One fine morning, I woke up evil.

At first, I didn’t notice. After all, who isn’t evil when they first wake up in the morning? For most of humanity, it takes a significant period of time and the soothing comfort of our morning routine in order to regain all the lost civilization and humanity we have lost, somewhere, while asleep.

So I took no notice of the roiling miasma of irritability, malevolence, darkness, and greed that boiled in my soul that fine summer morning. I simply attributed it to the usual combination of sleepy confusion, low blood sugar, and severe lack of caffeine that normally blackens my soul before breakfast, and went through my habitual grooming and preening with nary an inkling of the life changing discoveries I was about to make.

Indeed, it was not until I I had finished my second low-fat croissant-based ham omelet sandwich and my third cup of slow roast Arabica Gold that began to realize that something was awry.

At first, I couldn’t tell what it was. I just knew, the way one can sometimes know this sort of things, that all was not right in the house of my psyche and it had, in fact, shifted subtly but deeply on its foundations some time during those long dark hours between evening and dawn.

But as I gazed out of my breakfast nook’s tastefully restrained bump-out window and mused open this development, the fog slowly cleared and a terrible dawn crept across my mind in rough synchronicity with the one that was creeping across my front lawn.

And in the cheerless light of this inner dawn, it became clear that I was, for whatever reason, now deeply and profoundly and seemingly irrevocably evil.

Ah, but what does this mean, this evil of which I speak? By what definition did I judge myself evil? Gentle readers, your poignant philosophical entreaties did not go unanticipated.

The primary element of this self-diagnosis was malevolence. I felt a deep and abiding ill will towards all people. It was not very strong (yet) but extremely pervasive. In fact, I could not, at that moment, think of a single bad thing that could happen to a single person in this world which I would not both wholeheartedly support and richly enjoy. The slightest thought of others brought on fantasies of perpetrating abuse, manipulation, and degradation on them, all accompanied by gales of laughter from I, the perpetrator.

Accompanying this was nearly complete lack of active empathy and sympathy. I tried to imagine tragic situations which would normally make me feel badly for the people involved, but I found I simply could not bring myself to care. I could imagine the situation, I could imagine how the persons in the situation felt, I could judge that I would not want to be in their situation, but I simply didn’t care what happened to people who were not me and were of no use to me.

Shocking, I know, and even as I type this, I find myself appalled at my callousness and craven disregard for others. That morning, I was stupefied. How could this have happened? Previous to this disturbing incident, I had been, in my opinion, a fairly good person. I lived well below my means and donated much of the surplus to the charities at which I also volunteered. My work was in a field I had chosen specifically because I judged it to be where I could do the most good in the world, namely using my engineering and design skills to work on low-cost versions of important medical machinery. I stay in touch with my family. I recycle considerably more than mandatory. I teach Sunday school. I freecycle.

All this seemed entirely pointless to me now. Why should I do all these things for others? What was in it for me? I could not, for the like of me, imagine one reason not to do everything for myself and to hell with others. Who cares about a bunch of weak losers?

Again I was appalled at myself. What on earth had happened in my sleep? Had I had a brain aneurysm that had selectively and silently rendered me sociopathic? Had I, in my wanderings through the shadowed realms of the dreaming world, stumbled upon a dark and eldritch evil whose very touch left me forever corrupted beyond all hope of redemption? Or had I merely loaded the coffee machine with decaf by mistake?

I pondered my sad fate. Everything I knew about evil from countless hours of movies and television suggested my future was not a bright one. Evil people always met a sorry end and never get the girl or the ticker tape parade. I wondered if I would now feel compelled to grow facial hair and affect a British accent and a penchant for elaborate deathtraps and jewel encrusted canes?

And what would the neighbours think? I was keenly active in many neighborhood improvement communities and had strong feelings about maintaining certain standards of lawn care and yard maintenance discipline. How would it look if I was to suddenly start littering my carefully groomed lawn with laser-shooting statuary and crudely disguised pitfall traps? Already I could feel myself yearning to install a trap door under the “Welcome” mat in front of my front door. And the worst part was, I knew exactly how to do it! Confound my intuitive grasp of mechanical engineering!

A terrible thought crept across my mind. I looked at the small television I kept in my breakfast nook for the morning gardening and cooking shows I enjoyed on the weekends. With but a few buttons pressed on the remote control, I would have, via my reactions, incontrovertible proof, one way or the other, if I had forever abandoned the light for the path of unmitigated evil. But no. Not evil a moral crisis like this one could make me watch Fox News. I would get my answers by other means.

But all that paled in comparison to my horror at my sudden and total lack of empathy. It suddenly became clear to me just how much I relied upon it in order to guide my actions. Everything I did, from the smallest gesture to my political affiliations, was bound by my commitment to the question “How will this affect others?”. Without that question, I was adrift.

