THE GOD WHO SEES - Chapter 8

The closer I came to the device, the more my feet dragged.

“Keep.  Moving.”  My words came through gritted teeth.

Why was I so reluctant?

Oh, I don’t know, the region of my brain responsible for snark responded.  Maybe it has something to do with being personnapped, plonked in a weird room with apparently no means of escape, and left here to listen to some ancient recordings of people you’ve never met and never will never meet.

I knew what my brain was doing, but it was no good.  Tears began flowing freely once again.

Cut it out!  This time my brain opted for the direct approach.  Crying isn’t gonna get you any closer to figuring out how to get out of here.

“I know, I know,” I sobbed.  “Do you think I enjoy standing here acting like a blubbering fool?”

Apparently, my brain had no witty comeback for that one.  I tried to get myself under control and angrily swiped my face, wishing I had thought to bring a tissue.

What, like you knew you were going to end up here?

I admitted that I had a point.  And then I admitted that admitting to oneself that one has a point was probably a pretty strange thing to do.

You should’ve listened to your mother and tucked one into your pants.

“Okay, that’s about enough out of you,” I said and firmly told myself to stow it.

After receiving no further comments, I looked up and noticed that I was only a few steps away from the device.  I still harbored a slight disinclination to listen to anyone else, but I didn’t think I was going to be let out of this room until I had heard at least one more story.  I set my jaw, wiped my face one more time, and resolutely took those last few steps.

I pressed the button.

Nothing.

I tilted my head to one side, a puzzled look on my face.  Just as I reached out my hand to try and see if something was wrong, I heard Melody’s voice.

“Hello?”

I leapt back in shock and tripped on my own feet.  I didn’t even feel the landing.  Somewhere in my brain, the thought occurred that I was going to be sore and probably slightly bruised.

“Hello?  Are you there?” asked Melody.  Except it wasn’t Melody.  Or, rather, since I could hear her voice in crystal clear clarity, I realized that I recognized the speaker and her name wasn’t Melody.  It was...me.

“What is this?  What’s happening?” I croaked through lips that felt remarkably parched.  “Who are you?”

“Hi.  You, um, yeah,” my own voice replied.  “You probably have — questions.”

“Ya think?”

“This is, well, out of the ordinary, for sure.  I’m sorry.”

The absurdity of listening to myself apologize to me crashed down on my head and I started laughing, not a little hysterically.  I noticed that Melody (I couldn’t bring myself to call her by any other name just yet) kept quiet for which I was thankful.  Then I realized that I was being thankful to myself for doing what I would instinctively do for someone in my position, and I laughed even harder.

After a few moments, I calmed down enough to ask, “Have I totally lost it?”

Melody didn’t respond right away.

“Is your silence agreement?”

“No, no, not at all,” Melody hastily replied.  “I was just...well, remembering how I felt.  How you’re feeling.”

I decided I didn’t want to examine that one too closely.

“So, you are me.”

“Yep.  Or you’re me,” Melody said with a hint of mischievousness in her voice.

“How?”

“To be honest, I haven’t a single clue.  Would it help to say, ‘They must have done something to us’?”

I smiled weakly in spite of myself.  I loved that movie no matter what anyone said, even the ending.  If I had any doubts that it was really me, they were swept away.

“Why?”

“I think — I think maybe I shouldn’t say too much.  Spoilers, you know,” she said in that mischievous tone again.  “But I can tell you this, you won’t be the same after today.”

“That I believe,” I muttered.

“And, just so you know,” Melody said quietly, “you will have more ‘todays’.”  She paused.  “A whole lot more.”

I found myself looking at the device through another veil of tears.  “Talk about spoilers,” I managed to say.

“I appreciate that it’s difficult for you to admit it — obviously, I do — but she was right.  Rachel.  She nailed it.”

I knew exactly what I was talking about.  Rachel’s words were what had been running through my mind right before I found myself in this room.

“You’re not sad.  Not just sad, anyway.  You’re — well, enraged.  Super, super enraged.  You’re feeling nine kinds of rage and you have no idea what to do with it.”

