The Sum of Mankind (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 7 & Finale)

For a brief moment in time, Sabin was happy.  Then he learned that his family line was going to come to an end, and he met his last descendant, a woman named Olivia, named in honor in someone who had been a family friend, as far as anyone knew at that point.

     

Olivia was vivacious, charming, beautiful, but if anyone noticed they would have to have looked closely, since she hid herself from the world, and if Sabin ever found out why he was courteous enough not to mention it, and he never forced her to change a thing, accepting her exactly as he found her, and he wondered, eventually, if he would have loved her as she was, if he had not gone looking for her, if he had not intended to use her, and if all this meant perhaps he was exactly as his brother had always feared, and he put all that aside when she became pregnant, was surprised that was even possible, and when the child was born, and it was not a monster, they named him Henry, and that was when Sabin knew he had done something wrong, and he exited both their lives, and that’s why Henry adopted his mother’s name for his own, why he grew up answering to Henry Grenoville, and all the more ignorant of his origins.

     

From afar Sabin watched this family, its struggles and its triumphs, watched as Olivia grew sick with the cancer that would kill her, a cancer he wondered if he might have given her, the impossible trade for the life he had somehow given her.  He watched as Henry grew, telling himself time and again he should have no part in rearing, in guiding, in anything at all, and then the day came in which Henry entered Sabin’s life of his own accord, ignorant of everything he should have known, of everything Sabin could never tell him, but felt compelled to all the same.

     

The years advanced as they always did and Henry grew older, just as Victor had, and Sabin stayed exactly as he had been for two hundred years, and not for the first time he wondered if there was a reason for any of it, or if it was just blind chance and the best he could ever have asked to make of it was the best he could make of it.  He wanted to tell Henry all his secrets.  He wanted to explain.  He wanted a reckoning.  He chose not to, time and time again.  It wasn’t his place, he decided.  He watched as a new Oliver entered Henry’s life.  He remembered that all these people knew or suspected as much as Sabin himself knew or suspected, and had chosen the same paths for just as long.  He poured over the diaries, the books of Victor Frankenstein, trying to find answers, and of course there were none, even though Sabin understood better than anyone what they were.  But that was life.  Sometimes meaning is meaningless.  And maybe that was the point.  He had made conscious choices for however many lifetimes he might be said to have compiled, and he wondered if they had been the right ones, if he had hurt more people than he had helped, hurt the ones that mattered, such as his brother, how his failure to reconcile with him had been a sin for which he could never be absolved, if that was the sum of his life, his judgment, the sum of mankind itself, why he had exiled himself to an embassy of shadows…

     

One day he stopped Oliver Row and asked for a conversation.

     

“I’m new at this, you understand,” said Oliver Row.

     

“That’s okay,” he replied.  “So am I.”

    

“Where would you like to begin?” said Oliver Row.

     

“Right now,” he said.  “This very moment.  I would like to understand it.  I would like to know if I can.  I have decided it’s not important if anyone else does.  Maybe it was a decision I made a long time ago.  Maybe it was a decision I made when my eyes opened again, all those years ago.”

     

“That is a wise decision,” said Oliver Row.

    

“You’re much easier to talk to than I ever imagined,” he said.

    

“Did it ever occur to you to try?” said Oliver Row.

    

“No,” he said.  “I suppose I didn’t.  It just never occurred to me.  I thought it was a different story for so very long.”

    

“The exact nature of my work is something I myself am just coming to grips with,” said Oliver Row.  “Suppose we can help each other.”

    

“I never understood what you were, until now,” he said.  “Perhaps a guardian angel.  I thought you were something else.”

    

“Everyone needs something like that,” said Oliver Row.  “Some more than others.”

    

“I tried to fill the role myself, over the years,” he said.  “I’m not sure I was so successful.  Might have misinterpreted the task.”

     

“I think you got it,” said Oliver Row.

    

“How is he?” he asked.  “I mean, is he okay?  Is he going to be okay?”

     

“I think he will,” said Oliver Row.  “But then, everyone has their struggles.  It can’t be helped, really, if you think about it.”

     

“I suppose you’re right,” he said.  “I never thought of it that way.  Which is a little bizarre, given.”

     

“You’re probably right,” said Oliver Row.  “Listen, I think there’s at least one thing I can put to rest for you.  She forgave you.  She understood.  She always knew the assignment.  You have to, in this line of work.”

     

“Thank you,” he said.  “That means a lot.  I don’t think I was, ah, quite prepared, to hear that.  I will need some time to process that.”

     

“Take your time,” said Oliver Row.

    

“Sometimes I’ve thought I’ve nothing but time,” he said.

    

“Funny how life works,” said Oliver Row.  “It’s going to be okay.”

    

“I think so,” he said.

And the years continued.

A Secret History (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 6)

From the diary of Victor Frankenstein:

 

December 31, 1798

My brother died, today.  I’m told it would be better to pretend as if he never existed.

 

July 31, 1802

After several years at this game I’ve decided that was terrible advice, and so filled this diary with all my precious memories of him.  Then I scratched it all out.  Then I wrote it again.  Then I scratched it out again.  I made another copy.  Started over.  Threw it out.  I am somewhat conflicted over this matter.

