The Flying None

by Cody Goodfellow

  Looking down from the angel’s arms as the Vatican, then Rome, then all of Italy fell away at his feet, as the clouds parted to admit them to the frigid void beyond the sky, the Pope experienced a rare moment of doubt. Not in God or the Church, for he had given his life to both, but almost worse was the nagging fear that perhaps his creator was no more nor less insane than the world at his feet.

  To be summoned by divine command by the Angel of Death Azrael, to be carried bodily up to Heaven on angel’s wings, was an honor reserved for prophets and saints, and the Pope knew he was neither. He was only a good man who had found himself at the wheel of a great, glittering ship that waddled rudderless across the heaving seas, running over most of the drowning humanity it was pledged to rescue. How could he ever hope for such an act of grace from a savior who had galled him all his life with His unwillingness to make good on the promises the Pope and all his long line of white, male, mostly celibate predecessors had been impotently tossing out after every plague, pogrom and genocidal insanity visited upon His creation? Did he deserve such an honor, when the world at large had never seemed so far from salvation?

  As if she’d read his mind, Gala said, “Nope,” and dropped him. “Mene mene tekel upharsin, bitch.”

  Screaming with such pure mortal terror that it became almost ecstasy, the Pope fell so fast, his humble bedclothes were scorched by the friction of re-entry. By the time he reached the clouds, he was clutching his heart in a frozen fetal position, his screams magically amplified into a doomsday trumpet that awoke half of Rome. Some even went to their windows in time to see the flailing speck of a man in a soiled nightgown clawing at empty air all the way down to St. Peter’s Basilica, and heard the resounding crash of his fall.

  7

  The best gifts, Gala knew, were the ones you forgot you gave yourself.

  Like the cheap molly you misplaced when you were strung out, that magically appeared as you were packing your things to move after a bad break-up. Or the fifty bucks in cash you found in the lining of a parka with a hole in the pocket, that you thought you’d lost at a shitty full-moon rave at Hunter’s Point. In spite of her other faults, past-you occasionally managed to unwittingly give future-you exactly what you needed, the moment you needed it most.

  Gala awoke that morning with such a bone-deep sense of satisfaction that not even the judgmental eyes of her fellow novitiates could shake her. If she was awash in that freshly-fucked-feeling yesterday, today she felt full-on fucking pregnant. Hormones on blast. She needed an outlet, and like magic, Gala had stumbled upon something she’d started once during an especially shitty PMS week and completely forgotten: a Kill List.

  1. King Maha Vajiralongkorn: semi-divine king of Thailand. Worth $35-40 billion, presides over poverty and misery with harem of forty consorts in luxuriant spa-hotel in Germany.

  2. Dr. Phil. Nuff said.

  3. Eoin Carson. Asshole who proposed to me, then broke up via text while I was still thinking about it.

  4. MBS

  5. ?

  Tapping her pen against her teeth, she crossed out her ex’s name and then the word “Kill,” because he wasn’t worth the trouble, and Kill sounded wrong. That wasn’t what she was about. But “reform” was a pretty weak word; she wasn’t starting a nonprofit, and if there was no getting through to these people . . . Somewhere between Dickens’ Christmas Ghosts and the Khmer Rouge would be the ideal approach.

  Under #5, she wrote ALL BILLIONAIRES and then #6: FACTORY FARMS-MONOCULTURE.

  Wow.

  That changed the scope of her operations a bit, and diverged from her original theme, and she still hadn’t factored in diversity . . . For every Christian fraud with a lot to answer for, there must be a dozen mullahs, Hindu nationalists, infibulating witch-doctors and godless petty dictators out there fomenting misery and division, who deserved a visit from the Truth Fairy.

  Oh good name, she thought. She should design a costume. And then there was the other question, the one she realized she’d been manically: What if this is all in your head?

  Maybe it was just an incredible coincidence that the evangelical minister she had a magical, mystical sort-of sex dream about the night before last simultaneously hit his head and fell off his houseboat, and his corpse was later found by authorities in the middle of a tug-of-war between two enormous alligators . . . She felt pretty bad about that . . . about as bad as her body felt good. But did she cause it?

