The GOD Box (35 page)

“He gets the book before I do?! What the?!”

“I didn’t know you liked to read?” Dane asked curiously. “And I’m not giving it to him.”

“You’re not?” Miek and Darian asked simeoultaneously.

“I have to warn you” Dane said, “It’s a weird book. But most of our questions… and answers, come from this. As far as I know, it’s a historical book that’s supposed to help people understand freedom; that it comes from right and wrong.”

Darian squinted and looked at Dane incredulously, “Wait, huh?
Right and wrong? I don’t think I get you… I feel like that’s totally opposite of everything you ever talked about.”

“Well, it’s not totally opposite, I just didn’t know how to explain
it. And it’s been over two years since we’ve really talked… Look, I can’t explain, and I’m not ready to give this book up yet. There’s a lot more for us to understand before we just give it away. But, we can tell you some of the things that are in it.”

May was losing focus. She
took Dane’s hand absently and put her face on it, starting to fall asleep. Dane didn’t protest or move even though it was an awkward position for his arm. He wanted to be with May and Darian was ticking him off.

After Dane said that with what seemed clear finality, Darian
didn’t move, so Dane asked if there was more he wanted to know. Darian looked straight at him and said, “So I’ve heard rumors that you two are going to be together for the rest of your lives? I thought this was just for now and you’d be back. It’s… weird…”

“We’ve decided that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Suppose to? Why should anything suppose to?”

“Well, I don’t know that yet.
But I think that’s what makes it a progressive movement of sorts. Please just take it a step at a time for now… we need to sleep.” With a lopsided face Dane pointed to May. Then he said to Darian, “You can stay here if you don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

“Sure.” He got up and made to move to the floor next to the couch where Miek was still stung with envy.

“Just don’t cuddle with Samson… it’s not that he’ll hate you in the morning, though he will, but it’s just that he
really
likes to cuddle”

“Personal experience?” he asked.

Miek was stifling a laugh, which was half of Dane’s intention of saying it, to improve
his friend’s mood.

“Not quite…”
Dane stated, but then after that didn’t explain more. Dane moved gently around the table to the half-asleep May, who he lifted gently to standing position, and guided her toward the open door.

“You know, if you start
telling people how to live – what’s right and wrong, they’re gunna hate you.” Darian said.

“That’
s anticipated” Dane replied tersely. “Goodnight.”

Dane finished encouraging May out the door. When they touched the grass, Dane removed his shoes, feeling the soft dirt giving way to his feet.
He guided May to the ground, where he laid with his chest to her back, with her head on his bicep. Wrapping his other arm around her, she fell asleep with the knife still in her hand.

Dane lay awake
a bit longer, strikingly aware of a heavy feeling in his chest that he didn’t know how to explain. The knife in May’s hand seemed like a permanent fixture. She was prepared to fight. This was going to be good eventually, but it was going to be hard, and confusing, and stressful.

It seemed that if
only he could get into Jonathan’s brain, all of this would make sense.

___
 

Jonathan
had listened to the whole conversation, having a difficult time letting himself sleep. He hated every minute he kept himself in that small and dark hovel. The little home was regrettably familiar, though, and the longer he sat there, the better his eyes adjusted and he could see more and more details of the room. He thought back to their conversation in the lab, and Dane’s joke. Jonathan sighed and pulled his head forward, doing his best to forget about his claustrophobia, and his anger, and his sleeplessness. Tears of exhaustion and anger were brimming. His hands were almost pulling his hair out. Yet, he couldn’t help compulsively revolving around and around those words and he thought,
No, Dane. This is the God box.

The End