 

April 2, 1810

In the midst of my studies I came upon curious information, which started me thinking.  I can bring him back. 

 

January 18, 1818

I did as I planned and it turned out to be a terrible idea.  It wasn’t him.  It wasn’t him at all.  I’ve spent the past several years in recompense, and it wasn’t nearly enough.  In the end I had to fake my death, and I’m not sure he knows or cares.  I wrote the whole thing down again.  I may have shared my story with some poets.  There may be multiple versions of this horror.  I have started my diary anew.  I have started it and scratched through it and started it again many times.  How many versions exist?  Am I still the same man I was when he died, or did I change as well?

 

June 8, 1824

The years continue their descent, as do I.  I’ve started my life over so many times I keep new diaries to track each new life, and they’re all lies.  Finally I can admit that.  I confess I’m no longer quite certain I know who I am, what my name is today.  I wonder where this all ends.

 

November 26, 1843

I attempted to collect all the diaries from where I discarded them, even amongst the very trash heaps, and I can find none of them.  There can be only one explanation, that he’s taken them all into his possession.  I don’t think he cares what effect this has on me.  He means to control my legacy.

 

May 1, 1864

If you must know, my name these days is Grenoville, and that is only because I have learned, recently, that I had a son, at some point, a new member of this strange family, of which I was unaware for the duration of his formative upbringing, and yet he knows of me, as if he knows my true face, and I assume this is because my brother took the liberty of informing him, that and the dogged pursuit of Oliver Row, who wants some form of justice, the nature of which eludes me in my advancing age, that and a great many other things. 

 

September 12, 1871

I met him, again, had a whole conversation with him.  We discussed many things.  I mean my brother, not my son.  I never had the courage.  My brother has pursued a similar course to mine, over the years, including the adoption of aliases.  As I sat talking to him I wondered if he remembered his name, if the point of this occasion was to provoke me into stating it.  In truth I’m not sure I do, either.  I am an old man, and there’s no use denying it.  I sometimes wonder, now, if the things I record in here are anymore the truth than what I cross out and attempt to set straight a second and third, fourth, fifth, however many times it takes.  I wonder if my brother reconstructs them, rewrites them with all the words left in, and what a confusing affair it would be to read, whomever tackled such a task ending up as confused as I myself have become.  I suppose it would be amusing.  There are authors who believe that’s the way their readers want to be entertained, I suppose.  Never quite a straight line.  Cleverness for its own sake, perhaps.  It’s not my affair.

 

February 23, 1875

I don’t know why I continue to write in this thing.  I had a thought the other day, and didn’t jot it down, and so I forgot it, and that’s what my life is, now, very far from what it once was, what I imagined to be a clever mind with no boundaries, capable of anything, and then of course I did just that and have regretted it ever since.  I don’t know how many people are honest enough to admit such things.  Perhaps, if they’re lucky, when they’re as old as I am.  If they remember what they regret.  If they remember to regret. 

 

January 12, 1876

I saw him again.  I had to remind myself, this time.  Didn’t remember his face.  Because of his unusual nature he doesn’t age, and I do.  The body died a great many years ago, after all, and he has been living on borrowed time ever since.  Tried to shoot him, this time, but couldn’t lift the pistol.  Don’t know why I have the thing.  A small comfort.  I don’t know whose time he borrows.  Perhaps mine.  The skin is obviously a problem, but he seems to have worked around it.  Walks stiffly, but he gets around.  We’re the same, at the very least, again, for the first time in a very long time.  All told he does it better.  I find myself somehow jealous.  He dresses better.  I was never able to determine how he ended so much smarter.  I remember, now, if I remember my brother at all, to have been a dullard.  Maybe that’s just what I have to tell myself.  Maybe it’s what I always told myself, why I felt so guilty when he died.  But there are so many things I don’t remember, now, that I perhaps recorded in prior versions of this diary, that he stole, along with so much else.  What I gave him.  Let’s be honest for one brief moment, shall we?

 

January 18, 1878

Thought I’d go for a walk.  Ran into him.  My son, I mean.  At least I think it was.  I imagine it was.  Very different fellow.  Or maybe exactly the same.  I don’t suppose I’d know the difference, at this point.  I don’t suppose I care.  Perhaps that’s the true curse of this life.

A Countess by Night (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 5)

The golden age of cinematic horror solidified the idea of the monster by its outward appearance, and further justified this approach by separating the component parts in the popular consciousness from mad scientist creator only responsible for the inception of the monster, and of course the rampaging monster itself, which is to say, Victor Frankenstein receded into history, and the monster took on a name, Frankenstein itself, monster assuming the full mantle.

In the original chronicle of the story, monster is a surprisingly intelligent, even sympathetic creature, wounded by the pathos of creation for creator, forever scorned despite an exhilarating chase sequence deep into the heart of the arctic unknown, where both figures recede into history, the suggestion being the brute forms used by creator reverted to nature in the most literal sense despite all impossible potential, story of mankind in a nutshell.

