*
The next morning, I rose and left for work, my mind strangely unperturbed. I felt a calmness over me, and decided to forget entirely about the strange man.
Outside of my door, there was no sign of him or any of the strangeness that had plagued my previous day, and I believe I smiled and even whistled on my way to the library.
A starling alighted in a tree in the park across from my door, and I smiled as I watched it. The bird looked back at me, tilting its head. Then, with a flutter of its wings, it was gone, leaving no trace it had been there at all.
It was a gift from God, these small things of beauty that reminded us of our impermanence on this earth. ‘Bloody rats with wings,’ a lower-class man mumbled, wiping at his shoulder. He was probably a chimney sweeper or some such job, for his clothing was already quite filthy.
I frowned at him, annoyed that he interrupted the tranquillity of the scene and the poetic thoughts it had inspired in me.
Shaking my head, I continued on. The rest of my journey was entirely uneventful, and I was even on time for work, a rare feat for me.
Mr. Keithson looked relieved, and directed me towards the assorted books that required shelving.
I set to work, again feeling quite at ease. Down into the stacks I went, nodding to various co-workers, some of whom nodded back.
At the lowest floor, I proceeded, the dust on the books leaving strange patterns on my hands as I returned them to their places.
Taking one book, I paused. It was a journal that had caught my fancy some time back, for it dealt with xeno science – that is, science about the strange and unknown.
Smiling slightly, I opened the book...
‘Good day, Mann. I say, what is that you are reading?’
‘O!’ I nearly jumped from the sound of a voice. Turning, I blinked at the strange man behind me. ‘Anthony, you startled me.’
‘O, sorry.’ Anthony blinked. He was an odd fellow, but well-liked. His eyes often seemed glassy and slightly protuberant, and, well... His head seemed to be different each day I saw him, almost as if it changed shape. I privately referred to his affliction as polymorphism, a condition I coined. It seemed to be peculiar to only him.
‘It’s all right. I’m... reading a book about xeno science – you know, things usually considered mythological or unknown.’
‘Ohhh, yes. Yes, you are interested in that sort of thing, aren’t you? I’ve sometimes thought about things like that. You know, life on other planets.’
I smiled. It was a favourite subject of his, actually. ‘O, yes, I recall you saying that before. What do you think of the idea of life on Mars? I have heard about canals there...’
Anthony scoffed. ‘Mars is a barren wasteland. Even if aliens could live there, why would they want to? It’s not like it has enough trilonicleum there for them.’
‘Pardon?’
Anthony’s large eyes blinked, and the vein on his forehead pulsed. ‘Well, you know, if they hypothetically needed trilonicleum. But, uh, what do you think about aliens? Do you think they could conquer earth with its defences as they are?’
This seemed an odd subject. ‘Well, I suppose. I can’t really guess what their technology might be like, though, can I?’
‘No, I suppose only an alien could... I imagine they wouldn’t be interested in primitive primates like humans. At least not until they advanced to the point where they were interesting. The earth, though, would be a very nice bounty of resources to some aliens. Very nice. Hypothetically speaking.’
‘Em, I would suppose that is true, Anthony.’ Anthony often spoke of these things.
'I would imagine that hypothetically, some advanced alien race could strip the earth of its resources and liquids in a matter of months.'
I had nothing to say to that. However, the topic was slightly off-putting to me.
'Er, have you heard of that theory that the universe is expanding?' I said. It was spoken of only in my strange circles. Mainstream science regarded it as silliness, based only in a poem, yet I, and others like myself, viewed it as a perfectly logical model.
'Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's old news . . .' His disinterest went to the point of rudeness.
It was hard to be annoyed with Anthony, however, and I opened my mouth to correct him that this theory was very, very new, certainly not old news.
‘O, hello, Mann.’ The voice was familiar, for I’d heard it only the night before.
‘Ed!?’
The man, in the flesh, came up, nodding politely. He was wearing another spiffy suit, albeit still in a style that was different than the norm. He showed no sign of realizing he was in a place he shouldn’t.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. ‘You are not supposed to be in the closed stacks – and I may get in trouble with my supervisor, Mr. Keith-’
Ed waved his hands. ‘No worries. Hey, Anthony, how are you doing?’
Anthony shrugged. ‘O, pretty good, same as always. Mission’s still boring.’
I blinked. ‘Anthony, you know Ed? What mission? I am missing something here!’
‘That happens with humans,’ Ed commented ruefully to Anthony, who nodded in a knowing way.
I imagined these two must know each other, and decided they were playing me for some sort of fool. ‘Well, whatever game you two are playing, it is not fun for me.’
The situation then got worse.
‘I can hear you whispering,’ Mr. Keithson said, appearing from an aisle. I hastily closed my book and tried to look busy.
