Pappy
He had to be everywhere and nowhere all of the time. They’d given him his power, but only enough, enough to make the boxes. “Good deeds,” he muttered under his breath, “time is ticking away and I have to resort to good deeds.”
The council had banished him to this lesser dimension where his power was useless. He’d lost his mountain lair, he’d lost his people. “Absolution,” he muttered. “For what?” Indeed, for what. This was not his world, he didn’t even look like himself here.
“What does it matter?” He thought, “Their world is doomed anyway, they aren’t like us, they want to be like us, they’ll never be like us, even when they cross over.”
“They call us demons, they don’t understand us.” He thought. “Their world would be boring without us,” he cackled. “I’ll provide the boxes, they can provide the magic and somehow, I’ll make it back to my world where I belong instead of here among these peasants that the almighty for some reason reveres.”
Julian stood before the council clothed in white robes with shoulder length hair. He had striking blue eyes and a sharp jaw which was set now in defiance. “It was a small infraction.”
“It snowballed,” Morin said. “Millions died when you whispered, three times.”
“It was only a thought, they were full of evil anyway or they would have resisted. I only exposed something that was already there.” Julian said with a wave of indifference.
“You are to be stripped of most of your powers. You will live in their world as one of them and learn to respect life.”
“I’d sooner go to the Abyss!” He spouted. “They are weak, naïve, narcissistic and easily led.”
“Then you should feel right at home.” Morin replied. “You will live among them, the worst of your followers will go to the Abyss. You have much to learn.”
“He cannot be redeemed,” Sasha said quietly as she bowed her head.
“We are closest to the father Sasha, if we cannot be redeemed, how can mankind be redeemed?” Morin said.
“Some of mankind are already redeemed, in a sense.” Sasha said.
“If you think I’m going to beg for mercy, you’re mistaken.” Julian said.
“You will go forth and spy out the world you long to destroy,” Morin said, “And when you learn what you are meant to learn, then perhaps you can return with a new viewpoint.”
Julian blinked and found himself at an intersection in the flatlands, far from his cave and far from his followers. His clothes were dusty and loose, his satchel felt heavy and his age showed. There was soreness in his bones. He was hungry and thirsty but at least he had a hat. He took it off and examined it. It was something a fisherman would wear and it had a hook in it. So this was what it was to be human. He wondered how long this would take. He knew he couldn’t fool the council unless Sasha was the only one on the board. She was no better than some of the humans he’d encountered. Compassion was the elixir of fools and they drank it heartily.
A red truck came up behind him and the older man behind the wheel stopped and asked him if he needed a ride. Julian gladly accepted. He had no idea where he wanted to go; only that he needed people around. Once he rested in the seat of the truck and they got to rolling, he looked into the mirror and saw nobody looking back at him. There was nothing striking about this face, nothing that would make him stand out in a crowd. He turned his attention to his satchel to see what burden the council might have placed on him. He found a crucifix, a Bible, a canteen of water, the driver didn’t want any, and a tiny vial of some kind of clear liquid, “I wonder what this is,” he thought. “Tears,” came the answer, he recognized the father’s voice.
“Tears,” Julian thought, “What am I supposed to do with those?”
“They are the prayers that happen when humans can’t find enough words to pray.” This time it was Sasha’s voice.
At the bottom he found what he was looking for, a wallet, it was a special wallet that never ran out of money so long as you used it only for survival. The ride had been silent and the man behind the wheel had barely paid attention to Julian taking inventory. He pulled up to a hotel and Julian took it that this was as far as he was going to take him. He nodded politely at the man and offered him a twenty which the man gladly received.
The sign had said “Moab” on the way in. Julian wasn’t accustomed to needing rest; in fact, he was ready to get started with whatever madness was required to return to his former state of being, this vessel he’d been assigned to, however, had different ideas. “Rome can wait,” he thought, and went inside to secure a bed.
They gave him a room in the back of the hotel not far from the pool, he hoped this meant privacy, he had to do some thinking. Julian wasn’t much of a mind reader, he was far more adept at planting a seed of a thought than he was in trying to decipher what others were thinking. The council wanted him to “learn” to care about these humans by becoming one of them? Surely not. He reached his room and put in the pass key, a blast of cool air welcomed him and he thought of his cave, then he thought of the abyss and shuddered. If he failed in THEIR mission, would he be left in this dimension, or be demoted to the abyss, he wondered.
Julian decided to take a shower and sleep first. When the sun would be lower in the sky, he could do some shopping. The shower felt much nicer than he’d thought it would and for the first time in his existence, he slept.
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