But the truth, as is often stated, is often stranger than fiction.  I should know.

    

In the 19^th century it was still possible to discover the unnatural, before the natural world was tamed by science, was still possible for science itself to discover the impossible, so that the arcane blended the worlds of science and fantasy, monsters stalked the earth, and the naturalists plumbed the depths of reason to tame it in our blessed besotted utopia of today.  This is to say, where there were those who pursued vampires, there were colleagues who sought other treasures, and the first of my line came into being, the first Oliver Row, a name given to all those whose adoption of the role forever cursed them to stalk the earth alongside monsters, to understand their intentions.  We knew where our monster went, after the arctic, knew the aliases he assumed, and when he emerged as a figure cloaked in mystery known as Sabin, a mere academic, we were not misled, as was the rest of the world.  We followed him closely.

     

We followed him all the way to the Embassy of Shadows, a clever name given to an institution the rest of the world hallowed, and I am not here today to dispel its reputation by identifying it further.  We worried that our Sabin had a sinister plot of revenge against a world that could never understand him, common pablum that I grew ashamed to peddle, and so one day I revealed the truth to Sabin’s descendent, Henry Grenoville.

     

Now, some stories begin roughly, and to read further the reader must have patience that there will be some reward later, better writing, a point even, some secret to justify the pittance of faith in such transitory wonder, an allegory perhaps, a reflection of the real world, something that can’t be spoken of openly but needs saying all the same, otherwise later generations will lose all respect for us.

    

Perhaps, then, Sabin and Henry and myself are not all the players worth knowing in this piece, or the story sketched so lightly to this point it has hardly been worth considering.  What has Sabin been doing all this time as our Henry wonders at this strange introduction?  How does the rest of the world see him?  Does the world see him at all?  Or is all this delusional fiction, a fever dream best left unremembered in moments?

     

Sabin’s reputation was as Henry had perceived it, an ogre of a man if not in appearance alone then by reputation, and this would be the mark of the villain in our times, an irony in our rush to redefine refinement of perception, to repair the injustices and shallow natures of the past, how we have come to define evolution not only mankind’s past but its necessary intellectual future, as if all our collected thought has come to nothing more than what we need to overcome.

     

And yet Sabin was tall, taller than usual, and his features rough, his manners imposing, no concessions to observers, no attempt to pacify his peers.  In earlier eras his height alone would have given him privileges, and yet in our suspicions of inherited impressions, we have acknowledged our genius for interpretation, given preference to those who ask for our attention, and suspicion to those who seek to avoid it, regardless of their social status, and in fact actively encourage misperception of such status at our convenience.  Such is the advancement of agendas in our time, however we can bend such minds to our aims, however easy it might be to flatter, all of us bent low in our courtly pleasures.

     

So what of our Sabin?  An academic, resplendent in his offices, the shaper of young minds, culling attitudes beyond the scope of the grades and degrees of the day, an authority figure to be scorned and adored, central in his placement at the head of the room where all eyes must drift toward for as long as the clock demands, a notebook or tablet recording what might be useful a few months later, when such soft tyranny ends, his true influences known by the clubs he runs, the visits he encourages for apprehensive scholars, the positions he stakes, the memories he will inhabit for years to come, the last time many future citizens will have been held in thrall by the suggestion of necessity before some form of income enticement fills their days, their opinions now cultivated by politicians hungry for a vote and parties eager for power.

     

No, Sabin’s power isn’t in a position but where his power leads, and where he cannot be swayed he would be hated, and this is how he becomes a monster in today’s world, the image of the golden age become reality in the minds of those who need such belief, who will adhere to the ideals of those with such deep yearning for power.  And Henry’s antipathy directed not by outward appearance but cultivated carefully by society, something Sabin is all too willing to play into.

     

Why?  I am dying as I ponder these things, the end of my involvement clear to me, my ineffectiveness, my impotence.  It is only now that I see these things clearly, and perhaps the cruelty of it, the whole history of my line, how I too was manipulated, used as a pawn, a patsy, the invisible fingers of the assassin.  Regardless of a reconciliation between Sabin and Henry, their roles played out already, the effect of history already crushing them under its heel, passing them by, steady in its march onward, bent in shapes by those intent to guide it, or at least believe they do, which is what makes them so dangerous, so sure of their right, the justice of their intentions, their anger when they fail, their wrath, their envy, and their retribution, and their utter ineffectiveness when they finally win power, because of course then they have no idea what to do with it.

     

No, you know everything you need to already.  This is, as all these monster stories always are, a tragedy, and that’s all you need to know, the stumbling mad blindness of it, the jerking steps toward reconciliation, seldom witnessed, never sought, always met with suspicion, forgotten, dismissed as impossible ideal, considered backward in that incessant march onward, always believing there’s some grand discovery just over the next horizon, wondering if it would all be better without us, because “us” will always include those not wanted on the voyage, the aftermath of the apocalypse, always occurring somewhere in some slight manner and ready to be interpreted however conveniently by those stepping loosely along the way, careful not to slip, and if they do, to find their footing again…

     

And I wonder about myself, how pointless, and yet how ecstatic I am to have experienced it at all, to have been here and seen all the sinew and connective tissue, to see it exhumed all over again, denied in all its splendor in the interests of leaving something for another generation to puzzle over, the next iteration of the same story and, I don’t know, another dazzling triumph that will look like abject failure in slightly different light, an abomination, the eternal abyss, a direct manifestation of our real fears, the face of doubt, the old inadequacy of the race.