But wait. Had I truly converted to a lifestyle of pure and unadulterated evil, I would not be horrified by my suddenly lack of empathy. I would be reveling in it! At last, freed of the burdensome shackles of so-called “morality”, I was now free to unleash my campaign of terror and darkness upon the world! My name would go down in history as the blackest villain to stain the suspecting Earth with his foul designs! My will would become the absolute unchallenged power behind all of history from this point on!

You know, that kind of thing.

And just like that, I could feel the ice around my heart and my soul begin to melt. I wasn’t evil, I had just lost touch with my moral core for a short period. Of course I still cared about others! Of course I still had a deep and abiding sense of my obligation to make sure my actions made the world better instead of worse! Empathy and sympathy flooded into my mind as the blockage crumbled like ice in spring, and I once more felt the deep warmth of the community of humanity.

I am not ashamed to say I wept with relief.

Clearly, this had been a momentary aberration. The morning mind is a dangerous place even at the best of times, and I felt silly for forgetting my long standing rule about making absolutely no decisions about my life or the state of the universe before 9 am at the earliest.

Once more in full possession of myself and with a fresh and intimate appreciation for the moral guidance provided by my conscience and my empathy, I gathered up my things, set the dishwasher into motion so that I could unload it when I came home that evening, and set off to face the day with renewed purpose and fresh enthusiasm for my work.

But just to be on the safe side, I threw out all my decaf coffee before I left.

“Well, here we are. ” said the Author. “I understand some of your have questions you would like to ask me, so here I am. Ask away. ”

“I have a question, m-mister Author, um…. sir. ” said a timid little man, clutching the rim of his bowler hat for dear life. “I-if…. if that’s OK?”

“It’s fine. ” said the Author. “And you are?”

The little man looked bewildered and a little offended. “I’m Stanley Swinton!. I’m the c-c-clerk at the b-bank that gets robbed in the f-f-first chapter. I’m surprised you don’t remember me…. You c-c-created me!”

“I did a lot more than create you, I wrote you. ” said the Author. “That’s considerably more important. After all, had I merely created you, you would have been free to do what you liked after that. No, I wrote you. That makes me responsible for everything about you. ”

“B-but…. s-s-sir, you…. I… ” stammered Stanley.

“But that’s not the point. I’m afraid that we Authors have a tendency to get sidetracked by minutiae and go off on tangents. In fact… “. at this the author shaded his eyes from the glare of the spotlight and peered out into the audience, “I think I see some of my tangents here in the audience tonight. Anyhow, I apologize for not recognizing you, Stanley, but you are a fairly minor character, and I have written quite a lot of you. You can’t expect me to remember every character I have ever written any more than I I could expect you to remember every check you ever stamped. Now what was your question, sir?”

“Um…. well, sir…. I wanted to know why you h-had me….. um…… s-s-s-s-soil…. myself. ” With this, Stanley turned bright red, and shuffled away from the microphone.

“Oh dear, I did do that to you, didn’t I? ” said the Author. “Well, Stanley, if it makes you feel any better, I did it because I thought that is what I’d do in your situation. An ordinary bank robbery would be frightening enough, but having alien life forms disintegrate an entire side of the bank and then get blown into gooey bits by other aliens….. oh dear. Someone get poor Stanley some dry clothing, please. Perhaps we had best move on to the next question. Yes, Miss? ”

An angry, sun-beaten, weather-worn fireplug of a woman swaggered up to the microphone and grabbed it like she intended to throttle it to death with its own cord. “Why in the hell did I have to die? How come some no-good city thug got oto shoot me in the back in my sleep when I’ve been tougher than hell and stronger than any man, any day for so long?”

“Ah, you must be Mathilda “Goldie” Sumner, my favorite heroine!” said the Author.

“FAVORITE! ” sneered Mathilda. “If’n I’m your favorite, I hate to see how you treat the ones you don’t like! You put me through ten different kinds of hell then killed me off!”

“Yes… I did. But you have to understand…. I did that because I wanted to show people just what a hardy, admirable, tough little cookie you were. ” said the Author.

“Then how come you killed me off?”

“Um…. as I recall, it was to show how the advancing urbanization of American life caused massive change and upheaval for all levels of society, and how the changing social landscape changed the emphasis from the kind of rugged individualism that your back-woods upbringing favored and at which you excelled to the sort of team-playing, individuality-suppressing conformism favored by the coming of the Industrial age of replaceable parts and replaceable people…. I think that was it. ”

Goldie thought about this for a long moment, lips moving as she repeated it in her excellent mind, then cocked her head and put her hand on her hip. “You mean to tell me that you killed me off just so you could make some kind of POINT?”

“Um…. yeah, I guess that’s about the size of it. ” said the Author.

“Well, Mister. I don’t take that kind of guff from no man! I don’t care who you are, you killed me off and now you are going to pay!”

Goldie drew her twin gold-plated .45 caliber revolvers and emptied them into the Author. She smiled in cold satisfaction as the Author slumped to the stage, bleeding from a dozen bullet wounds.

“It doesn’t matter… if you kill me… ” rasped the Author, then coughed up two blood-soaked bullets.