  Maybe it was all a dream. But last night felt so real, from the shock of spontaneous orgasm to the thrill of power, the looks on their faces . . .

  There was only one way to find out.

  Throwing on a robe, she went into the TV room. Wanda and Magda were fighting over the remote. Wanda needed therapeutic hate-watching, while Magda needed to use the big TV to jack into her old VHS camcorder to search for cthonic transmissions in the resultant video feedback. Gala hadn’t been here long enough to judge their demeanor, but something about them felt off-kilter; they were giddy, like spinsters at a slumber party. Neither of them took any notice of her when she asked if they could just watch the news for a minute.

  And then it hit her.

  She’d gotten no noise complaints last night, and when she left her body, she was buoyed on a wave of ecstatic energy like nothing she’d ever known before. She’d started some kind of masturbation cult in the nunnery.

  The noisy stalemate was broken by Maryelizabeth stampeding in, taking the remote out of the throttling hands of her sisters and putting on CNN.

  Gala flopped on the couch, heaving a sigh of relief so intense, she half-expected to see her soul leaving her body as a pale pink mist.

  Hooray. The Pope wasn’t dead.

  There he was giving a press conference, but he wasn’t up on his precious balcony, and was wearing a sweaty T-shirt that looked like it came from a church poor-box. Eyes half-lidded, glistening with flop-sweat, he looked like a hostage rescued from a long kidnapping. Mumbling into the bouquet of microphones, the Pope’s voice was drowned out by a very confused interpreter.

  “ . . . Church has received a sign, and we have made the following decrees . . . women can be priests . . . priests can marry . . . all people should live and love as God made them . . . we respect women’s decisions about their bodies . . . More on this later . . . Forgive me, I’m very tired . . . ”

  The Pope started to leave as the astonished press shouted questions. Just before they cut away, the loudest shouter demanded to know the truth about rumors that the retired prelate had disappeared from his apartments and was feared kidnapped, and was this outrageous proclamation not some kind of ransom negotiation for his return?

  The Pope turned back to the microphones and threw up his hands. “Do I look like I have all the fucking answers? Look, I’m steering this big, corrupt ship that takes centuries to change course, and we’re not infallible and honestly, we’ve been a big fat joke ever since we lost the power to torture anyone who steps out of line. It’s enough to make you long for those days, I tell you . . . and then I know I’m losing my mind, and yet, God has not said a word.

  “So look . . . You heard what I said. I’m really sorry, okay? We’re all really fucking sorry . . . for all of it.” Muttering Fuck one more time, the Pope threw up his hands and wandered off-camera.

  Maryelizabeth was crouching on the floor, clasping her rosary beads and fervently praying for guidance. Wanda and Magda just blinked at each other for a moment, then started dancing arm in arm in circles and hooting, honest-to-God hooting, pray you never hear it yourself. Gala was about to leave the room and go back to work on her list, but then another question hit her. So this is real—but for how long?

  Whatever was causing this, be it sunspots or PMS, she’d be damned if she didn’t make the most of it while it lasted. The free-floating excitement of the morning had settled as a molten weight in her groin. Holy shit, she was horny. And if she hurried, she’d have the shower to herself.

  She scooted down the hall, smiling behind
her hand. A mild-mannered agnostic nun by day, whenever hypocrisy strikes, Sister Gala flicks her magic bean to become—

  Galadriel was in the shower, washing her hair and desecrating “Angel of the Morning” at the top of her lungs. Gala flushed all the toilets and ran for her cell.

  She put on her headphones and cued up some moody darkwave jazz and flopped on the bed, legs akimbo. She was a rank amateur at masturbation because it simply never worked for her, before, except for the near-drowning incident. Mom unironically called the clit the Devil’s doorbell and said masturbation was for icky boys, and girls didn’t need it.

  Like a second puberty, she felt all the things they warned her about when she was thirteen. Her clitoris positively throbbed, aching to be touched. She almost wanted to tease herself, make it last until they called for breakfast. But the moment she touched herself, fifty thousand watts of epileptic pleasure jolted through her unprepared body. Like a fire alarm, it rang and rang and she screamed just to let it out, screamed all the way up into the stratosphere.