     

I really did set out to write something different, you know.

How the Baby Survived Doomsday’s Assault on Metropolis

Holding the job I do, you get used to guessing. It’s not always very satisfying, because you find yourself prone to assuming the worst. I work with babies. I’m a caregiver. I’m male. I’m a male caregiver who works with babies. To be clear.

Okay, sure, sometimes a baby will cry for no reason. Not because they’re hungry or sleepy or have gas or are bored, feeling anxiety, any of that. Sometimes it seems impossible to figure out. You start asking questions. First, obviously, with your coworkers. Then, if you’re really brave, the parents. Some of us, the parents will freely share any and all inside information. Some of us, we’ll get lucky now and again. Asking questions, you never know. Depends on the parents.

This one baby, we’ll call her Aria. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s an insanely popular name these days. Sometimes it seems like literally every other baby is named Aria. So calling this one Aria is not to evoke any particular baby so named. It could be any of them.

This Aria cried all the time. Completely inconsolable. Honestly, I was as worried as I had ever been. Cried all day every day. Weeks and months went by, never changed. Parents weren’t big talkers, to any of us. So we guessed a lot. It’s not gossip if it’s guessing. Listen to a baby cry long enough, you have to release the pressure. You just have to.

The Doomsday rampage had happened. That was recent history. Months in the past. Superman died. All those replacements showed up. Everyone assumed one of them was the real deal. You have no idea how competitive the betting got. I’d rather not say who I placed my money on. A little embarrassing, in hindsight. But it seemed reasonable, at the time. And that’s just based on what little us average joes got to learn about any of it. The Daily Planet, a solid job covering all of it. But there were only so many scoops Lane or Troupe could score. 

I bring it up because eventually the guessing about what motivated all of Aria’s crying eventually, inevitably turned toward Doomsday. Trauma. Massive trauma. I’m mean, it is Metropolis, and the Doomsday rampage tore the whole city up. Sure, no physical scarring. Both parents confirmed very much alive.

That still left a wide gulf of possibilities. Aria was eight months old, when all this guessing occurred. During the Doomsday rampage, half that. People underestimate babies. They know what’s happening around them. 

So I did some digging. Found her family living at Lex Towers at the time of the rampage. Of course her parents work for some division of Lexcorp. Practically one out of every three citizens of Metropolis does. Lex Towers has been undergoing massive reconstruction since the rampage, having been nearly leveled during it. 

I made some calls. Seems Lex Luthor has been providing support to all former residents. He’s footing the bill for Aria at the center. 

When all those Supermen were running around, it was Luthor who was this baby’s hero. I know what everyone says about him. Probably most of it’s true. But he’s one of the city’s most prominent citizens. One of the country’s. One of the world’s. Superheroes have one obvious conclusion about him. 

What I know is that after those calls, Luthor dropped by the center and visited our room, and the minute he stepped foot into it, Aria stopped crying. He picked her up, and she actually giggled. I can’t make this up. There are pictures. 

I don’t know. The world’s complicated. Sometimes people everyone says are evil do good things. Sometimes babies love them. Maybe tomorrow Luthor will, I don’t know, build a new deathray and attack Superman, try to kill him. Aria still cries, but now I know why, and all I can do is try my best to soothe her. Maybe she’s crying at the ridiculous state of the world she was forced to confront way too soon, where Lex Luthor is her legitimate knight in shining armor. (They say he actually has armor. For some reason he painted it purple and green. They say there’s big money if you can get a picture of that.)

What do I know? I’m a contradiction myself. That’s just the way it is sometimes.

The Man in the Box, Pages 1-8

PAGE ONE

Panel 1
A ten-year-old black girl, Sam Lane, standing at the grave of Jerome Taggart, erstwhile butler of Adam Hemingway, the Ferryman.  She's holding a notebook, which distinctly sports a black cover with the Ferryman's logo, styled after the Greek ferryman Charon's boat, in yellow, absently in one hand.  This is the lead panel at the top of the page.

CAPTION: Sonny Reyes recruited me the other day.

Panel 2

Sam sits in a classroom, in the back row, bored, the same notebook we saw in the previous panel unopened in front of her on her desk.

CAPTION: Sonny used to adventure as the first Soul, kid sidekick of the Ferryman, Hun City's famed masked private detective.

Panel 3

Seemingly everyone else's hands shoot up to answer a question from the teacher.

CAPTION: Sonny recruited me at the funeral of the Ferrryman's dead butler.  I was busy fending off my conniving uncle at the time.  Still trying to cash in on his sister's death.  

Panel 4

Teacher has of course called on Sam, who looks embarrassed.

CAPTION: No one's told him she died penniless.

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

Sam's walking out of the classroom at the end of class, relieved.  Still very much alone, still clutching her Ferryman notebook.

