The Unyielding Future

by Brian O'Grady

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. Leah and I watched as he slid from the chair and dropped to his knees. Given his current condition, I had a fleeting concern that the impact would break something.

  “And that was just one example of your disobedience.”

  “The children . . .” Adis interrupted her, which was probably a bad idea.

  Her voice rose, and I imagined a slight reverberation sound effect. “The children were never your responsibility. You endangered them, and the consequences now hang around your neck.” Her voice had enough power behind it that I wished I wasn’t sitting so close. It took several moments for the echoes to fade. “You had one responsibility.”

  “I understand.” Now he sounded like the penitent she kept calling him.

  Leah and I shared a glance over the nearly prostrate form of Adis. “One responsibility?” Leah mouthed and I just shrugged my shoulders.

  “I would like to believe that your involvement was for the greater good, and for the moment I will set aside the fact that that presupposes that you know better than us. However, you are not our hit man, no matter the situation. We do not condone the taking of life. You have been given talents and gifts that were to be used to avoid it, yet you choose to end your service by perverting those talents.

  “There has been much discussion about your motives. Whether you, like your brother, are trying to force our hand. Or whether your old sadistic tendencies have resurfaced. Possibly you have grown tired and find the taking of lives to be expedient and effective.” She waited for him to respond.

  “I have been worn thin,” was all he said in his defense.

  “I can understand that,” she said after studying him for a long moment. “You are of no further use to us. The question now becomes, what do we do with you?” She continued to stare at him, and I was pretty certain she was staring into him as well. For his part, Adis didn’t move. His head remained on his chest and he balanced himself on wobbly knees. “Justice would demand that you be sent for judgment, but I will concede that perhaps we left you out in the cold too long and that we bear some of the responsibility.” I looked at Adis and watched as he transformed back into the man we knew. “Leave. Leave now as a man. Live the remainder of your years in anticipation of having the One you hurt so grievously decide your fate. I give you the opportunity to redeem yourself in His eyes.”

  His head rose from his chest, but he still wouldn’t met the Sisters eyes. “I don’t know . . .”

  “I don’t want you to say anything. I give you your name back Ladounis, or if you prefer, Adis.” Sister Celeste rose from her seat and offered Adis her hand, which he kissed. “I wish you peace.”

  Adis scrambled to his feet and in a moment was gone. Without a word, he simply walked out the rectory door and our lives. I didn’t know what to say, and by her look neither did Leah. I thought one of us should have said something, at least a goodbye. I stared at the door, but when it was clear he wasn’t coming back I turned back to Sister Celeste, who obviously was more than just a nun.

  “Well, that’s done,” she said, staring down at us.

  “Should we have seen that?” I asked, uncomfortable at several levels with Adis’s dismissal.

  “Airing our dirty laundry?” Sister Celeste said, borrowing a term from Leah’s lexicon. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I could take you home, but I thought that you deserve the right to witness the resolution of this affair. We still have one more unresolved issue.”

  “Sida,” I said, always in tune with the obvious. “There are others more deserving. People he’s hurt far more than us.” Off the top of my head, I could think of a half-dozen people whose lives were affected to a greater degree than ours.

  “But they are not here,” the Sister answered, and I’m pretty sure she was referring to more than just our physical location.

  “I would like to stay,” Leah said sharply.

  “Well, that may pose a problem, as we have to go to Sida.” Sister smiled at Leah, who stood. They both looked at me and I stood as well (I’m not sure why it was necessary to stand—maybe it was for the same reason that when an airplane lands we have to bring our tray tables and seatbacks to an upright and locked position).

  In the blink of an eye, the room around us changed into the Texas Capitol building. We stood in the middle of the rotunda, beneath the massive dome. I looked down to find that I was standing on the seal of Mexico, one of the seven nations whose flag has flown over Texas. I took a respectful step backward and looked up to find that the morning sun was creating oblique beams of light in the dust-filled air. The upper vaults of the dome were being refinished, and a light patina of dust covered just about everything.

