Of Ministry

With these words, I hereby resume my December chronicle.

With these words, I place a barrier in the midst of my papers, letting it divide my papers from my papers. By this means, I bring “Of War” to a definite end. By this means, in one and the same motion, I inaugurate its successor, which shall be called “Of Ministry.”

You might think these remarks superfluous. Many are my firmaments, after all. My pen cleaves the white unformed waste in two, and again in two, and again, until my papers are a house with many rooms, as numerous as the heavens that are above the heavens.

You have read the heading just above, “Of Ministry.” You have seen its kind before. You know that it is a barrier, and a definite end, and an inauguration.

Since you know these things already, you might wonder why I am now reiterating them. “Of War” did not begin this way, after all. Nor did “Of Raven.”

Why do I call your attention—now, and only now—to the divisions in my papers?

I do this as a necessary stopgap against confusion.

For the heading above, “Of Ministry,” is a different sort of division from the others.

It is a barrier which is doubled, but only on one side. It is a confluence of rivers, and divides dyad from monad. It is the one, high and strong and well hammered-out, which firmly sets the one apart from the two, and prevents them from commingling.

In my December chronicle, “Of Ministry” is next in line after “Of War.”

In that chronicle, then, it is “Of War” which has just met its definite end, which has now yielded to its successor.

In this orderly passage of the scepter and its attendant duties, all things seem well-arranged, in accordance with custom and compact. It has the solidity of a thing prepared far in advance. At its arrival, one hears the satisfying click that heralds the arrival of something which was inevitable, before it arrived, and now cannot even be called inevitable, because it simply is.

Does “Of Ministry” succeed “Of War,” then? The one flowing immediately into the other, across the boundary of a single heading?

In my December chronicle, it does.

But in December itself, it does not!

For an unprecedented division came down onto the earth, in December.

What lies in between “Of War” and “Of Ministry”?

Nothing at all. So say all the prophets, and all the canons of law and custom. So inclines His will, which is sovereign over all; thither wends His roaring breath, divider of the deeps.

What lies in between “Of War” and “Of Ministry”?

Why, only the most important event of my life.

Of my life? Excuse me.

The most important event of anyone’s life.

The most important event that has ever occurred.

(And yes—I am including THAT other event, that FIRST event in this comparison! More important than THAT!)

“Of War” concerns the first Monday of December. A day of first meetings. On that day I met Raven, and Ronnie Chiu, and my first friend, and my final Adversary.

“Of Ministry” concerns the second Friday of December.

It is impossible to overstate the difference between these two days, considered in hindsight.

It does not seem right to speak of them in the same breath, the one and then the other—“Of War,” “Of Ministry.” It does not even seem right to entertain thoughts which bring these two days into conjunction.

I do not mean that such thoughts are an offense against law, or against morality, or against Him. No lord on earth or in the heavens has forbidden these things, for the same reason that no lord has forbidden the rain to fall upwards, rising out of the lakes and the seas, and hastening like a hungry babe toward the milk-white bosom of the clouds above.

I mean that these thoughts are nonsense.

What does one do, faced with what is obviously nonsense?

The same rule that governs all matters governs this one too. One takes what one is given, resigning oneself to Truth and to the inevitable. And one then sets about finding some proper and pleasing use for that which one was given.

Does nonsense have a use, proper and pleasing? Of course it does. Perhaps you have even heard its name, before.

“Humor,” men call it.

What does a man do, faced with what is obviously nonsense? What else can he do, but—laugh?

That is how I feel, when I bring December’s first Monday and its second Friday to mind simultaneously, and consider them against one another, as though they were cut from the same cloth, and might be weighed by the same scale.

I feel that I am telling myself a joke.

 

 

We all know that the Intercessor laughs. His booming breath is every bit as famous as his red coat, his sleigh, his beneficence; to know him is to know these things.

But why?

Why, I ask, does the Intercessor laugh?

Because he is mirthful, glad, joyous? Because he brings good tidings, and bears unanticipated gifts? Because his season is a season of light and song and feasting?

Or, because he is pitiless? Because he does not respect my Adversary, as I do, but sets himself fully against my Adversary? Because he finds something cruelly amusing about my Adversary’s scrawny, wraithlike body, so poorly matched to my own might?

Take any strongman or bully, and place him in contention against some unambiguously weaker man. Watch his scoffing contempt, his displays of lordliness; watch the first sparks alight on the dead dry kindling of his heart; watch closely, catch the moment of his combustion, and then watch the roaring blaze that follows, and the fireworks.

You will see, there, a thing which is ever on the verge of spilling over into laughter. As with these men, so too with the Intercessor?

Or does the Intercessor laugh, instead, because—

Because—!

Because the thought of my Adversary’s weakness, against my might, brings him naturally to the next thought—of the rout and utter ruination that is surely to come?

Of the blood that will, assuredly, pour from a thousand sores and lacerations—that will flow at once from the crushed arms and mangled legs of a million bested men—the blood that will gush in celebratory spasms, like festive fireworks, from a billion fountains which had a mere moment ago been the proud necks of my Adversary’s men, only then they were snapped, and were not men’s necks anymore, but fountains—the blood that will, inevitably, rush over ALL the ground, everywhere on the earth, painting it in seasonal colors, until the whole of earth and even the seas are entirely RED?

Because, when the vast red beast who is soon to come, who is even now readying himself to swoop down out of the heavens in his famous chariot—BECAUSE, when HE contemplates the rainstorm of blood that is to come, and the spectacle of a billion proud and well-trained bodies littering the earth, mangled and dead, and surely not fated to receive a proper burial—because HE then feels something familiar, something welcome and well-loved, kindling in his famous BELLY?

A hunger? An appetite?

For a new sort of feast? A novelty even to the well-travelled palate of that famous gourmand—one which, despite all appearances, would be no sort of cannibalism at all, since he is a higher and finer thing than my Adversary’s men—NOT cannibalism, I REPEAT, but a sort of reverse theophagy—and thus proper, and fitting, and hallowed?

Yes, yes. It is for all of these reasons that the Intercessor laughs.

And one more.

He laughs—and this, I think, is the main reason that he laughs, having priority over all the others—because his intercession, his Latter-Day Emendation is—

—is nonsense.

And that is what men do, faced with nonsense. They laugh.

I say this with nothing but reverence in my heart, for the Intercessor, and for the Latter-Day Emendation. If you do not see this, it is you who have failed, not me. Read over my words again—and then again, if necessary—again and again, until you see.

He laughs at the comedy which he has made of creation.

He laughs, and it is apposite. And this, the very fact that his laughter is apposite, is that same laughter’s object.

His gift cannot be taken seriously, and it is the most important thing.

It is the most important thing, and it cannot be taken seriously.

 

 

I wrote “Of War,” and then—now—just afterwards—I am writing “Of Ministry.” One follows the other, immediately.

This is not only right, and not only in keeping with custom and compact. It is another thing, as well. It has the quality of health, as opposed to sickness. Of a promising youth’s fresh and well-proportioned body, as opposed to a body mangled, or grossly distended and deformed, or otherwise turned against nature.

Suppose that an ugly, stinking, penurious peasant, with half his teeth gone and the other half badly chipped, and a face so thoroughly racked with acne and pockmarks and scars and dirt that its features can only be discerned at very close range—suppose that this man is wedded to a princess of unparalleled beauty, and receives from her a dowry that would fill a stable if denominated in pure gold?

What would we do, on such an occasion? We would laugh.

Yes, we might be kind of heart; we might wish only the best, for both the newlyweds; we might reflect that the peasant has received an unanticipated gift; we might proclaim that any such gift is a cause for celebration, and an occasion for pure and innocent joy.

Yes, we might have this thought, and yes, we might feel the consequent joy. We might think and feel a great many things.

But we will also laugh.

Because it is a risible state of affairs.

Because it is not fitting, and does not do honor to custom. Because it offends against the weighing and measuring and proportioning of things which we know in our hearts, whether or not we remember that we know it.

The Intercessor has made just such a thing of the world, of creation, of the depths and the earth and the heavens.

He is the peasant, and the princess, and their union. And through his Emendation, we are all made into the peasant, and the princess, and their union.

He laughs, because it is all wrong, and because it is right that it is wrong, and always has been.

