then slid back the safety. I put the barrel into my mouth.
The pain fell away, leaving only a throbbing echo that by comparison was kind. Flaking paint and a picture of the president appeared as the dazzling radiance of truth ebbed. Slowly, disbelieving my reprieve, I pulled the pistol away again.
Then someone, something, spoke to me, I think. At least concepts appeared in my head, feeling as though they were spoken.
You will survive this; you could become the nexus of the most significant social change ever.
Belatedly I realised it was not a gift or a special skill I’d acquired, but an entity. Perhaps one involved in its own search for truth: the effect of revelation on humans maybe, the likelihood of us incorporating deeper realities into our social constructs.
There is grandeur in this view of truth, the magnetism of myths that align humans like iron filings to focus power, the endless mythic forms most beautiful and wonderful that are constantly evolving. The challenge to promote this evolution into consciousness and thereby minimise the feral behaviour of frightened worms.
Think not of the grinding mill, but of the roaring millrace.
I recognised part as a Darwin quote heavily adapted. I didn’t give a stuff about power and beauty. And it wasn’t the physical pain. If I knew for sure that was only short, I could probably find the courage to endure a while longer. It was losing Joanna, as inevitably I would, and the other sorts of pain; those wounding expressions of hate and scorn whenever I couldn’t stop myself from countering prejudice and misinformation and the hypnotic grip of the social worms. The shunning as though of one with some appalling disease. The endless derision that no amount of truth could counter.
I didn’t want the lonely and terrible existence of truth. I wanted to be happy again, in blissful ignorance and the enfolding arms of society; in Joanna’s arms.
I put the gun back in my mouth.
No!
I was instructed to go back into the building and find a child. A specific child of about five who apparently never spoke; a child with all her limbs missing. She opened innocent eyes, into which I steadily stared. Those eyes widened as the immense pressure inside my skull was at last relieved, as though a mental bladder sealed for far too long was finally opened.
Now: hospital.
I tried to keep my eyes open; I had to resist a slip into the cold dark. I reflected upon my life.
Knowledge is an evolving portrait under the blazing sun of ignorance, soon fading if not constantly touched up and improved, if not shielded from the aggressive erasure of untrue simplicities. Sometimes, such fading is kind.
The social worms became blessedly invisible and even knowledge of their habits and hates slowly sank to the deepest cellar of memory, beyond normal recall. I slid gratefully and easily back into the soft glove of normal life. Even Evelyn forgave me, eventually. Joanna explained to everyone that I’d been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Once more I joined my peers and got raving drunk with the four draymen of the apocoholics: Diseases, Poisons, Resources, Reckless populations, the latter with a young apprentice, man-made climate catastrophe. Once more I got quick gratifications from the climate porn pouring out of every orifice of the media. However, though a trivial loss I no longer fought dragons or demons in computer games; too ironic when I knew that behind veils in the-here-and-now, people daily risked everything they were to struggle against the real monsters.
More importantly than all that, I shared long life and warming love with Joanna, despite declining health in later years. Happy home and light heart; children, grandchildren. Only with old age did memories of truth inconveniently resurface, accompanied by the bitter flavour of cynicism.
Now: hospital.
At last, she was here! The balm of relief washed over me. Pain subsided. My limping heart crossed the line and the anthem played. Everything would be alright now.
She was stout and grey-haired, yet her skin was still smooth and her upper lip still protected me. She was my love and my strength and appeared to me in essence as she always had. She smiled her melting smile and clasped my hand. I wasn’t afraid anymore.
“I left the moment I heard, my darling. You have a new granddaughter.”
I noticed the nurse discreetly backing away. As she did so her hand slid across the bank of technology to which I was connected. All the lights went out. Oh.
“A difficult birth? What about Tasha?”
“Yes, as we expected. Touch and go for a while but she’s fine, and the little one too.”
I felt life leaking out of me.
“They wanted to name her for her great aunt, Evelyn, but I insisted your mother’s name was far prettier. I think they’ll go with it”.
Hope.
“Thank you, my dearest”. It was done for me, not for them.
“You were right.”
“About what?”
“Everything. But the truth is so...”
“Hard?”
“Impossible.”
Tears filled the wrinkles around her cheeks with diamonds.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” she whispered.
The sweet dream of love filled me from her eyes, headier than morphine.
One final vision. A last echo of astounding perception I’d once possessed. Not a worm this time; a heavenly angel to salve away ultimate fear.
I wasn’t going to fall at the very last fence for my lifetime love.
For her, in untruth true forever.
“Yes.”
I submitted to the angel.
* * *
This novelette featured in a post at the most viewed Climate Change site on the planet, ‘Watts Up With That’, which includes the back-story on how ‘Truth’ came to be written. See it here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/15/wuwt-spawns-a-free-to-read-climate-sci-fi-novel/
Andy West
www.wearenarrative.wordpress.com
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