I had denied.  I had argued.  I had — well, I had gotten kinda enraged with her.

“I know what sad feels like and I know what angry feels like, and you’re just plain wrong.”

‍ ‍“I didn’t say angry.”

“Whatever! Everything that’s happened, everything I’ve — you’re wrong.  You have no idea what this pain feels like.  No idea!”

I wasn’t proud of how loudly I’d shouted at her.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked out loud.

Melody was silent for a moment.  Then she said in a gentle voice, “I know you’ll figure it out.  That’s not any kind of help at all, I realize, but it’s true.”

“Universe altering time paradoxes if you give me any hints, yeah?”  I tried and failed to keep the caustic tone out of my voice.

I heard Melody sigh.  That was all the answer I needed.

“Well, what now?” I asked with a weary sigh of my own.

“Ummm, since I’ve got you here, what do you think about answering some questions for me?”  Melody sounded a little tentative, like she wasn’t sure how I would respond.

“That doesn’t make much sense,” I said.

“Oh, right.  Yeah, you need some time.  To think.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.  If you’re me, then you should know what I think.  About answering questions, I mean.  Right?”

It seemed ridiculous beyond reason, yet somehow I could hear Melody grinning.  “I realize that you want to figure things out before taking two more breaths,” she said, “but trust me, the answers will come in time.  Right now, you need to focus on something else.”

“Like answering your questions?”  I was grinning, too.

“Well, then, shall we get started?”

“Ask away,” I responded.

“Okay.  First question:  what color best describes you?”

So that’s what it was, I thought as I remembered hearing the word “color” in the last interview.

“Depends on the day,” was my response.

“Fair enough.  How about today?” was Melody’s rejoinder.

“I should’ve guessed you’d say that.”

“You know me.”  Again, I could hear Melody’s smile.

“Fine.  Black.”

“Would that be for elegance and sophistication, or...”

“Fear.  Evil.  Death.”

“Right.”  Melody sucked in a deep breath.  “You sure know how to start off with a bang.  How about we move on to the next one?”

“Fine with me.”  I was suddenly feeling quite petulant and not entirely sure I wanted to continue.

“What literary character would you most like to meet?”

“Wow.  Do I have to pick just one?”  Books were my constant solace and if I had to think of one single character, I’d be here until my teeth fell out.

“I’ll make you a deal.  How about one male and one female?”

“Not that much easier,” I mumbled.  But I set my mind to it and came up with two answers in a reasonably short amount of time.  “Harry Crewe and Atticus Finch.”

“Huh.  I thought you’d have gone with an elf or two,” Melody said, sounding surprised which I found rather amusing.

“Yeah, I considered that, but I couldn’t think of just one.  I would love to talk to Harry because I know oh so well how it feels to be — ” I paused.  “ — of two different worlds.  And Atticus, well, you know.”

Melody didn’t say anything.

“What’s your next question?” I asked after a few moments.

“Right.  Um, let’s see.  Do you have a favorite quote?”

If she’d asked me just a few months ago, my answer would have been immediate.  Now...

“I can’t really think of anything at the moment.”

I heard a noise that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  It was a clicking sound.  I looked around before realizing it was coming from the device.  Once that dawned on me, I knew exactly what it was.  Melody was clicking a pen.  A habit of mine when I was afraid to say something but really wanted to say it.

“Go ahead,” I sighed.

“Hmmm?  What’s that?”  Melody tried to sound nonchalant.

“You know you’re not gonna be happy until you say it, so go ahead.”

Melody cleared her throat.  “I know it seems pretty meaningless right now, but just tell me.”

I closed my eyes.  I’d not wanted to think about those words, sometimes ever again.  But they came flowing out of my mouth.

“For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish,

nor fruit be in the vines;

the labor of the olive fails,

the fields yield no food;

the flocks are cut off from the fold,

and there is no herd in the stalls:

yet I will rejoice in the LORD.

I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!

The LORD, the Lord, is my strength.

He makes my feet like deer’s feet,

and enables me to go in high places.”

“Yes,” was all Melody said.

