Not a Christmas story
10/12/05 19:17![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomyA tarot card and a steady diet of pretty-winged-boy manga--and this happened.
I won't bother to disclaim it, except to note that it's much more in the spirit of Good Omens and hot-winged-boy manga than having anything to do with my own beliefs.
There are timetables. Procedures that must be followed. Stars tick across the heavens like a glacial clock, slow, inexorable.
Blessed are those who perceive deep meanings in small things: the crunch of frost underfoot, a black crow atop a pine. Cursed am I who sees deeper, and understands. They look up more often in these years, with vague yearnings and unmet expectations.
I'm late. Four nanoseconds after I ought to have pulled the switch and set everything in motion, a voice IS. Nowhere, and everywhere.
IS THERE A PROBLEM?
"No problem," I say. And yet, because I still am undecided in this matter of a decision I have no right to make, I complete the paperwork in triplicate to requisition another day.
*
Up There, I'm a coin spinning on its edge. Down Here, the coin drops, one way or the other: heads or tails, certainty.
This time it's tails. Christmas.
I'm leaning against the side of the mall downtown, listening to pedestrians grumble under their breaths as they shuffle in and out, arms laden with bags. There is debt, there is anxiety, the desperate hope of love pinned on a too-expensive trinket.
There are a billion miracles, not counting the ones that get written up in the holy books. There are serendipities, there are smiles, there is the stone silence of a dark night. No one here sees them now, and neither do I.
What about infinite mercy and compassion? What would I know about them? I'm only the one who pulls the switch.
Something flutters to my feet, and I snatch at it, a reflex--ten dollars. I can pick out the one who dropped it, and tug at her coat.
"Miss, you dropped--"
Fear and consternation pass over her face at once.
"That was for you," she said, halting. I mean it's not like I--well if you're going to spend it on booze, buy something good, OK?"
I look at my clothes and realize how I've materialized. Greasy, worn, threadbare. The despair, at least, I come by honestly. Thanks a lot.
"I don't need it," I say. In subtle ways I shift my appearance--she doesn't notice, but in a moment she'll wonder how she saw me as a bum, when I merely had the semi-kempt look of a bachelor professor.
"Don't you? Oh." She looks at me, bemused, and then pained laughter breaks out on her face. "'Cause I could sure as hell use some bourbon."
We go together, and perhaps neither one of us knows why. It's a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place, open on Christmas eve, but they've got a liquor license and we clink our glasses together.
"Fuck Christmas," she says, as a toast.
"A-men to that." I do not get struck down at once, so I press my luck. "Savior of the world, and He can't manage a better job than this. Nepotism, that's what it is..."
The girl laughs with her hand over her mouth, her eyes crinkling. "I'm Catholic!" she says in a scandalized whisper.
"You don't want to know what I am," I say solemnly.
The bill comes and we're gnawing at our fortune cookies. She's just taught me the trick of adding "in bed" to your fortune, but she thinks "The fate of the world is in your hands in bed" is much funnier than I do.
She plunks down the ten she gave me before, and another one.
"You don't have to. I can--"
She stops me, but it takes her a while to get together what she wants to say.
"I came home last week and my boyfriend had shot himself in the head. Right after I just spent two hours trying to find him a robot dinosaur. So finally I went to return it, and the money--just keeps staring at me."
Now she's sobbing, and I can only come over to her side of the booth and put an arm awkwardly around her.
Tails.
Might as well end things. It couldn't get much worse anyway.
'Bastard," she sniffles, and for a moment I think she's addressing me. "Coward, too."
I come by my naiveté honestly. And, I will admit, my slightly rusty theology. "Coward? He must have feared Hell."
"But, you know, making it through another day, and then another one, and then another one, that's not easy for any of us. But the rest of us find enough courage to keep going forward."
It's not until then that the absurdity of this entire situation hits me, and the cowardice.
I've just been sent to do the dirty work of Someone who won't set things in motion Himself.
My responsibility, my duty--but I'm not the one who's omnipotent and omniscient and supposedly omnibenevolent. (And I'm scared of this because I don't want to be struck down?)
I leap up from the table and run. I want to be alone, but she follows me, and anyway it doesn't matter; I'm just surprised that she keeps up with me until we reach a small park in the midst of the city.
My head's clear now, and here and there--now that I know it's not my decision to make--I see the world squirming and wriggling to stay alive, and I can't help cheering it on.
They've kept me isolated and morose (well, isolated--morose may be my fault) for one reason only, so I wouldn't be able to see these things. So I'd be able to do the impossible.
It's all coming up heads now, and it doesn't matter, because it's not my decision.
"I dare you!" I shout joyously up into the heavens. I squeeze her hand, even though she's probably starting to wonder if I'm crazy.
The sky is a dark indigo, the half-moon shockingly white. No stars--there's too much light in the city. I feel drunk, and the cold air tastes wonderful. "I won't do it. I'm staying here. Do it, if you can, I dare you!"
I stare up and wait for the end of the world. It feels like all of eternity, and when eternity ends, the girl pulls me by the hand and we go down the hill for some hot chocolate.