He has shown Truth can be nonsense, and nonsense Truth. What can one do, faced with such a union?

One bows in reverence before Truth, and laughs in mockery at nonsense.

To do both at once—to bow in reverence, and laugh in mockery—

It is absurd, yes.

But it is the way that one pays proper respect, in the fullest sense, when one stands in his temple. Which is the only temple, and always was.

 

 

The Latter-Day Emendation pierces us, in December. It runs through us, moving at a right angle to time.

So that the ordinarily straight thread of time folds over, doubling on itself.

“Of Ministry” concerns the second Friday. Which is to say, the very next day after the most important thing, the only important thing, that has ever happened to me.

On the second Thursday of December—one day before the events related in “Of Ministry”—the Intercessor revealed himself to me.

On that day, his myth was capably related to me, by the ever-studious Frederick.

On that day I saw, with eyes finally open, the sacred objects that are his, and the meaning in these objects.

On that day, I read the letter which had been prepared for me, from Virginia to Church.

I read that consecrated maiden’s heartfelt plea for guidance. I read, and gloried in, the rousing response it produced from its recipient, Church!

Church! A man of fearsome intellect, with a proud and dauntless heart, and what is more, with that same heart set utterly against cybernesis and against substitution! I read, I gloried, I took solace!

On that day, after school, I re-perfected myself.

I took into myself the things which I had not known, before, even though I knew all, before.

I lay in bed, watching these things unveil themselves.

I did not tire, for there was work to be done. I did not sleep, that night, for my ceiling had so many things to teach me—and these things had to be disbursed one by one, minute by minute, hour by hour.

For we are not like the Intercessor, my ceiling and I. We cannot stride across time, to and fro, as our whims take us.

That night, I re-perfected myself. I repaired and renovated myself, and creation.

And it was quite an undertaking, as you might imagine! It required immense effort, continually. And the vast majority of the evening, as well as the entirety of the night, were given over to it.

But I am Herschel Schoen.

I am a busy sort, and more industrious than most.

So I accomplished several other labors, that evening.

I had to know, and to understand, the Emendation. That was the most important thing, and the only important thing.

But I wanted, too, to know and understand the Intercessor.

My experiences at school, that day, had only whetted my appetite, and my belly soon kindled with a hunger worthy of that hunger’s object.

Santa Claus. Christmas. These things had been there, already, all around me. On the streets of Brooklyn, New York, and in that city’s houses and in its schoolrooms, and in its very air. But my eyes had been closed.

My ears had been closed, and my nose had been closed, and all my body had been closed.

When this great bulwark was removed, the dammed-up waters rushed through, all at once. I nearly lapsed into confusion, faced like the proverbial donkey with a multiplicity of equally appetizing feasts. But I calmed myself, and set my labors in an order, and followed that order.

 

 

I called up the library—fifteen minutes before closing time—in search of any books they might have on the topic of Santa Claus.

It is always a cause of some delight, for me, when the course of events provides me with an opportunity to call someone up, on the telephone.

I always do enjoy an opportunity to call someone up, on the telephone. It is an act and an experience which is commendable in every respect, and whose every attribute and aspect is separately and thoroughly delectable.

I delight in the coiling of the cord, and the bright, eager way it bounces at the lightest touch. I delight in the steadiness of the dial against the hand, and in the slight effort which is required to actually make it move: it is like a man who knows his worth, and does not yield before idle words of castigation, or the mere flickering of the passing breeze. I delight in the ritual exchange with the switchboard operator, that humble civic ghost who resides invisibly in the cords and the wires, a delegated avatar of Brooklyn, New York, and an embodiment of the city’s best intentions: if the masses will it, then let them be conjoined.

I delight in the hearthlike warmth of the static on the line, and I delight in the way the line makes each man’s voice into a slightly different thing, a new thing. So that the earth’s stock of men is in some sense doubled. So that any pleasure that one might take in any given man’s voice is in fact a doubled pleasure, coming once and then coming again, in another form.

Among men, it is held as some sort of marvel that I, Herschel Schoen, enjoy speaking on the telephone. There is some fixed image of me, which men reliably form in their mind on the basis of first impressions, and my penchant for telephony is not in keeping with it.

Sometimes I am not even believed, when I profess to enjoy calling people up on the telephone. It is not exactly alleged that I am joking (for what would the joke consist in?), nor is it alleged that I am lying (for what purpose could this lie possibly serve?). I am merely doubted, faced with a hazy and mistlike skepticism that refuses to congeal into any definite, defeasible notion about how my speech is at variance with Truth, much less why.

Mists of this kind abound among men, clouding their minds, aiding them in their forgetting.

Depending on the occasion, I might rebuke such a skeptic with a true accounting of why it is that I take delight in the telephone. Or, I might not. This is one of the differences which is, in fact, no difference. I am not believed; I speak, or am silent; I am not believed.

I cannot say that I feel nostalgic, when I call someone up, on the telephone.

Nostalgic is precisely the right word in miniature, and precisely the wrong one in the large. It has all the right connotations, and yet its denotation is fatally misleading. There is no pain in the feeling. It is only sweet, not bittersweet.

There are things very much like telephones, in the Original Creation.

There are things very much like telephones, though far vaster, in body and in spirit.

All the things of the Original Earth are vast, in comparison to the measures and magnitudes that prevail on the body of its shadow. The bodies I am referring to—the ones very much like telephones—are larger than the largest houses are, on this earth.

(Though the houses of the Original Earth are, naturally, far larger still.)

The Original Firmament is speckled with holes. It is through these holes that the rain falls, and the snow, and the lightning.

To some of these holes, vast coiling cords are attached. They dangle free, just as the cords of the earth’s telephones do; they sway, bright and eager, as the winds pass over them. These elastic, vine-like towers span the whole distance from the earth to the heavens.

Thus does the Original Earth realize and sustain the dream that was denied to the sons of Noah, at Shinar.

Why were these cables hung from the Original Firmament?

Why else? For the purpose of something very much like telephony.

So that one can stand on the ground, or in the waters, and speak to those who stand above the firmament, in one of the heavens.

This is a matter of convenience, only that. There is no permanent division between the Original Earth and the Original Heaven; such chariots as were known to Ezekiel, and to the Intercessor, are abundant and ready to hand. Men, beasts, angels, and Nephilim are ferried from the one place to the other, routinely, in large numbers, every day.

But His creation is bountiful, and gives more than it might have, and gives more still.

The cords that reach the heavens are transparent, giving the spectator a view of what is inside: a succession of vast, oblate orbs, strung together like a necklace. Their colors are not found here, but if pressed I might liken them to pastels: pinks and yellows and blues and violets (no, not any of these, not at all, but I must work with the earthly palette I am given!), all of them with an intensity and a gentleness which are felt to be one unified whole, not two incidentally conjoined qualities.

When the cables are in use, the orbs flow upwards through them. It is through this motion, in fact, that the voice is carried from one place to another.

It is a delight to watch these cables from afar, and follow the stately and uniform procession of the orbs within them.

Oh, how those orbs would glitter in the last light of day! I miss this sight dearly. But there is no pain in this, only sweetness.

The orbs can be eaten, if one wishes. Their rinds dissolve in the mouth with surprising ease, and the flesh within is sweet.

These bodies can be eaten, and that is only the beginning of what can be done with them. But I do not think you would even understand me, much less believe me, if I were to carry on in this vein.

These sweet memories have been a source of delight and sustenance to me, whenever I have had cause to call someone up on the telephone, in my days on the earth.

Even—as was the case on the second Thursday of December—the call bears no other fruit.

I did succeed at reaching the Main Branch of the New York Public Library.

I did speak, for a few minutes, with an employee of that same establishment.

Do you have any books concerning Santa Claus? I asked.

The librarian laughed.

Well, she told me. I’m sure we do. Just between you and me, kid, I’m sure we do.

Just between you and me? I asked, perplexed.

And she explained to me that she could not actually confirm or deny the presence of any particular book in the library’s collection, at this time.

She explained—if that is the word—that the library’s catalogue system was “in use,” and not able to be consulted in the usual way, even by a librarian.

In fact, she continued, even if we had been able to confirm the presence and availability of any given book, I would not be able to actually check out that book, or any book.

