by Owen Egerton
Later that night, while the Baptists were asleep, Jesus crept off his throne and out of the dome.
The Catholics, who had never expected a Rapture, were a little freaked out. But they did like heaven. Their dome was filled with candlelight, Gregorian chanting, the thick smell of incense, and the rich colors of stained glass. It was clean and sublime. Unfortunately there was a small, scruffy, Jewish-looking man sitting on what was obviously the Pope’s throne. Not that the Pope was complaining. He stood humbly by waiting for the mix-up to be corrected. Soon enough the Catholics removed the scruffy man and placed the pontiff in his rightful place. The scruffy man didn’t seem to mind. He scurried around heaven standing on chairs, rambling on in some foreign tongue, and generally making a nuisance of himself. Heaven had to have order, everyone agreed. After a search, a gate was found and the small scruffy man was asked to leave.
The Unitarians removed the throne from their heaven as soon as they arrived. All that was left were green hills, soft light, and the continuous music of Enya. Jesus liked these people. They all seemed very pleasant.
Jesus pointed to his chest. “Yeshua,” he said.
“I’m Yeshua, too,” said a short woman with a toothy smile.
“So am I,” said a large freckled man.
“So are we! So are we!” chanted a group of children.
Jesus felt dizzy.
In another Heaven Dome the residents tried to lynch Jesus for his dark skin. Another refused to let him leave the throne, even to use the lavatory. Many of the domes were filled with questions.
“Are you one with the Father and the Holy Spirit? Or an individual in a relationship?”
“Why is my neighbor Phil here? He’s a bastard.”
“What about gays in the military?”
One by one all the Jesuses were either kicked out of or willingly abandoned their Heaven Dome. So during the last days of Earth, twenty-eight Jesuses went wandering across the expanse of North America.
The perfect reward for enlightenment
THE CONCEPT OF a Rapture is unique to a certain section of the Protestant world, but the Floaters found it so effective at giving at least a selection of people a taste of their own versions of an afterlife that they built over a thousand domes across the globe. Tian Domes in rural China. Pure Land Domes in East Asia. A Jewish Heaven Dome in the Middle East with a smaller sister dome in southern Florida.
Domes for Hindus were varied. There were the more concrete Vaikuntha Domes: noiseless escalators connecting a series of levels filled with endless comforts and pleasures and finally culminating with a top-level paradise bursting with song and dance like a high-budget Bollywood spectacular. Other domes attempted to create the experience of moksha, the escape from samsara and the egoless union with Brahma. The closest the Floaters got to this sensation was a very large hot tub and clouds of vaporized lysergic acid diethylamide. A similar approach was taken with constructing Nirvana Domes for practicing Buddhists. It was a fantastic success. LSD and hot tubs turn out to be the perfect reward for enlightenment.
Zen Nirvana Domes were identical except for the addition of snapping turtles to the hot tub waters.
Several varieties of Islamic Jannah Domes were built. Many centered on a mystical stupor similar to the Nirvana Domes; some were not unlike the Christian Heaven Domes but with better food and more stylish furniture. Other Islamic Domes attempted a more literal interpretation of Jannah descriptions. The concept of Houri, or celestial virgins, was a tad tricky. In one particular Jannah Dome the Floaters did indeed provide seventy-four near-perfect virgins for every deserving man and woman. The problem was the virgins weren’t virgins for long. Within fourteen hours of the Rapture, there were only three virgins remaining in the entire dome. Two young, disinterested men and one quickfooted eighteen-year-old girl.
Desire
THE MUD WAS cold, but Click didn’t care. Brown creek water surrounded him, murky and full of shadows. He did not move. He did not want to move.
Crab memory is a soft palette. Details disappear easily. Faces, places, and events all drift away. Click didn’t recall the details of Suga Seal’s white whiskers and black nose. He didn’t remember the sticky puffs or the white wet or the sinking from the sky. Click could only feel. It was as if he were sharing his shell with something heavy. Far too heavy to move. He sank a little deeper into the mud.
