In Defense of Guilt

by Benjamin Berkley

  Without the slightest motion, God allowed the Buckyballs to drop to the floor. As He crossed the vacant space of the room, seemingly on their own and acting in unison, they began to converge, to consolidate, making geometric shapes, animals, and other configurations pleasing to the eye.

  “My Kingdom, which can also be yours, just as the Earth is yours without having created a granule of it; My Kingdom, so we say, is always present. It is as present as either time or space. More so, for without Me or My Kingdom, there is no time or space. But you wonder and tax yourself, what of this kingdom and its opposite? Fear not, you are always in My realm. I have not taken My hands from you. You are always within My Kingdom. Do not be alarmed at what you feel you must do. Move further in any particular direction, by any means, of any modality. You are always in My Kingdom.”

  He paused to look lovingly upon them, then continued. “The kingdom can be understood as a two-story home. The first floor, where you congregate, is the domain of the mind. Up the stairs to the second floor, in the private quarters, is the realm of the heart. The home, itself, is your person. The rooms on each floor, the creations of your creativity and the levels, themselves, are the inspiration from whence you create. Though I am quite aware of monks, rabbis, popes, and even Dante allegorically using Proverbs 6:16, however, they are called the Seven Deadly Sins for a more practical purpose.”

  The two mortals stared, eyes wide with wonder.

  God was pleased that they were listening to Him intently. He sighed. “For to engage in them forbids one from the pleasure of being alive. Surely, your body is able to perform the functions of a living, breathing soul—your mind can think, your heart can surely feel—but that, in and of itself, does not in absolute, define life. To be alive is to be present in the moment. For each moment is the only moment there is, was, and ever will be, that is, until the next moment, which may or may not come. That isn’t promised to you. Yes, this is all wordy and sounds philosophical, but be not confused in the slightest. I am not a philosopher. I am the Truth expressed in all things. There is no time. There is no space. There is only that which is in the now. You can define it and measure it by a myriad of calculations, including time and space, but even they are dependent upon the existence of the ‘now.’ So, you see, there is only real and unreal, nothing betwixt and between. To be present is real life. Anything else is not real. It is like a blooming rose near one made of plastic of the same likeness or a person standing still next to their wax counterpart.”

  God allowed the Buckyballs to return to their original position upon the table. While the two women stood watching His every move, God made His way to the sofa and sat.

  “Now,” He continued, “back to 6:16. Isn’t being locked in the moment with these seven vices real? Certainly not. It is the illusion of reality. To be present in the escape of being present is no satisfactory substitute for being present. What more proof do you need? What more difference need you? The difference is that between the heart beating, pumping its life-sustaining blood throughout the body, and one laid on a table, drained of its vital liquid and inanimate in its operation.” A small smile of amusement played on God’s lips. “Yes, they are both hearts, but only that which is real, animated, and functioning is important because that which is real is in fact living. To be absent from the present, that is, real life, is the equivalent of being dead, all the while tricking you with the appearance of being alive.”

  Lauren absorbed most of what God was trying to convey, but a few things confounded her. Her daughter was simply resolved to listen.

  “What do you want me to do? I can’t be different than who I am,” Lauren huffed.

  “But you can make different choices so you can spend more time with Me.”

  Lauren ran out of excuses. Throwing up her hands, she turned to God. “Okay, okay, I surrender. What should I do? What is it I should do?”

  God sat stoically in a non-answer to her question. She knew exactly what was expected of her. It was left up to her to decide whether or not she was going to conform to it. Choice, it always came down to choice. There was nothing left to add or, for that matter, subtract from His precious word. Yet Lauren’s face still expressed a clear yearning for a direct answer to a simple but vital question. God smiled. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easy. His smile broadened and watched Lauren practically crawl out of her skin with anxiety.

  He answers my daughter’s questions. Why not mine? she thought. Again, she threw her hands up and turned to Constance. Just then, in the stillness of the room, a divine gust of wind brought a sheet of paper off her desk to her feet. Lauren looked at God. He stood and smiled kindly. Lauren stooped to pick it up. It was the printout of 6:16 Rose had given to her earlier.