The library, she explained, is currently closed to the public. Did you not know that?

I had, indeed, not known.

The Main Branch is closed? I asked.

Oh, no, she said. The whole library system.

Perhaps I should have asked her what, exactly, she was doing there, besides manning the phone line. The question did occur to me, at the time.

Why is it closed? I asked.

The librarian laughed, again.

Just between you and me, kid? she whispered into the line.

Just between you and me? It’s . . . I’m actually . . .

I’m actually not supposed to tell anyone.

I waited, silently, in expectation of the secret knowledge that her hushed tone seemed to promise. But in fact, it seemed that this very admission of secrecy was the whole of the secret she intended to grant me.

Thank you, I said, and waited for the space of another few breaths.

Goodbye, I said, and hung up.

I had no idea what to make of this. Since it was a busy night, and I could not imagine myself resolving this mystery through the application of thought alone, I did my best to put it out of my mind.

 

 

The telephone, and its accessories, are set out at one end of our long living room, near the front door. From this point, one must cross the whole of the living room to reach any of the other rooms—the kitchen, the two bedrooms, the bathroom.

I set out, across the living room, towards my bedroom.

In so doing, I passed by the living room couch, which at this time was occupied by my Sister, Miriam Schoen.

She sat, watching the television.

She paid me no mind, and indeed did not give any indication that she noticed my presence at all. But then, I did not give any indication that I noticed hers, either.

I sat in bed, and reached for the radio on the nightstand. I flipped its switch.

Voices poured from it. They were not the ones I sought. I turned the dial.

I heard a song. I considered it.

This song seemed to be about love, and coupling, and jealousy. It was not one of the Intercessor’s songs, that was clear enough.

I turned the dial.

A lady sang languidly of fortune, of its changeable nature, of its caprices which no man can foresee. Trumpets babbled at her side, agreeably but without conviction.

This was not what I sought. Indeed, it was the exact opposite of what I sought.

Not capricious fortune, I thought, but inevitable fate.

I turned the dial.

I heard a choir.

I heard the slow, orderly melody they sang, and the misty, anesthetic chords beneath it.

Not just any choir, but—a boys’ choir!

The high and guileless voices sang inexpertly, but no man could deny that they sang with conviction.

Indeed, if anything, these children had an overabundance of conviction, spilling over into complacency.

But I could not hold this against them. It was not some boyish misstep, like their unsteady tempo, their leaden articulation.

No, that sickly note of overriding smugness was a feature of the music itself. If the most perfect cantors of the highest heaven were to sing this song, the very same note of smugness would be audible in their rendition, also. For they render each song perfectly, in accordance with its own nature.

I knew what it was that I heard.

I grant that I am ill-tutored in the things that are unique to this earth. I am unworldly, yes—but only to a point. Even I, Herschel Schoen, can recognize a hymn for what it is, when I hear it.

A hymn, that is, of the cult of Yeshua.

One of their sacred songs, smug as only the cult of Yeshua can be smug. For they spurn the gift that was given to them on the sixth day.

They were made to have dominion over all the earth; they were made in the very image and likeness of He who willed all, with His sovereign will; they were made, in a word, as creatures of will. And yet they abhor their own wills. They believe they have found a trick, a cheat, whereby they can discard their wills, and escape the grave responsibilities that will implies.

Whereby they may shirk the noble and beautiful duty which He gave to man on the sixth day; whereby they may turn their backs on men, and on the eternal compacts that weigh on men’s shoulders; whereby they may become something less substantial than man, something as light as the petals, or the very air.

And so, when they sing together in ritual, they sing with smugness. They sing of complacent passivity, of giving up, of suicidal resignation. In imitation and exaltation of their strange, failed messiah, they sing of a paradox, in which they abdicate all responsibility and yet still reign.

Where possible, I prefer to pass over these matters in silence. The cult of Yeshua does not interest me. If I mention them here, it is only to explain the sickness I felt in my belly, hearing this hymn on the radio.

Still, I contained myself, and listened through to the end of the hymn, without adjusting the dial.

I remembered how Frederick had spoken, in the same breath, about Christ songs and Santa-only songs.

Since this hymn was a hymn, there was a possibility that it was Christmas music. And if it was Christmas music, there was then a possibility that more of its kind might follow.

The choirboys limped their way to some sort of conclusion, and the song receded into silence.

Then, after a second of silence, the proud and roaring voice of the radio announcer.

Christmas round the clock! he proclaimed.

Christmas round the clock! he repeated, with leonine vigor.

No other station starts this early! he assured me. No other station does it twenty-four-seven, either!

You want Christmas, then come to 102.8 FM, and stay tuned! You don’t want Christmas, well, then this ain’t your jam!

Next up is one of the very best—one of my personal favorites!

That’s right, ladies and gents! “Here Comes Santa Claus”!

I listened, with rapt attention.

I listened to the next song, as well, and the one after it.

I listened to six songs, in total, one after the other, before I finally turned the set off, and turned my gaze back to my own higher duties.

Frederick had told me that the Christ songs were far superior to the Santa songs, and alas, I found myself agreeing with him. (Oh, Frederick, you are always right in miniature, always, even if you are fatally wrong in the large!)

If the Christ songs made me sick, that at least spoke to some potency within them. The Intercessor’s own songs were vapid, perfunctory, empty. If they had wanted to sicken me, they would not have been able to rouse the strength to do it.

I did not like this. I wished, for a moment, that it were not so.

Then I came to my senses. I saw why things had been prepared in this way.

The Christ songs and the Santa songs do not belong together, side by side, in the mind. Their union is risible, and cannot be taken seriously. Of course, of course!

This arrangement was the Intercessor’s doing. His handiwork was plain in it, for all to see.

The Intercessor is a master of hiding, yes. But nothing requires him to hide, if he does not will it.

The Intercessor is a gift-giver, too. He is beneficent, and did not press his point further than necessary, that evening by the radio.

In the sixth and final song, the Intercessor gave me a gift, and all my previous disquiet melted away.

It was not a Christ song. It was not, exactly, a Santa song either. Neither of these men were mentioned in it, and no allusions were made to them.

I understood, nonetheless, that it was a song of the Intercessor. It belonged to him.

It was not a song befitting the comic Santa, the giver of nonsense, the matchmaker of princess and peasant.

It was a different Santa, another aspect of the man, which this song imitated and exalted.

The vast red beast who is soon to come. Who is fated, who is inevitable.

Next up! the announcer raved.

Next up is—“Carol of the Bells”!

I heard the melody, driving forth relentlessly.

HARK - how - the - bells

It was the sound of that which cannot be stopped.

SWEET - sil - ver - bells

With each repetition, it re-announced its message, and dared any man to stand in its way.

ALL - seem - to - say

THROW - cares - aw - ay

The purpose of its undaunted march was to be a march, and to be undaunted. It was a message that contained itself in the envelope of itself, and which would be understood perfectly well, even if one opened that envelope and found that it was empty.

ON - on - they send

ON - with - out - end!

I received this gift, and took it inside me. My mind was molten, that night, and “Carol of the Bells” melted into it.

Inspect the thing that I became, after I had cooled again, and you will find that “Carol of the Bells” is mixed all throughout it. Consider me as you would a cut of meat, and you will see that I am not lean and homogeneous, but finely marbled by the fat of that song.

 

 

After I turned the radio set off, I lay back in bed, and looked up. I beheld all manner of things, then, in my ceiling.

I lay there for hours, beholding and beholding.

Much later, I noticed a familiar and welcome stirring in my belly. I felt the writing-urge.

I considered the gravity of the moment. I weighed the necessity of recording that moment against the dangers I might invite by interrupting it.

I rose from the bed, and went out, into the living room.

My Sister, Miriam Schoen, stood at the far end of that room, holding the telephone handset to her face.

It seems that she noticed me—why else would she have lowered her voice to a whisper, at the precise moment of my entry?—but she made no other sign or greeting toward me.

She whispers, I thought.

She whispers to Vincent, I thought. So that only Vincent will hear her.

She whispers, I thought bitterly, because there is something in her mind which would bring her shame, if she disclosed it to me.

What sort of secret iniquity, I wondered, could a woman harbor, that would make her blush before her own Brother? Though she happily breathes the same poison into the receiver, through the wires and the cables, into the ear of a man she has barely met?