CAPTION: The Ferryman provisionally accepted me as his new apprentice.  All I have to do is solve the mystery of the Destroyer's identity. Same setup as previous page.  One large panel at the top, three chaser panels below it.

Panel 2

The teacher's hand reaches out to Sam through the doorway.

TEACHER (o.p.): Sam, if I could have a minute.

Panel 3

Readers will recognize the teacher as the Ferryman, Adam Hemingway himself, in one of his disguises, the street level, mustachioed persona known as AJ Blocks, posing as a substitute teacher.  Sam herself seems nonplussed.

FERRYMAN: You were distracted throughout class today.

Panel 4

Sam looking defiant.

SAM: Don't think I didn't spot you the minute I entered class today, "Mr. Blocks."

SAM: Substitute teacher my...

FERRYMAN: Language, Miss Lane.

PAGE THREE

Panel 1

Blocks and Sam are now in the teachers lounge, and Blocks is waving goodbye to his colleagues.  This is the end of the day.  Everyone has their bags, jackets, making that clear.  Sam is already sitting at the table as Blocks stands.  She has the same unopened notebook from earlier in front of her.  As with two previous pages, same layout.

FERRYMAN: Be safe!  Never know what kind of maniac will be on the road!

Panel 2

Blocks has seated himself down across from Sam.

FERRYMAN: Now.  To business.

Panel 3

Sam has flipped open her notebook.

SAM: I understood the assignment perfectly.  You tell me you already know who the Destroyer is.

SAM: You just want to see if I can figure it out myself.

Panel 4

Sam is sliding her notebook over to Blocks, who is making a show of not looking at it but rather remaining focused on her.

SAM: I already knew at the funeral.  

SAM: You can check all my evidence for yourself.

SAM: It's my uncle.  Looks different without the horn mask.

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

This is a flashback to Jerome Taggart's confrontation with the Destroyer, just before it, as he rides the subway car, still holding the package he had gone to retrieve that fateful day.  On it can be seen the address line: Kenny Lane, 3827 Lucas Drive, Hun City, LA.  Every page follows the same design pattern.

CAPTION: On the day he died, Jerome Taggart picked up a package from the post office.  A package the mailman wouldn't deliver to you.  

Panel 2

Jerome looks at his watch, flashing a signal he knows comes from the Ferryman for emergencies.

CAPTION: That package was from my uncle.

Panel 3

Jerome looks in the direction of the next car, where he and the reader can see the Ferryman battling the Destroyer.  His arm hasn't drop from when he looked at his watch, but he's dropped the package.

CAPTION: The package was classic misdirection.

Panel 4

Mindless of the passengers around him, who are distracted anyway, Jerome slips on the mask of the Insider, a persona he has occasionally employed to assist the Ferryman in the field.  The mask is gray and covers his whole face.

CAPTION: It contained tea packets, in case you were wondering.

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1

The courtroom during Johnny Brisk's trial, with Etta Hemingway, the Ferryman's aunt, also known as Harlot, prosecuting.  On the stand testifying can be found our Kenny Lane.

CAPTION: At the trial of your parents' murderer, Johnny Brisk, my uncle testified against Brisk, believing he had scored immunity from the DA, Etta Hemingway.  Your aunt.

Panel 2

Behind the prosecution's table sits Jerome, who alone represents the Hemingway family beyond the DA.

CAPTION: Jerome had a keen mind.  He alone remembered my uncle's history.

Panel 3

Jerome whispers in Etta's ear.

CAPTION: He took my uncle's immunity away in an instant.  

Panel 4

Etta gives her star witness a cold stare, and Kenny knows he's lost his deal.

CAPTION: He remembered who killed my parents.  A minor case for the Ferryman at the time.

CAPTION: The whole thing was a setup.  It was revenge.

PAGE SIX

Panel 1

The Insider standing in front of the Destroyer, who towers over him, in the subway car.

CAPTION: No one else saw Jerome as a threat.

CAPTION: He was just Adam Hemingway's butler.  Totally anonymous.

Panel 2

The Destroyer grabs Jerome by the throat.

CAPTION: But to the Destroyer, he was the one who ruined everything.

Panel 3

The Destroyer has both hands on Jerome's throat, now.

CAPTION: As Kenny Lane, he'd been investigated by the Ferryman, dismissed as a suspect in the murder of his own sister and her husband.  My parents.

Panel 4

The Destroyer has snapped Jerome's neck.

CAPTION: As Kenny Lane, star witness, he'd dared show his face again.  And Jerome had figured it out.  How he'd done it, with just one glance.  Given him that crucial second thought.

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

The graveyard scene revisited.  This time we focus on young Sam at the tombstones of her parents.  We see Kenny looming toward her.

CAPTION: It was the tea, of course.

Panel 2

Kenny imposing his bulk on Sam.  This is where it's obvious he has the size to be the Destroyer.

CAPTION: He'd poisoned them.  For money.

Panel 3

Sam kicks Kenny in the shin.

CAPTION: I was made an orphan.  He thought I inherited the money.  

Panel 4

Sam shoves at Kenny.