‘Good job,’ Mr. Keithson said to me cheerfully, obviously meaning my poor attempts at working.
‘Ah, hello. Pleasure to meet you at last, Mann’s told me so much about you.’ Ed extended his hand to my superior, and I blinked. I had never mentioned Mr. Keithson to Ed.
Mr. Keithson nodded and smiled. ‘I think it was more of a murmur I heard.’
The three continued to chatter, and I watched, knowing I was missing something. Mr. Keithson glanced to me. ‘By all means, Mann, continue to look like you’re working.’
Chastened, I continued to try and work as the three spoke softly, laughing occasionally. From the way Ed’s eyes flicked to me, I imagined they were laughing at my expense.
I heard something about Romans and Anthony saying he had once thought a toga was still in style, but it made no sense to me.
After some time of this, they seemed to bid each other adieu, Anthony and Mr. Keithson wandering off, still talking to each other and chuckling.
Ed turned to me, smiling and shaking his head. ‘Those two are great,’ he said to me, grinning broadly.
‘How do you know my employer and co-worker?’ I demanded. In my eyes, for anyone I knew to have a connection to my new acquaintance made him far more mundane.
‘We’ve known each other for hun- I mean dozens- a long time.’ He put his arm around my shoulder, which I found uncomfortable. Ed did not notice. ‘Now, Will said I could take you out for a bit, no problem. Are you ready to go?’
It was odd to hear Mr. Keithson’s Christian name being said so casually, and it threw me off. ‘Er, go where?’
A sigh from Ed. ‘Let me just show you, boyo.’
‘Wait!’ I said quickly. ‘I really have no idea who you are, Mr... Ed. Who are you really?’
Ed’s eyes twinkled in the same disturbing way they had when we first met. ‘Would you believe, Mr. Mann, that I am a god? In the same vein as Zeus, Isis and Noip.’
Silence. Finally, I heard my voice say; ‘No.’
Ed blinked, looking a little deflated. ‘O. Well, I am. A true-to-life god. Just like in those old stories, you know? Well, not exactly the same. I mean, we’re a hell of a lot cooler than the ones in those stories. I am, at least.’
I tried to distance myself from the man, attempting to move his arm from my shoulder. ‘That is very nice, but if you don’t mind, I would rather be working.’
Ed stared at me. ‘You still don’t believe me, do you? Well, only one thing to do about that. Let me prove it.’
Curse my curiosity! I had more in common with the average feline in that regard than I did a person. ‘Prove it... how?’
He leaned closer. ‘What you see of me is an illusion, Thomas Mann. Most of what everyone sees is an illusion. On average, humans encounter two beings in their life that only they can see. That’s quite a bit of unreality.’
I blinked slowly, pondering that. ‘So... What, Ed, is real? I mean, what is really real?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ Ed asked.
‘Yes,’ said I.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes!’
He showed me.
Reality had seventeen snapping heads, eating small gnomes. Some looked reptilian, others human, others like apes or monkeys and still others like things I had never seen before. Rings of rat and other vermin skulls rotated around various parts of it in concentric rings. Five legs. Three arms. Numerous tentacles, I believe nine. Several featherless birds seemed to fly around him, snapping at the skulls and unfortunate gnomes (the latter of which there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of). It was also, approximately, three hundred times the size of a normal person.
I was suitably impressed at the time. In fact, as Ed later put it, my head nearly imploded from his grandness.
I was greatly staggered, and had to lean back against the book shelves. Light-headed, I knew I was seconds away from passing out.
‘My god!’ I said. ‘My god!’
‘Yes?’ Ed asked sincerely.
‘I’m just... My god... It’s true, then. No one could have faked that.’
Ed kept his mouth shut, not wanting to mention how advanced future digital brain immersion effects were in the 22nd century on earth. For though he wasn’t lying, what Mann had just experienced could easily have been faked.
‘You are an immortal? A true God?’ Awe filled my voice and I know my eyes must have been perfectly spherical as I stared at the man.
Ed merely looked annoyed. ‘I think the proper term is Mortalitally Challenged. Believe me, a lot of us would like to die. Now that you’re convinced, shall we go?’
I nodded, bracing myself. I didn’t do well enough, for I gasped as my eyesight winked out. It felt as if someone had grabbed me under the arms and pulled me suddenly into the air.
There was a sound – to describe it onomatopoeically, would have been ‘poot’.
And then I heard total silence. I was standing, if I may use that word, in utter blackness, darker than a cave far under the earth, darker than the heart of the lord of hell.
There was a ringing in my ears, and I started to feel vertigo from how lost I felt. The ringing was growing louder, ever louder. O, how I loathed the noise! Were there some kind of ghastly bells – or was it my mind fraying?
