The GOD Box (28 page)

“Is God a what or a who?”
May asked.

“Depends who you ask. Not everybody believes that book is history.”

“They have a choice?”

“Agh, I said that wrong. It’s history, it’s just not true.”

May’s expression hadn’t changed. “What?”

“It’
s true… it’s just biased. But… no, its…”

“No, no, no,” Dane began,
more awake and interested now, “You can’t go back on the first thing that makes sense.”

Jonathan growled, “Fine, fine! Some people thought God existed, that he was a being in Heaven; in the sky; away from the earth; somewhere!” He was flailing his arms around searching for common words. “Like a man, but not, but he had power and people like to think his power could help them and that he could see everything that was going on in the world all at the same time, but he can’t, that’s impossible! That somehow
he
was the answer, but he wasn’t.” Assuming what was coming next Jonathan then said, “An answer for people’s problems, but his followers were so few when the world ended that you couldn’t even pretend it was true based on popular opinion, or any other opinion, and I DON’T KNOW WHY GABE HAD THAT BOOK!”

Dane finally came up sitting so that the top of his
baffled face was visible above the couch. “What are you
freaking
talking about?”

“This is not my thing, okay!? Or, their mi
nds; the way they think! I just do biology and physical science – that’s why Gabe was here, he knows all this shit!”

“Well this Jesus in here must be a doctor or teacher of some kind.”

“Ohh! He’s infamous! Doctor my ass.”

This conversation went on for a week whenever they were around each other: Working in the field, walking through town (where Jonathan seemed to talk in code the whole time… which was just as well as his usual conversation so no one complained). They were arguing, not so much about what
was possible, but about what the whole concept must have ultimately meant. May and Dane most of the time weren’t intending to argue, but Jonathan seemed to think everything they said was on the verge of verbal harassment and a witness to their doubt of his communication abilities.

One day they were harvesting their
peanuts and Jonathan hollered at an unnecessary volume from two rows over, “You know why it can’t work? Because people can’t be alive when they’re dead! I’ve died five times and there is no life after death!” Then without saying anything more he went back to his row.

This was too much. Half of those that heard just started laughing
, and Jonathan, who’d been consistently lost in thought for the whole week didn’t even react. Thomas leaned over to May and said, “Did that whole thing just sound like a contradiction to you?”

“Oxy
moron
” Miek said when he passed behind them.

“Agh!” May was just exasperated
. She threw her one empty hand in the air, thinking that it had to mean something, but getting to that explanation was like getting water from a well that soaked up every time you put a bucket down. You bring the bucket up with a residue of mud, but no water.

Jonathan came around again, “Humans are like computer systems, okay, they work with order. They’re only a product of what you put into them. Everything you do, you were destined to do because of everything you’ve done before. You can’t change. Your theory of choice? Stupid.”

By now, Samson, the anger-management case, was so convinced of Jonathan’s stupidity he just scoffed and moved on. Strange, though it was, Dane was very clearly getting frustrated. After this last comment, he broke his usual calm and approached Jonathan with genuinely intimidating fury,

“You are pissing me off! Jonathan!
Shut up!” Dane paused, then repeat, quieter this time, “shut up.” His voice sounded more like a growl.

Eventually they stopped bring
ing up the book. They weren’t getting anywhere more than the bias which Jonathan had apparently known his whole life. Convincing, though a few of his arguments were, Dane and May knew enough about philosophy and even history to know there’s always more than one side to a story. Not only that, but the most bias they picked up on was in his tone and attitude toward the whole thing, because half the time, they didn’t even get what he was talking about, because they didn’t know how anything originally was.

That night, to veer the random
Jesus comments before they started, Dane asked Jonathan this question, “So we know you were a scientist, that you learned to come back to life… my question is how? Can you explain the science behind it?”

“Well that’s an easy topic. See, you fuse a somatic cell and an egg and then put in through the birthing process. But that is the easiest part. What I did was
speed up the process, make it so that you don’t have to have a live creature to give birth, included memory, and created a machine to do it all.”

“Are you going to hate us if we say we don’t understand?” Miek said while playing a high fiving game with Janey.

“Seriously?” Jonathan whined then added, uselessly, “Oh, and then, I was able to transfer it to the cave where it’s closer to freezing so it would preserve the necessary cells. Course, we had to make some adjustments, so the whole thing is like a giant refrigerator.”

Maybe he thought he was ‘dumbing it down’ enough… but
who knew what a refrigerator was. The easiest thing Dane could think to do was see the process himself. For five years before he left with the political party he studied the human body with a renowned doctor. Much of what he learned was now forgotten, but he figured it might all come back in time. Since it seemed that Jonathan was particularly excited about the subject and at times had brought up going back to the cave to bring Gabe back, perhaps Dane thought it just might work to ask what he asked next,

“Wanna go to the cave, and you can show me?”
Dane asked stiffly, his whole demeanor changing.

