XXXVI
The room was massive. The Young Cripple hid on the outside of the group that was chanting or praying, whilst holding hands; frail and limp. There was a stage on one end that was full of all sorts of instruments, and at its front, there were three round, and fairly large, wicker baskets. And at the other end of the room, there was a small cafeteria where an elderly woman with purplish hair, poured warm milk into small freezer bags, and hung them, like decorated flags, above a silver trough that stretched from one side of the adjoining wall to the other.
In the centre of the room, an uncountable amount of patients gathered in a massive swarming circle that never stood still. Swept up by some invisible current, the patients constantly moved in and out of one another, never staying in one spot for more than a fraction of a second. And thus, there was always room for one more.
It was inside of the circle, though, where most of the commotion was being orchestrated. The Young Cripple, from where she hid, was seismically intrigued. Whereas, the patients remained quiet and, by their expressions alone, emotionally defunct; in the middle of the circle, just by the volume alone of the desperate negotiating and pleas for mercy, a great deal of humiliation and torture was already underway.
“Please, I’ll do anything you ask; anything you want me to do. Just please, stop, I beg you, no more.”
At the centre of the circle huddled fifty or so people. They ranged from all sizes, colours, shapes, and textures. Some of them were hulking with muscular limbs like skyscrapers, and others were lean, merely loose skin, like a light shoal, dressing a frail skeleton. Each one, though, no matter their size or stature, was outmuscled by the sheer weight of their fear.
The millions of patients swarming around did so with lifeless and emotionally idle expressions. Each had their turn at the centre of the circle, getting a glimpse of the erratic specimens, before sinking back into the swirling mass of placid hands and dull visages.
“Don’t be shy. Everyone come forward and see for yourselves. This is a controlled environment people, a place of learning.”
Besides the specimens stood The Doctor, a short, stocky man with a musky odour and a face that looked like a grazed knee. He was dressed in a white collared shirt, spandex pants, and nylon slippers. He wore a long, white coat so it that was patently obvious that he was a doctor, and not an orderly or a patient.
“These creatures,” said The Doctor, pointing a lock stick at the huddling mass, and poking them, so they trembled and riled. “We shall call, Fearlings.”
“Ooooohhhh,” said one-half of the swarming patients.
“Ahhhhhhh,” said the other.
In the circle, one of the Fearlings, the muscular man who had first spoken out, broke away from the group. He approached The Doctor with his hands held high above his head.
“Please sir,” he said. “I don’t have much, no money, nothing. But surely there is something we can barter. We are men after all.”
The Doctor tapped his stick on the Fearling's head.
“Back, foul beast,” he said, striking the man several times across the temple.
The Fearling stepped back to his group but continued to plead with his eyes.
“You see how he would say anything right now to spare his existence? Tell me Fearling, what would you do? Would you sacrifice one of your own? Maybe a younger one or an infirmed?”
“No,” said The Fearling, spreading his arms backward over the group as best he could. “I would rather die, a hundred times over than let you near a single soul.”
“Do you see yourself as some kind of leader? And if so, would you die for your kind?”
“A hundred times over,” said The Fearling in a rattling tone, his face twisted and contorted as if he were set upon striking.
“Prove it,” said The Doctor. “Kill yourself. Just once.”
“Fuck you.”
“And with this ladies and gentlemen,” said The Doctor, turning back to the swarm of patients, “we can see how fear stipulates the absurd and irrational mandate of this specimen. Can anyone here predict what this Fearling will do next? Anyone, anyone at all?”
None of the patients had an answer. The Doctor knew this.
“We cannot. Its state of being is wobbly, it’s topsy-turvy. Fear is fractional. It is the whole state, divided. There is only one state of healthy existence, one point of equanimity. Can anyone tell me what that is?”
“One,” they all said, in droll unison.
The Doctor showed not an inch of satisfaction in their response.
“That’s right: one. We are Light, and Light is one, so, therefore, we are all one. Now the reason I bring these creatures before you is to show you how existence once was, before Heaven, and before absolute certainty. Before equanimity, there was fear, and with it, an omniverse scripted upon the most irrational logic. It created worlds of disparity, indifference, and indignation. And it spawned a culture of misery that spread throughout the seed of existence. Fear is the division of self - the infinite fracture of the whole, with neither part behaving in accordance with good and proper mathematics. This creature here is in two minds. One of which is to cower disgracefully and beg for mercy, and the other, like the snake, wishes to strike when we least suspect. Before Heaven, this was existence,” said The Doctor, jabbing his stick at the huddling Fearlings. “But now, we are one again. Heaven is existence. It is infinite and entire. It is the whole. There is no need for many worlds when this world here doth suffice.”
The massive swarm of patients began to clap, almost condescendingly.
“I will show you now, the true test of our experiment here; how love in faith, God, and Light, can defragment even the most incalculable life, and return it to whole.”