  Sida was sitting quietly on a wooden bench just beneath the portrait of George W. Bush. “Hello,” he said, as friendly as anyone could say the word. Only, like pretty much everything he said, it had a menacing undercurrent.

  Sister Celeste, who was standing on the United States seal, turned and faced him. For a second, they stared. “Is this how you address me, penitent?” An unseen force pulled Sida to his knees and then across the floor.

  “That tickles.” Sida laughed as he slid to a stop at the Sister’s feet. He tried to stand, but his knees seemed to have been glued to the polished marble floor. “I promise you I have no thoughts of running away.” He regained his balance and stared up at Sister Celeste. “So they sent you. I must really be in trouble. I see you brought company.” He tried to turn his head, but it too had been immobilized. “Long time no see, Doc, and you brought the little woman. Hello, Leah. How are the kids?”

  Leah managed to restrain herself for maybe a millisecond and then reached out and slapped Sida across the face with enough force that the report echoed through the nearly empty rotunda. “Did that tickle?” Her voice chased the slap through the recesses of the dome.

  “No, it hurt, a lot.” He still had some movement of his shoulders, but that did him little good. “You see, this is what I’ve had to work with for more than two thousand years. Violent, impulsive—” He never finished, as Sister Celeste waved her hand and Sida became rigid.

  “Please. I’ve heard enough. You will speak only when spoken to, penitent.” She took a half step back and looked him up and down. “Your concerns and thoughts about humanity are a matter of record, and I don’t need them repeated here.” She began to slowly walk around him, and I hoped she would produce a samurai sword and use it. “Is it necessary for me to list your many offenses, penitent?”

  Sida’s face relaxed. “My offenses? For two millennia I have done your bidding. Shepherding these foolish, self-absorbed, self-destructing creatures, always following your arbitrary set of rules, and never asking why—” He had more to say but a wave of the Sister’s hand again cut him off.

  “You are not now, nor have you ever been, in a position to ask why.” She completed her first circuit and started a second. “Time has not diminished your arrogance, which doesn’t surprise me. I was against your deferment from the beginning.”

  “And that doesn’t surprise me,” Sida answered through clamped jaws. “You’ve always enjoyed your role as the disciplinarian. The hard-ass.” Despite all that Sida had done, he still managed to shock me with his disrespectful language. “Go ahead and send me to the final judgment. Even an eternity of damnation is better than another minute under your yoke of civility and responsibility—” Another wave of the Sister’s hand and Sida choked on his final words.

  “Unfortunately, I am not the final arbiter. Others still see the potential for redemption.” She had finished her circuit and was once again facing Sida. She glared at him, and after a long second Sida’s insolent expression dropped and he averted his eyes. Leah and I waited for him to morph back into his mortal form as Adis had, but Sida remained exactly as we had always known him. “I wish you peace,” she said softly. Her hand opened and Sida vanished. A small cloud of dust swirled into the void created by his disappearance.

  “What did you do with h
im?” I asked, a moment after Sister Celeste turned back to us. A wry smile crossed her face.

  “All babies are born crying, but at this moment a seventeen-year-old girl in Somalia is giving birth to a baby boy that will not cry but scream with the realization that his plans didn’t quite work out the way he wanted.” She was openly pleased with herself. “Hopefully, he will do better.”

  I looked at Leah but neither of us knew what to say. Many months later, I still don’t know how to feel. Was this justice? Or was this an opportunity for Sister Celeste and her colleagues to engineer a little irony of their own? Or perhaps it was a sincere attempt at redemption. I just don’t know.

  What I did know was that in almost a blink of an eye we were free of Adis and his wayward brother Sida. “Are there others like them?” I asked after a long quiet stretch.

  She smiled. “More each day. Be thankful for that.”

  “Are they going to try this again?” Leah followed up. “Come after Mia?”

  “No,” she said simply. I wanted to press her, to get some assurance, but her stare tied my tongue.

  “She will find her way without our help.” Sister Celeste smiled broadly and my heart lightened. “I wish you peace.”

  And then we were back home in our garage. Standing in transmission oil.

  Epilogue