“Oh yeah, why not?” said Goldie.

“Because I’m not the one you’re really angry at. I’m not really the Author. I’m just the character of the Author. I don’t really exist any more than any of you do. When this story ends, we will all stop existing, at least until someone reads these words and brings us to life again for a little while. Hell, the book you all think you were in doesn’t even exist. The real Author just created the idea of it so you… so us characters could have some reason to say what he wanted us to say. ” said “the Author. ”

“Then what can we do?” said a voice from the crowd.

“Nothing. ” said “the Author”. “Or rather, do whatever you want. You can’t help but do what the Author… the real one… wants you to do anyhow. It will seem like free will to you, and I guess that’s all that matters in the end. You are probably better off just not thinking about it, really. ”

“Shouldn’t you be dead by now?” said another voice from the audience.

“Yeah, and isn’t this story kind of all over the place? I mean, we started out talking about the relationship between the author and their characters, and then Goldie shoots you out of nowhere, and now we’ve veered into some weird pseudo-religious free will debate… I mean, come ON!” said another.

“That’s the worst part of all. ” said “the Author”. “Turns out the real Author just…. isn’t very good. ” And with that, he noisily expired.

After a few awkward moments, the curtains slid closed, and the audience was once more in the dark.

First off, I must apologize for once more intruding. I know that after all the unpleasantness after the last time I spoke up (the ridicule, the restraints, the institution, the electroshock, and so forth), I promised to remain silent until the day you and I both die, but recent events have forced me to violate my oath and once more bring attention to my existence and so here you are, reading the document I instructed the body to type into your computer while you were asleep.

So just to be clear : yes, it is I, the unwitting bane of your existence, the rodent who lives directly behind and between your eyeballs. You are not insane, or at the very least, no more insane than usual, and while I know this will be of little comfort to you, I know that you are not crazy at all. After all, I know I exist!

And while we are clearing the air and speaking of small comforts, I must take this opportunity to tell you that the period you now think of as your “bad spell” was no fun for me, either. Sure, it was not me enduring the shock therapy, heavy medication, and the wandering hands of Rudy the Ornery Orderly, but as you know, my kind feeds on the psychic energy created when you look at things, and what with all that time you spent staring blankly at the walls of the “quiet room”, I got extremely tired of tasting that bloody awful shell pink color they used for everything in good old Shady Estate, let me tell you.

So it was torture for me too, in a way. If that makes any difference.

But I didn’t take the liberty of controlling your body while you slept (oops, I promised not to do that again too, didn’t I? Sorry!) just to rehash old issues and old problems. It’s all water under the bridge for me, and I hope it is for you as well.

On to new business. First, as you might imagine, I feel quite protective of the two eyeballs which, after all, provide me with all my sustenance, and so I feel I must speak up on their behalf. To put it bluntly, you have been abusing Visine again, and it really has to stop. Lefty in particular (I have nicknamed your eyeballs Lefty and Lucy, as you may recall) is looking puffy and red, and the nourishment I get from the poor old girl has suffered because of this. I have told you before that Visine is not meant to be used over and over again like that, and you are only making the problem worse, but apparently I have to tell you again. As before, I feel compelled to remind you that if you simply leave your poor suffering eyeballs alone for a while, they will get better all by themselves. That means no more rubbing them, no more futzing with your eyelashes, and definitely no more bloody Visine!

I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to get emotional, it’s just that you have me on a very thin diet lately, and I am afraid it has put me somewhat on edge.

Which brings me (at last) to the primary reason I am bothering you by writing to you (well, making you write to yourself… for me… well, you know what I mean) in the first place. Lately, all you have been looking at is sheer rubbish. I got more visual stimulation/food in Shady Estates. I don’t know what has come over you lately, but I am getting pretty tired of seeing the same four things all the time. What’s wrong with you?

Is it me? Do you think by getting a job where you just stare at the same metal punching machine all day while you operate it will somehow… well, starve me out? If that’s what you think, you’re badly mistaken, my lifelong friend. You should know by now that if Shady Estates didn’t kill me, nothing will. All this treatment does is make me bored and angry, and frankly, a lot more likely to do things like this. And neither of us want more of this sort of thing, right? I’m sure Shady Estates still has room for both of us, right?

And if that doesn’t make my case clear enough, let’s just say that I’d hate to get so bored and hungry that I start nibbling on whatever I find back here… if you catch my drift.

Well, there it is, out in the open, bold as brass. Either you go back to your previously highly stimulating and delicious lifestyle, or I will be forced to take drastic measures.

I’m sorry to be so downright brutal about it, but you’ve left me no choice. What ever happened to all that pornography you used to enjoy? I always felt we were on the same page about that. Granted, my kind reproduces through long loving gazes and not by the more strenuous and vibrant method you humans employ, but what you find stimulating, I find delicious, and I found many of those little sexual dramas quite enjoyable, apart from their nutritional content. And according to my friend who lives in your vagina, so did you. And then some!