  “Is this it? I’m a sinner? I have sinned in Your eyes?” she said, looking down at the printout. “Is this what I am supposed to do, confess my sins? Confess that I am a sinner?”

  “No,” God said with a chuckle. “Ask, and your sins will be forgiven. You were never condemned in the first place, except to the extent that you suffered from your own agonized guilt. I never condemned you for any transgressions, although, certainly, it was Me you transgressed upon.”

  Although she was unsure of what to do or exactly what was expected of her, Lauren looked at Constance and blurted, “Well, I do. I confess. I confess to all these sins. Every one of them. Lust. Greed. Pride. Envy. It doesn’t stop, and I don’t even know where to begin to reverse it.”

  “Mom!” Constance ran and embraced her mother. Lauren embraced her back, as she had caressed her when she was just an infant, a time long forgotten.

  “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I do love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom.”

  “I am your mother and always will be. I love you.”

  Together, they shared a long, overdue cry. God stood, pleased with the outcome.

  “My sins,” Lauren started. “They are forgiven? They are? That’s all?”

  “Go and sin no more. As I commanded it,” God intoned.

  “What if I sin again? I mean, these are character flaws. “

  “You would do it all again? Seriously?” Constance interjected.

  “No, not like that. I didn’t mean it like that.” Her tears dried. “Wait! Wait! So, you prayed to God, and He just showed up. And, and God revealed himself to me because of you? Because you think I act as though you were dead to me. Do I have it right?” Then, turning to God, “Let me ask you this. This girl, who has never set foot in Sunday school, doesn’t attend church and isn’t subjected to the word of God, mentors, ministers, or nuns, and Yet she prayed to you.” Turning back to Constance. “How many times, my dear, did you pray to God this prayer?”

  “I don’t know. Never before, never like that.”

  “And so,” she said, turning back to God, “You answer her. In all Your majesty, power, and wisdom, and pomp and flesh and blood, You answered her! And her wish was for a mother who is more motherly.” Exasperated with God, she sighed. “Well, why, I ask You, why didn’t You answer another little girl’s prayers, a girl whose mother went crazy and tried to drown her or show her visions of what wasn’t there! I remember that little girl who went faithfully to church and Sunday school every week.”

  The longer she talked, the more incensed Lauren became. “Where were You then? How come You didn’t show up at her house, in the bathroom, or maybe in the barn, something in the least bit miraculous to show her You were listening? What is so damned special about this girl? I’m sure there are hundreds of children crying out to You hungry and homeless at this very moment!”

  God stood and slowly walked to the picturesque window. “You demand an answer? You want to know why? Let me see. As a lawyer, wouldn’t you say you’re assuming facts not in evidence?”

  “And, what facts are those?”

  “Where I was, what I did, how your prayers were indeed answered.”

  “Present your evidence,” Lauren stated, smugly.

  G
od shot her a scolding look. “I need not, nor will I defend myself to you in a way pleasing to your ignorance and self-sown madness. However, I will cite a difference between the prayers you remember and the prayer of this sweet child of mine and temporary child of yours. All prayers and sounds are mere show if they do not originate from the heart. Anger, fear, and prayers to solve self-inflicted problems are vastly different. It’s one thing to love and another to need. The heart loves, yet the mind, ah, the mind, it is incapable of loving. The best it can achieve is to think it desperately needs. And it calls that love.”

  Lauren was not impressed.

  “I am not deaf, to be sure, but I only have an ear for the voice of the heart just as you would hear a barking dog over other distractions. Yet that does not mean I do not respond or reply. Maybe you never wanted things to be the way they were, but wasn’t your mother sent away and your fear resolved?”

  “Yeah, but not my heart.”

  God extended his arm toward Constance. “Behold, the embodiment of your heart.”

  A glimmer of light. Finally, true love dawned on her like the rays of the morning sun. Lauren gazed at her daughter with that newfound love. But the moment of quiet awakening was shattered when . . .