“You’re not gonna give me the ‘buck up, little camper, things’ll look better soon’ speech, are you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.  Never worked for us.”

I listened closely, but there was no pen clicking.  I expelled the breath I’d been holding, and stood there waiting.  When Melody remained silent, I said, “I’m ready for you to keep going.”

“Okay.  As you wish.”

Was she being cute or did she mean something by using that phrase?

“Next question is:  what would be your theme song?”

I thought back over some of the responses I’d heard from Melody’s other interviewees and I couldn’t help but smile.

“I don’t suppose it would do me any good to say ‘Depends on the day’ again.”

“Nope.”

As my mind raced through the massive catalogue of songs I knew, I found it difficult to land on just one.  Lyrics were dancing before my eyes.  Then a melody began playing itself in my head and I had it.  I started blurting out the lyrics.

As I stopped reciting the lyrics, I could hear Melody softly humming, stopping when she realized I was finished.

“Guess I don’t need to ask why you picked that one,” she said.

“Probably not,” I replied.

“Shall I keep going?”

“Sure.”

“Righty-o.  Okay, if you were to describe the person or people who shaped you the most as a plant, what would he, she, or they be?”

Now what all those people had said about plants and trees made sense.

“I’m gonna go with Belladonna.  They looked good on the outside and at times, they might have been okay, but mostly, they were just toxic.”

“Spot on,” Melody murmured.  “And what about the defining moment of your life?  If it was a weather pattern or a force of nature, what would it be?”

“Drought.”  I didn’t even have to think about that one.  “Except I guess it’s not just the defining moment.  I can’t seem to get away from it.”

“I know.”  Melody’s response was gentle, and I wept at her compassion even though part of my brain reminded me of the absurdity of the situation.  After what seemed like hours, she finally asked, “Do you feel like going on, or do you want to leave it there?”

I wondered if that’s what she’d said to the others.

“No, I’m good,” I responded, dashing away tears that weren’t quite so unwelcome this time.  “Let’s keep going.”

Melody paused.  “This next one might strike you as, well, a little odd.”

I thought back to the interviews I’d listened to and recalled that this was when almost all of them laughed.  Loudly and heartily.

“This should be good,” I said, eager to finally hear the actual question.

“Right.  So.  If you were to be remembered as a dessert, what would it be?”

Even knowing it must have been something unusual, I wasn’t fully prepared.  Laughter erupted out of my mouth before I could stop it and continued while Melody joined in.

“How long did it take you to come up with that one?” I asked, gulping for air.

“Oh, just popped into my head, you could say,” said Melody airily.

I kept giggling as I thought about an answer.

“Let’s say baklava,” I finally said.

“Yeah?  Don’t tell me — a little nutty, a little crunchy, and lots of layers?”

“You forgot the sweet part.”

“Up for debate sometimes.”

“You know me too well.”

Melody let that one go and asked her final question.

“What’s the most important lesson you would like to pass on to posterity?”

“Yikes.”

“Brief.  Succinct.  I like it.”

“Very funny.  That’s — I mean, how in the world do you sum something like that up without going on for hours?”

“Good question.”

“You’re helpful,” I said but with a grin.  “Huh.  Well...”  I paused and thought about all the people I’d listened to since I arrived in this room.  I thought about the ways they had answered Melody’s questions.  I thought about how I felt listening to them, about how I desperately wished I had been able to meet some of them and really get to know them.  “I think maybe it’s this — everyone has a story that deserves to be heard.  No one life has more impact than another, and no one person deserves to be heard more than another.  There’s not one single person in this world who is boring or ineffective unless they choose to be.  Telling each other that only the dramatic stories deserve an audience just encourages us to keep our emotions under wraps, hiding what we truly feel and what we’ve experienced because our stories aren’t much of a story.”

“Couldn’t’ve said it better myself.”

The deep irony of Melody’s statement put a huge grin on my face.

“So now what?” I asked.

“You like that question, don’t you?”

“You should know.”  Now it was my turn at irony.

“Well, now you have some big decisions to make.  But don’t worry.  I have it on good authority that you do okay with that.”

Before I could say anything, the device clicked off and Melody was gone.