This is Not the End

by Jesse Jordan

  Ezra stepped closer to James, moving like pouring water until he was kneeling in front of him, eye to eye and unblinking. “You, James, are the most important person to have ever been born. You are the person who will change this place—this planet—this world. I tell you, James, you can’t even imagine it. Not yet.”

  James realized he could no longer feel his feet. It was as if he were melting into the evening from the bottom up. His head filled with warmth and disintegrated, and all at once he couldn’t identify himself as a being at all. He was the screen onto which Ezra projected his thoughts.

  “You, James, are the One. You’re the War Bringer.” Ezra leaned into the pregnant silence.

  James did not react.

  “Or, to use this region’s name for it, you, James, are the Antichrist.”

  The words ricocheted and replayed through James’s brain: You, James, are the Antichrist.

  “For lack of a better term, that is.”

  And it was at this exact moment the forgotten cigarette burned down to his fingers. While he yelped and dropped it, the pain defibrillated James out of his intense focus on Ezra. What are you doing out here with this psycho?

  Then James was standing, and his sudden movement sent the swing bouncing off the siding.

  Ezra observed him, his head cocked as if this eruption elicited nothing but curiosity.

  “What . . . what’s the matter with you?” James said, his voice cracking as he sidestepped toward the front door, his back pressed firmly to the siding. “Psycho! I’m calling the cops!” James’s hand flailed behind him before locating the handle.

  Ezra’s face remained an open greeting, and his patient half smile followed as James put a clumsy shoulder into the door, burst inside, and then slammed it behind himself.

  One breath.

  Two.

  The Antichrist? James ran to the kitchen. He pulled the chef’s knife from its wooden slab, knocking that over in the process and sending knives clat-tat-tattering into the sink as he rushed back to the door with the knife before him.

  As he reached the entryway, he turned the knife handle over in his palm. He slipped his feet from his gym shoes and tiptoed the last few feet, until he was able to look out the center windowpane of the old wooden door.

  Nothing.

  Even the wind left, now weakly brushing the lawns without conviction.

  Where’d he go? There’s no way he could be gone already. James pressed his face to the cold glass and looked up and down the block, but there was nothing.

  James lay in bed and replayed the conversation in his head, wondering which bits he’d invented and which had really happened. The community bulletin channel scrolled mutely across the small TV on his dresser, saving the room from total darkness.

  How did he know that stuff?

  An hour ago, James had stood in the kitchen and locked the back door, his hand clutching the phone. He’d dialed 91 . . . and stopped. He was trying to get the narrative straight, but it jumped from place to place, now reviving the squeak of Mr. Moon’s bicycle, now the Schroeders’ living room window collapsing inward, the glass seeming to chase the brick into the house, now the dial tone, now Ezra’s calm—Loving? Was it loving?—smile.

  Half an hour ago he was in bed and the room was black, and he heard his parents come home separately, only ten or so minutes apart, and some little boy inside of him wanted to fling off the covers and run to them and tell them what had happened. But he didn’t. How did he know about the Schroeders’ window? How did he know about Dorian?

  And so he stayed in bed and didn’t say a word, and when Mom came in, he shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. As she closed the door, he felt his eyes get hot and wet because he had never, in all his life, felt this alone.

  The image played in his mind like he was sitting in the front row of a movie theater. Over and over. Mr. Moon’s mouth opening into what was almost a smile—An—his tongue against his top teeth—ti—and his lips pushing forward as if preparing to kiss—christ. Over and over, over and over.

  Then, sometime between 1:33:40 and 1:34:05 in the morning, while the image of Mr. Moon forming that final three-syllable word continued to run, James Salley fell into a deep, deep sleep.

  It’s night. Cold. Winter. I can see my breath. I’m on a stage—sitting at the back, lined up with old men . . . looking at me, smiling, nodding, mouthing words I can’t understand what you’re saying . . . I’m sorry, I can’t—and at the front of the stage is a single microphone. Beyond it—oh my god, the crowd. It’s like the ocean, so massive I can’t see the edges of it; it just seems to go on and on forever, disappearing into the night. A blue light surrounds us on stage. In the moving searchlights, I see brick and asphalt and metal and even the clouds above. The light turns into spotty particles in the clouds—but then a spotlight swings past my face—blindingly bright.