The mud would soon cover him completely. Click wanted this. He wanted to not see the water and the world. He wanted to forget the slight memories he had. He wanted to be a stone.
Far above him, past the brown, Click could see a bright-yellow shimmer. He had been closer to the yellow, to the light. It had been warm. It was far away now. He understood far away. Distant. Far. Far away meant he could not touch it. Far meant something was gone.
He watched the yellow above. Watched the color dance. It hurt. Loss. But something else as well. He hurt because he wanted the yellow. Loss echoed throughout his shell and came back as desire. He missed what was not there, and then he desired what was not there. He hoped for the yellow. The pain of regret came with the new ability to hope. If one can be moved away from what one wanted, can’t one move toward what one wanted?
Click desired. Click hoped. Click wanted to move. He shifted his claws and pulled, but the muck held him. His shell was so very heavy. He pulled up again and moved the slightest bit, but the mud sucked him back down deeper than before. A fog of mud billowed in the water around him. He squirmed and sank even deeper. Nearly all his shell was now buried. The more he struggled, the deeper he sank. Only his eyes and his one purple claw were above the silt now. He didn’t move, afraid that any more attempts would bury him in the dark.
In the murky waters, a shadow darted toward him. Click watched as two wide eyes materialized. Two polished pebbles floating in the murk. He remembered her eyes then, remembered how they held him with unblinking love. Click’s heart broke with want. He lunged out a claw to the shadow, all his desire pushing from the mud. He snapped onto something. And with a wild plop he was yanked from the muck. Water rushed by. Click’s shell was jerked back and forth, but he did not let go. He looked up, but instead of seeing his Suga Seal, he saw his claw clasped onto the lower fin of a silver and black trout. Below him the ground sped by at a dizzying speed. He was moving. Darting toward his deepest desire, whatever that might be.
Hook in his chest
HAYDEN WALKED. THE ground beneath him was hard and cracked. In all Hayden’s years in Los Angeles he had not walked more than two hundred yards in one stretch, unless you count StairMasters and jogging machines. But this day he had already covered miles.
The sun was high. He could feel it burning the skin of his nose. Beside him, down a steep incline, a muddy river curved in and out of sight. Far off, cliffs the color of sunsets rose against the sky. Occasionally a breeze tasting of cedar blew past, but for the most part the air was still and hot.
The opening credits of Saint Rick show Hayden walking down a long, dusty road. Slightly more paved, but similar to the one he was walking on now. Hayden’s acting in the opening montage is superb. His face tells of a man feeling the pain of the miles but resigned to the burden. A man who has made peace with his blisters.
Hayden had not made peace with his blisters. He cursed them. He considered stopping, tearing off his shoes, and crying. But something dragged him on. A slow pull, a hook in his chest. There was no solution in stopping. No one would come get him. His answer was to walk.
His feet grew heavier with each step. He dragged the rattling prosthetic leg behind him, making a shallow trench the width of a woman’s thigh. The gritfilled wind stung his cheeks and the white sun baked his scalp. Hayden felt raw and empty. A green-brown river slithered some fifteen feet below him. He wondered if he could reach it, and, more importantly, if he could return from it. He could climb out on the far side, but where would that leave him? And the current might pull him down long before that. Hayden Brock was not a strong swimmer. He kept to the road.
But where would the road lead? So he had seen a monk and decided to follow. The truck was most likely miles away. And who says he was really a monk? Hayden wasn’t really a saint. And even if he was a monk, that didn’t mean he was driving to any kind of sanctuary. Maybe it was just a shortcut to another highway.
Falling forward step by step, his eyes stinging with sand and sweat, Hayden grew confused. The ground beneath his blistered feet might not even be a road anymore. With a panic he had no energy to express, Hayden questioned whether he was not simply walking in circles.
He would die out here, that much seemed clear. Perhaps death was cooler than this heat. He imagined himself lying down on the ground and pulling the earth over him like a blanket. Closing his eyes. He laughed at the thought. The laugh coughed its way into a sob. He didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to waste the little water his body had left. He wiped the tears from his eyes with his sandy sleeve, sending the landscape into a blur.