What would bring a woman, I wondered, to hide her words from Herschel Schoen, who knew all, already?

What kind of secret would a woman HIDE from Herschel Schoen, Truth’s body and Truth’s agent—and yet GIVE to VINCENT VIERGE?

VINCENT VIERGE, a bundle of straw crudely fashioned in the approximate shape of a prophet? A scarecrow made to confound weak minds and weak spirits, while the stronger among us merely laugh, at the shoddy construction of his straw limbs and his straw voice?

What kind of secret? Only error, nonsense, iniquity.

I steadied myself. I forced myself to put these disquieting things aside, for the moment. There would be time to consider them, later, after my own Emendation and re-perfection was securely accomplished.

I sat down on the couch.

I gathered my papers, and my pen.

I wrote.

I wrote what is here, among my papers, under the heading “Of the Gospel.”

The straight thread of time folds over, doubling on itself. Two rivers flow into the high wall, but only one flows out, on the other side.

In my December chronicle, “Of Ministry” follows “Of War.”

But in December, the piercing lance that is “Of the Gospel” intervenes between them, interceding and emending.

In December, in time, “Of Ministry” follows “Of the Gospel.”

And in December, “Of the Gospel”—yes, “Of the Gospel” does follow “Of War.”

But it is from an unfathomable distance, that the one follows the other. And the strongest of firmaments was fashioned to divide them, forever.

 

 

On the morning of the second Friday, I walked the streets of Flatbush. As I do each morning of the school week.

My heart was bright, and blazing, as I walked.

My mind was perfect. No variegation of clouds marred the sky within me. I was a clear, transparent dome, revealing plainly the waters above it, and how they are divided. I was the Greater Light, ruler of the day, cresting over the pillars at world’s edge to inaugurate his daily reign.

The earth’s sun, the Greater Light’s shadow, rose in concert with the sun inside me. I looked up, in the midst of this darkest December, and saw a clear blue dome, without clouds.

All things bowed to me, even the things which forgot, and which were in shadow. The very earth itself took notice of me, that morning, and did honor to me. Looking through the gaps between the high brownstones, I saw the sea-blue dome and the bursting dawn, imitating and exalting me.

I made my gait steady. I did not run, or jump, or skip. I took one orderly step, and then the next, with my head held high.

This is how a man makes his lordly nature known, among men.

It required some exercising of my will, to make my lordly nature known. Angels buzzed inside me, ready to arm me in the crucial labors of the day to come. Although I was not yet in need of their assistance, they had been placed inside me already, in preparation.

I was not yet in need of them, but they could not hide their nature, which was the nature of the whirlwind.

They whirled, inside my heart. They whirled, overflowing the walls of my heart, pouring out into my limbs and my fingers and my lips.

Vigor abounded in me, strength poured from me.

I have never been a man, like the men of the earth, but I often behave as they do, to keep up appearances. On this morning, there was no use in trying to keep up appearances. My nature shone forth, and the nature of the angels shone forth from inside it.

In men, sleepless nights breed mists that cloud the mind. But I am not a man, and my night of toil had birthed a clear and perfect sky.

You did not need to sleep, in the Original Creation. You will not need to sleep, in the days that are to come.

How could it be otherwise? Night is half of all creation! What else is night for, if not to be lived in? And why would He make the Lesser Light to rule over night, if night was empty, if there was nothing there to rule over?

Angels whirled in my fingers, and I put their unruly energy to a proper and pleasing use.

My fingers drummed.

Onto my palms, I drummed the Original Creation. Onto my chest and my sides, I drummed this earth, and my plans for this earth, and for its children.

The children, I knew, were on the very cusp of remembering.

Their eyes had already been partially opened, by the Latter-Day Emendation. They had already come quite a ways out of the shadows and the mists. They had nearly reached the light, already!

I had only to guide them in their final step, over the utmost threshold of the shadows, and into the day.

My task was far easier than I had ever imagined. It was only this last step, that fell to Herschel Schoen, in the end.

My task might be completed very swiftly, in fact.

I had imagined myself carrying out some protracted program of instruction, involving many successive steps, and pursued against the continual resistance of my sullen, uncooperative, uncomprehending pupils.

But no, it is much simpler than that. I will speak Truth to the children of the earth. And they will see what it is, at once.

And they will come out into the light! And lead their friends and families out, into the light!

The children of the earth have fallen into confusion. They do not know what to believe, or how to revere. They need a tutor and a guide, a leader and a champion, a judge and a chieftain!

It is for this reason that I was given such resources of strength, on this day. I will be their Samson, and it is Samson’s strength that I have been given.

It will all be accomplished swiftly. The days that are to come are not far off, now.

The next war looms before us, and I suspect it will be upon us so soon that even Frederick will be taken by surprise.

It will happen soon, and no man could avert it, even if he wished to do so.

Angels whirled in my lips, and I put them to a proper and pleasing use. Inevitability flowed from my mouth, in its four-note melody.

ON - on - he sends

EM - en - da - tion

IN - ter - cess - ion

ON - with - out - end!

I walked, and there were no doubts in me at all, not anywhere within my marbled and angel-housing heart.

CY - ber - ne - sis

SHALL - be - de - stroyed!

SUB - sti - tu - tion

SHALL - be - de - stroyed!

AD - ver - sar - ry

SHALL - be - de - stroyed!

 

 

My gait was steady, and swift. And so I arrived at school, and in the first period classroom, with several minutes to spare.

A different classroom, mind you, from the one with which “Of Raven” began.

The results of the Raven exam caused a stir among the local theorists on the topic of my development. It upended Mrs. Rachel’s most dearly held suppositions, about that topic most dear to her. It sent her speculations veering in new directions, and, rousing the scientist in her, spurred her to try a new experiment.

I was now—on a provisional basis, as an experiment—an ordinary student of the high school. I no longer spent the whole of the school day in one room, a special-education classroom. I was injected, suddenly, into the same busy, swirling current in which most of my peers were swimming, and had been swimming for years. I was subjected, as they were, to the wearying succession of room after room, and subject after subject. Six different rooms each day, and the same six, all over again, on the next day.

I did not much like this new state of affairs. Previously, I was mostly left alone, to spend time as I saw fit: in contemplation, planning, reflection, remembering. But it is not so easy to keep up appearances, in the ordinary classrooms.

I did my best to ignore the six new classrooms, to ignore all the tiresome monologues and inane “class activities” which occurred there. These things were of no significance, and they did not interest me. But they were swelled with a false sense of their own importance, and demanded that I make a show of bowing to them. I was called on, I was given papers and asked for other papers in exchange, I was taken aside and spoken to.

I did not do any of the “homework.” My Mother, Ruth Schoen, had recently castigated me for this, but I would not relent.

However, to keep up appearances, and brighten the face of that weary woman, I did permit myself to set an hour’s time aside, on one evening, so as to read the book which the “English” class had assigned. This was surprisingly worthwhile! That book was finely made, with evident care, and I took much pleasure in the admiring of it.

Still, though I went this far, I would not go any further. All the writerly force that is within me must be given over to my papers; I cannot afford to spare any of it on the “essay” which was demanded of me, on the topic of this book, and its “themes.”

I sat at my desk, reflecting. I considered the options available to me, for my first move, and weighed them against one another.

I drummed on the surface of the desk. Gladness, and inevitability, poured from my mouth.

The boy next to me, I saw, was staring at me.

This was not unusual. This boy, who sat to my immediate left in the first period “math” class, spent more time staring at me than at the lecturer, or the blackboard, or the papers on his own desk.

He stared in amusement, in mockery, often in shock; he stared, and cruel, flamelike forms leaped across his face; I was a subject of morbid fascination for him, it seemed, though I did not grasp the exact nature of that fascination. Nor did I know what error or iniquity it was, that lent the stare its undeniable air of perversity.

I had no quarrel with him, or his staring. It is meet, and well-arranged, when each man is given an amusement fitted to his tastes.

Nothing was out of the ordinary, I repeat, in the fact of the boy’s staring. However, he was staring, and I saw him staring. His squinting eyes, and the suppressed laughter bubbling behind his lips, announced themselves to my awareness.

