Wonders of a Godless World

by Andrew McGahan

Those wards hardly ever see a new admission. This man was a strange face, that was all. He upset the other patients a little.

  Well, there was no doubt about what occurred when they moved him to the crematorium. Was he going to deny everything that happened there?

  Why, what did happen, do you think?

  The duke! The witch! He had rummaged in their minds and aroused their madness and driven them to destruction.

  They were mad already, surely. That’s why they were there.

  But they were fine, until he came along.

  You mean they were fine until that first eruption came along—that’s when the trouble really began, wasn’t it? That’s when the duke and the witch changed. But psychiatric patients are always vulnerable to natural disturbances—storms and earthquakes and the like; they read far too much significance into them. Ask any doctor.

  For that matter, as you say, it was only after the eruption that you yourself first heard a strange voice talking in your head…

  No…the duke’s attack on the tourists, and the witch’s self-mutilation—the volcano didn’t make them do those terrible things. She had been inside their heads, and seen what the foreigner had done to them. He was to blame.

  But who says you were really inside their heads? You can’t prove it. Maybe you just made up whatever story suited you?

  Oh yes? And what about the virgin and the archangel? Had she made up those freakish acts the two of them performed? Or the fact that the girl was dead?

  What—you’ve never heard of two inmates fucking before? It happens all the time here! And those two in particular had profound psychosexual manias, so it was no great surprise that the end result was a violent one. Distressing, yes, but again, there’s no need to conjure some imaginary foreigner to explain it.

  The orphan exhaled in exasperation, and stopped pushing. They had emerged from the jungle to the headland that overlooked the hospital. She gazed out at the night. It was too dark to see much—but was the rain of ash beginning to thin? She turned to the volcano. Yes, it was slowly falling quiet, the tremors easing. The path zigzagged away from her up the bare slope, very steep. She would have to carry him from here.

  As for his ridiculous claims—well, they were more lies, no matter how disturbing she found it to hear them. Things had never been as bald and simple as he was trying to suggest. Duke, witch, archangel, virgin—their fates had all been intertwined with his. Everything had been intertwined. All his tales about his many lives and deaths, all his stories about how the world worked…

  Wait! That was the proof! The stories he’d told her! After all, how could she have discovered so much about the earth on her own? She couldn’t have. He had taught her. About the forces that made volcanoes, and moved continents. About wind and rain and storms. About the ocean. About space.

  Not true. You already knew it all.

  Nonsense! She didn’t know anything. She’d been thrown out of school, too stupid to teach, and had never learnt anything since. With a heave she lifted his body from the wheelchair and rose with him in her arms. She would not be able to carry him far between rests, she knew. Nevertheless, she started to climb.

  You didn’t need school. You taught yourself.

  How?

  By listening to the radio. By watching television.

  More nonsense. All radios were incomprehensible to her, he knew that, and she could see nothing on a TV screen.

  Consciously, maybe not. That’s part of your madness. Unconsciously, however, you’ve always understood radio and TV perfectly well. Your mother used to leave you in front of the television for days at a time, didn’t she? And even now, your radio is almost always on. So you’ve heard and seen all sorts of programs over the years. Movies, documentaries, news reports. You’ve absorbed all kinds of information. These stories the foreigner told you—it was simply your own mind releasing that information.

  The orphan sagged. He was heavier than she’d thought, that was all. It wasn’t doubt sapping her strength. And yet, the radio…It was true. She always had her radio on. She liked the sound, even without knowing what it meant.

  But was it possible…could she have known?

  She hefted him up again, and trudged on. No. It was all a trick. Another way to manipulate her. This wasn’t madness or delusion. This was real. She had flown, she had seen lands she hadn’t known existed. She had soared high enough to discover the curve of the earth, and its spin. It was impossible that she could have known things so amazing all along, and yet not known that she knew them.

  There’s a globe in the office. You’ve always played with it. So you’ve always known the earth is round. And that it spins.

  But she had been into space!

  So has everyone; there are endless TV shows and movies about it. Any child half your age has seen enough of them to imagine what it would be like to visit space. You fantasised the whole experience. You never left the ground.

  No, she had done things, changed things, affected reality. He of all people couldn’t deny that. It had been his sole purpose in cultivating her. Hadn’t she summoned the breeze? Hadn’t she made his blood flow?

  The breeze would have blown anyway. As for the blood—raising an erection in a man, even an unconscious one, is no miracle!

  But it had been her strength that had blown apart the landslide dam and set the lake free, roaring down the valley.

  Who’s to say there ever was such a valley? Or a landslide, or a dam? Why should any of the foreigner’s tales be true?

  But the comet! They altered its path!

  What comet? There is no comet. You’ve never altered anything. Don’t you see? Even in your madness you know that you can’t affect reality, so you conveniently claim to be responsible for things that happen far away, things you can never prove or disprove. That way nothing can ever spoil the fantasy. It’s classic paranoid delusional behaviour. Otherwise—you even realised this yourself—you would have removed those arm and leg restraints on your own, rather than waiting for a nurse to do it.

  Ah, but she had caused the eruption which had brought the nurse running, hadn’t she? The mountain had answered her call.