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Ms. Hill!” a distraught Rose chimed. “Mr. Maze is—”

  Suddenly, the doors to her office burst open, and Lauren’s world was once again thrust into chaos.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “I loved my wife!” Maze screamed as he burst into the room.

  One second Lauren and Constance were sharing a very special mother-daughter moment. Blubbering and distraught, Maze managed to stagger inside, followed close behind by an equally distraught Ryan Thompson. Maze was in obvious pain and bleeding from the side of his head. Lauren scanned him, trying to assess the problem.

  Maze was having obvious difficulty remaining upright. He swayed back and forth just inside the doorway, panting and gripping the left side of his face. He looked like he had barely escaped a war zone. Between his trembling, stubby fingers, copious amounts of blood oozed from a gaping hole in the man’s head. Large drops fell from his now blood-soaked shirt onto the beige carpeting.

  At first, Lauren couldn’t process what could have happened to Maze. Constance stood gasping in horror. Lauren looked around for His Divine Holiness, but God had vanished. Just when they needed Him most, God had chosen to vacate. “Great, He’s gone! Now what?”

  Then Lauren saw something in her client’s right hand. Maze was holding the disfigured, fleshy portion of what looked like an ear—his ear! “Oh, gawd!” Lauren exclaimed, turning Constance away from the horrific scene. The girl, however, had recovered from the initial shock nicely and was trying to maneuver around for a better look.

  “Don’t!” she said with curiosity. Constance gently pushed her mother away. “I wanna see.”

  Lauren looked at her as if to say, You’re a sick individual, my daughter.

  From the other room, Dennis, along with an extremely pale and obviously nauseated paralegal secretary, rushed through the opening.

  “Someone get towels,” Ryan said.

  “I’ll call 911,” Rose exclaimed. She knew she should have gone home when she had the chance earlier. She darted toward the door, more to avert her eyes from the ghastly scene than in the performance of any real civic duty. She was not used to seeing blood, and this was not a simple finger prick. It was as bad a wound as she had ever seen.

  “No!” Lauren instinctively yelled to her. “Wait!”

  “We have to get him to a hospital, Lauren!” Ryan cautioned.

  “Lauren!” Dennis shouted. “Ryan’s right!” In his eyes, there was only one option. His wife’s client had possibly life-threatening injuries. He was in danger of losing too much blood. That would be one ethical breach, not to mention a major lawsuit. He and his wife could lose everything.

  Lauren put a hand to her forehead, attempting to block outside distractions and concentrate. She didn’t have time to lose. Quickly, she weighed whether to take him to the hospital. If Maze went to the hospital, they might be able to save his ear, but there would be questions, a lot of questions about his mental state. On the other hand, if they could somehow bandage him up there, Maze would certainly lose the ear, but he wouldn’t jeopardize his freedom.

  The secretary’s phone rang.

  Another distraction. “Rose, your phone is ringing!” Then, under her breath, Lauren continued her thought. And please, please let it not be that the jury’s reached a final verdict.

  Rose didn’t have to be told twice. She rushed out of the room to her desk.

  Turning to Maze, Lauren scowled. “WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?” she screamed. She had never been more outraged at a client’s behavior. Maze could see how upset she was, but he was dealing with far too much on his own to be scolded.

  “I couldn’t take it anymore! I loved her!—I loved my wife! Aaaghh, it stings!”

  “Well, what the hell did you expect?” Lauren said.

  Just then, Rose reappeared at the entrance, bringing Lauren’s worst fears with her. “The jury’s ready.” She looked up at the clock. “You have to be there in an hour.”

  Lauren’s obsession with time made her look up to the clock. 9:33. She buried her head in her hands. “Damn. Ryan?!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Quickly, see what the hell we have in the medicine cabinet. Gauze bandages . . . anything. There must be something to stop the bleeding.”

  “You can’t be serious, Lauren!”

  “Just do it!” she demanded.