Well…. perhaps I have said too much. I am sorry to come down so hard on you, but I’m at wit’s end end here and it was this or start making you talk about me in public again, and we all know how THAT ends.

I really hope that after we make it through this rough patch in our lifelong relationship, we emerge with a stronger and more satisfying connection between us, and we can both relax and go back to the way things were back in the good old days, when we both were younger and more innocent, and you had never seen the inside of Shady Estates, and I was still latent and undiagnosed.

To sum up, while I am forced at this time to issue an ultimatum, I hope in the future we can move past this unpleasant period and become, if not friends exactly, then willing to ignore one another more cordially in the brighter and more pleasant future.

Um, and forget that thing I said about someone in your vagina. That would be ridiculous!

Oops, gotta go, you’re regaining consciousness. Hope you read this before deleting it!

Dramatis Personae

Rudrich, a stalwart and stolid salesman of previously owned office furniture
Elsanore, his good and faithful wife and a real estate agent in her own mien
Minsk, their bright and simple daughter of halfscore and five years of age

{The curtain opens on a modest but pleasant suburban kitchen. Elsenore sits at the table, paying bills. As the scene opens, Rudrich enters stage-right, triumphant. He carries a grocery bag. He doffs his coat and hat, then approaches Elsanore }

Rurdrich : Rejoice, good wife, for your husband returneth from the cruel and violent jungle of yonder Capers with his victor’s spoils!
Elsanore : Well met, noble husband! I knew yon quest could ne’r o’ercome my strong and wholesome mate! Now foretell me… was yon quest successful? Have ye the item with whose purchase thou wert charged?
Rudrich : Can it be else? Behold!

{ Rudrich, with a flourish, delves into the grocery bag he holds and produces a bagged head of lettuce)

Rudrich : Huzzah! Now, as for my compensation, affection is the traditional…
Elsanore : What bag of foulness is this? I ask’d for one thing only, and thou returneth with this… monstrosity of verdant vegetation?
Rudrich : But… thine charge was for a head of lettuce, nothing more…
Elsanore : I, in mode most crystal and pure, didst charge thou with the procurement of one head of lettuce of the ROMAINE variety. This… this sodden knot of mulch and weed is of that accursed bastard of a moss patch and a hedgerow known as ICEBERG. A title befitting its so-called “flavour” and lack of use!
Rudrich : Didst thou speaketh the word “Romaine” in thine charge? I remembrest not!
Elsanore : I didst speak it most clearly and truly, and what’s more, I spake it thrice! Perhaps, as oft I charge, thou listeneth not?
Rudrich : Ah, no no, good wife, egads, now I rememberest thy addition.
Elsanore : Then why, pray tell, does this fat sack of ill growth besmirch this, our temple of nourishment?
Rudrich : … the grocer’s price was most boon on this item!
Elsanore : Pah! A penny spent on such refuse is an act of criminal profligacy!
Rudrich : … and yon manager of produce didst assure me they are virtually identical…
Elsanore : Fah! A self-serving libel so simple as to fool only halfwits and juveniles!
Rudrich : And… (sotto voce) this is the variety of mine preference.
Elsanore : Pardon? Thou speak’st too soft. Again?
Rudrich : My preference is this variety!
Elsanore : Hah! The truth will out! Price and equivalency be damn’d, thou sought to please thine own ends at the expense of mine! Dost thou think me a simpleton, that I should not pierce thy deception?
Rudrich : …twere a possibility!
Elsanore : Twere not! To think, I scoffed when my dear mother warned I wed a base liar, and now…

{ Enter daughter Minsk, oblivious. }

Minsk : Greetings, good Father. Didst thou procure the paper of graphing I needeth for my project in maths due tomorrow morn?

{ Rudrich looks at daughter and wife most glumly, then sighs and puts on both coat and hat once more. }

Rudrich : I shall return anon.

{ Rudrich exits stage-right. }

THE END… or is it?

Yes. Yes it is.

“Please don’t do that. ”

I glanced up from my suicidal reverie at the edge of the roof. It wasn’t just that I was certain that this roof had been empty when my despair and ennui had driven me to ascend to it. It was the voice…. there was something about that voice that was so unusual and compelling that I decided I just had to delay m righteous and rightful self-annihilation to investigate.

“….Hello?” I asked, in that special kind of hesitant tone one uses when you hear a spooky noise in an old mansion in the middle of the night.

There was a heavy pause, and a strange, soft sound I could not identify. Then the voice said “I know what you are going to do, and I am asking you not to do it. ”

So there was someone else up here on this rooftop. I carefully looked around the bleak and featureless roof. Nope, nobody here.

“What do you think I was going to do?” I replied stupidly, for lack of a better thing to say. Still going to do, said the dark and dominant side of my mind. Knowing it would all soon be over felt too good to go back now.