He sat down and closed his eyes. He missed Jim Edwards. He missed his parents. He missed his agent Ted and Iola the Haitian manservant. He missed water. He would die, his flesh left for some desert breed of ants, his bones bleaching in the desert sun until they were little more than chalky twigs. He would die here.
He opened his eyes and noticed something in the distance. A gathering of low, mud-brown buildings at the bottom of a shallow depression. He could just make out the red pickup glimmering in the sun. Hayden laughed aloud, his tears momentarily staining the parched desert surface.
Stay awake!
“THE FIRST IN starlight, the second in moonlight, the third in full daylight.” Brother Brendan was sitting in the reading room trying to stop the letters from floating from the page. This was often a problem when reading. Vowels were especially buoyant. “The first water, the second wine, the third oil.” His best chance was to read rapidly and turn the page before any letter could peel itself from the page and flutter away. But Joachim of Fiore asked to be read slowly, asked that each phrase led the reader to prayer and contemplation. If only the letters would float from the page as full paragraphs, or even words, that would make it easier. Instead they jumbled in the air letter by letter, buzzing around the monk’s head like a family of gnats.
Yes, yes, but if he let the letters float, if he could learn patience, perhaps they’d return to the page on their own. Perhaps they’d spell new words, new secrets and poems. Ah, but it would be nice to read a page slowly, as the author wrote it.
Of course, Brendan knew these words of Joachim, knew his three stages of history, his poetry describing the era’s end. It will happen! This world will end! Yes! As Joachim said! It will end in 1260! Yes!
But no, no. It was false.
Wonderful.
Easier to trust those who are so clearly wrong. Less chance of trusting simply because you believe them to be trustworthy. What’s the honor in trusting someone who can be trusted? Trust a liar! Yes! Or a fool! Yes!
Brendan was pressing a particularly persistent U to the page when the stranger stumbled into the room. A thirsty stranger, Brendan could see that immediately. He was also carrying an artificial leg. Brendan closed the book and stood.
“Welcome,” he said. “May I fetch you some water?”
The man tried to smile, at least as far as Brendan could tell. Brother Brendan ran from the room and down the hill. He paused at the dining hall and shook the pebbles from his sandals. Then quickly walked through the doors, past the long tables, and into the kitchen. He poured a large glass of water and placed a thick piece of cheese on a plate. Balancing both on a tray, Brendan scampered back up the hill to the reading room. His guest was sitting at the table. Brendan set down the tray and sat across the table from him. As he gulped from the glass, Brendan studied him.
“Would you like some more?” Brendan asked.
The man nodded.
Brendan hopped to his feet, grabbed the glass, and darted back down the hill and to the kitchen. Then sprinted back. He placed the refilled glass in front of Hayden and sat back down.
“You didn’t drink from the river, did you?”
The man shook his head.
“Good, good. Poison, you know. Kill you fast. What’s your name?”
“Hayden.”
“That’s a fine name. I’m Brother Brendan.” He blinked several times. He could only focus for a few seconds at a time, then the lines combined, changed. In fact, Brendan wasn’t positive Hayden was actually there. Often the Akoimetai Brothers were visited by the unreal. It was a blessing. The unreal is a guide to the real within, and the kingdom is within.
They are the Sleepless Monks, following the Lord’s command to “Stay awake!” and Paul’s advice to “Pray continuously.” Yes, indeed, no sleep. Or very little. No, “no sleep” was the wrong way to see it, wrong way to say it. It is wakefulness. Yes, said in the positive. “Stay awake. Watch.” Yes. Watchers. Seeing always. Waking is floating. Sleeping is sinking. Each morning a person floats into the skies of enlightenment, but the nightly habit of sleep is a sinking back to Earth. The next day they must begin all over again. But the Sleepless, oh, they float, up and up and up. Yes, but didn’t Jesus sleep in the boat, during the storm? He was faking for the benefit of his disciples. He was? He was.
