TDX2 - Too Dull To Die
Page 8
form with a stamp, and threw it back to Graham. “Tell him to hand it to Him when he sees Him.”
“Okay.”
Mavis whispered to Graham. “Is it really possible for someone to have such a nothing life?”
“Look at me.” Mavis nodded in agreement and Graham led Guido away.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Guido had missed the conversation, he was too deep in his own thoughts.
“You’ve gotta see the Big Man.” Graham gave him the form.
“The who?” Graham gestured to the door in front of them. There was a simple gold plate on the door which read ‘God’. “No. You’re kidding me?”
“I kid you not. Well, Guido, I think I can get back to my normal job now, I’m starting to lose the urge to live. Thanks for the adventure, it was fun.” Graham shook Guido’s hand.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“It was a pleasure.” Graham gave a big smile.
“Really?”
“No.” The smile died. “Hand the form to Him.” Graham knocked on the door. There was a muffled ‘come in’ from inside the room. Guido couldn’t believe that he was about to see God. “Go. Go inside. I’ve knocked now, you can’t not go in.”
“Right, yes. That would be bad manners.” Guido turned the handle and opened the door. A grey bearded man dressed in a long white robe sitting at a large desk raised his head.
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11
“Come in, come in. If you’re stupid enough to knock, you might as well sit down.” The man dropped his head and went back to his paperwork while gesturing Guido to sit down. The chair Guido sat down on wasn’t so comfortable. The man held out his hand, and Guido passed him the form, which He skim read.
“Hello…Guido.”
“Hello. Are you…?”
“Yes, I am.” He smiled at Guido. It was a much nicer smile than Satan’s.
“You’re…God?”
“Well, my name's Reginald but I guess you know me better as 'God', yes.”
“Wow.”
“Wow, indeed. Is this your form?”
“Wow.”
“Yes, we’ve done that bit. Is this yours?”
“Wow.”
“Enough of that. The form?”
“Sorry, yes, excuse me?” Guido’s mind was blown. “God.”
“Yes.”
“You’d think I’d have a question for you or something, it’s not every day someone gets to meet…God. But my mind’s a blank.”
“Happens all the time. No worries. Now, can we move onto business? I have your…”
“No, hang on, sorry, I have a question, really. I have one.” Reginald gave Guido a long stare and flicked on his communicator.
“Audrey?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Scratch my 12:30, will you? The one with Michael. Put it to 4:00, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” Reginald closed his communicator. “Okay, Guido, the floor is yours.” Reginald relaxed back in his very comfortable chair.
“You’re in charge of everything, right?”
“Yes. I’m Regin…sorry, God.”
“You’re the one who put everything together, made everything and everyone?”
“Yes, I am.” Reginald smiled.
“Right down to the last flower, the last bee?”
“Yes, I am, Guido.” Reginald’s smile waned. “You said you had ‘a question’, that usually means just the one.”
“Sorry, I’m building up to it, I think.”
“Shoot.”
“Right. So…so why is there all this suffering, this killing, and…and people not only dying but dying in vicious, monstrous ways. Why all this violence, this…’nastiness’? Surely if you’re in charge you can do something about it?”
“Good question.” Guido waited for the answer, it took a while to come, he saw that God…Reginald was in contemplation. Either that, or he’d fallen asleep. “What exactly…” The suddenness of Reginald’s reply from out of the silence made Guido jump.
“Sorry.” Guido settled himself back into his chair.
“That’s okay. Guido, what exactly do you think your race is doing down there?”
“Living? Well, I wasn’t, I was existing, which I now realise is a lot different. But everyone else lives. Mostly.”
“Yes, they’re making decisions in their lives, doing what they want or what they think they need to do. I don’t have any say in that. I’m up here, not down there.”
“What about all this ‘God sees all’ stuff? What about that?”
“This is what I see.” Reginald pressed a switch on his desk to pull back a false wall behind him, revealing a mass of screens showing all the television channels being broadcasted from the surface. “And if I’m feeling nostalgic, I just go behind…and lo and behold…” Reginald gestured Guido to stand up and follow him behind the screens. “…I can see this, an excellent view of the surface.” Guido saw planes flying through the clouds, while underneath blankets of oceans covered the globe, with glimpses of cities and life on land. “I also get the odd report, sometimes very odd. You monkeys do some strange things on the surface.”