  A minute later, Ryan returned with a few packets of sterile bandages, gauze cling wrap, and a roll of medical tape. Ryan quickly rushed Maze to the restroom, followed by a disheveled Lauren pushing an uncooperative swivel chair on wheels.

  Dennis followed her. “Lauren—”

  “Not now! Wait in my office.”

  Like a well-trained puppy, Dennis obeyed.

  Lauren set Maze harshly down in the chair while Ryan tore open the bandages with his teeth. “I’m a lawyer, not a paramedic, Lauren.”

  “Just do the best you can!” Lauren threw her hands up, pacing back and forth. She kept looking down at her watch, watching the seconds tick away. She was worried, beyond worried. She was frantically obsessing over how she could possibly get her client cleaned up and ready for court in less than fifty minutes. All that blood! Hell, she didn’t even have courtroom-suitable attire for him. This is impossible. Couldn’t they have convened in the morning? she thought.

  “Take your hand away and hold this to your head.” Ryan demonstrated to Maze. To him, it looked grotesque, worse than anything he had ever seen. The evidence was still in Maze’s hand. The deformed, nearly colorless piece of flesh dangled between his fingers. This was way out of Ryan’s league. Maze needed professional medical attention, and he needed it quickly. No way was the ear going to make it until after the verdict was rendered, even if packed in ice. If it wasn’t sewn on soon, the tissue would die, and Maze would be permanently without it. And then what?

  “Where the hell is your head, Lauren?” Ryan muttered.

  Fresh blood oozed down the side of Maze’s face as Ryan harshly applied the sterile bandages. Maze reached up to press them to his head as Ryan hurriedly wrapped.

  “You cut your ear off; you cut your fucking ear off! I don’t understand this,” Lauren huffed.

  Calmly, Maze looked up at her, puppy-eyed. “I loved my wife,” he said, matter-of-fact.

  “What the fuck does that have to do with pulling a Van Gogh and CUTTING YOUR FUCKING EAR OFF?”

  Maze’s eyes were clear, focused. After a long pause, with straightforward articulation, he calmly stated, “Because I DID kill her.”

  Silence! All movement ceased.

  Lauren looked at Ryan, mouth agape. Their mutual suspicions were confirmed. Lauren had known there was something about that last conversation she had with him, something not right about him.
Immediately, the two lawyers were thrust into a new situation. What the hell were they going to do now?

  They had to leave and get their client cleaned up to face his verdict. They would deal with their ethical dilemma later.

  “Rose, call the janitorial service. Let’s get this mess cleaned up.”

  A crew was there within the hour, cleaning the drying blood from the walls and carpeting. No one spoke aloud; they only whispered amongst themselves, speculating what act of violence had taken place for there to be so many spatters. Except for the missing yellow police tape, it looked like a murder had taken place. The tenant was going to have some serious explaining to do. It was going to take some time and a great deal of scrubbing to lift the drying stains.

  Dennis was sitting on the sofa in practically the same position God had been earlier when talking to Constance. For Constance’s part, she seemed distant, distracted. She kept looking around as if searching for someone. There was something different about her, as well, a sophistication which he could not place a finger on. Her movements were no longer those of an awkward teenager, but those of a graceful, young woman. But there was something more. Then it hit him. With all the commotion, he hadn’t noticed.

  “What happened to your hair?” he said in amazement. “Did your mother do that?”

  Of course she had. She had to have. Only the two of them had been in Lauren’s office before all hell broke loose. It was just that it was so stunningly beautiful. There hadn’t seemed to be hardly enough time for Lauren to pull off something so intricate. Constance swiveled her head, gracefully careening to look around. No, he had never seen Lauren, or anyone else for that matter, perform such braid work. Dennis looked down at his watch. He could not for the life of him figure out how Lauren could have styled their daughter’s hair so professionally in such a short span of time, without so much as a comb. He looked around. No dyes. No cream rinse. No curlers, pins, or brushes. Why should there be? It was a lawyer’s office, not a salon. Yet the weave was flawless, as if his lovely daughter were going to a ball. Constance was radiant.