  I’m me, but I’m not. I’m a different sort of me—older, maybe? Before I can investigate, I hear the crowd SCRRREEEEAAAM. I look to see the seated men standing now, applauding now, waving me up to the microphone now, and as I stand, the crowd erupts. They are noise. This impossible rumbling, it sounds like a metal giant eating a highway. I can feel the sound inside—it’s like being hit with a hammer made of air. I’ve never been so aware of my body. With every step, my toes flex against socks, shoes, stage. Foot to calf to knee, knee to thigh to hip.

  Back straight, chest out. I feel myself accepting the adoration. Part of me—outside of me—knows it should embarrass me, but it doesn’t. I take the last few steps to the microphone and see the faces in the front, eyes wide and wet, mouths working at calls and shouts that drown in the noise. I can feel it all. This is the real me. This is the version of me I was always meant to be. I place my hands on the podium and close my eyes, and they scream for me.

  I am.

  12. James knew she still used it as an endearment, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her just how much he disliked it. Lovie, his middle name, was a family callback. Mom had been super close with her sister, Shannon, who James never knew because she died of Leukemia when she was 12. Shannon used to call things and people she was affectionate about lovie. It was a word that worked its way into the sisters’ relationship and became shorthand. James could tell how proud Mom was to have passed it along, how hard she tried to keep it going, but he didn’t care. It was embarrassing and he hated it.

  13. The CFO was taking a handful of managers to the Cubs game.

  14.The Kree-Skrull War

  5. The Possibilities of the Violin

  James came out of sleep slowly, as if emerging from a warm bath—which is an appropriate simile, as the T-shirt and boxers he’d worn to bed, along with his pillow and sheets, were soaked.

  James was out of the bathroom after a quick pee/brush/deodorize dance, forgoing his usual morning ritual. The dream sat center stage. It was just so real. Never—I mean, I could feel the air. I could smell cigarettes and truck engines. He looked down to see mismatched socks. Absorbed as he was in the dream, James barely noticed as his body mechanically pulled on clothes. His legs took over responsibility, transferring him down the stairs and into the kitchen. His hands set up a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, but all the while, he was on that stage. Standing there: strong and beloved. The man he’d always wanted to be. God, what a feeling!

  Second period: American history with Ms. Adderley,15 who stood at the front of the bright classroom without any books or notes, already a good fifteen minutes into this lesson about Vietnam. James’s attention drifted in and out as he drew the face of a young girl in his notebook, her round features animated by her amazement. She’d been in the front row, there, in the dream, watching him as he approached the podium.

  “But they’d been warned so many times, and so many times nothing had happened. The Tet Offensive was in many ways a case of the boy who cried—”

  There was a pop as the PA came alive and Dean Worthington gently cleared his throat to soften the interruption. “Pardon m
e. Would James Salley please report to the library?”

  Faces turned to him.

  “James Salley to the library. Thank you.”

  “Oooooooooo . . .”

  Whatta you mean, “Oooooooooo”? Who gets called to the library?

  “Enough,” Ms. Adderley said, cutting off the class with that final syllable.

  James flipped his sketchbook closed and left the class with everyone’s gaze tight on him; it did not feel like the dream.

  What are you doing? James stopped in the middle of the empty hallway. Mr. Moon is in the library. He had the office call you. He wants you there.

  James spent the next ninety-six seconds standing right there. He was sure he should run out of the building or go to the office or call Mom and Dad or something. He was sure he should do pretty much anything except go down to the library.

  But you still haven’t told anyone.