CAPTION: It never occurred to him they would donate the bulk of it to charity.

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Back to the teachers lounge.  Blocks is pouring over the notebook now.  Sam sits back in her chair relaxed.

SAM: I have all the samples back home.

SAM: All the proof you'd need.

Panel 2

Blocks is sliding the notebook, closed, back to Sam.

FERRYMAN: No.  Thanks.  I won't need to see it.

FERRYMAN: Save it for the police.

Panel 3

Sam is glancing through the notebook herself now.

FERRYMAN: You did good work.

Panel 4

Sam glances up at Blocks now.

SAM: I know.

SAM: Sorry for your loss.

An Easter Tale - Rex Futurus, Part 3

A lot of things changed over the years. The idea of Jesus changed in a lot of people’s eyes, after what happened that third day. I watched it from a unique vantage point: how Pilate’s son reacted.

Perhaps not enough is said about him. Often we tend to overlook someone’s family when dwelling on them; they get lost in the shuffle when you’re busy worrying about how you think about just the one person. You overlook the context. That’s how a lot of people reacted to Jesus, as I found out later, the more questions I asked about him, how for most of his life he was merely the carpenter’s son, who took up the family trade, who was best known for the work he did, never took pains to draw attention to himself, just focused on doing a good job, being someone who was easy to have around, who put you at ease, was easy to take for granted, and then for a few years was something else entirely, and then was executed. His father was long dead at that point, and his mother was said to be one of his biggest supporters, who constantly talked about him, who even inspired him to show more of himself to the world. 

I can’t really imagine what she must have thought, what she must have gone through, as all that played out. It’s said that later, he would openly talk about what needed to happen, that he would have to die and actually come back again. The business about the sealed tomb and then the empty tomb, the mad scrambling that took place that third day, the confusion, and then all the talk that it had actually happened, for her it had to have been the best and worst experience of her life, worse than seeing him die, since of course for her she had still had to experience that and then there he was again, just as if it had never happened, and then he was saying that he was only back for a little while. 

I can’t explain it. I know many people talked about seeing him. Some said he had somehow faked his death, but let me assure you: crucifixion is many things, but it is not something you can fake. The whole point is that you can see the whole process play out. Usually it’s a slow process, which is the point. For Jesus they sped up the process, because of the Sabbath, or at least that was the intention, but he died of his own accord; the other two they broke their legs so they could no longer support themselves to draw breaths. They made sure he was dead. They pierced his side and saw what could only come from a dead body flow from it. They gave his body to his mother to hold, after. I saw this myself.

Anyway, years later people still talked about Jesus. They still talked about him. This was many years, decades. The way the Romans continued to talk about Julius, the way he died, it was very much the same, except for Julius it was a tragedy that gave way to life very much as it had always been, except it codified exactly what everyone had feared about Julius, and so was an irony. With Jesus it was very much the opposite: his death was supposed to end the problem, and yet it only magnified what he had tried to accomplish in life, show people that there was another way, to reject the brutalities we can so often inflict on each other, to suggest love conquers all.

Pilate’s son was in a unique position to appreciate this. For him it was inescapable. Everywhere he turned he encountered people who only knew him as the son of the man who had unsuccessfully tried to end the Jesus problem. The Jesus problem never went away. His followers never went away. In fact, they only multiplied. They became perfect pariahs of the Romans, scapegoats, easy to blame for any little mishap, fodder for the circuses, their deaths mere entertainment, but somehow this never dissuaded their faith. In a lot of ways they were only emboldened. When they started telling the story of Jesus, some accused them of shaping the events of the trial to flatter the Romans, but it could only be an embarrassment. Just ask Pilate’s son. Just try to look at it from his perspective: his father failed to end the problem, and he was going to be the one who would have to live with the results, the constant proof of that failure, and everywhere he turned he couldn’t hope to avoid it.

A funny thing happened, though. As far as I can tell, he began to believe. Pilate himself was removed from Jerusalem, having been judged ineffective to the task. His son followed him back to Rome, but the whispers of the whole affair followed. The itinerant preacher Paul, who was himself Roman, who showed up a few years later, had never met Jesus himself, not even after the mysterious resurrection, the event that had galvanized the faith for so many of the followers, the impossible thing, spread the message far and wide, so that it became truly inescapable. Pilate’s son learned this better than anyone. Often he found himself jeered. His response was remarkable. He would tell anyone willing to listen that he was actually proud, that if anything his father had been vindicated, that if his judgment had been challenged, then perhaps that had been the whole point all along. A point rebuffed must be reconsidered. This is the task of any rational mind, and any such mind that refuses to accept such a challenge isn’t worth taking seriously. This is how he chose to view it. This is what he told those who stopped to listen. This is how he came to believe.

He gave up everything. Some say he didn’t have much to begin with, the son of a man considered a failure, who couldn’t subdue a troubled province, who seemed to actually have made things worse. No prospects, no hope for a future. Willing to grasp at any straws. 