It continued to rise in pitch, until I felt that madness itself could be the only result of me. It was driving me insane!
‘Stop!’ I screamed, unable to endure even another second.
‘Sorry.’ There was a click, and then blessed, welcome light flooded the area.
Ed had flipped a switch of some kind, turning on strange glowing panels in the ceiling. Their harsh white light was uncomfortable to me, seeming very unnatural.
‘Where are we?’
Ed ignored me, fiddling with the toggles and buttons again. He smiled suddenly, and the wall in front of us became transparent.
All thoughts vanished from my mind as I looked at the most amazing sight I had yet beheld in my entire life. Any doubts I had about Ed were entirely erased, to be replaced with pure wonderment and awe.
A thousand, a million, maybe more – stars, of all sizes, shapes, colours and hues. Clouds of gas intertwined between them. Not a single star twinkled, a sign that there was no longer an atmosphere between us and them – only the glass.
I walked towards it mindlessly, pressing my face against the cold clear wall. In my dreams I had not imagined them so beautiful, their light piercing down into my soul.
In the centre of this sea of stars was the grand masterpiece. An inky black hole, only noticeable for the absence of stars, and the gaseous disc that orbited it, slowly being sucked in.
Words failed me, and I can never truly describe the majesty of how it struck me. How this universe we inhabited was. How amazing it was, enormous beyond our comprehension. And I, I was privileged enough to get a tiny opportunity to see it.
‘That’s the black hole Tobias 5,’ Ed said. ‘It’s considered special for a number of reasons.’
'Which one is earth's sun?' I leaned against the glass like an excited child, pressing my nose to it until it deformed.
Ed shook his head. 'We're on the far side of what your people will know as the Sloan Great Wall one hundred years after your time.' In other words, he was hinting, there was no way to see it over the unbelievably vast distances and the enormous collection of galaxy super clusters that was 80 billion light-years across.
'O. So which one is it?'
'That one,' Ed replied, pointing to a random dot.
I goggled at it, imagining the star looked familiar, even, or that I could see planets. Ed knew how unlikely that was since it was really a distant supernova and any planets around it were long since vaporized.
'What did you say before that?' I finally asked of the DemiGod. 'Something about a wall?'
'The Sloan Great Wall. That's your kind's name for it. Everyone else calls it the Cosmic Cheese Doodle.' He held out his hand and a cheese doodle appeared on it, which he summarily ate.
'Why would they call it that?' I asked, looking around curiously for other errant snacks.
'The Cosmic Cheese Doodle-' another cheese doodle appeared in his hand and shared the fate of the previous one '-Tourism Bureau named it that because it looks like a cheese doodle. As a nice promotion, they send instant cheese doodles to beings who say Cosmic Cheese Doodle. It's really a pleasant gimmick.'
'I see. So if I say... Cosmic Cheese Doodle!' I said it suddenly, imagining a snack to appear just as readily in my hand as in his. I looked at my appendage eagerly.
Nothing appeared.
'Oh, they only give them out to beings of significance. If they gave them out to every life-form who said it, they'd go bankrupt.' He ate his latest cheese doodle.
He looked around. ‘Hey, this isn’t bad. No crowds yet, I guess we’re here in the off-season.’
‘My word, Ed! What is that floating around that dark hole?’ I asked, squinting out the view port.
‘Black hole,’ Ed corrected. He looked out at the speck I was looking at, and nearly blanched. ‘That’s... nothing, Mann, pay it no mind, no mind at all. Hey, look! Complementary snacks!’
A tray floated through the room, covered in snacks that looked vaguely familiar to me. Ed took one, and glanced around. Ascertaining they were still alone, he took several more, putting them in his pockets, then wandering away.
I reached up, taking one as well. It looked like a devilled egg, but had forty-three twitching legs made of the same egg white-like substance as the rest. Inside was an orange cream that swirled about on its own.
Surely they would not put out anything dangerous, I thought. After a moment’s hesitation, I took a bite.
The egg was surprisingly sweet, while the orange cream was both bitter and tart, but quite tasty. The amount of it crowding my mouth seemed entirely out of proportion to the amount I’d bitten off. Forcing it down with a painful swallow, I crammed the rest in and swallowed it as well.
‘That was quite filling,’ I said to Franklin the hare, who was hovering around the room in a dustbin.
I took a puff on my cigarette, finding it odd, since I was not normally a smoker. A moment later I realized I had no cigarette. No problem, I thought. I could use my belt.
Trying to light it, I was interrupted as I started to slide up the hill, propelled, I knew, by the group of four or five mushrooms at the top. They had clear, dome-like caps with flashing neurons in them.
‘Hello, fellows,’ I said jauntily as I slid to the top. Stars had started to cover my hands, and I brushed them off absently.