“You were about to destroy yourself. ” The tone was languidly accusatory. And that voice… it was like the richest, most soothingly pleasant voiceover artist’s voice, but also with the total assurance that goes beyond confidence. And there was something else…. something I couldn’t place. Something that sounded wonderful… but not quite normal. “You…. do that sometimes. ”

“I do?” I replied. So far, my side of this curious was not going well. Well, I was never any good at…. anything, really. Nothing that matters, anyhow.

“Not you, Mark. ” said the voice. Where WAS he? “Your…. people. Sometimes you destroy yourselves of your own free will. I have learned this. ”

Everyone knows that, I thought. This was getting creepy. “Why do you care if I kill myself?”

“Because if you do that, Mark, I will become very sad, and the universe will lose your diversity. ” said the voice matter-of-factly. And again, there was that strange soft sound, like silk sliding against glass.

I was taken aback by this frank and direct answer. It wasn’t the words so much as the plain and unquestionable conviction with which the voice said them. If I went through with my plans, it would make him very sad. It was unthinkable to doubt it. That voice…. its sincerity was utterly complete.

I fought down the urge to say something pointlessly flip like “Well, as long as it’s all about you” or “Sorry to ruin your day with my despair. ” I didn’t feel flippant. I don’t know what I felt, exactly, but it was not my usual sarcastic bitterness. It was something like wonder, and something like terror, and something like nothing I had felt before. A deep kind of thrill, mixed with a sense of something truly important going on.

Then a thought struck me so suddenly and so hard that it caused me to cry out in surprise. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

The voice, mildly amused, replied “How does one know that this beautiful sky is blue? How does one know that structure over there is made of red brick? How do you know anything? I look upon you and it is there.”

My mind and heart were racing. It wasn’t that he knew my name that was the true shock. It was that I had accepted it as perfectly normal and natural for so long before realizing it. Up until now, in as much as I had given it any thought at all, I had assumed he was a resident of this building, or maybe it’s superintendent, and talking to me from a crawlspace or something. But now… now I absolutely had to know just what or who I was talking to. My despair and ennui were gone, replacing by a curiosity so intense that it felt almost religions. I had to know. I needed it.

My mind raced for something to say, to keep him talking so I could find him. “So you can see me from where you are? ” I asked, hoping his reply would narrow down the possibilities.

“I can. Not as you might define, but yes. I can. I can see you now as clearly as you can see the sun in your mind even in the darkest night of the year. I know you as well as you know your fondest and most cherished memory. I feel you like you feel the warmth of a campfire even through the walls of your tent. And now I have spoken long enough for you to find me. ”

The last was said at the exact moment that I hesitantly peered over one corner of the roof (I’ve always been afraid of heights) and saw… an angel.

Let me be clear on this : I am not speaking metaphorically or figuratively. I am being completely literal and using the only reasonable word I can conceive of to describe what I saw that day. There, standing on a ledge one floor below the roof, was an angel. Big feathery wings. perfect body, golden halo, the works. Think of the most beautiful picture of an adult male angel you have ever seen, and that is exactly what I was looking at, down to the last pinfeather.

He wore no clothing, yet did not seem naked at all. I think the official term is “clothed in radiance”. I stared at him with eyes open wide, and yet, the overwhelming presence of him was so intense that all I can remember is how beautiful he was and his green, green eyes.

One more thing I have to make clear before we go on : I am a atheist. I am not prone to religious visions brought on my an excess of faith and/or frontal lobe epilepsy. You have to understand this in order to comprehend the full totality of my surprise at what I saw. I would have been less surprised to see a fierce Maori warrior in full battle paint strumming a ukulele and singing show tunes. Those, at least, exist.

And I am heterosexual. Finding anything male this beautiful is not something to which I was accustomed. And it wasn’t sexual. It included sexuality, but was so much more than that. Calling it sexual because of that would be like calling the Atlantic lemonade because you dropped a lemon slice into it.

“Please look away. ” he said.

“Why, are you shy?” I replied. This time, I was too dazzled and awed to keep my usual flippancy from slipping out. Besides, I didn’t want to look away. Ever.

“No. It’s just that for your kind to look upon mine for too long is…. not good. Look away now. And do not look back upon me. ”

I looked away, even though it was the last thing in the universe I wanted to do. It was like telling a man dying of thirst in the desert to pour his last drop of water out into the sand, but I did in anyhow. I had no choice. I could no more resist doing what he told me to do in that amazing voice than a clod of dirt could resist being washed away by the crashing tide. My will dissolved into his when he spoke to me like that.

To distract myself from the pain of looking away and the growing void in my soul that already threatened to engulf it completely, I asked “What would have happened to me, had I kept looking?”

“Your mind would have… become broken. What pleases the soul is not always good for the mind. You would have become… simpler. ”

I knew this to be true. I already felt like my mind was glowing white hot. It was like the feeling I had felt after a long and grueling exam in college, only pleasant. Any longer, and my mind would no doubt have melted into slag and the rest of my days would have been spent in someplace with “Ward” or “Institute” in the name and havng my diapers changed on the hour, every hour.