Well, maybe I view it differently since I myself came to believe, so I was willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt. Some say it was easy to believe because it offered an alternative to the Romans, suggested that if you simply endured then you could envision life after them, to life on terms without them again. But I don’t think that was ever the point. I heard that Jesus once said, render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Accept life as you find it. But know there is something greater. Know you don’t have to define life by the terms in which you find it. This is to say, there is the standard around you, and then there is the standard you hold for yourself. If your standard is greater, hold that closest to your heart. If you find the standard set by Jesus, then you won’t need to worry about the lower standards around you. All you can really do is hope one day more people will see things the way you do.

And that’s how Pilate’s son saw it. He could have considered his future bleak, his loss of station, of potential within the empire, that he would never reach the same heights his father had, certainly never surpass him. But he chose instead to embrace the idea upon which this failure had been achieved. He humbled himself quite happily. He became just another Christian. In his quiet way, if like me you noticed him at all, later, marveled that he never shied from being treated like any of the rest of us, subject to the same perils, you saw how the story had come full circle. Like his father he had washed his hands of the business, but in his case he washed his with ours, to break bread with us, to share the same  bounty. And so, perhaps, like father like son. That’s what I like to believe, anyway.

The whole thing was an affirmation. That’s how I saw those three days play out, and how they spoke through the years that followed. I commemorate the experiences to this day. How could I not? I believe. I believe in Jesus. I believe in his way. I believe in humanity, even when it seems I shouldn’t. Not for some selfish reason. Not because I believe I will receive some reward for it. Because my faith in humanity is the best way to inspire that same belief in others, that they will see there is a better way, a way that sees value in others. Pilate, his wife, his son, they had impossible journeys to be a part of all this. Believe what you want to about them. For me, they are essential. 

An Easter Tale - Rex Futurus, Part 2

The next day people began to talk about Pilate’s wife.

Now, let me get something out of the way. I’m really curious as to how all this will be talked about in, say, two thousand years. I think I know. I think so because I know how it’s being talked about now, how the story is already taking shape.

It would be one thing if Jesus were turning into legend. Legends take one of two paths. The first is that they become an epithet, the epitome of evil in the eye of memory. The second is that they become impossibly heroic. The legend would be that Jesus tried to overthrow the Roman Empire itself. He would be cautionary tale in one, a glorious victor in the other. Imagine if this idea of his becomes state religion at some point, what his detractors would say. What the believers would!

But he was just a man (in one sense). He died as a man. He was condemned both by his own people, and under Pilate, by the empire, too. History officially has little space for him now. He was executed in a group. I saw him hang there myself. Surrounded by common criminals. Forget what Pilate had nailed to the cross above his head. From a distance all you could see was three dying men gasping for breath. 

What they’re saying about Pilate’s wife, though. They say all through the ordeal yesterday she pleaded for this man’s life. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. It doesn’t matter if it’s his followers putting out a false narrative. The man was just executed by the state. You can’t argue, logically, realistically, that they make themselves look good by suggesting only that it was his own Jewish authorities responsible. I know the Romans. It will be a long, long time before they even consider sympathy for this business. They’re going to kill a lot more of them, these followers of the way of Jesus.

Why would this story circulate, then? He died. Yesterday. End of story. Consigned to history. Forgotten. Except the story continues, and it takes interesting turns. They say she thought he was not only innocent, but an innocent, one of the truly good people. As to whether he was innocent of the basic charge of intended or implied mutiny, that’s debatable. I don’t particularly see it that way myself. It’s said that he preached those who live by the sword die by the sword. Apart from the temple incident he abhorred violence. It’s said he once preached those eager to cast stones in judgment of another must surely be themselves entirely blameless. 

It’s said she thought he was such a person. Perhaps the only such person who ever lived. He was a preacher, first and foremost, who never went out of his way to promote himself. Drawing attention for the sake of attention was never his ambition. His message gained followers, his wisdom. It’s said he performed miracles, and there were those who believed in him because of this, only because of this. It’s said his message finds parallels in other cultures. In the far east there’s said to be a tradition of holy orders very similar to his ideals, except theirs believes ultimate removal from daily life is the key to satisfaction in this world, where he always argued radical acceptance of even the worst trials, such as the one he himself endured. 

I don’t think the acceptance of pain was his message, or even the seeking of it for penance. That’s what he had to experience. It’s said even as he died he asked forgiveness for those who put him up there.

Last night and into this morning I have been struggling to understand all of this, which is why any scrap of additional insight is so valuable. It’s said his followers almost to a man abandoned him in his final hours, that only his mother, some family friends, some secret friends, and the youngest of his disciples were present. Such a motley crew wouldn’t be sending such stories out so quickly. It was a strange business, what happened. Strange stories are going to be told. But maybe not as strange as this.

Pilate’s wife. It’s said she was plagued with nightmares. In their culture such things have meaning. That’s how they interpret the world. She worried about what her husband’s decision meant. It’s said he washed his hands of the business. He put up that sign. Somehow I doubt she thought that was good enough.

So what do I believe? I believe such a story. I’m starting to believe. I believe this is not the end of the story. 