  Looking down on the world, she tried to remember the names on the list. Fuck it. She could just drop out of the sky blindly like a dart thrown at a map, and land on something evil. She looked down between where her feet would be if she’d brought them. Looked down at . . . what was that . . . Barstow? Visalia?

  “Please God, if you’re up there, show me a sign. I just . . . can’t with this anymore. I can’t. Nothing’s keeping me here, but I don’t . . . I don’t want to go to Hell . . . ”

  Gala heard this tear-choked voice coming from everywhere, but it was louder when she looked down. Weird. She could hear people pray.

  Oh shit. The other shoe drops. Millions of people must be praying at any given time. Even her mother knew the act of prayer was mostly talking to yourself to find serenity and acceptance in stressful times. Only her grandmother thought it was like 9-1-1, and expected results.

  This isn’t my job . . . fuck . . .

  “What’s not your job? Hello?”

  Shit. She can hear me think . . .

  “Who are you? Please, if this is a joke—I’m not joking . . . Don’t fuck with me, I’m serious!”

  Gala was still grappling with how she could hear whoever she was hearing and how they could hear her, then realized she could probably hear that, too. Okay, um . . . don’t die. Okay? Just . . . where are you?

  “I’m in my room . . . ? Where are you? Am I going crazy? I’m hearing voices. Just tell me to do it.”

  No! Don’t kill yourself. Don’t—

  She had a head full of things to tell someone to talk them out of committing suicide, things she’d heard from therapists and counselors and friends and celebrities doing PSAs as part of mandatory community service, and it was all bullshit: It gets better. Your friends and family would be devastated. Tomorrow could be the best day of your life. Do you want to go to Hell?

  This wasn’t her job, but she didn’t see anyone else hurtling down from Heaven to settle Tamara’s case. She thought of all those calls to Ireland, and it hit home how big of a debt she owed the universe, if anyone was keeping score. Put on a pot, my child, the wee American buck eejit has her knickers in a twist again . . .

  Tell me where you live . . . What’s your address?

  “Please go away . . . ”

  NO! LISTEN . . . I’m sorry, I’m new at this . . . I want to help. Okay, what’s your name, and how old are you?

  “Tamara . . . I’m fifteen . . . ?”

  The way she ended every declarative statement as half a question, she had to be Californian. Hi, Tamara. I’m not a voice in your head, but I’m not God, either. I know what you’re going through . . .

  “Do you really?”

  I’m just like you . . . I can go places and do things nobody else can, but I’m still figuring it out. Can you hear my voice, like in your head, or in your room?

  “It feels like you’re in my heart, I guess . . . ? I’m talking real low, because I don’t . . . I can’t . . . I don’t want them to hear me . . . ”

  I know it’s, when you’re growing up and sh-stuff, it feels like the whole world either doesn’t care if you die or wants to use you for a cum-dumpster, pardon my French—

  Tamara let out a brittle little laugh. “You’re nasty . . . You’re not an angel, are you? I’ve been praying and nothing happens . . . ? Nobody listens. I don’t know who you are, but I’m gonna . . . I wanna . . . just . . . go . . . ”

  Okay . . . Tamara . . . Talk to me. It’ll make you feel better. Tell me what’s wrong?

  “I want to die, okay? I can’t do this . . . I’m fifteen and I have MS and it’s really bad . . . My mom is terminal. I was trying to wait until she’s gone, but her . . . my stepdad . . . he hates me. My mom is dying and when she’s gone, it’s just him and me. I can’t leave and nobody cares. I just . . . I can’t go to church any more, and I don’t want to go to Hell, if Hell is like this forever. It can’t be any worse . . . Why would God make the world like this and then send you to Hell just because you couldn’t take it?”

  Okay stop right there, Tamara. I feel you, okay? But here’s the good news. There’s no God. No Devil, no heaven, no hell, but right now, you’ve got me and I swear, I’ll do everything in my power . . .

  “There’s no God?”

  Not that I know of, and believe me, I’ve looked. All we’ve got is each other. This is all there is—

  “You’re sure?”

  I . . . What’s your stepfather’s name? Because I guarantee I’ll pay that fucker a visit.