Inconsequential matters do not make such a show of themselves. They recede from me, and hide in the murk. The boy, and his stare, were thus of consequence.

I turned to him.

He stared, wordlessly. The corners of his mouth quivered in amused indignation, as if I had affronted him, somehow, merely by turning to look in his direction.

I thought: the children are on the very cusp of remembering.

Angels drummed on the walls of my heart.

I thought: what better place to begin my miracles, than here? In the least promising soil, which would never become fertile through any means other than the miraculous?

“Do you believe,” I asked him, “in Santa Claus?”

It seemed prudent to begin with a question, so as to draw the pupil immediately into the lesson.

The laughter that had been locked up behind the boy’s closed lips was now allowed to spill forth. But only for a moment. The lips opened, emitted a short loud bark, and closed again.

If one wanted to convey this noise in letters, one might write: ho! But this ho! had none of the Intercessor’s merriment in it. It was not the laughter of a man who is truly, sincerely amused. It did not spill over, as such laughter does, but measured itself out precisely.

“Like, no?” the boy said, after a moment. He chuckled, briefly and mirthlessly, by way of punctuation.

I watched him, expecting more, but he did not elaborate.

“But you did, once?” I asked him. “As a child?”

He shrugged, and made a sort of hrmph noise. An affirmation, if one of the limpest possible sort.

Within my perfect mind, the line of attack that I would pursue on the game board immediately made itself apparent. I saw how the game pieces would leap, from square to square; I saw the glowing, ghostly wakes they left behind, drawing up a persistent chart of their successive motions.

“You were given to believe,” I said, “by your parents. Isn’t that right?”

“Why,” I pressed, “do you suppose your own parents would deceive you? About such a vast and consequential matter, such a vast and consequential man?”

“What purpose,” I asked, “could this lie possibly serve?”

He shrugged, again, and emitted another joyless ho!

“’Cause parents suck?” he said.

“Parents are fuckheads,” he said, under his breath.

This line of defense had not occurred to me. And I do not wish that it had occurred to me, even though that would have left me better prepared for our contest. I would not be Herschel Schoen, then, but someone else, to whom such sentiments are less wholly alien.

I would be this boy, or I would be my Sister, Miriam Schoen.

I paused, considering the avenues by which I might evade the present impasse.

My thoughts were quickly curtailed. Something made itself apparent to me, a ways off, near the front of the room.

The schoolmaster had arrived.

He strode across the front of the room, carrying his binder of papers.

He would deposit them on his desk, and then he would begin the day’s monologue. This, I knew, was his intent. He had a clocklike regularity, and carried out almost the same series of motions and gestures in each class period, as if he were a recording being played back again and again.

It was only the needless words that spilled from his mouth, and the insubstantial scribbles he made on the blackboard, that differed from one class period to the next.

Today, however, I could not allow this recorded man to play himself back, as he ordinarily did.

He intended to fill the hour with needless words, while I had needful and shining words inside me, and a host of angels straining against the confines of my heart.

I stood up, and walked through the aisle of desks, toward the front of the classroom.

I saw the students, in their many desks, swerving their heads to follow my progress.

The schoolmaster had arrived at his desk, and had set down his papers. He was rifling through them, at this moment, looking for something or other.

I reached the front, and turned to face my audience.

I looked out over the multitude, and saw the fragmentary forms of chins and sleeves and earlobes, rising from the murk and receding again.

I thought: the children are on the very cusp of remembering!

I raised the gates of myself.

“Herschel?” said the schoolmaster, from his desk. His voice was colorless.

All that had been dammed up and walled in, in me, began to pour forth.

I was the Greater Light, and I rose, announcing the day.

Celestial messengers leapt out of me, and bellowed, and bloomed. They leapt from my arms, and from my gullet.

“Santa Claus!” I proclaimed.

“Intercessor!” I shouted.

“Herschel,” the schoolmaster said, with a colorless wariness.

I felt what was in me, and pouring out of me. I knew its nature, and why it was given that nature.

The words that spilled out of me were NOT an orderly succession of moves on a game board, but the act of overturning that game board, and taking the hand of one’s fellow player, and leading them out of the game into what is beyond the board and the squares and the pieces, into the light, into LIFE!

“Friends!” I said.

“You have all received an unanticipated gift, and you do not know it! Because you have forgotten!

“I will show you! It will happen very swiftly! My Adversary will be utterly bested and ruined, and all his men will be utterly bested and ruined!”

A few stray things reached me, from out of the murk. Titters, smirks. Expletives, muttered in confusion.

I paid these things no mind. I knew what was within me, and I knew my duty, and I knew what must and would occur.

“There are ten Original Heavens,” I announced, “above the Original Firmament!

“You have been there, to each one of them, and to the Original Earth, as well!

“You have feasted on the flesh of Leviathan!

“You have been torn apart, by dogs and jackals, in the sundering field that is laid out on the surface of the sixth firmament!

“You have been a great age in the belly of Adail, and you have been the years and hours of that age, succeeding one another!”

Every manner of thing poured from me. I held Truth’s palette high, and displayed all the colors that were in it, and all the ways they could be mixed.

“The cybernetic systems,” I said, “intend to substitute themselves for you, and me, and those who are like us!

“It is the Intercessor’s season, and he strides at a right angle to time, emending eternally!

“A Latter-Day Emendation has re-perfected creation!

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!”

Diffuse noises of mirthless amusement flickered in the unformed deep.

“The fuck?” someone said.

I was boundless. Angels circled me, revealing their full and formless selves: not luminous men, but simply light, whirling.

My FULL VOICE did not hide itself, then, as it ordinarily does among men, to keep up appearances.

“I set myself against cybernesis!” I said, in wingèd quotation marks.

“I set myself against my Adversary, and against the principle of control through negative feedbacks!

“I set myself against the element that goes into another!

“Friends! I announce the body, and I lead you into the light!

“Friends! Santa Claus is coming to town!”

A sketch presented itself for my inspection, a hasty thing, more a suggestion of form than form itself.

The one girl’s ponytail, and the long braids of her neighbor; the one girl’s torso twisting to the side, bringing her mouth close to her neighbor’s ear; the one girl’s high, loud stage whisper, and the assenting giggle, issuing from her neighbor.

“He’s finally lost it,” the girl said in her loud whisper.

“The freak’s finally lost it,” she said. “I mean I knew he would.”

“Dude,” said a boy. “Herschel Spaz is freaking the fuck out.

“This is wild,” he said. “This is gold. This is killer.”

Fate armed me, and inevitability armored my voice.

“DO - not - have fear!

“HE - will - be - here!

“IN - ter - cess - or!

“COM - ing - to - town!”

From the deepest deeps, I heard a girl’s watery, wavering voice.

“Is he . . . is he, like, okay?”

Her false, needless concern was the only thing that actually angered me, at school, on that day.

But only for a moment. I am merciful to all.

I thought: she will remember, in days to come, and she will apologize for her offense against me. She will quake in fear, just as she quakes now.

I thought: But she will find that her fear has been misplaced, as it is now. And we will laugh together, she and I, and be glad.

“Herschel,” said the schoolmaster, from very close by.

“I think that’s quite enough now, Herschel,” he said mechanically, without feeling, without color.

“Quite enough, now,” he repeated, as he advanced, in defiance of all the powers that surged around me and within me.

I felt his arms, gripping and pinning mine. I felt the roughness of his polo shirt, and the hairy largeness of his hands.

I felt the warmth of his breath, pouring his needless words into my ear.

He intended to depose me. To drag me away from my lordly perch, and send me back to my desk, or to detention.

He intended to set himself up in my place, and speak his own needless words to my audience—my audience, who needed Truth, and deserved Truth!

This, I could not allow.

 

 

“You’re a very interesting boy, Herschel,” said Mrs. Rachel.

We had been talking for some time. Senselessly, aimlessly, in circles.

She beamed at me. I saw the shine of the fluorescent light on her glasses, and I saw the eyes behind the glass, shining.

“I’ve treated a lot of high-support-needs children, and a lot of gifted children. But you’re my first Two-E child.”

“Two-E?” I said.

“Oh,” she said, “there I go again! Talking in jargon, with . . . you kids.