The Doctor took a needle from his coat and held it up so that every patient could see the bright, fluorescent liquid inside. He clicked his fingers and from seemingly out of nowhere, a handful of orderlies appeared with torches and truncheons.
“I will need a male and a female,” said The Doctor.
The orderlies stormed forwards without any indecision whatsoever, holding their blinding torches to the eyes of each Fearling, and beating at their bodies until the group broke apart, allowing the orderlies to take from its centre, the most fearful of them all.
“Bring them to me,” said The Doctor.
The two Fearlings, both young adult humans, and both horrifically scared, were thrown to the ground in front of The Doctor. There were screams coming from huddled mass, but their rebellion was quickly curtailed by the swift thinking orderlies who beat and struck down on the alpha Fearlings, and also against the smallest and youngest too, to discourage further insurrection.
Both Fearlings shook like grains of sand at the whim of a hurricane. They held each other tight, so tight that their nails dug long, scratching marks in their skin. Neither, though, would let go. They stared in one another’s eyes, unflinching.
“I love you,” said one to the other.
“I love you too,” said the other in return.
They kissed, in a manner that estranged the patients and disgusted The Doctor, who then stuck the needles in the backs of their heads, and extracted their infected Light.
“As you can see, the result is instantaneous.”
And it was. The two Fearlings let go of their embrace and stared at each other dispassionately. It was as if one of them were a passenger on a train, and the other were a steaming pile of shit on the platform. There was not a breath of consideration between the two.
“It never ceases to marvel – the absence of fear.”
The Doctor slapped the pair, once each on their opposite cheeks. Neither Fearling flinched. “You see,” he said cheerfully. “I, as a provocateur of fear, have grown bored and have moved on. These two wonderful specimens no longer emit, and thus no longer attract, fear. They no longer accumulate despondence.”
He then turned and slapped the alpha Fearling, he who had spoken out.
“Now this one, for example, is engulfed
in fear. I could hit him all day.”
He then clicked his fingers and immediately two orderlies appeared.
“Do just that, would you?” he ordered.
“Sir?” replied one of the orderlies.
“Take him away,” said The Doctor, angrily. “And beat him until you bore.”
“Yes, sir,” said the orderly, dragging the alpha Fearling off to an unmarked room.
The Doctor then slapped the two Fearlings again with a dissatisfied look on his face. “I find no enjoyment in this,” he said, slapping one after the other before finally stowing his reddened hand. “And we can thank God for that because now, they are healed.”
The patients all clapped unenthusiastically.
The Doctor stepped back onto his podium, holding a syringe to his temple. “I thank God for creating Heaven,” he said, addressing his patients. “A home for each and every soul; where we can all live eternally, without disruption and malformation, without chance and the curse of possibility; where we can live in total equanimity, without fear. Praised be God,” he shouted, injecting the fluorescent liquid into his head. “And praised be Light.”
The patients all raised their hands into the hair and wriggled their fingers as if being fanned by an invisible wind. “Praised be Light,” they chanted monotonously.
“What leads to fear?” shouted The Doctor, pointing once again to The Fearlings on the floor. “What is that divides a clean and healthy soul in such a way?”
The patients stood with eyes and mouths agape, unknowing.
“Imagination,” said The Doctor, coldly.
Half the patients blocked their eyes, and the others, their ears.
“A mind that thinks without focus and prescribed definition is a mind that is open to influence, and for the greater part, infection. Which is why, here in Heaven, all we need to maintain this virtuous and blessed existence, is the one story; that of The Sun of God. With it, we make our bed in the house of God, and we are immunized against our distractions and our fears. And when we have God, what else could we possible need?”
The patients clapped once more, like infants, struggling to keep time.
“Now, before we get to today’s activities and the morning’s feast, we will enter into a quick prayer of gratitude and solidarity. If one and all could please adorn their apparatus, then we will commence the morning’s prayer. Thank you.”
An orderly travelled around the room handing out a pair goggles to each patient, along with a long, black, vacuum cleaner hose. The orderly himself was already wearing his goggles and was quick to finish his work, before taking a piece of hose for himself, and biting down on it with his teeth, so no air could enter or escape.
When everyone was ready, The Doctor started the prayer.
“Lord of Light and Light of Love, vanquisher of fear; may all our thoughts, perverse or not, so quickly disappear. Lord of Light and Light of Love, cleanser of all souls, forgive us all with loving grace, and make our spirits whole.”
“Aymen,” said the patients, before sticking their hoses in their mouths.
There was a second of silence as The Doctor adorned himself in his goggles and affixed a black vacuum hose to his mouth, like all of his patients. Then came the sound of three ringing bells. And on the third bell, each pair of goggles lit up with the most stupendously bright flashing Light, which started erratically at first, tripping each patient of their focus; but then, after several moments, the flashing started to slow and equilibrate into a constant pulsing pattern.