“Very nice view.” Guido was amazed by the view. “Monkeys?” Guido noticed Reginald ignored his last remark to continue on with a speech.
“Thank you. Now, what you’re talking about, this ‘God sees all’, is religion. That’s got nothing to do with me, that’s you. So all that killing, maiming, suffering, famine, war, destruction, that’s you, not me.” Reginald led Guido back to his chair and they sat down opposite each other again. “When really necessary, I have intervened, but other than that, what happens on the surface is up to you.”
“So, there’s no connection between you and say, the Bible?” Reginald laughed.
“Tell me Guido, who wrote that book? Did I?”
“Well…”
“I’m sure it would be a better read if I’d written it.” Reginald picked up Guido’s form again. “It would have more jokes in it, for a start. Now, this form…”
“Yes…sir?” Guido had no idea how to address Reginald…God.
“This is pretty pathetic, Guido. Who journeyed with you?” Reginald threw the form back onto his desk.
“Graham.”
“Graham? Who’s…? Oh yes, my servant Mr. Death.”
“Yes, that’s the one. And Satan.”
“Satan? How did that happen?”
“With some help from his little flying monsters. He was sure I was bad.” Guido still wasn’t so sure himself.
“Looking at this form of yours, I wouldn’t call you bad. I’d call you…dull, sad even.”
“Dull? Sad?”
“Yes, Guido. You see, there’s something special about the time you can spend in the physical universe, there are natural ‘points’ in your allowed time where you can experience certain aspects of life to some degree, perhaps even to the full, with opportunities to expand your understanding and knowledge of both the positive and negative things in life, like love, laughter, success, hate, envy, abandonment, failure, to name but a few.” Reginald looked at Guido’s shape and form, unchanged since dying. ”It seems you missed out on every single one of these. That takes talent, and some effort. You’ve experienced everything, of course, it would be impossible not to, but you seem to have miraculously experienced them all to the least.”
“When you say it like that, I feel such a loser.”
“There are even things called…now what was that…coincidences, that’s it. Coincidences control your life, they are pre-planned and happen because they’re in your service contract, the one you signed when you left this place. You can gain experience without them, but coincidences are the real drivers. And I don’t know how you did it but you closed every door that was opened to you.” Reginald looked Guido straight in the eye. “You’re just too dull to die.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means under clause 332 of section 15 in your service contract, I’m going to have
to send you back. You are neither good nor bad.”
“My service contract?” Was Guido’s life all just a service?
“Yes. Right, I see.” Reginald looked up to the ceiling and flicked on his communicator. “Audrey?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Can you find me a service contract, please?” There was a long silence followed by a loud bang of head against wood.
“Which one, sir?”
“Guido…”
“Is it the Guido who’s just used one of Mavis’s TTs?”
Reginald froze. “Excuse me?”
“The unchanging soul who just came back from a memory journey, the one with an RE-TDx2?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“I’ve got his service contract right here, sir.” Reginald smiled at Guido and they waited. There was another loud bang and footsteps moving away from the microphone. The door to Reginald’s office opened, and in walked a rather splendid looking professionally dressed woman, nothing like the rest of the staff outside. She smiled at Guido, who happily reciprocated, and laid a collection of paper on Reginald’s desk.
“Thank you, Audrey.”
“You’re welcome, sir.” She left the room with Guido’s eyes following her every move. Reginald flipped through the paper and came to section 15, clause 332.
“Here it is. ‘If said party’, that’s you, Guido, ‘for any reason, whether through fault of said service provider’, that’s us, ‘or said party, should find themselves without experiences of asset or value, assessed by those authorised within the working framework of said service provider to do so, then said service provider is empowered to grant said party with re-access to said services’. Simple, really.” Guido was confused for about the tenth time today. “So Guido, there it is.”
“There what is? Isn’t that all just gobbledygook?”
“No,