I won't bother to disclaim it, except to note that it's much more in the spirit of Good Omens and hot-winged-boy manga than having anything to do with my own beliefs.
There are timetables. Procedures that must be followed. Stars tick across the heavens like a glacial clock, slow, inexorable.
Blessed are those who perceive deep meanings in small things: the crunch of frost underfoot, a black crow atop a pine. Cursed am I who sees deeper, and understands. They look up more often in these years, with vague yearnings and unmet expectations.
I'm late. Four nanoseconds after I ought to have pulled the switch and set everything in motion, a voice IS. Nowhere, and everywhere.
IS THERE A PROBLEM?
"No problem," I say. And yet, because I still am undecided in this matter of a decision I have no right to make, I complete the paperwork in triplicate to requisition another day.
*
Up There, I'm a coin spinning on its edge. Down Here, the coin drops, one way or the other: heads or tails, certainty.
This time it's tails. Christmas.
I'm leaning against the side of the mall downtown, listening to pedestrians grumble under their breaths as they shuffle in and out, arms laden with bags. There is debt, there is anxiety, the desperate hope of love pinned on a too-expensive trinket.
There are a billion miracles, not counting the ones that get written up in the holy books. There are serendipities, there are smiles, there is the stone silence of a dark night. No one here sees them now, and neither do I.
What about infinite mercy and compassion? What would I know about them? I'm only the one who pulls the switch.
Something flutters to my feet, and I snatch at it, a reflex--ten dollars. I can pick out the one who dropped it, and tug at her coat.
"Miss, you dropped--"
Fear and consternation pass over her face at once.
"That was for you," she said, halting. I mean it's not like I--well if you're going to spend it on booze, buy something good, OK?"
I look at my clothes and realize how I've materialized. Greasy, worn, threadbare. The despair, at least, I come by honestly. Thanks a lot.
"I don't need it," I say. In subtle ways I shift my appearance--she doesn't notice, but in a moment she'll wonder how she saw me as a bum, when I merely had the semi-kempt look of a bachelor professor.
"Don't you? Oh." She looks at me, bemused, and then pained laughter breaks out on her face. "'Cause I could sure as hell use some bourbon."
We go together, and perhaps neither one of us knows why. It's a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place, open on Christmas eve, but they've got a liquor license and we clink our glasses together.
"Fuck Christmas," she says, as a toast.
"A-men to that." I do not get struck down at once, so I press my luck. "Savior of the world, and He can't manage a better job than this. Nepotism, that's what it is..."
The girl laughs with her hand over her mouth, her eyes crinkling. "I'm Catholic!" she says in a scandalized whisper.
"You don't want to know what I am," I say solemnly.
The bill comes and we're gnawing at our fortune cookies. She's just taught me the trick of adding "in bed" to your fortune, but she thinks "The fate of the world is in your hands in bed" is much funnier than I do.
She plunks down the ten she gave me before, and another one.
"You don't have to. I can--"
She stops me, but it takes her a while to get together what she wants to say.
"I came home last week and my boyfriend had shot himself in the head. Right after I just spent two hours trying to find him a robot dinosaur. So finally I went to return it, and the money--just keeps staring at me."
Now she's sobbing, and I can only come over to her side of the booth and put an arm awkwardly around her.
Tails.
Might as well end things. It couldn't get much worse anyway.
'Bastard," she sniffles, and for a moment I think she's addressing me. "Coward, too."
I come by my naiveté honestly. And, I will admit, my slightly rusty theology. "Coward? He must have feared Hell."
"But, you know, making it through another day, and then another one, and then another one, that's not easy for any of us. But the rest of us find enough courage to keep going forward."
It's not until then that the absurdity of this entire situation hits me, and the cowardice.
I've just been sent to do the dirty work of Someone who won't set things in motion Himself.
My responsibility, my duty--but I'm not the one who's omnipotent and omniscient and supposedly omnibenevolent. (And I'm scared of this because I don't want to be struck down?)
I leap up from the table and run. I want to be alone, but she follows me, and anyway it doesn't matter; I'm just surprised that she keeps up with me until we reach a small park in the midst of the city.
My head's clear now, and here and there--now that I know it's not my decision to make--I see the world squirming and wriggling to stay alive, and I can't help cheering it on.
They've kept me isolated and morose (well, isolated--morose may be my fault) for one reason only, so I wouldn't be able to see these things. So I'd be able to do the impossible.
It's all coming up heads now, and it doesn't matter, because it's not my decision.
"I dare you!" I shout joyously up into the heavens. I squeeze her hand, even though she's probably starting to wonder if I'm crazy.
The sky is a dark indigo, the half-moon shockingly white. No stars--there's too much light in the city. I feel drunk, and the cold air tastes wonderful. "I won't do it. I'm staying here. Do it, if you can, I dare you!"
I stare up and wait for the end of the world. It feels like all of eternity, and when eternity ends, the girl pulls me by the hand and we go down the hill for some hot chocolate.