“I’m sorry, I simply can’t help myself. It’s the researcher in me, you know, all that time I spend keeping up with the literature. Sometimes I fail to code-switch, you know, between the two hats I wear, as a researcher and a clinician.”

“Two-E?” I asked again, hoping to bring her back to the point.

“Twice exceptional, Herschel,” she said, beaming.

“Meaning, you have both gifted traits, and specialized support needs.

“Which, in its own way—and now I do confess I find this to be very interesting—which, in its own way, presents a new kind of specialized support need.

“Because we have evidence-based systems and processes for the gifted child in the school setting. And we have evidence-based systems and processes for the special-needs child in the school setting.

“But each of these hasn’t really been properly evaluated, on the Two-E child in the school setting. We’re having to, almost, you could say, start from scratch, where the evidence base is concerned.

“It’s actually quite new, the Two-E concept, in the literature I mean. It’s a bit of a, of what you could call, well, a hot topic, in the literature right now!”

I stared at her, and at the bookshelves that rose out of the void behind her, flanking her and honoring her, twin heralds of her empty splendor.

There was an evil in Mrs. Rachel. But it was not at all like my Adversary’s evil, or Frederick’s.

It is not a great evil, like theirs. It is not one of the primary colors in His palette, majestic in its own way, and worthy of respect. It is a small evil, and it is the evil of smallness. It is of no significance, and it is the evil of the insignificant.

It is the evil of lightless and unformed deeps; of needless words, mouthed without thought or conviction; of stale and dead jokes, played back off of magnetic tape; of Portland, Oregon.

“I do not have needs,” I told her.

“I am wholly sovereign,” I told her.

“You have such an interesting way with words, Herschel,” Mrs. Rachel said.

“It’s really very different from any gifted child I’ve treated, or from any high-support-needs child I’ve treated,” she said, as she noted something down on a pad of paper.

“But no,” she said, smiling, “I think we are discovering, together, that you aren’t going to thrive without some specialized support, in this school.”

“Are you saying this,” I asked, “because of my act of speaking Truth in first period today? Which was so rudely interrupted?”

At the word “rudely,” Mrs. Rachel chuckled, and smiled even wider.

“The incident today,” she said, “is . . . is one piece of the puzzle.”

She scribbled on her pad, as she spoke.

“But I’m really starting to think that your . . . behavior, this morning . . . and your, erm . . . altercation, with Mr. Crell, following his attempt to restore order in the classroom . . .

“I’m really starting to think, Herschel, that it’s part of a pattern of defiant and irritable behavior, going back . . . well, going back at least to the start of this school year, really!

“And from talking to your mother, if I remember correctly, there are indications that it’s a persistent pattern, going back at least six months, which would bring us within the diagnostic cutoff for, well . . . for several conditions, actually, but I’m getting ahead of myself!

“It’s not always easy,” she said, “being both a researcher and a clinician.

“I get a bit, ha, a bit rusty, when I spend too long wearing just one of my hats—I get a bit rusty, I have a little trouble code-switching, when I have to put the other hat on, again.”

I ignored this.

“A pattern?” I said. “Of ‘defiant and irritable behavior’?

“My Mother, Ruth Schoen, told this to you?”

She shook her head.

“Well, yes and no—see, I’m really integrating this perspective myself, from multiple lines of evidence.

“From your mother’s testimony, yes, that’s a key piece of the puzzle. But there’s also the testimony, too, of some of your teachers, and your peers, and the other clinicians and support staff who’ve been involved, you know, in the situation.

“I think today is, hmm, the first time I’ve seen violence come into the picture, that hasn’t been a focus of the other testimony. So that’s a worrying new wrinkle, I would say, in the pattern.

“But defiance, irritability—well! The testimony I’ve heard tells a very clear story there, almost a textbook clinical narrative. Only ‘almost,’ though—nothing is textbook with you, Herschel, is it?”

“I am Herschel Schoen,” I said. “I am happier than any man on earth, for I remember, while they forget.

“When have I ever been irritable?”

An evil patience radiated from Mrs. Rachel’s smile. It was evident that my incomprehension was pleasing to her, providing her with further evidence of my deformed cast of mind, and an opportunity to expound at even greater length on her suppositions and theories.

“Well,” she said primly, “just for instance, there was what Dr. Chiu told me.

“About your conduct during the psychometric examination.”

“What Ronnie Chiu told you?” I said.

I had no idea what to make of this.

“You know,” Mrs. Rachel said.

“The shrieking, the screaming . . . all of . . . that . . . it really put Dr. Chiu in a difficult clinical situation, you know, not one in his usual wheelhouse, although I’ll say he acquitted himself quite well, all things considered.

“But you know, having to support you, in a compassionate way, while also . . . as a psychometrist, of course, being very concerned with test validity, with maintaining, you know, the kind of testing environment used in the studies that form the evidence base for Raven’s Progressive Matrices as an instrument . . .

“Since there was another child being evaluated in the same room with you—ha, we should have known that was a mistake, hindsight’s twenty-twenty—and especially since that other child, well . . .”

She trailed off.

I was silent.

“Or,” Mrs. Rachel said after a pause, “to bring a very different sort of datum into the picture, there’s your difficulty in forming relationships with your peers.

“Which could have various causes, yes. I’m just thinking, when taken in context, as part of the whole picture.

“In that context I do think a complete lack of friendships within your peer group is at least, well, consistent with a hypothesis of persistent behavior on, you know, the oppositional-defiant spectrum.”

“I have a friend,” I said.

“Frederick Eggert,” I said, “is my friend.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Rachel said, “and that’s a good thing, Herschel. I’m very glad you’ve been able to form that bond. It’s very encouraging, developmentally. Especially in light of all this other . . . context . . . which is, well, not so encouraging.

“But now, Herschel—you’re so careful with words, I’m sure you noticed that I said peers, I said forming relationships with your peers.

“And Frederick Eggert, ha, well, he’s not exactly your peer, now is he?”

I had no idea what this meant.

In any event, she did not wait for an answer from me. She continued, with a new, springing note of zeal in her voice.

“Anyways—I do get so carried away, you know, it’s the academic in me—the long and short of it is, that I am going to recommend some changes to your support plan, in light of this morning’s incident, and also the sort of . . . constellation of converging evidence lines that I’m now starting to integrate.

“I don’t know, yet, quite what form those changes are going to take, Herschel. That’s what you and I are going to figure out, together.”

“Together?” I said.

“See, Herschel, the first thing I’m going to recommend, before anything else—just as a provisional step, to help us figure out the next step after it—is to recommend that you and I spend a lot more time together.

“To be concrete, I’m going to recommend that your enrollment in classes be . . . provisionally halted. Just for now, to give me . . . to give us, you and I, time to figure out the nature of the situation more fully.

“So we can really get to the bottom of things, and figure out what a compassionate, effective support plan would look like, for your particular needs.

“I’m applying an abundance-of-caution rule, here. Seeing as this, I mean the Two-E child in the school setting, is so . . . well, you could say it’s almost terra incognita, as far as the evidence base is concerned. So I’m going to tread carefully, and you know, primum non nocere, and all that.

“And besides that, well, ha, when it comes down to brass tacks, I confess we really can’t be having incidents like that one in first period, today. Mr. Crell likes to run a tight ship, you could say, and he’s been at this school for quite a long time, and is quite close with Mr. Greerson, and . . .

“And, well, any viable treatment plan—to get consensus and full buy-in from your support staff and your teachers and Mr. Greerson—well, it would have to begin by cutting off any opportunities for that sort of thing to emerge.

“But that’ll all be taken care of, Herschel. Because you’ll just be with me, for a little while.

“In my office, instead of in class.

“Starting tomorrow, if I get buy-in, for my recommendations. Which I do think I will.

“Just for a little while, provisionally.

“To give you and I time to put the pieces of the puzzle together.”

I stared at her.

“I am not a puzzle,” I said.

“I am a solution,” I said.

“You are such a clever boy, aren’t you!” she said, laughing, and running a hand through the curls of her hair.

“Such an interesting way with words.

“I do confess that I’m very interested . . . in my other hat, as a researcher, I mean . . . but no, we’ll have plenty of time to dig into that, later.

“To dig into all that, together.”

 

 

Mrs. Rachel sent me away from her office, at last, with an indication that my school day was ending early. I could go home, now, if I wished to.