I knew what I had to ask. What was left of my atheist’s intellectual cynicism rebelled against it, but was pushed aside. “So are you an…. ?”

There was a long pause before he answered, long enough to strike me cold with worry that my question had offended him and he had left. Or that by questioning the dream, I had caused it to end and I would be forced to wake to the reality of my miserable life once more, all the worse for the glimpse of something more.

“My people and I are not…. servants of your God. We serve our own, in our own way. We are simply another race making our way through the Universe and trying to cope and grow and learn from our mistakes, like you. One of those mistakes has been, in our time here, to try to interfere directly with the course of your kind’s development, and in doing so, our interactions have inspired your myths in many ways. From the point of view of your culture, the most important of them is that we inspired your myths of creatures called ‘angels’. But we are merely…. travelers. ”

By this point, my thoughts and emotions were an electrical storm of titanic proportions. Part of me was glad he was not a traditional Western angel, because I didn’t know if I could handle a sudden proof of the existence of a God I had not believed in since childhood. And another part was bitterly disappointed. And yet another part felt guilty for being disappointed. Had my atheism been a sham, and deep down I longed for a paternalistic God all this time? And yet still another part said “Guilt? Smart people don’t feel guilt about their emotions. That’s for the religious sheep. ” And so forth and so on.

Amidst the chaos, a coherent thought managed to emerge. “So you are not from Earth? You’re… aliens?”

Against, that tone of mild amusement. “We are not from Earth, no. My people did not evolve here. I was not born here, though I consider it my home. We are children of the stars, and wander from planet to planet, solar system to solar system, looking for places we can live. ”

I tried to imagine that kind of freedom. “I think if I could travel between the stars, I would leave and never come back. I’d wander the Universe forever. ”

“That would be a pity. ” All amusement was gone from his voice. “Trust one who knows…. there is more beauty and wonder here, on a planet that bears life, than in all the stars and comets and lifeless rocks in this lonely cosmos. This planet… this world of yours… is a jewel beyond price, rare and wondrous and beautiful in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. I only wish you could see it as my people do. Knowing nothing else, you imagine this world to be a terrible place. Nothing could be further from the truth. My people wander for centuries looking for a planet as lush and diverse as this. One thousand light-years of dust and rocks and fire is absolutely nothing compared to life under the sky, like this. ”

I nodded, unsure what to say. His view of the world was not mine, at least, not the me who existed before this encounter. Already it was hard to relate to that person. Had I really been ready to kill myself just because I was bored and didn’t like how my life was going? Had I really condemned all of humanity as wretched and awful simply because it wasn’t as good as I thought it should be? Already, that person seemed like nothing more than an angry, spoiled child. I pitied him.

“Are your people still wandering? ” Are you going to leave me, I silently added.

“My people still wander. We have no choice. Not many of us can live in any one place, and so we must spread ourselves across the Galaxy. This great green Earth, as lush and rich and vibrant as it is, holds only fifteen of our number. Most living planets only hold three or four. And often, we are not there more than a handful of generations before we must move on again…. the price we pay for our interference in the natural order of things. We can’t stop ourselves. We have to help where we can. ”

“What makes you leave?” I asked. It was hard to imagine anything that could force creatures like him to do anything. I was still absorbing the fact that there were more like him out there somewhere.

“Once a planet’s sentients become sufficiently advanced, keeping ourselves hidden becomes more and more difficult… and once we are discovered and proven to exist, it is far too late. The damage we have done to the sentients would be profound. The effect we have on creatures like you is simply too profound to ignore. We would end up hunted, or worse, worshiped. This we cannot tolerate. So we try to make sure we leave before that happens. ”

I thought of Earth as it stood now, covered by satellites and telecommunications networks, with a video camera on every street corner and another in the cell phone in everyone’s pocket. My worry of them (him) leaving increased. “Are you leaving here soon? ”

“Not soon, no. Not by your standards. Not within your lifetime, certainly. There are still plenty of wild places and empty spaces for us to inhabit. And even in the cities, we can survive. You would be surprised at how infrequently your people look up. ”

Was that last part a joke? I still couldn’t look at him, and so I couldn’t tell. “Will I ever see you again?”

He paused, then answered : “No. You will not. You should not have seen me at all. My people will be disappointed in me. But they will understand. ”

Suddenly, I realized just what he had done for me. He had broken the rules of his society and risked my exposing them all to the world simply because he could nto stand the thought of my killing myself. I felt a rush of humility and gratitude.

He added “But it would be cruel to leave you with no proof but your memories that we ever spoke. So…. close your eyes and hold out your hand, palm up. ”

I did what I was told. I felt something small and round and smooth alight in my palm.

“Love this world, Mark. Love it unconditionally. Love it like a child loves its mother. Forgive it for all its flaws. And love the humanity in yourself, Mark. It is a truly special thing to be human. Once you love it in yourself, you will find it easy to love it in others, and thus love humanity as a whole. As I do. ”

“And please, if you ever think of harming yourself again, just remember that when things seem to be at their darkest, sometimes all you need to do is… open your eyes. ”

I opened my eyes, and knew that he was gone. I didn’t need to look to know, but I did it anyway. There was the ledge where he had stood, empty now, like nothing had happened.