  Like a wind-up toy released, James jumped from dead-still to charging toward his locker. Upon arriving, he spun the combo lock open and flung his bag inside. Fine. Go see Mr. Moon. But just to tell him to stay away from you. James slammed the command home with each movement, grabbing one of his gym socks and dropping the lock inside before slamming the locker and stowing the makeshift weapon in his back pocket.16

  James made his way to the library in long, no-fooling-around steps, clenching and unclenching his fists, ready, envisioning the confrontation, watching himself flinging the doors open and telling Mr. Moon what’s-what.

  When he reached the library, however, his hand slipped off the handle so that he walked right into the door. The failed entrance poured cold oatmeal over his fervor, and before he knew it, he was standing in the open doorway.

  Mr. Moon smiled and nodded, beckoning James to follow as he excused himself from a table of students.

  Mr. Moon’s office was buried in the far right corner. He left the door open, and James reached back and wrapped his right hand in the tail end of the sock as he followed.

  The office was bland as a cubicle. It felt unlived-in. The three wooden walls were unadorned but for a few decaying READ posters,17 and behind the desk was a stone wall painted the gray of eternity.

  Mr. Moon sat behind a metal-and-pressed-wood desk, leaning forward, his fingers steepled. He nodded in the direction of the kids he’d been talking to. “I don’t know how people do this job every day. Those children are very stupid. It’s extremely frustrating.”

  James looked over to see two freshman boys laughing in hysterical silence, pointing at something in a textbook as the girl seated at the end of the table rolled her eyes while simultaneously ignoring them.

  “Uh, okay, look,” James began. He stared at Mr. Moon’s chest, at the sky-blue shirt and the pastel-yellow tie, because he found he had trouble ordering his thoughts when he looked the man in his mismatched eyes. His right hand held the sock tight, the muscles in his shoulder twitching as if they wanted to yank the weapon free. “I don’t know what that was last night or why . . . why you said what you did—or even how you coulda known stuff. I’m not saying you were, you know, right about all of it—or any of it—but, look, that stuff you said is crazy. I’m not even, I mean, I’m Catholic. My mom’s really Catholic and I’m sorta Catholic, so I can’t—not that it even is, you know?”

  “I’m sorry, do I know what?”

  “Just stay away from me, okay?” It came out in a sort of screamed whisper.

  James let his eyes drift up, but Mr. Moon retained a countenance of perfect relaxation, and this lack of any sort of reaction pushed James back into the red. “Look, you psycho, I’ll call the cops! I’ll tell ’em you’re a pervert and you’re stalking me and saying crazy shit! Okay? You’ll get, you’ll get . . . fired!” His hands shook. His knees rebelled against standing, but still he gripped the sock, and still he held Mr. Moon’s gaze.

  Mr. Moon’s face finally lost its vacational jocularity. He pressed his lips together and leaned forward. “Okay. Okay, James. I’ll tell you what. I can see you’re upset, I can, but if you’ll just sit down”—and here he stifled James’s urgent response with one hand, palm out—“and hear what I have to say, then I promise I will leave you alone. Alright?”

  James shifted his feet, measuring Mr. Moon and scouting glances around him: a small potted plant on one of the shelves, a timeworn mini fridge in the far corner. He looked at the students in the library and determined he could get their attention if an emergency necessitated. So without another word, he sat in the ’70s-era, wood-and-fabric rolling chair across from Mr. Moon.

  “Excellent. Thank you, James.” Mr. Moon scooted his chair over to the mini fridge and returned with two cans of Coca-Cola. “May I also say I’m very impressed with your bravery? Whether you believe me or not, I can understand what you must be going through. How scary this must be. And yet here you are, like a man, holding that modern mace you’ve improvised there and ready to change your whole life, to brain a school librarian, if you deem it necessary.”

  “I’m not scared, Mr. Moon.”

  “Please, James, call me Ezra. Regardless, all I was saying was that it’s impressive you’re not shrinking from the situation or depending on supposed authority figures and rules of conduct.” He slid one of the Cokes to James, who didn’t touch it. “So here’s to you.” And with that, he tapped the top twice, cracked the tab, and loudly drank half the can, finishing with a satisfied, commercial-worthy “Aaaahhhh.”