I emerged from the schoolhouse onto the playfield.

I paced. I watched the dappled forms, swaying on the bodies of sunlit, half-shadowed structures.

I wondered whether to stay or go.

It was clear that Mrs. Rachel had expected me to go. I supposed that she would have demanded my departure, if she had had any notion that I might not accomplish that departure of my own free will, without her asking.

If I stayed, I might be thought a nuisance, a willful troublemaker; it might be imagined that I stayed out of defiance.

And the thought of spending a few unanticipated hours at home, together with my Sister, Miriam Schoen, did have a palpable appeal.

She was my first pupil. She was the first one that I spoke to, in any kind of depth, after my emergence from the holy shell. About what I remembered, and what she had forgotten.

I have spoken far more often, at far greater length, about these topics with my Sister, Miriam Schoen, than I have with anyone else on this earth.

She is obdurate in her forgetting. It is through her, far more than anyone else, that I know how tightly my Adversary’s claws grasp at the mind of man, and how thoroughly my Adversary’s bulwark of mists and shadows shields man’s mind from all light, from the very possibility of light.

But the Latter-Day Emendation makes all things new, and makes new things possible.

I considered this. I thought, too, of my now-habitual meetings with Frederick during the lunch break. He would wonder after me, if I left.

I felt my potency, lying in potent reserve, awaiting its next opportunity to effloresce. I felt my angels, who had been beaten back, and yet were in no way cowed or daunted.

The drumming at the walls of my heart was tamer than before, more decorous; my houseguests were settling in, and growing domestic in their ways. But I knew that they were in no way cowed or daunted.

I thought about the day, and its meaning.

I thought: I should begin, instead, with the littlest of the children. Who are closest to their own time of remembering. And who still retain their faith in that Santa Claus who lives, and lives forever.

I thought: I have erred. I should have begun in THAT way, today, with the littlest of the children. And not—

I shook my head, dispelling this utterly false line of reasoning.

Each day had its meaning, and revealed that meaning to me. I was coming to understand today’s meaning, now.

I thought: if my own words were capable of cutting through mist and shadow, they would have done so already. And my Sister, Miriam Schoen, would be sitting together with me, under the glancing light, among the cords that rise to the heavens.

I thought: there is an Adversary, acting against me, in this world.

I thought: I bade them, “open your eyes!” But they did not will their eyes to open.

I thought: What is inevitable must be done, one way or the other. If not willingly, then unwillingly. If not through words, then through force. If not through me, then through another.

Why was it necessary to emend creation? Why does the Intercessor come to men, yearly, eternally?

Why does he come in December, on the twenty-fifth, the fourth Wednesday?

I, Herschel Schoen, am insufficient for my task—and that is the reason why another one was given, alongside me. To the world, and to Brooklyn, New York.

He will come!

Santa Claus is coming, to Brooklyn, New York!

In December, on the fourth Wednesday!

He is coming, to open a million eyes! He is coming, to give the gift of the Original Creation!

To grind the cybernetic systems into dust!

To bring down justice on their heads, honoring the compact He set forth on the sixth day: that He shall return to emptiness and formlessness all those who do not accept His Torah, the superverbal literality of His bodied law! That He shall unmake the bodies of all those who spurn His law, who substitute for that law a system of positive and negative feedbacks, a mere collection of needless words, and wasted breath, and empty forms going into one another amidst the shadows!

Yes, Virginia! He is coming, he is coming!

 

 

A familiar body emerged from the murk, leaning against the high wall of the school, close by to me.

It was Madeleine, I saw. Frederick’s associate.

She leaned, with a studied idleness. She brought a cigarette to her mouth, and then took it away, and mists blew out of her mouth.

They coiled and dispersed in the air, changing from mist to form, from form to formlessness.

I approached her.

She turned, and regarded me.

I had no idea what to make of the expression that was on her face, then.

It was not a smile.

You may, and you should, read into this negation any wealth of affirmation that it may seem to contain implicitly. Every individual element of a smile was there, in Madeleine’s expression, and they were properly and fittingly arranged. It was only in the large, as a whole, that its true and deviant nature revealed itself. At the final moment, it veered away from the creed which all its prior deeds had appeared to affirm, adopting instead some wholly unanticipated heresy.

“Hey,” she said.

Her tone was enigmatic, unreadable.

“Frederick’s buddy,” she said, raising herself up from the wall.

“Long time no see,” she said, leaning forward a little, bringing her face closer to mine.

She was very tall. She had to stoop, a little, to bring her face close to mine.

“We saw one another,” I said, “just yesterday.”

I felt uneasy. Madeleine’s face loomed against a void, returned to formlessness. The orange forms of her hair swooped and whirled, announcing her and exalting her.

There was a nameless sickness in my belly. In my heart, a terrible stillness, and a terrible silence.

Heresies, and unsmiling smiles, effloresced inside me.

Madeleine laughed. Her mirth was genuine, I saw, if not kind.

She laughed and laughed.

“You’re cute, kid,” she said.

“You’re cute, you know that?”

I wished that she had not called me kid. We were nearly the same age.

“I heard about what you did today,” she continued. “In first period math.”

She laughed and laughed.

Mist dispersed into the formless murk. I coughed, and blinked my eyes to wash a sudden sting from them.

“Fucked up shit, man,” she said, cackling.

“You’re cute, and you do fucked up shit,” she said, not-smiling at me.

I was silent.

“And you don’t get my jokes,” she said.

“You’re touched,” she said.

“Soft in the head,” she said.

“Pliable,” she said, bringing her wide not-smile and her devious eyes very close to me.

So that her face was very nearly touching mine.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“’Course you don’t,” Madeleine replied, and brought herself back up to her full height.

Substitutions were occurring, within me.

Cybernesis was occurring, within me.

Something else was rushing into the empty cavity, now void of angels, to take the angels’ place.

“Want a drag?” Madeleine said, proffering her cigarette to me.

I shook my head.

“Probably for the best,” she conceded.

“It’d probably, like, do something fucked up to your little ’tard brain,” she said.

In silence, I watched the churning heresies contending against one another, amid the curls and folds of Madeleine’s twisting, self-shadowing hair.

I thought: the errant are always in contention against one another, and in utmost dissension and chaos, and it cannot end among them, for each of them can rightly prove the fatal wrongness of his neighbors. Only light and Truth resist disproof, but the errant are swathed in shadows and falsity.

I thought: her hair twists and folds, shadowing itself, hiding itself inside itself.

Her hair was an element, going into another.

Her hair went all over.

And so, it was quite right.

I envisioned a dark landscape covered in a mess of curling wires. The wires plunged out of the earth, and went all over, and went into one another.

Madeleine was in this landscape, leaning against the wires. They plunged into her, and she into them.

One thing went into another, ceaselessly, in that terrible land, on that terrible and endless night.

I had never seen this image before. It was not a thing that He created, nor a fancy of my own, consonant with my character and the tendencies of my will.

It was plunging into me. It was not of my mind, but it was in my mind, and I could not cast it away from me.

“It’d be fun,” Madeleine mused.

“Having a toy like you,” she mused.

“To play with.

“Any way I choose. And you wouldn’t know any better.

“See. I can say that.

“I can just say that.

“’Cause you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“No,” I said.

Cybernesis flared inside me, hot and churning.

Coils, going into one another, hot and churning. The terrible and lawless night, spurning all customs, returned to emptiness and formlessness.

The heretical night, engorged with its own poison, made giddy by its own errors, and falsely glad. Supping on the formless fruit of itself, engorging itself with itself.

Coiling, endless!

I had no idea what to make of this.

I had to return to my tutors, my bed and my ceiling, and plead for their guidance.

I fled.

 

 

I lay in bed, looking up, and my ceiling was still.

There were no forms there, leaping.

Only a flat surface, and its studded texture.

I was alone, then, with the night, and the plunging coils.

I felt the surging that was between my legs, placed there as a substitute for my body and the things of my body.

My inviolable will failed me.

I made myself powerless, to teach myself a lesson. I willed that I be without will, and I was.

I gave my body up to complacent passivity. I envisioned myself laid down to rest, against the musty earth of the night land, under a nest of curling wires.