May looked again at Dane, trying to guess what was going on in his mind. Jonathan saw her face and likely decided that since she didn’t know anything about the request, it might have relatively innocent prospects. Dane caught her eyes for about five seconds
, assuring her motionlessly.

She understood and felt a sense of confidence and gratitude for Dane.
Great timing and great ideas, used at just the right moment. Good job Dane. May thought. They both looked back at Jonathan, waiting for his response. Miek looked like he was waiting for Jonathan to say he was pregnant.

“I guess we could do that.”
He replied, grumpy that he was agreeing. Miek’s eyes brightened.

“’kay. Let’s leave in three days?”
Dane said, now seeming irritated for some unreadable reason.

Having thought about it now f
or a second longer, Jonathan looked skeptical. He asked May for a sleeping pill. She pulled it out and handed it to him saying, “You only have three of these left.”

Three and three… Dane and May talked about it the night before. By saying three days he was also putting himself in a very vulnerable position. Jonathan realized this silently, took his pill and retreated by himself to the other side of the room. Dane got up and didn’t know what to do with himself. He was standing in between a lot of bodies
who were sitting on the living room floor, and listening to the same conversation or talking amongst themselves. A few were even asleep by now. Wandering in circles for a minute, deciding how to get out, Dane seemed a little fidgety. Tiptoeing away, he sat with May at the table, touched her hand and asked if she’d like to go for a walk.

“Thomas, will you be on watch tonight?”
Dane asked.

“Yeah, sure. Ya’ll aren’t coming back in time?”

Dane guided May gently through the door with fingers on the small of her back, then closed the door behind him without saying anything else. Too much was occupying his mind to care about niceties. Out of the house they both shoved their hands in their pockets and started wandering at the edge of the peanut field. Heads were down as if the immensity of thought was affected by gravity. Repeatedly, they bumped into each other with the lopsidedness of their walk.

They walked for about an hour, talking here and there. What would he be learning while with Jonathan? What should May do while they were gone? They’d been having troubles of people coming to the house at night, snooping, watching, and listening, but never entering or wanting to be seen.

Even people who were not involved with any of the recent happenings seemed to be stopping by to visit more often. Such things made all of them somewhat uneasy. On the walk, they listed the people who were trying to come by the house and decipher what was going on. They couldn’t really blame them either, they supposed. He asked if she was learning anything more from the book. May admitted she was, but was still piecing together exactly what it meant. Dane invited her to share what she was thinking so that maybe they could figure it out together. The passion with which May expressed her knowledge was surprising almost to her even. First comparing points in the text, then how they could contradict, how something that Jonathan said was irking her.

Beyond an hour of walking, now, they were hearing the sounds of water, of the ocean.
It felt new and glorious. Too tired to perceive the brilliance, they simply breathed in the serenity of the moonlight.

May looked at Dane
as they kept walking and said, “Okay, so I thought you’d be better now that Jonathan is a little better, but you’re not. Want to tell me why?”

As of yet, this was the most difficult personal conversat
ion they had had. Normally it was much easier, but May was patient as Dane explained that he hadn’t been able to come out of his depression. Old feelings and flashbacks were coming up, with old desires to use alcohol. He hoped this trip with Jonathan would be void of all that and would help
him
get back in control and help Jonathan finish his withdrawals away from the house.

May didn’t realize how deep the feelings were. She could sense something was wrong, but when tears started to fall her heart sunk.

Whatever pain he felt he had obviously held it in and now it was all coming out. Hopelessly, he fell on his knees and bowed his head, letting his fingers drift in the sand. Like his shadow, she followed him to the ground, taking his face in her hands. Then his hands found her elbows and touched them gently as he cried.

She took away Dr. Jekyll. And Jonathan hated her for it. To avoid her, Jonathan stuck with Dane, or with Samson, or sat by himself. His physical need for the drugs was slipping away, but his emotional need was still prevalent. He knew May heard him sob every night. He was desperate to get back to the lab for more medication. He would do about anything for it, including giving Dane information he probably shouldn’t have.

___

New determination was in Jonathan’s eyes for the next three days. He kept trying to tell them they needed to build bicycles. This was a weird one, because they recognized the word, but were a little unsure of what it was or how to go about it. When they went to town, he gathered a few supplies that he thought would work, spending a good portion of Dane’s savings. Dane gave freely, knowing it would sooth him to be able to try, and anger him to be resisted.