After some time, not too long mind you, there was a tremendous whirling sound that came from below the floor. Immediately, each patient gripped firmly on the ends of their hoses with both hands so that they wouldn’t slip when the vacuum commenced. They each stared up to the ceiling as the Light blinded their eyes and cleared their filthy minds while the vacuum sucked any dirt and residue from within their souls.
From where she was hiding, The Young Cripple stared at the patients, unsure whether she should be terrified, mortified, or if this was all some elaborate act; and if so, where was it all leading?
The whirling slowed and eventually stopped. So too did the flashing lights.
The Doctor stood up on his podium once more.
“Without fear is without war,” he shouted, holding one hand over his heart and the other, as a defiant fist above his head. “It is without loss and suffering. And it too is without broken heart and uncertain ending. Without fear is without love. It is without lie and deception. And it is also without broken promise and heartache. Without fear is without end. It is who we are, and it is all that we are. Aymen.”
“Aymen,” replied the patients.
“Now,” said The Doctor, more jovial than before. “Who’s hungry?”
The patients dispersed almost immediately, moving in orderly fashion towards the trough on the far wall, where each kneeled on the ground beneath a hanging freezer bag and sucked the warm milk from them. There were not as many spaces as there were patients, so those that didn’t feed made their way to the front of the stage where an old bearded man sat before three wicker baskets and played his hypnotic pungi to three dancing prophets
As intricate as the performance was, though, the patients looked unimpressed. Their faces were entirely blank. Even boredom left a mark on one’s cheeks. These people were entirely unfeeling and incapable of anything other than the basic attendance of their senses; in this case, to see and hear, but without any effect at all; like throwing a boulder into a pond and not even managing a ripple, let alone a momentous splash. And those that drank warm milk from plastic teats wore the same bland expressions.
“Go,” whispered T. “While they’re all about like that. Just ask one or two.”
“I’m scared,” said The Young Cripple.
“Well then…just stand there. I’ll do the talking.”
“Am I supposed to move my lips?”
“Hopefully it won’t matter. If you want…yes.”
The Young Cripple stepped out from where she was hiding and mingled with the crowd. Most of the patients looked like the kind of people that she had seen in every town she had visited, although, in all of those towns, the people were overrun by fear. They were encapsulated by sadness, suffering, and disease; and their faces looked like wrinkled shirts. Here, apparently without fear, the people looked like they were straight off the production line; unopened, unworn, and unfitted. They didn’t look like they belonged to anybody, or that they had names, people who cared about them, or that they had any kind of a history, or any story to tell.
“Excuse me,” said T, pretending to be The Young Cripple.
A patient turned in their direction and then moved out of their way.
“No, mam, I have a question. I am looking for someone.”
The woman looked at The Young Cripple, then at the radio, then back at The Young Cripple, who mouthed every word a second or so, after they were spoken.
“The Collector, do you know him?”
The woman stared idly as if The Young Cripple were a lamp post.
“Forget her, try someone else,” said T.
They snuck around the room, creeping up on patient after patient, and again and again they suffered the same empty responses.
“What now?” said The Young Cripple.
“The old lady,” said T.
They both looked over to the far end of the room at the old lady who was humming to herself as she paced back and forth along the trough, carrying a pail of malodorous smelling milk.
“Excuse me,” said T.
The Old Lady turned with a wretched toothless grin. Her gums were swollen, open and sore; and her mouth, in general, looked like a newly ploughed field.
“Hello darling,” she said, reaching her hand under The Young Cripple’s elbow. “You’re a sight to behold.”
“Do I know you?” asked The Young Cripple.
“Ahh, so you do speak? That’s a fancy contraption you got there, what is it?” said The Old
Lady, trying to snatch T.
The Young Cripple gripped the radio and turned her body so The Old Lady could only snatch at the tips of the girl’s shoulder.
“It’s mine,” said The Young Cripple.
“You can’t be carrying things like that in Heaven. You give it to me.”
“No.”
“Give it to me little girl,” said The Old Lady, now clawing at The Young Cripple’s arms, peeling her fingers off of T, one by one, until she snatched the radio from around The Young Cripple’s neck and pressed against her withered body.
“Umm, yes,” she said. “Indeed.”
“You can’t have it, it’s mine.”
“It is neither yours nor mine, little girl. It belongs to The Collector now,” said The Old Lady, sniffing the radio on all of its corners, and twisting its knobs frantically. “Yes,” she said, in a crackly voice. “This will earn me some favour.”
“Please, it’s not just a radio.”
“Shhhh,” whispered T, though, to The Old Lady, it sounded like static.
“Broken, is it?” she said, hitting the side of the radio. “He’ll fix you.”
The Old Lady rushed out the room and The Young Cripple followed, shouting for her radio back. “Give it back,” she screamed. “It’s not yours. You stupid…”
The girl’s voice stopped when a firm hand gripped on her shoulder.
“That’s quite enough.”
It was The Doctor.
“You’re coming with me,” he said.