I gave my mind up to suicidal resignation. I envisioned Madeleine, beside me, and Frederick, and heard their colloquy, and did not raise my voice to correct their errors.

“One thing goes into another,” Frederick said, as the wires plunged into his chest.

“One body is as good as another,” he said, as the wires tore his flesh, and coiled in the innermost parts of his body.

“Bodies are interchangeable,” he said, coughing.

“In the pattern, they are the same,” Madeleine said. A lance of twisted steel pierced through the back of her skull, and went on through her head, and flashed out from her mouth.

Her lips were moving around it, as she spoke.

“Hey,” she said. Only her eyes turned to me, for her head was pinned in place by the strong, thick wire that ran through it.

“Hey, kid,” she said.

“The next war’s gonna be the final war, did you know that?” she said. Blood ran down from the corners of her not-smiling mouth.

“Father’s machines will not need us,” Frederick said, going into her.

“Won’t it be nice? To finally lay our bodies down?” Madeleine said, going all over.

Coiling, endless!

OH - how - they - pound -

Poison, heresy!

THROW - cares - aw - ay -

Aw - ay -

AW - AY -

Away, away, again, night, nothing, void, formlessness, nonsense.

I felt what was in my body, and on my body.

I felt what I had done.

I felt its warmth, and its profusion.

There was nothing good in this.

It was a joke substituted for Truth.

It was a fallow field, under a starless night, with the corpses of men laid all over it, and maggots teeming and writhing within them—substituted for the garden that He made, in Eden, and for the sweetest of the duties He gave to man, on the sixth day!

There is such weariness in the hearts of men, and such despair. This is so in all the places where men are, all over the earth.

I learned one of the reasons for this, then, on that day.

I am unworldly, yes—but only to a point. I knew, quite immediately, just what it was I had done.

I thought: it came to pass when Onan WENT INTO his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give seed to his brother.

Onan was a man, then. But a man of the primordial earth, who remembered the body that cast the primordial earth as its shadow.

Who knew that he would eventually return to that place, when he was finally called up from his long wanderings in the hollow space under the Original Earth, and carried up into light.

For him, it would have been bearable, I think.

A sick thing is substituted in for coupling and fruitfulness, on the earth that is the shadow of the Original Earth.

Far below the deepest deeps of Sheol, against the shadowed screen that lies beneath the bottom of creation, men and women twist and plunge, and throw cares away, and give themselves up, to suicidal resignation.

And they believe that THIS is what He referred to, when He blessed them, and bade them to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”

Onan did not hold this belief. Onan knew full well what He meant, and so he was able to bear the thing that is its shadow.

But the men that are on the earth, now?

I knew, now, why they displayed such shame over the sweetest of His blessings, over coupling and fruitfulness. I understood, as I never had before, why their hearts are so weary, and their voices choked with unremitting despair.

I must be merciful to them, I thought, for they shoulder such a great burden, and do not even know it.

I must show clemency, I thought, to the very last of them. I must bless them, and forgive them, down to the very last.

I must bless them, and forgive them. Even those whose flesh is fated to return to formlessness. Even as the inevitable falls upon them, and grinds their bones into dust, and the very dust into emptiness itself.

 

 

A voice that whispers into a telephone handset, unwilling to reveal itself fully, for it is rightly ashamed.

A straw prophet, with a jocular beard, and hair like Yeshua’s.

As if that was what qualified a man for prophethood!

Oh, I knew, I knew, I wished it were not so, it was, it was.

On and on.

Endlessly.

I knew why my Sister, Miriam Schoen, tolerated that unformed waste of a man—and spoke to him in her many voices, in her darkly colorful voices, the one color and then the next—as she had never spoken to me—

I rushed into the living room.

She was there, as I had expected, sitting absolutely still on the couch.

Stale light and tinny laughter poured out of the television, and went into her.

“I have learned,” I said, “what it is that the men of the earth call coupling and fruitfulness.”

She turned her head, slightly.

“I know,” I said spitefully, “what it is that you and Vincent share, that you do not share with me.”

She looked at me, blankly.

If she appreciated the full extent of my rage, she did not show it.

“I know the empty thing that you want, that he gives you!” I said.

“I know the nothing that you seek, and find, in him!” I shouted.

“The starless night, that rouses you, that swells you with poison and makes you blind to my light!

“The empty thing, the nothing, the nonsense, the joke—the joke that was why you brought him here, into our home, that you did with him in our room, casting me away, so that you could—”

“Oh,” said my Sister, Miriam Schoen.

She laughed, nervously.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, oh my.

“Oh, my.

“Oh, my brother,” she said, “my little brother.”

She stood up, and regarded me with a bright, patronizing gaze.

I wished that she was not so merry, then, and so self-assured. When I had castigated her so!

When I had spat her own shame back at her, meaning to expose it utterly before the light of the day, and bring her low to her knees in repentance!

(Perhaps I am irritable, Mrs. Rachel. Perhaps I am, now and then. But what of it? So is my Mother, Ruth Schoen, your trusted witness and confidante. So were all the prophets, and all the judges, and all the righteous men of the primordial earth.)

(So is He.)

“My, my,” she said, in a merry daze.

“My little brother’s growing up, isn’t he?” she said.

The rhetorical question, and the sickly sweetness that dripped from its edges, reminded me equally of Mrs. Rachel and of Madeleine.

Why, why, do you torment me so? My Sister, Miriam Schoen, why do you torment me so?

“Do not taunt me,” I said, staring her down.

“My little brother,” she repeated, in a marveling tone.

“But you’re wrong,” she said, after a pause.

She smiled at me more fully, then. She smiled at me as she used to, then.

She did not tower above me, in that moment, but walked the earth by my side.

“No, no, you’re wrong,” she said.

“That’s not the nature of my relationship with Vincent.

“That’s not it at all, that’s not the point of . . .”

She paced the wide floor of the living room. The television, idiotically unaware that we had wrested ourselves from its grip, went on shining and laughing, spilling its seed onto the empty couch.

“I mean,” she said.

“Well,” she said.

“I’m not going to deny . . . well, to deny what’s obvious, you know.

“But it . . . sex . . . it’s only a very small part of it, really.

“It’s not the . . .

“It’s not the main thing,” she finished.

She sounded dissatisfied with this phrase, but unable to find any one that was superior to it.

“Then,” I said, “what is it?

“What is it that you and Vincent do? That you did in our room, casting me out, so you could be alone?

“That you want to do with him again?

“That you want to do with him, again, in his shadowed halls? In that sick land that he comes from, far across the earth?”

I had heard her speak, recently, about this notion of hers.

Recently, repeatedly, wistfully, with yearning.

“Oh, Herschel,” she said.

“It’s, well . . .

“It’s . . .”

She made a certain gesture, then, which I had seen her make before, on occasion.

If you picture her tipping some invisible hat, you will have it mostly right.

The hand is brought to the forehead, and then cast away, in an arc.

It seems to point toward something, the motion does. There. Over there, see?

“What,” I said, “are you trying to tell me?”

She performed the gesture again.

She was facing me directly, as she did it. It was clear that this was her response to what I had just said.

“I do not understand,” I confessed.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Well, it’s . . .”

She walked to the far end of the couch, where I keep many of my papers.

She picked up a blank notebook, and a pen.

She drew something on the page, and then held the notebook out in front of her, for my inspection.

The figure that she had drawn, there, was one I had seen her draw before, on occasion.

I would see her draw it again, and again, later on.

[ . . . [ . . . []]]

That was how it looked, then, on that day. Later on, she would sometimes draw it in a lesser or greater form, as in the following:

[ . . . []]

Or, alternately:

[ . . . [ . . . [ . . . [ . . . []]]]]

But on that day, she drew it just as I have done here, above, in my first rendition.

She nodded her head toward the notebook, as if to say, you see?

“I do not see,” I said.

“I do not see what it is,” I said.

She shook her head, as if to say, it’s no use, never mind.

She returned to the couch, and sat there.

“You’re home early,” she said, seeming to notice this fact for the first time.

“Was everything all right?” she asked. “At school, today?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes, yes,” I said, my voice heavy with weariness, and with despair.

“Everything was perfectly all right,” I said, not wanting to speak with her any longer.

“Everything was perfect,” I said, as I turned my back to her, and departed.