Despite how many times May asked what exactly they would do while they were gone, Jonathan always gave the answer that
Dane would be learning about the cloning process. He claimed that details wouldn’t really help if she couldn’t see it. Even so, May’s concern was what Jonathan wanted to
do
once he showed Dane. Undoubtedly, his agreement with Dane was just a game move to get there without dying or getting lost. What was he going to gain from it? Was there more medicine in there? What was it that he wanted?

Gratefully
, the bicycle thing did seem to distract him for a few days. Though, when they would walk to town, Dane noticed Jonathan’s wandering eyes in the direction of the cemetery. His thoughts were still close to home – though a home that no longer existed. May tried to remind him of that.

The greater part of the harvest was over and May was back to her normal daily chore and playing games with Janey.
It was fun to play this little game. Janey and May sat on the floor together, discovering how to read and write by drawing words in a pile of dirt, then erasing them and starting over. Time had elapsed and the poor little girl lost her focus. May hadn’t determined yet the way children learn, and was truthfully disappointed when they had to stop. But now they stayed and drew pictures quietly, lying on the floor, looking at each other and smiling. She seemed to have much more fun this way. Maybe, then, she was less like May and more like Janine.

As the door opened and Dane walked in, May looked up from the floor where she laid on
her side. He addressed Janine, then was followed in by Samson, Jonathan, and Thomas. Business was finished for the day. Energy seemed to be surging through Dane as evidenced when he ran over to the floor and piled gently on top of May and Janey. A loud shriek and giggle came from Janey as Dane rolled and grabbed her and tumbled across the floor. She grabbed around his neck and he crawled back on his knees over to May who then grabbed Janey. The little girl now played this particular game well and struggled to get away by climbing on May’s face. They started another game to play until they exhausted the last of their strength. This show of energy from Dane was sorely missed for the last few weeks.

Before Dane fell asleep, he explained that he talked to Darian, who was back in town. They had agreed that once Dane got more of the information he would share, and that they should give him a couple weeks. One of Darian’s cronies challenged them again to another trial, but Samson threatened him and brought up the fire in the house and it shut him up.

Dinner was forgotten as Dane and Janey fell asleep on the floor with May leaning on the couch, trapped underneath them. Egg soup that was steaming was placed in front of her face. Placing the book aside she ate slowly, feeling the drift of dreams, of thoughts and imagery not quite in her control. May snapped up to make sure Jonathan was still with them. Yes, asleep. Nothing was disturbing them from the outside, accept the potential unseen curiosity which was making May paranoid. The last few days had been free of strange persons, haunting the house, however that didn’t stop the frightening thoughts from coming to her mind – of images of the worst kind. How she wished she could be free of this. Then she wondered, does Jonathan ever wish he could be free? They asked all those questions to all those people before. What would be his answer?

She still hadn’t pin
pointed what irked her the other day either, but the desire to know what it was would seemingly never be satisfied. However, the next morning she got her answer.

Jonathan was having a moment at breakfast, about nothing, about not having meat. This was a frequent complaint, but he was causing a raucous. Whenever they asked for more details he just grumbled and went quiet or went off about how little they know and how irritating it was. Undoubtedly this was something that he just didn’t want them to know. There was a possibility that in his anger he would spill the information, so
, naturally, May encouraged him.

“We don’t have enough chickens right now that you can just kill and eat. I mean, it was good, but we have to live within our means.”

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about… your means… if only you knew.”

“Maybe when Dane learns to clone we’ll have enough.” She gave a small laugh and went right back to eating.

“Not even if you had all the equipment, would Dane be able to clone!”

Ah, equipment… maybe that’s what he wants.

“And even if Samson went with you, you probably wouldn’t be able to bring back all the equipment.”

“
Thank
you, May! As if I didn’t know that. As if I didn’t know that nothing will ever be the same as it once was, as if you could tell me anything that I don’t already know, as if you could tell me how to create life and create a world.”

Something struck like lightening in May’s brain. She didn’t learn what she anticipated she would, but she felt like some cavity in her mind had been discovered and filled in all at once.
Surprisingly she felt angry. When should she bring it up? Now? Or when his mood was done?

Turns out it was one and the same. He sat down, now overcome with grief, with a realization that finally sunk in. Forlorn, he gazed out the window.
Jonathan looked haggard – like he had grown ten years in ten weeks. When he looked back two minutes later, May was pouring through the green book trying to find something. Eyes depressed, he looked back down at his soup and spooned it around purposelessly.

“Jonathan.” May said firmly, trying to snap him out of the stupor. He didn’t look up, his shoulders sagged. He appeared rejected,
and was totally despondent.

“Jonathan.” More fiercely this time. Dane was looking between the two. She needed his attention, so she decided to say the most absurd thing she could think of… which also happened to be
what she was planning to say anyway.