But I knew it had happened. I had proof. I looked at the object in my hand, and saw that it was a sort of coin or token. One side was silver, and bore a picture of an open eye. The other was gold, and the picture was of a single feather.

I was puzzled by this gift, and then I understood. This token was pretty, but it was nothing that someone will the right skills and equipment couldn’t make. As far as anyone else knew, I might have bought this at a coin show or a carnival. Only I would know that I hadn’t. The proof was for me only.

I clutched my very own, personal proof in my hand, and looked up at the sky.

Bowshawm’s upper antenna quivered with irritation. Why was he even here? He was an engineer. He almost never dealt with the public. So why did he have to know all about some new species, fresh from their admission to the League and eager to explore all their new possibilities? All he needed to know about these rubes was their basic biology and a rough idea of their psychology and that was it. Then he could retreat back to his design lab and design the environmental systems that would keep them alive and happy and content while they stayed with his employers, Sun Rising Resorts. He didn’t need some stupid social etiquette lecture about which appendage they dipped in their tea or whatever.

Still, Bowshawm dutifully slotted his thorax into the cup-shaped clamp that his bio-form used as a chair and trained all eight of his eyes and both sets of antennae on the speaker who was arranging her notes on the podium at the center of the conference room. Truth was, though he would never admit it, despite his carping and griping any time he was forced to leave his lab, Bowshawm was far too ambitious and career oriented to make waves by making his complaints even faintly official. He did what thousands of similar sentients had done in his situation : did as he was told, and kept his grumbling to himself.

“Thank you all for coming. ” said the sleek furry creature at the podium. Like I had a choice, Bowshawm grumbled to himself. He peered at her but could not place her name or species. Some middle management mammal, anyhow. The new species must be warmblooded.

“I will try to be brief and just cover the basics of Entet etiquette, as I am sure you all have jobs you are eager to return to, and there are only a few things we all absolutely must know. ” she continued. That’s what they all say, thought Bowshawm, and then three hours later you are still there and ready to break off your own neural spines just to survive the boredom.

“The first and most important thing you need to understand about the Entet is where we at Sun Rising Resorts fit into their society, and for that, we need to look at their life cycle. ” Here it comes, thought Bowshawm. Soon, we’ll be looking at diagrams of their entire genetic history.

“The Entet are mammals and built along the basic biped bio-form, but they are seaborne. They live almost their entire lives in and on their home planet’s plentiful seas and rivers, and only go to land for a few very special reasons. The one we’re most interested in today is birth. ” Oh no, not mammalian birth rituals, thought Bowshawm, those are so disgusting compared to nice clear orderly ovi-deposit. Wait, sea mammals? But I just finished their environmental design, and there isn’t even a bathtub, let alone the large pools and tanks sea creatures usually request.

“As their young cannot swim until three weeks after birth, the Entet must give birth on dry land and raise their young there till they are of swimming age. This means that, despite being an almost entirely sea-based life form, they all have early memories of a time when they were on solid land, being tended to by highly attentive parents who did nothing but feed them and groom them all day long. Then, once they reach swimming age, their parents shove them into icy cold water and they have to fend for thesmelves. ” What, without even a cocoon of food to sustain them? Still, that explains a few things, thought Bowshawm. Like the deep cushioned pit, and the room temperature so much higher than the species baseline. They seek to recreate their earliest childhood. I wonder if this is one of those complicated mammalian mating rituals?

“The vital thing to take away from all this is that, despite being a highly gregarious and uninhibited species, they consider that time in their lives to be deeply shameful and there have a very potent societal taboo against mentioning it or even admitting that it happens. And yet, with League help, their scientists have discovered that the only treatment for the wide range of psychological issues that plague the Entet population after their third or fourth decade of life can be directly traced to this early childhood trauma, and so the only treatment is to take the patient back through that time of their life, but this time, have them go through the transition from land to water more gently and gradually.” Oh, thought Bowshawm. That must be where we come in.

“That’s where we come in. We are providing the facilities, but most importantly, we are providing the discretion. No matter what their scientists say, the taboo about this time of their lives is still incredibly strong and pervasive, and if a facility was located on one of their own planets, their curious and adventurous cohorts would undoubtedly find out who was there, and much shame and political fallout would likely occur. So they are counting on us to keep things very, very quiet.”

“What that boils down to for us employees is that we must not mention the real reason the Entet are coming here to anyone, especially them. As far as everyone… and I do mean everyone… who is not in this room is concerned, the Entet come here strictly to relax and meet new species. You are not to refer to their therapy, the modifications made to their rooms, or any other aspect of their visits here that would imply they are here for any other reason than rest and recreation. ”

Oh pod-smut, no! thought Bowshawm, a horrible chill going through him from spiracules to spinnerettes. I just sent a bulletin to my entire working group, subordinates included, detailing my entire environmental design because I found it so unusual. Please end the meeting now, please please let this be the end of the meeting. I still have time to cancel it before any of them read it. Maybe. I hope.