Anyway, Brendan had slept enough as a child, as small arms and legs, as running in the grass, as grass running. Grass running! Run from the grass! No grass. No, this is desert country. Yes. Where is Brother Arnold? Brother Arnold is dead. Yes, but he is also whispering. Oh, yes. And that raccoon! Fearless! The raccoon is watching. Watching those who watch. The raccoon is Christ. All things are Christ. Love the raccoon. Raccoon, love me. The raccoon is a man is a child is small legs running in the grass. The grass is running. Run!
“Are you Catholic?” the man asked.
Brendan blinked quickly. Yes. The man. He’s already finished the second glass. And there was an A nestled to his neck. Doesn’t that tickle? “Catholic? Depends who you ask. We think so. The last pope thought so. We haven’t told the current one.”
“Haven’t told him what?”
“That we exist!” Brendan said, tapping his fingers on his lips. “According to the books the Akoimetai Order disbanded in the 500s. Wrong side of a heresy, you know. But we never went under. We just got very quiet. Not in praise. We always worship. Laus perennis. Our chapel is always singing, never sleeping. Yes. We are one of Rome’s secrets. And sometimes that means being a secret to Rome. Excuse me.”
Brendan closed his eyes and sighed. He whispered a prayer. “Oh God, you carry me into ecstasy, you surprise me and steal me away, like wind catching a falling leaf. I fly because of you. I am nothing but a dead leaf without you. Oh Lord, praise be your name. Watch out for that raccoon.” He opened his eyes and exhaled loudly. “Now,” he said. “How can I help you?”
A bed?
BROTHER BRENDAN WAS a little mad, Hayden could see that. He chattered along, but Hayden felt that only a scattering of the words were meant for him. The monk was sometimes calm, sometimes agitated. His eyes had a red-yellow glaze and his thin, ashy hair stuck to the sweat of his forehead. His hands twitched, gripping the table as if he were afraid he’d float away.
“More water?” Brendan asked.
Hayden’s thirst still burned, but he couldn’t bring himself to send the small monk running off again. Brendan had still not caught his breath from his first two trips.
“I know this is strange,” Hayden said. “But I’m wiped out. Could I borrow a bed for an hour or so? I’m exhausted and—”
“A bed? A bed? I’m sure we have one somewhere. Wait here.” Brendan jolted up. He swayed on his feet for a moment, then scurried through a door in the back of the room.
Hayden could hear the whisperings behind the door.
“A bed?”
“Yes. He wants a bed. Is there one in the basement?”
“We don’t have a basement.”
“Fetch Brother Andre. Yes, yes.”
&nbs
p; The door burst open and Brendan scuttled back to his chair at the table. “A room is being prepared,” he said. Two other monks, slightly younger than Brendan, came into the room from the same door. As Brendan smiled at Hayden, the two monks moved to either side of the table, lifted it, and carried it through the door.
“So,” Brendan asked. “You’re a traveler?”
“I’m an actor.”
“Oh good. Very good. Are you acting now?”
“No. I really am very tired.”
“Yes, of course you are. Unless you’re still acting, even now. That would make you a very good actor.”
“I’m not a very good actor.”
“That’s settled.” Another monk peeked in the door and nodded at Brendan. Brendan stood. “Your bed is this way.”
Hayden followed the monk through the back and into an empty hall lined with other doors. He could sense eyes staring from behind cracked doors. At the end of the hall was a bare room. In the center was the table. The legs had been cut down to a foot or so and brown fabric, the color of the monk’s robes, has been spread over the top.
“Your bed,” Brother Brendan said, smiling.
Hayden thanked him and yawned. Brendan nodded. Hayden nodded. The two stood facing each other. Hayden wondered if he was expecting a tip.
“Well, I think I’ll take a nap,” Hayden said. Brendan nodded. Hayden coughed. “So, I’ll see you later.”
“Oh, yes.” Brendan seemed to remember himself and shuffled out of the room.