‘Hello, Thomas!’ they all replied at once.
‘My boys, have you seen my mother? She was just around here somewhere.’
‘Nope,’ they replied. ‘Though, that’s her.’ They pointed to a chair with a starfish in it.
‘Ah, thank you.’ Walking over, I nodded to the starfish. ‘Hello, mother. It is a pleasure to see you.’
‘Thomas,’ she said slowly, her voice sweet. ‘Look at you, you look so nice in that outfit. Have you been washing your hands?’ She sounded so concerned, my sweet mother.
‘Of course, mother,’ I said, my voice filled with love and patience as I brushed the stars off again. I sincerely hoped father wouldn’t murder her again.
‘Good. I’m so proud of you, Thomas,’ she said as she started ripping apart the upholstery on her seat.
Why, I realized, that was a starfish! It was attacking the chair, so I plucked it off and threw it into space, where I saw myself catch it again and throw it a different direction.
Excellent, no more starfish.
A feral, wicked, fiendish mink leapt from the sewer nearby, aiming for my throat.
‘No, Roger, not this time!’ I cried, grabbing it by the neck and throttling it as hard as I could. It kicked and scratched at my hands viciously, but I crushed it with my weight, pressing it against the wall even as I strangled it, just like I remembered.
‘Mann, snap out of it. What has that pipe ever done to you?’
The voice was familiar, and seemed to cut through the haze surrounding my brain all at once. I was not throttling a mink at all, but a metal pipe. My hands were scratched and bloodied by trailing wires.
Suddenly, something in my stomach had a desperate urge to leave. I coughed once, twice, and a large black bean fell from my mouth.
Ed was looking at me. ‘Did you eat one of the snacks? They’re not compatible with your anatomy. Looks like you killed the parasite.’ He toed the bean.
‘Parasite... ?’ I rasped, my throat parched.
‘Yeah, those were parasitic nekobs. Most beings can digest them, but I guess not you. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to tell you what is and isn’t edible next time.’
He clapped me on the shoulder, and I felt the memories of what had just been occurring fade. In recollection, they were horrible, but at the time I did not mind them so much.
‘Other tourists have come,’ Ed grunted. ‘Let’s get out of here before they ask us to pay.’
I looked around for the tourists he meant. It took me several tries of looking around before I saw anything that could fit that description. A group of mushrooms, four or five of them, slowly moving along the floor. Their tops were dome-like, clear with flashing neurons inside.
Ed’s voice snapped my attention off of them. ‘Got any questions, Mann? I’m here to explain things, too. Within reason – can’t have your head exploding, can we?’
I assumed that was meant as a joke, and smiled. I was feeling vastly better than before, though how or why was lost on me.
‘Er, yes... How are the cosmos governed? Is there a single, great king God who rules all others?’
‘Hell no,’ Ed said, laughing. ‘There’s just too much for one being to rule – even if they could manage it all, there’s not enough time in the universe for him to attend to each thing, or even each universe.’
That made sense, though I had often thought Gods had means we could not comprehend. ‘How is it governed, then?’
‘For the first billion years, the twenty-three ‘lead’ gods couldn’t agree on how to rule existence. There were two major competing ideas for how it should be set up; rascalism and cronyism. Both had their merits, and both would allow everyone but the rascals and cronies to deny any blame for when things went bad. You have to understand that that is a major consideration of all major beings in the universe; not being blamed for when things fuck up. Which they always do.
'Eventually, a completely untenable compromise was reached; they’d make an Emperor of All, who would rule everything. Except them, of course. When everything became fucked up, they would blame him.
‘Everything went smoothly, for a long time, until life appeared. Instantly, things went into chaos. The Emperor of All Things was banished to Diarrnea, and they decided to just make it look like they were ruling, with the Most Great Council of Gods.’
‘That worked fine, since they didn’t really do anything, but feelings began to get hurt when some gods sent representatives to the council, feeling this would make them appear more important. They of course claimed they were too busy to attend the meetings.’
‘It continued in absurdity, with representatives sending representatives to make the insults more and more obvious and extreme, until the point where the Most Great Council of Gods consisted of three chimpanzees, a chipmunk, and a rather doughy Radio talk-show host (who believed he was in Miami), along with a handful of crackers.’
I was silent for a moment. ‘O.’
Ed pulled out a pocket watch, looking at it. I noticed it had twelve hands and pointed in three dimensions. ‘Okay, I have one other place to show you, if you’re interested.’
‘Of course I am! I’ll not let one bad experience ruin this for me!’ I said quickly.
‘Good. Then let’s go.’ Ed snapped the watch shut and put it away.
‘Where?’
‘Down where the dead go.’
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