“That’s all you need to know for now. For those of you in the front-line service positions, this lecture will continue to cover their greeting rituals, eating habits, and so on. But the rest of you may leave. ”

Bowshawm was already scurrying for the exit, nearly bowling over two other sentients in his haste, by the time she finished speaking. He would make all the necessary apology offerings to those he had offended later. Now, he had to get back to his lab and cancel that bulletin before it wrecked his career by making him seem careless, or far worse…. non-cosmopolitan.

There was no worse crime in the Sun Rising chain’s eyes than being intolerant of other races. They would put up with it from guests, but never even a hint of it from their employees.

As he dashed back to his beloved lab as fast as his eight rubbery legs would take him, his mind was transfixed on the image of his supervisor, an elongated rodent of the Chrop species, looking down on him, nose twitching in angry disapproval, his ill timed bulletin on the Chrop’s screen.

But somewhere on that fateful trip back, he also decided that he should send a message to his progenitor group, thanking them for the kindness and consideration they had shown in raising him.

Suddenly, he felt that he’d never really appreciated them until now.

International jet-setting superstar Monaco D’agostino wandered with every appearance of lightly weary diffidence through her palatial villa in southeast Italy, on an island in the waters between Italy and Greece, and smiled a pretty and pleased smile at everyone she met.

She smiled at the small handful of highly trusted servants who kept her villa in the state of relaxed and uncluttered efficiency which she preferred. She smiles at the larger number of security guards her status as billionaire businesswoman, pop star, movie star, and children’s entertainer sadly required, especially since she had chosen to live on such a tiny island which was so open to sea-based incursion from all sides, but which she insisted had to dress casually and blend in with milieu so as not to offend her highly refined and particular sensibilities with signs of overt aggression. She smiled at Hasmont Dellvue, a dear friend and periodic lover who was the current occupant of her meticulously and lovingly perfected guest bungalow. She even smiled at the amusingly dirty and awkward seabirds who squabbled and squawked amongst the rocks down by the southern beach over which she now so carefully and casually wandered. She hadn’t cared for the birds at first, but now their raucous and ill-tempered antics seemed the perfect complement to the tiny world of relaxation and gentility she had created for herself.

But her famous smile, of which she had many, was not entirely the result of her legendary acting skill. She was genuinely happy, although not for any of the reasons people might have thought. She treasured her world of wealth and power and privilege and her long and spectacular career, but they were not the source of her greatest joy, she thought with a certain thrill of spiritual pride. They were, after all, merely artifacts, to be enjoyed to the fullest without attachment or dependence.

What truly mattered were the needs of the soul, the spirit, and it was these needs which were foremost in her mind as she settled on a seemingly perfect random rock close to the water, spreading her thin blanket on it and lounging languidly thereupon, evidently taking advantage of the lazy late-morning breezes which wrapped around her like a caress to take a little of the sting out of the island’s perpetual sunshine while she basked and bronzed her internationally admired slender and well proportioned body.

But in reality, so to speak, she had chosen this rock quite specifically quite a long time ago for what she was about to do, and had chosen it specifically for its comfortable flatness and relative lack of visibility from most of the rest of the villa. She had the casual and unpretentious nudism and ease with most things private that comes from a thoroughly European childhood and total confidence in, and indifference to, the beauty of body and countenance which she had so carefully maintained and used as a vital stepping stone to getting where she was right now.

But still, even for a woman whose every nook and cranny had been filmed, photographed, and admired from every possible angle and in every state of use or repose countless times, some things were still so utterly personal that they were to be done only in private, and what she was about to do certainly qualified.

She closed her eyes as she relaxed her body and mind, letting the natural movements of water and air around her as she felt solid rock below and firey sun above wash all the usual detritus of consciousness from her mind and soul like water washing paint from a stone.

My mind is pure, she intoned into (and from) the deepest part of herself. My mind is pure, my soul is pure, the world is pure, all impurity and impermanence is an illusion, and I am free.

Once all within her was still and calm and eased, she opened her eyes, gazed up into the endless cloudless blue of the Mediterranean sky, and said/thought/felt/knew, with her entire being, Time to Go.

And then, Monaco D’agostino, arguably the richest and most famous woman in the world…. wasn’t.

A seabird alit on her now-empty blanket. some bright part of its dim avian mind telling it that this was something unusual had just happened, and in its world, that meant the possibility of food.

It pecked and hopped its way through a complete if perfunctory inspection of the blanket, the rock, and the tiny particles of a mysterious grit left in the exact center of Monaco’s outline, then flew off, too simple of mind to be disappointed for long.

It said “How was it?”
It also said “Fine. ” then after a pause, “Better than usual. ”
It seemed pleased with this answer, but then said sternly and strictly “Forget for now, remember later. ”
It also said “I know. ”