The Lie was in the room. It had been there all along, huddled and cowering as if attempting to hide in Ray’s plain sight like some faux tower of animated clown ghosts perched behind whatever in practiced formation.
Ray found it interesting how far The Lie seemed to keep from Mr. Rolman, as if held at opposite ends of the tiny office by an unknown fixed suspending force.
The same could not be said of The Psychologist.
An argument wanted to buzz itself to life, though Ray recognized its pulse as nothing new—just old static tremors longing to be breath words again instead of copies of copies of…
Caught far enough away in echoes like eternal oceans’ breeze, Ray was able not to pay the sketchy whispers much attention.
Mr. Rolman was obviously hiding something. It was as clear as the fears that combined all around to form or unveil a far more archetypal, though outdated, Fear. Ray watched those old fears as they morphed into teams of what looked like forgotten imaginary friends bouncing along in picket circles, hoisting antiquated signs and prompts.
Was it all just to show Mr. Rolman how incapable he was of understanding The Psychologist’s questions? Ray reminded himself the questions had been about speaking with Mrs. Rolman.
In front of The Lie now towered every degree of pent-up grief and loneliness. Ray heard them all breathing in the unmistakably suffocating manner of some bygone Desolation.
But if Mr. Rolman never lied, and never could lie, then what was with all the hiding and confusion?
No, not hiding…
Ray was struck by the jarring sight of a horde of icy roots . . . a mass that seemed to have formed in a blur and stretched down below all surfaces, reaching beyond even the most ancient of hidden tracts.
Ray then felt a strangely pleasant buzzing touch his lips. Peering down, he saw the tip of a mysterious not-a-person’s outstretched limb. The not-a-person hovered in almost transparent light and color just below his nose. Ray heard his own voice begin to speak, and marveled at the words: “I think I know why people get married. It’s like energy always wants to move . . . to transfer between different things. Again, ‘one pushes, and the other pulls,’ y’know? But it makes you kind of tired when it happens. I don’t think it’s a lie. I think it’s good, and maybe way simpler than it seems . . . like, if we could just step back enough to see it.”
Mr. Rolman still seemed lost, though Ray now knew better. Glancing again at the icy roots, Ray glimpsed where they were really tethers, and saw how no one else would ever spot the way their fusion was set to one day render even those almost comical, old-timey versions of Fear and Desolation completely obsolete once and for all.
The Psychologist looked shaky and stern, with creases in his jawline revealing pressures of gritted teeth.
Ray sat in peaceful silence, waiting for the answer he saw coming.
“I guess,” began Mr. Rolman, “my wife and I are kind of like two grown children playing in a playground. We mostly play nice, but sometimes we don’t get along.”
Ray continued to eye The Psychologist, seeing well-meaning words about to be swept into formation that, once uttered, would surely rob the conversation of its thrust. Smiling, Ray quickly blurted, “Animals have it best.”
This seemed to shake The Psychologist just enough, who managed only a sharp, “What are you saying?”
“Maybe treat a relationship like caring for an animal…?” Ray ventured. “I mean, cats just lick each other, and don’t get mad for silly reasons.”
“Yes, but animals also kill each other,” grumbled The Psychologist.
There…!
Ray caught sight of another not-a-person, though this one’s form seemed large enough to host a connected ring of individuals. Radiating with a shimmering golden hue, Ray soon recognized it as the first he had seen that night by The Church . . . the not-a-person he had really always wished to reach, even from long, long before. And Ray was floored by the basic un-profundity of what was his most familiar calling, hearing its beckoning voice now from so very close.
Maybe he had no choice.
“I know,” Ray powered on, hoping, “animals kill each other. But I guess that goes back to the . . . the whole thing about The City and New Cannibalism.”
The hiding Lie seemed to shrink into itself and shake like a spotlit roach caught in a jar slammed down around it.
Ray let his words continue to be said: “I think we . . . people . . . could be best at seeing we don’t need to hurt each other. And that probably makes no sense, the way I’m saying it. There’s so much more, but…”
The blank, cold stare emanating from The Psychologist’s grim and narrow face seemed to scream in silent protest of precious moments and momentum lost.
Yet Ray’s attention was drawn back to Mr. Rolman about to speak.
“I think,” Mr. Rolman began, “maybe I see what he’s saying. I used to always get mad at my wife for being on her iun all the time. But then our son got older. And we got older too. Finally, I just went on my own iun, and it was easy to find her on there. I started seeing all the things she was doing and showing people. I saw how much they loved her. Now we three all just want to be proud of each other. We help each other and encourage each other to do good and enjoy everything as much as we can. We cheer each other on.”
Ray watched quizzically as his golden not-a-person friend approached The Psychologist like a ready ninja prepared to execute the planned secret scaling of a massive fortress high-rise. But fog in the room seemed to bind the large, bright, hovering being . . . at least in part . . . keeping it from all points of mental entry.
The Psychologist then gushed forth like a tapped well, spouting, “But even if it is all just kids playing, and animals licking each other . . . even if it is energy transferring, or whatever . . . wouldn’t you, as a man, say your energy is different—that you want different things? You probably want respect, where your wife wants understanding, and your son wants attention, and…”
From race, to religion, to gender, to…
But Ray was swept safely away from the torrent to rest now far beyond, drawn only to that favored one so close to the threshold brink of The Psychologist’s busy mind. He felt a second electric touch from the other not-a-person still beside him. He heard his own voice again, declaring, “The City says what normal is. But why? It gives its people roles to fill to keep itself alive. But without The City, we’re all just people, right? No one’s normal. I mean, every single person is a mix of so many things, all at once. We want weird things . . . things others hate . . . and we might never really know why. Some give up when The City chops them down and holds them to places they can’t fit. Some never give up, and these could be made rulers, or murderers. And there are all kinds of others . . . way, way too many to know. We can’t even…”
As soon as a tiny spec of spectral light appeared to dawn in The Psychologist’s small and tired eyes, the massive golden not-a-person swept and soared above. Ray watched in wonder as surrounding fog began to be colored in with light.
After a long pause, The Psychologist whispered, “So you’re saying that trying to differentiate according to societal norms is . . . unhelpful?”
And Ray saw or heard just where to go next, as clear and obvious as anything. He nodded to himself. Fully aware of the weight his next words would carry, he stated in one slow breath, “There are no normal ways to be. Thinking there are only serves The City as it’s been. New Cannibalism puts everyone on levels. It labels them by their use. That’s what New Cannibalism is . . . or what it was. But it’s all just an interpretation.”
Ray let that last keyword sit and sink in for a moment.
He then continued: “New Cannibalism makes it easy to forget how people are really all sorts of different things. And yeah, in The City, my words might be the rantings of a hopeless smudge rotting away on a corner somewhere . . . someone everyone can ignore. I mean, things are so busy, y’know? And smudges always get cleaned away by smudge-cleaners soon enough. But what I have to say to you, now, is this: Your work is a mission to find and show something ordinary . . . something closed away, and hidden. And you have to know . . . you have to know no one’s reaction to it even matters. It’s only what is . . . and it can’t be held in any single ‘why.’”
I don't know anything 