  Rubbish. It was the other way round. You felt the tremors of the impending eruption, worked out what was about to happen—albeit unconsciously—and then invented a scenario in which you were responsible for it. And look, the eruption is almost over. If you were really in command, how could that happen?

  Gasping under his weight, arms and thighs singing, the orphan paused again, throwing her head back to stare up at the mountain. He was right. The fountains of lava had died away, and only a dull glow came now from the high cleft. The ash had stopped falling, and the night sky was beginning to clear.

  Well, of course the eruption was dwindling, she was no longer stoking it with her mind. All she had to do was call again…

  Try it then.

  And she did try. She reached out, sending her mind down into the ground, searching for the shrinking reservoirs to fire them up again…but somehow it didn’t work. She couldn’t seem to concentrate.

  But that didn’t mean anything! She was distracted, that was all. His pestering was getting in the way. He could not be telling the truth. Because if it was the truth, then there was no ‘he’. It was just her own mind. And why would she do that to herself? It made no sense. Why would she create him?

  You created him out of loneliness. You created him out of your longing not to be ugly anymore, not to be useless and scorned and pitied. And, dare I say it, you created him out of your increasingly desperate sexual frustration.

  And what a perfect hero he was. A wondrous, godlike being who could defy death and triumph over every setback. Even better, you made him fall in love with you, you made him want and need you. You gave yourself amazing powers, even more impressive than his. You made yourself beautiful and immortal. What a contrast to the drudgery of your actual life! What a pleasant dream! What an escape!

  Every step took immense effort now, eve
ry word of his was poisonous, hurting her. Up above, the orphan could see the crest of the first ridge. If she could just make it there, she would rest a while. With rest she would sort it all out. Because it still made no sense. It didn’t. If he was only a delusion whose purpose was to make her happy, then why was he making her unhappy now? Why hadn’t he kept loving her? Why had he turned on her, and started using her to do things she didn’t want to do?

  It’s the nature of delusions. They break down when they collide with reality. Your own delusion had made you stop eating, you were losing too much weight—the hospital staff had to take action. And once you found yourself chained to the bed, the delusion was unveiled for what it was. A powerless fantasy. The foreigner could not release you or save you, and so, in your madness, rather than accept the truth, you made him into a betrayer, a liar, an enemy. Indeed, you made him into a world destroyer. Better the earth be ruined by a cataclysm than you having to return to being the idiot girl again.

  The idiot girl. No, she could not return to that. Not the dreariness of it, not the dullness. It was too heartbreaking, if that was all she was. The ridge line beckoned. If only her aching legs would push her the last few yards.

  And now this—deliberately walking into an eruption zone. It’s the last gasp of your delusion. It shows suicidal tendencies. That’s bad enough—but you’ve also involved an innocent bystander: this poor man you’re carrying.

  The orphan staggered, lurched, and crested the ridge at last. Spent, she set the man—the foreigner, he was the foreigner—down on the ground. She hunched there, gulping for air, her hands clenched in the thin layer of ash. She must not stop. She must go through with it. It was the only way to prevent him.

  Oh, but if she was wrong…If this man here was really just some catatonic she had fixated upon, if he wasn’t the foreigner after all, then what she was intending to do to him, completely undeserved, it was too horrible, it was—

  Worse than murder, that’s what it is.

  Tears stung her eyes. But if none of it was true, then what was the voice in her head? Who had been talking to her since this all began?

  The voice was only ever your own madness. But things have gone too far. The fantasy is broken. The foreigner is gone.

  Then who was talking to her now?

  I’m the last rational part of your mind. I’m trying to save you, and to save this man. I’m trying to prevent you from a heinous act.

  The orphan clutched the earth wretchedly. He had won. He was too clever for her. Or her own mind, her own voice, was too clever. She couldn’t tell which. And if that was so, if there was no way to choose between right and wrong, madness and logic, then she could not go through with her plan. Even insanity would not excuse her. She would have to turn and carry the man down the hill again to safety.

  Despairing, she lifted her eyes to the mountain. It was silent now. She had never touched it, never moved it. And beyond was the night sky, slowly clearing, the ash cloud drifting away over the sea. She had never flown to those heights. She had never soared on the winds, or plummeted through thunderstorms, her every nerve thrilling. She could not fly. No one could. It was time to take the man back down.

  Except…

  There was a cobweb in the heavens.

  She stared. It was suspended above the rim of the mountain, a wisp of white gauze fixed among the stars, a pale smudge that had not been there before, an object faint and vastly far away—but which was rushing, nevertheless, towards the earth.

  Wild relief surged in the orphan’s heart.

  It was real, it was all real after all.

  Their comet was shining there in the sky to prove it.

  32

  The voice didn’t hesitate.

  Even if there is a comet, it doesn’t prove anything. You certainly didn’t visit it out in space with your imaginary foreigner—you heard about it on the radio while you were tied to the bed in your cell. The radio was going the whole time, remember? There was a news report about a new body becoming visible in the night sky, and from there you invented this whole absurdity about the end of the world. If anything, the comet is only more proof of your delusion…

  But the orphan could scorn him at last.

