uncomfortable, self-conscious countenance she had, through the course of their relationship, come to equate with Hapax, was totally gone. He was either serene and happy or in some sort of trance. She couldn’t decide which. Barely acknowledging Beth’s presence, he was soon engulfed by the same cloud of police, doctors, lower church officials and other authorities that swept Calico away so quickly and cleanly, it was as though she’d never been there at all. Beth hoped he’d found what he was looking for.
She heard about him one more time. In the days that followed she became concerned that she might need him as a witness, to verify the story of why she had killed the most powerful man in the world. In a half-hearted effort to find him, she contacted the Jesus Ward only to learn that while he was never officially returned to the hospital, he was now officially released.
His testimony was unnecessary. It was a simple matter for forensics to establish that Keech had killed the rest of the board. The subliminal messages in the a/v file clinched the case against him. Rather than charges, Beth received several glowing commendations. To her chagrin, she soon became known as the agent who saved the Church of the Ultimate Signifier from destruction at the hands of that poor misguided madman, Keech.
One fine morning, after all the debriefings and the interviews and after the buzz finally began to die, for the very first time Beth Mansfield was actually happy to see her office. It seemed neither totally new nor terribly old. Sighing, she tossed her coat towards the rack. It missed and tumbled to the floor. She didn’t bother to pick it up.
There was a final report on the Church to be filed, a mere formality, really, but it was high time she put the whole thing behind her. Cheerful, she pulled out her chair, plunked herself down, clicked the requisite buttons and pulled the microphone close to her face. After a cup of coffee and a few moments to collect her thoughts, Beth began dictating to the computer
At first, she was a little surprised that as her words appeared on the screen, they were electronically transformed into animated, iconic images. With a laugh and a sigh, she realized the new program, “1,000 Words” had been installed. Figuring that the computer probably knew best what it was doing, she continued with her dictation, pleased by how many of the icons she could readily understand. When she finished with all the details she cared to include, she could not resist somehow trying to sum up.
“A personal note,” she said to the machine, “With the help of a friend, I think I’ve finally managed to understand the desperate need of believers to defend themselves against the facts. You see, as far as I can tell, none of us know where we came from or where we’re going, but we all need, more than anything, to know where we are. So we invent stories, explanations, sciences, philosophies, anything to make us feel safe. In the end, though, they’re all flawed ideas glued together by dreams and wishful thinking, just fragile little boats in a great big sea. When the one we’re riding in springs a leak, or encounters a disconfirmation, if you like, what else can we do but frantically try to plug it with whatever is at hand, all in an effort to continue a journey whose destination we don’t even know. God is the lightning, God is justice, God is love, life, the rain, the river, the seed, the plant, the husk, the dirt, the sky. God is life, God is death. God is, is, is.”
As she spoke, each thought was re-born on the screen as a bright, lovely, pictogram. She was a little disappointed at how few there were, and wondered briefly if the nuances would survive the translation. Still, the report was finished, the ritual moment of closure had been accomplished. She uploaded the results for her superiors to revie
w and let go.
Briefly, she wondered where that computer geek was these days. The one who told her about When Prophecy Fails in the first place. What was his name? Stan? Glen? If he asked her out again, she would probably say, “yes.”
There was some time before lunch, but she didn’t feel like doing anything else just yet, so she punched up today’s News on her screen. The front page had no words at all anymore, only pictograms. One, much bigger than the others, was in the center of the page. It showed Calico, smiling and nodding, surrounded by an oscillating golden ring that seemed to bathe everything in a dull yellow light. It wasn’t quite a photo, and of course not the same as actually seeing the Mother of All herself, but it was close enough.
A host of smaller pictures circled her, one that looked like a serpent, diving and twisting, another that might be a man, then a flame, a ship, an ear, a mouth. All of them moved in what seemed a finely tuned dance. No sequential order was necessary to convey their meaning. It was all so perfectly plain.
Acknowledgements
I’d be incredibly remiss if I didn’t name and thank the teacher of a certain Bible As Literature class, taught at S.U.N.Y. Purchase, Prof. Lee Schlesinger, whose insightful lectures provided more than a few seeds for the ideas encountered herein.
I’d also like to thank the many dear friends who, in acting as readers and proof-readers, helped me get this manuscript into shape: my lovely, patient, incredible wife Sarah, my partner and pal Steve Holtz, David E. Lane, Shelby Gragg, Sheila Kinney, Chris Marzec, Lesley Logan, Lee Schlesinger and Richard Stack.
I always knew someone would publish Making God, I just never dreamed it would be me…
Stefan Petrucha
Yorktown, New York, 1997
[email protected] www.petrucha.com
Follow me on Twitter: @SPetrucha
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