  “It’s Larry. Larry Clugston. I don’t want . . . Can you cure my mom?”

  She had to think about that. Why not? If she could shrink a pope, why couldn’t she also cure disease and resurrect everybody’s dead pets? Okay, I admit I don’t have my phone with me and I don’t actually, like, know what MS is, but I’m willing to give it a shot . . .

  “It’s a debilitating hereditary condition caused by the immune system attacking the nervous system, and you really suck at this.”

  I know, Tamara. But like . . . It might seem impossible now, okay, but someday, you’ll look back on this and you’ll be so grateful that you stuck it out . . .

  “Stick it out. Really?”

  I know how it sounds, but—

  “There’s no God. No Hell. No Heaven . . . ?”

  No, just, can we move past that?

  “Okay, thank you. That’s good news, I guess . . . ? Anyway. Goodbye.”

  Gala dropped like a terminal-phase intercontinental ballistic missile, straining for any change in the sound of the girl’s voice to home in on. Tamara? Honey, just keep talking, I’m coming to your house. Don’t die . . .

  Tamara wasn’t talking.

  Talk to me, Tamara! BTS are a bunch of twinks. Taylor Swift sucks! Talk to me! Don’t . . . don’t . . .

  She was circling a hundred miles above central California when a thunderous pounding whiplashed her back down to Earth.

  8

  She came awake hyperventilating in her bed. Her hands went to her ears and ripped off her headphones, but she could still hear the nightmare sound. Something was trying to claw its way into her head.

  She’d had a nightmare. Only natural, after last night . . . but if last night was real, how could she deny what just happened?

  She jumped at a skirling feline howl and the ratcheting of a skeleton key in her door. It sprang open and bounced off the wall. Mother Mildred stormed in with an angry feral cat tucked under her arm. “Gala, my office,” she barked. The cats hissed.

  Gala sprang out of bed and started to get dressed. “Now!” She caught a glimpse of the blood in the nun’s eyes and belted her robe, followed her to the office.

  She knew that look and tone from a thousand buddy-cop movies. The loose-cannon rookie was about to get a furious dressing-down from the captain. Maybe even have to turn in her badge and gun and go rogue to crack the case.

  But what was this? As she stirred her cold tea with her asthma inhaler
, Mildred radiated something else. She was scared out of her fucking mind.

  “I thought we were clear about the rules in our little talk yesterday,” Mother Mildred muttered.

  “Look, I swear to G—I didn’t just touch myself, okay? It was a religious experience. And I wasn’t the only one. Maybe if everyone around here got their rocks off once in a while, things would go a lot smoother.”

  Mildred sipped her tea through teeth clenched so tight, they squeaked. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

  “I think something real is happening here, like spiritually, okay? I thought that was what this place was all about, reaching out to a higher power and affecting change. You said that yourself, right? Well, I’m telling you, things are changing, and if we all come together . . . so to speak . . . ”

  Mildred took out her phone. At first, Gala was ticked she didn’t seem to be holding the mother’s attention, then something occurred to her. “Wait, I can prove it. I need your phone.” Mildred rolled her eyes. “Fine, you do it. Look up Tamara Clugston, okay? She’s fifteen and she has MS and she’s being abused and she’s going to commit suicide. We have to do something—”

  Shaking her head like it was coming unscrewed, Mildred tabbed up a recording and let it play.

  Gala winced at the sound of her own voice, sleepily mumbling, “Do a miracle. A good one. If he listens to anyone, it’s you guys, right? You have all those giant antenna-penises pointed at Heaven, so get on the horn—”

  “You bugged my fucking room?”

  Mildred locked her phone and put it where Gala couldn’t reach it. “No, this was recorded in Galadriel’s cell, next to yours.”

  “How is one supposed to quietly contemplate the cloud of unknowing or whatever, if we can hear each other breathe?”

  “That’s not the point, Gala. We acknowledge that there are signs of a power at work . . . ” Gala noticed the Independent Journal on Mildred’s desk, the picture of the Pope standing on the balcony overlooking the Vatican plaza in his stained T-shirt. POPE RESIGNS? asked the headline: DECLARES ANNULMENT OF CATHOLIC CHURCH?