  Oh, he’d been so smart, he’d almost fooled her; he’d twisted everything inside out and she had so very nearly fallen for it. But that fuzzy dot in the sky had banished all her doubts. It was real, it was coming closer, and he was still trying to gain the use of her power, to bring the rock crashing down upon the planet.

  It was clear, then, what she had to do.

  No, you’re regressing. The comet has nothing to do with you. It’s just your paranoia, your delusions of grandeur, your sickness.

  His voice was still calm, still arguing rationally—but the orphan could hear the flutter of panic just beneath. He was truly afraid now, and rightly so. He had fallen into a snare of his own devising. After all, it was his own impatience that had made him press the comet too hard, squeeze it too tight, so that its surface ruptured. The telltale corona was his own fault. Otherwise the deadly thing would still be invisible up there, and then his trickery might have succeeded. Well, not anymore. She took his unresisting body and lifted it again, a new strength invigorating her arms and legs.

  You cannot do this.

  Oh, but she could.

  Smiling, she turned to the volcano. With the same ease—the power that certainty gave!—she reached downwards and sent a burst of heat surging through the magma reservoirs. The mountain rumbled and shook, and the orphan laughed. She could tear the whole island to pieces if she wanted.

  But all she needed was a flow of lava. She pushed, and sent a pulse of molten stone up through the underground channels, and then out, overflowing from a fissure low on the mountainside. Smoke and ash billowed into the night again, and a glowing river began to flow down the volcano’s flanks.

  In response the foreigner abandoned words. He knew what the lava was for, and lies had not saved him, reason had not saved him. He had only one resort left. Abruptly, like talons, he was digging into her mind.

  And it hurt! It was worse even than when he had stolen her strength to move the comet. Ah, but she had been confused then, bereft in space, her body drugged. She was ready for him this time, and she resisted, her mind as hard and smooth as glass. She could not hope to lock him out forever, she knew. He was too strong, and inevitably she would tire. But she needed only a little longer now.

  The night was lit a dull orange by the fires on the mountain. With the foreigner limp in her arms, the orphan turned aside from the path and descended from the ridge, down into the adjoining valley. Soon she was wading through grass, and then she was enfolded by jungle again. Trees and creepers rose around her, and it was very dark beneath the canopy, but yes—there was the little stream.

  It was all as she remembered it. All as he had shown her, way back at the beginning. No doubt he would say now that she had always known about this place, that perhaps she’d overheard someone at the hospital talking about it. Or that she’d been very thirsty that day, and had smelt the water in the stream, and so come looking. But she didn’t believe any of that. The lava tube had been his secret.

  He was wrenching at her mind now. Oh yes, he knew where she was taking him, and what she intended. He had called it worse than murder, and it was. After all, there was no point in killing him. He would only come to life again.

  She followed the stream as before, climbing up the gully, and finally a hole opened ahead in the darkness. It was an arch of stone, the ragged mouth of a tunnel that led into midnight. The lava tube. The orphan lifted her gaze beyond the entrance and saw, through the undergrowth, the fierce glow of fires. Further up the gully, the jungle was burning. The lava was coming, as she had arranged. It would not come through the tube, of course; the tunnel was long since blocked. No, the molten river would simply flow down the gully, slow and deep, until—

  The foreigner’s attack broke out anew, a mad hammering at her mind. A
nd the blows told. A certain numbness was creeping over her, a dislocation between thought and action. She was weakening. But she made herself move forward into the tube. It was black in there, yet her eyes could see. She carried the foreigner inwards for a distance, and then set him down on the rocky floor. Fifty paces behind her was the opening, and fifty paces ahead the tube ended in a blank stone wall.

  A prison then, with only the one exit.

  His assault on her mind abated suddenly, and she stared down at him in surprise—and then in revulsion. His dead eyes were fixed upon her, and his whole body, from fingers to toes, was twitching grotesquely. He was trying to wake up. In his desperation, he was commanding his useless legs and arms to function. But it was still too soon. All he could achieve was a kind of spastic quivering, horrid to watch.

  Sickened, the orphan turned and walked away.

  She came to the entrance and climbed back out into the jungle. The glow from the fires was bright now, she could hear the crackle of flames and smell burning wood. And there was another, more earthy, metallic smell. Much closer now. Good. She clambered up away from the stream, high enough to be clear of the lava’s path. Then she paused, and looked back to the tunnel.

  He would not die, she was sure of that, not even a temporary death. The lava would be thick and slow at this point, it would not be fluid enough to roll back down the tube and devour him. It would merely seal the entrance. It would be hot in the tunnel for a while, and the air would be foul, but he had survived much worse.

  There would be no death—but he would be confined in there for as long as the mountain stood. A hundred years. A thousand. And even if one day he did contrive to die, and be reborn, it wouldn’t matter. He could not shift himself while dead. He would come to life again in the same place. The same dark tunnel. Still sealed in. His body might change, and his face, and he could wait even ten thousand years—immortal.

  But he would never be able to leave.

  And now the river of lava was drawing near. At its forefront it was all black, a smoking, shoving mass of stone and charred wood, but further back, the flow was white and blindingly hot, even from a distance.