Chapter 11
What happened once shapes what happens next.
A man sits outside in the cold Southern California evening. He pours a libation for a lost comrade on sandstone pavers. He closes his eyes to feel the hundreds of pinpoint lights surrounding him. He whispers a name, he feels a distance, he bows his head in something like prayer.
Grin walks down a dark tunnel. It is so dark that he only knows it is a tunnel through which he walks because of the echo his footseps send out in front of him. At a certain point, he feels the tunnel wall. It is cold and moist sandstone he feels. Grin drags his fingers along the wall as he walks, letting the semi-coarse texture irritate his fingertips. “We do not like this,” his right forefinger says. “Stop making us feel such coarse things.”
“It is necessary to know coarseness,” Grin replies. The fingertips accept this, albeit unhappily.
Grin continues walking for -6 years. Then he feels he felt an opening in the tunnel, at which he turned right to walk down a much smaller, shorter path. At the end of it, perhaps -45 minutes’ distance, his left foot bumped against an obstruction with a resounding dull gong. Grin put his hand against a dry, rusty surface.
Grin found a door into Then. He opened the door into Then, walks through into a pale white brilliance.
The first thing Grin recognizes in Then is an ugly belltower made of three iron pillars painted purple. The bars intersect at 45 degree angles in two separate points. Grin stands directly under the largest bell suspended on these bars. It gongs and he resonates with it. It gongs again and the sky trembles. The cirrus clouds shatter in front of a broken sun. The bell gongs again and it is 3 p.m., on a day remarkable only because it is so remarkably unremarkable.
Grin looks around as the resounding sound of the bell begins to die. A young man stands thirty feet from Grin, looking out over a field surrounded by four asynchronous buildings. Grin walks over to the man, stands next to him.
“What are you looking at?” Grin asks.
“Nothing, really,” the young man says.
“Then why are you looking?” Grin asks.
“Why not?” the man replies.
“Are you here for the orientation?” the young man says after a while.
“Yes, I guess,” Grin says.
“So am I. My name’s Vigil,” the young man says.
“I’m Grin.”
“Interesting name, Grin,” Vigil says.
“So is yours. Why are you Vigil?” Grin asks.
“Because I’m here for a time, and only for a time. Why are you Grin?” Vigil asks in return.
“Because I’m not to always be Grind. A seagull will steal the last letter of my name, and a man in a white bathrobe will tell me I never needed it anyway.”
Vigil turns to look at Grin. “How do you know this?” Vigil asks.
“Because I’m not here,” Grin says. “I’m where here leads.”
Vigil smirks. “Talking in riddles makes you look stupid.”
“Well, I can be Grind again if you want. I’ll be here, Then, and you and I can talk as we once talked.”
Vigil looks over Grin with suspicion. “Now you’re stupid and irritating.”
“Maybe, but I was more stupid and irritating when I was Grind,” Grin says. “Wanna see?”
Vigil smirks again. Grin will always have remembered that smirk. “Fine, I’ll humor you.”
Grin nods, clears his throat. “Oh, before I add a -d to my name,” Grin says, “I want to thank you for what will have happened Then.”
“Why?” Vigil asks.
“Because,” Grin says, “you got me to stop talking about caves and fourths. It took a while, but I realized what you meant. So thanks.”
“O…kay,” Vigil says.
Grin nods. He clears his throat again, and lets out a deep grinding sound. A -d appears at the end of his name, and the world shivers, and the moment ends, and a parallel moment begins.
Vigil is looking at a field surrounded by four asynchronous buildings.
“What are you looking at?” Grind asks.
“Nothing, really,” Vigil says.
“Then why are you looking?” Grind asks.
“Why not?” Vigil replies.
“Are you here for the orientation?” Vigil says after a while.
“Yes, I guess,” Grind says.
“So am I. My name’s Vigil,” the young man says.
“I’m Grind.”
“Interesting name, Grind,” Vigil says.
“So is yours. Why are you Vigil?” Grin asks.
“Because I notice things,” Vigil says. “Why are you Grind?”
“Because I wear things down,” Grind says. “I’ll hammer a point until it’s, well, pointless.”
“That’s very self-aware of you, Grind.”
“Not really. I’m just saying what others tell me.”
“Hm. Do you believe them?” Vigil asks.
“Sometimes, I guess,” Grind says. “It depends.”
“On what?” Vigil says.
“I don’t know yet.”
There is movement, and speeches, and more movement, and speeches. A professor tells incoming students that they are all too arrogant, an that they just don’t know it yet. Grind asks himself AM I ARROGANT NO I AM NOT ARROGANT I AM SELF-AWARE RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT OKAY THEN HE’S TALKING TO THEM NOT ME. There is more movement, the humming throaty roar of old cars, the passage of a little time.
Sixty students and ten professors stand at a burger joint known only in the Southwestern United States. Bible verses are written on the bottom of soda cups, french fry baskets, burger wrappers. Grind waxes philosophical. “Absolute truth must exist, otherwise no truth exists. The statement ‘there is no absolute truth’ refutes itself!”
Vigil says, “So what? I mean, do you think that really matters to the people who doubt that there’s any truth in this world?”
Grind feels anger. “It should matter, and we shouldn’t flinch because others don’t share our beliefs. Right?” he says, looking around for support. A few people shrug, a few others nod their heads, nobody really cares.
Grind meets Vigil’s eyes. He is the opponent, after all. Vigil looks dispassionate. “If you’re trying to win an argument, then I suppose you’re right. But what good is that if you annoy your audience?”
Grind resents this. “Well, if the truth is irritating,” he says self-righteously, “then I’m willing to be irritating too.”
“It’s not the truth we’re talking about,” Vigil says. “It’s the truth-teller.”
Someone chuckles. Grind should know that he’s lost, but damnit, Grind will not lose this fight. Not to some sophistry. “Maybe you just don’t have enough belief in the truth,” Grind says casually, as if it’s his right to indict others.
Vigil chuckles casually. “There’s no need to get personal,” he says.
Grind wants to yell, to scream YOU DID THIS FIRST, but he looks around, the anger evident in his eyes. He only finds eyes that appraise him and find him wanting.
“Whatever,” Grind says.
Grind feels something pulling him back forwards. He knows his time is ending. “Wait!” he yells. Nobody notices. “Wait, damnit!” Grind says. The pulling force slackens a little, but Grind still feels himself being tugged back forwards to Now.
Grind rips off the -d at the end of his name and asks Vigil, “Now do you see?”
Vigil, noticing a difference, asks, “See what?”
“How you helped me?”
Vigil looks bemused. “I don’t know,” he says.
“You taught me how to be honey, not vinegar. I’m sorry it took so long, and I’m sorry I never told you thanks.”
Vigil rolls his eyes. “You just did, Grin. And don’t use me as some form of purgation. You never did tell me before Now. This isn’t Then. I’m not Him. I’m You.”
Grin cries. “I know, I know. I’m sorry I never told Him.”
“Tell Him later, then.”
“I have to wait so long,” Grin says.
“You don’t know that,” Vigil replies. “He didn’t either. We all have a time, and an ending of a time. None knows when he ends.”
“Even his echo teaches me things,” Grin says to all that is himself and memories.
“See ya,” Vigil says, as Grin is pulled back forwards from Then to Now.
“Bye, Vigil,” Grin says. “IF YOU CAN HEAR ME” he screams over the roar of current events, “I’M COMING TO SAY THANKS!”
And Then, Nothing.