  “So, as I said yesterday, my name is Ezra Moon, and you are the Antichrist—Ah, ah, ah, now you said you’d let me speak, so if you don’t mind, I’ll get through a rather large swath of information, and then we’ll double back to address any questions you may have. Sound good? Okay. As I was saying, you are the Antichrist.” Ezra said the word with earnest finger quotes beside his cheeks. “Now, that in itself is misleading. You are not the opposite of the man humans call Jesus Christ, nor are you his sworn enemy. In fact, you have nothing to do with him whatsoever. You are, however, the human emissary of the forces of a being humans usually—in a gross misunderstanding—refer to as Satan but who I think would be more accurately labeled by one of his other monikers: the Adversary . . . I’m sorry? Of course, um, an emissary is like a standard bearer. The Adversary can’t be here, so you represent him.

  “Where was I? Oh, yes, the whole thing is all muddled. Heaven and hell, Jesus and the devil, all wrong. As such, calling you the Antichrist is technically inaccurate, but the job description is very much the same. Ah, sorry, little joke. No, I don’t suppose this is helping very much. I can see by the look in your eyes that I’ve done nothing to dispel your confusion or fear. Allow me to start again.

  “There is another world. Not another planet, you understand, but a whole other realm, another . . . place, that touches your own. And in this place a war has been simmering for millennia. Humans, from their earliest days, crawling out of caves, have caught glimpses of this world in their dreams and prayers and revelries, and they have assigned a thousand names to it: heaven, hell, Aaru, Neraka, Tartarus, Tian, Jannah, et cetera, et cetera. The specifics, however, don’t really matter. What matters are the basic truths, the things which your people have gotten right. There will be a war—the War to end all wars—fought by the beings of our realm, but here, on Earth. And there will be a human champion who begins it.

  “For longer than any human could imagine, we have known this, and we have waited. One born here will release the Adversary and the two armies will mass, and then all will cross over and the War will begin. Right here.

  “That, James, is you. You are the one who will free the great Adversary, who will raise a human army to fight alongside us. You will be the greatest man the world has ever seen. People will follow you; they will love you.” Ezra’s eyes were wide and wild, but his smile somehow remained encouraging. He leaned toward James, waiting.

  It was quiet for a long time, except for the muffled library conversations outside.

  Finally, James said, “But . . . I’m
nobody. I mean, I’m no one special. It’s not like my dad is Satan or anything. My dad’s name is Josh.”

  “Why in the world should it matter who your father is?”

  “I don’t know. It always does in stories.”

  “Well, not in this one.”

  “Okay, let’s pretend I don’t think you’re crazy. Let’s say all that stuff is true, okay? Let’s say you’re right and I’m supposed to do those things.”

  Ezra nodded.

  “Well, two problems I can think of right off the bat. One: No. How ’bout that? And two: You have the wrong person. I’m not somebody people follow. I’m not some—”

  “Are you familiar with the violin, James?”

  “What?”

  “Are you familiar with the violin?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t play it if that’s what you mean.”

  “What I mean is have you ever heard anyone play the violin poorly?”

  James nodded.

  “Well, then you know it is an awful, awful thing. Horrible to endure. A screeching violin is an abomination, a desecration of a beautiful thing. It will turn the most loving parent into a frustrated, angry mess.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Now, have you ever heard the violin played by a master?”

  James’s head rocked from side to side.

  Ezra’s smile grew into something indecent and triumphant. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “It is the most beautiful thing in the world. The paintings of Rembrandt, the chilaquiles made in the kitchen of Señora Ana Dos Santos of Guadalajara, Mike Tyson’s mid-’80s fights, Kurosawa, even Joel Robuchon’s La Truffe Noire—they are nothing when compared to a single violin played perfectly. Here—”

  And with that one word, the room disappeared and James was in a lake of darkness, drifting, as if free from all his senses. He felt the initial moment of panic melt away. A memory of floating in warm salt water came to him, the sun on his face, his body sure and held.