It has now been three months since I entered Del Iverson’s life. It’s not hard to create an interest in humans that can be manipulated into friendship. Doing so with Del was not difficult. Del made friends with your devil far faster than even I could have imagined, could I imagine.
Though my time here has been comparatively short, considering all the time that I have seen, I feel sometimes I’m about as close to figuring out those around me as I am to getting back the keys to the gates I once called home, while other times I feel this planet is administered by the simplest living devices ever manufactured. By and large, though I do hate to generalize, they are motivated by simple rewards, short-term gains, limited by their ignorance, their inventions of convenience, methods of distraction, and ruled by time.
In Heaven, good and evil are separated by a well-defined line, but on Earth the distinction is muddled by shades and perspectives. The more time I spend in this activity of human life, the more I find that these beings around me define themselves by orbiting both sides of a line that is constantly changing, between their own definitions and those set upon them by their community. I suppose that contrast, between my kind and the choatic nature of my new peers, provide an element of balance in itself. If my maker and my kind are defined by balance, humans must be defined somewhere in the opposite. If the ultimate is balance I should be accustomed to having no conclusion. What does it mean that I now find myself seeking answers?
Answers are the very thing I can provide in abundance, to the humans in my human disguise. The ability to read their minds makes everything transparent to me. All but the forward progress of time is an utterly open book to me. By most human standards appearance I have chosen is plain and forgettable, perhaps even unattractive, but knowing every thought around me allows for an effortless charm. It is also amazing how astute one appears when the desires of his employer come to my lips as quickly as they enter his frontal lobe. I have availed myself as the ultimate political strategist for my ultimately doomed political candidate subject. Entering his life in this function, gaining access as a council he will seek out took a mere matter of hours.
I was his best friend in less than three days.
I chose the name John. People seem impassionate when they say it.
In the three months that have past I have looked for the distraction that would force him to confront the path he is on. I have been looking for the spark of regret that will inspire atonement. Epiphany is arguably humanity’s greatest gift, and I’m beginning to believe they do all that is possible to avoid it.
What is infinitely even more astounding, aside from one of my kind experiencing astounding, is my own discovery of distraction. The entirety of their modern world is designed not for the food, but for the flavor. I have found myself, in growing frequency, permitting distraction, noticing beauty, entraced in entertainment, engaging in debate, researching parts of human history that fell beneath my awareness, accepting invitations, using colloquialisms, gorging on fiction, and finding myself uncertain about my success and uncertain about what to do with my uncertainty.
Time has passed faster than I ever thought it possibly could. So many sunrises have come and gone that I have lost track of how many I've missed. Time has run right through me, and the reality that I may now not have enough to redirect Del’s path exhilarates me with the passionate flavor of my failure.
I feel a sympathetic comfort and peace when people eat, so I choose one of our midday lunch outings to shatter all I've built with Del.
“There is something you should know Del. You’re going to die.”
“Is there something wrong with your latte? I can have the waitress…”
“No, it’s not the coffee. I can’t…”
“You’ve been acting strange all morning, John.”
“I don’t think you heard me.”
“I heard you, John, and you’re not going to play me. I know this is some motivational strategy. You’re getting me psyched for that debate this afternoon, aren’t you?”
“In truth, I’m getting you psyched for something far different. Del, you must listen to me carefully. Listen to me as though you don’t know what it means to lie.”
“What is this? Get serious.”
"I understand how this must sound to you, Del, but there is nothing more serious than the ultimate destination."
My words crack something in Del’s consciousness. This combination of words and tone has never passed between us before. The weight falling around us stirs in me a moment of distraction.
“Can you imagine the discussions that must occur in coffee shops? Think of how lives are changed by what originates in these places. The lives of relationships together begin and end, deals that alter the course of infinite paths to follow are made and broken. Thousands of rooms like these around this planet are designed for conversations between people who share little more than a circumstance and a warm beverage that connects them.”
“John?”
”I’ve considered more ways to tell you the following than there are words in your language. I am a messenger. I come from a place made up entirely of messengers, and I’ve been sent to bring you truth.”
“Oh God…”
“So interesting…”
“What?”
“Your choice of words is interesting.”
“Yeah… I’ve gotta go.”
“Also peculiar.”
“What is?”
“Regardless of what you believe or how define your reality or our relationship, don’t you want to hear the message? Aren’t you curious?”
“Okay fine, but if you try anything weird…”
“The truth is: The end of your life is approaching. The message is this: You don’t have a great deal of time left. You have a decision to make.”
“Are you going to hurt me? Is this a ransom thing?”
“I would have nothing to gain from hurting you, Del.”
“…And what is that supposed to mean, you’re a messenger? Who do you work for? Do you think that gets you off somehow?”
“I am not directly involved, but to be certain, the end of your life is imminent.”
“Why, how?”
I can see despair and bargaining in Del's eyes as for a final moment he looks on me with eyes that perceive me as a friend. I like it, but as I thought I would.
“Focus for a moment. Think beyond your preoccupation with the tangible and consider the greater consequence that awaits you at the end of this mortal life.”
“What the fu… What do you expect me...”
“Think of your life so far as a story and think, if you can, as someone with nothing to lose thinks, about what the end of your story is going to require to garner you peace beyond that ending, and not the alternative.”
“What do you mean by alternative?”
“Damnation. Unrest. A lack of peace.”
"John..."
"My name is not John. We'll speak again soon."
I am certain to get up and leave first, to hopefully make it clear that I want nothing from him. In a conversation like ours, the advantage of reason always seems to fall to the less desperate.
I feel for the moment that I’ve reached him as he continues to sit and stare at the far wall. I find myself in a similar state, staring into his expression. He is potentially considering his own death and a measure of consequence beyond the material. Though it is conceivable that through his mind passes anything from thoughts of my murder, to a regret of the trust he usually so sparingly instills, to a wager he placed on the baseball team losing on the far television, I choose not to invade what he is thinking. Among other things I am becoming addicted to the notion of challenge and somewhere in my soulless form I know I have planted a seed.
I have never had such a conversation. It was among the most gratifying of my existence.
I remember the messengers of my kind discussing this feeling, when delivering what they believed was enlightenment. There is exhilaration in having the power of such integral truth over someone, which is not entirely divine in nature. I feel guilty for the moment I spent enjoying that power, but understand the twinkle on the faces of the angels that were ingesting that very same indulgence.
Thank you for the moment of kinship, Del.
After a moment Del’s face pops back into it’s normalcy, as his conscious mask regains it’s composure. My face imitates his as I fade subtly from the human eyes around me. I watch him leave the coffee shop, continually and repeatedly look about, suspicious and uncertain. He is nowhere near peace, and by tomorrow he will convince himself that the substance of our exchange never happened. In my experience, the human ego, especially one as developed as Del's, will accept the most convenient version of truth.
It seems I will have to scratch at his denial. I have another meeting upcoming with Michael, I will have to probe with him the finer points of this wager's boundaries.
My time remaining is a matter of mere... mortality.
* * *
Thanks for tuning in. The next installment won't take a year.
Don't trust me.
Patrick