An Easter Tale - Rex Futurus, Part 1

Someone tried telling me the sign was because Pilate and this Jesus fellow were friends. In the moment it almost made sense. I imagined a whole scenario where they hung out together for years, out of the public eye, complaining about Jewish politics. Jesus was a carpenter, that’s probably how they met. One day he delivers a table or whatever to Pilate, they get to talking, discover how much they have in common, and it just blossoms from there.

Now, I’ll admit I didn’t know either one of them personally, but people talk. They were both gossip magnets. Pilate for obvious reasons, and Jesus, because he went around the whole region with his little group of friends in recent years, and it was kind of impossible to avoid what people said about him, the miracles, the idea that he was the messiah, but basically how he was unlike anyone any of us had ever met.

Then of course he ends up arrested, they push through a trial overnight, and this was just last night, mind you! And this morning he’s shown before Pilate, asked to explain himself, and Pilate is essentially backed into a corner, something about sedition, I guess, which is the one thing a Roman governor can never be soft on, and he has no choice but to order yet another execution. 

To be a fly on the wall when they spoke in private! That’s what they say, that Pilate kept pulling Jesus aside, which is strange enough. To listen to most of what Pilate’s reputation suggests, you’d think he’d hardly think twice about the matter, that he would hardly give such a criminal that had been presented to him so early in the morning the time of day! And listen, I don’t really care what they say about the Jews. I’m just a merchant, here, I’m not Roman, I’m certainly not Jewish. If anything I should be mad at Jesus for that outburst at the temple. It was all but a personal attack, right?

But the trouble is, I got to thinking. Not just about why Pilate would humor such a man, why he would stick such a note on the crucifix, “King of the Jews,” what he could possibly have meant (Romans aren’t known for their humor; they’re best understood for their tragedies, since in all things they are always chasing Greeks), but why I should take this Jesus seriously, if I thought for even one moment a Roman governor did.

It’s not because he clashed with his own people. I get that he probably gained some of his followers that way. There will always be contrarians, and hopefully I am never one of those! I think, rather, that he had something worth believing in. A sign says “King of the Jews” above his savaged body, you have to think about that for a moment.

They say he championed the humble. Sometimes it’s easy to believe that anyone willing to do that is just trying to gain their favor, do the state the favor of making such people somehow feel good about their lot, and someone far more cynical than me would then draw the conclusion that Pilate and Jesus bonded in this way. Well, not me.

I think he did it for the very reasons he himself suggested, that, and if you believe what people have said, that he was the son of the Jewish god, and certainly all the Jewish stories in that book of theirs proves what good storytellers they are, and that this story of his was the best they ever produced, because he further suggested he was born to once and for all reconcile his father and these people, and in fact everyone else, too. And he had to do it by dying today.

Ritual sacrifice is an old religious tradition. I think every culture has it at some point. It’s not so common for the sacrifice to be the son of the god. It’s not so common for such a grand gesture. Well, if it is, I haven’t heard about it. 

King of the Jews. Clearly it got me thinking. I’m not saying Pilate believed one thing or another. But perhaps he believes Jesus himself believed it. I don’t think he posted it to antagonize the Jews. I think it was about respect. I think he recognized, for one reason or another, that Jesus was more than just another agitator.

I’m starting to believe a lot of things.

Star Trek: 2063

My favorite author is certainly Jo Belano, the Chilean expat who spent her final years in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where I was fortunate enough myself to grow up. The library always displayed her book 2063 prominently, and I must have sat there reading it, and borrowing it, about half of my first twenty years on this planet, which, thanks to the era in which she lived, ended up being my last twenty, after I agreed to live in Tycho City on the moon. And of course I’m taking a copy of her book with me.

2063 is a kaleidoscope of the the millennium as she understood it. She opens with a story about the Bell Riots from 2024, knowing many of her readers would have forgotten the massive reforms already happening before First Contact, most of which stayed in place even when WWIII broke out. She’s one of the few historians of any extraction to link the riots, and the efforts of Gabriel Bell himself, to the war, the desperate attempts to prevent it, after the Eugenics Wars had all but precipitated it, the conflict between Starling and Cochrane that launched a thousand ships into space, one of Starling’s of course containing the infamous Khan Singh in cryostasis. She also talks about the final World Series in 2042, how the aging baseball star Buck Bokai volunteered himself for the draft after playing in the last game as a symbolic gesture of unity.

The book really hits its stride for me, though, as she describes President Rios’s difficult path to the White House, how the country very nearly split apart upon his election, and then First Contact occurs on his watch, and he transforms the controversial Cochrane and the backwater town he had exiled himself to in rural Montana into a beacon of hope, inviting the world’s leaders to an international summit with the new Vulcan ambassadors. 

The way she weaves all this together, this rich tapestry of humanity’s potential, at a time when we had just begun to live among the stars…So I’ll live on the moon, now, and sometimes I wonder if I’ll go deeper still into space. Even Cochrane is thoroughly respectable these days. He’s talked about the “final frontier,” as he works on his new warp engines, like a credo, and…we really don’t know what we’ll find out there. But it seems like a challenge worth taking. I wonder what Jo would have discovered, there. Sometimes I wonder if I should be the one to write about it. Following her example.