The Psychologist faded from view into surrounding shades of beige like a dot on a page that disappears as you focus on the blank.
“Hi, is this Johnston?” Ray said into the iun on the desk. He smiled, noticing for the first time how steady his voice became when weaving its way toward a pending spiritual conversation.
“Yes,” came the quiet reply through the speakerphone.
“This is Ray Golel. I got your message. Just returning your call.”
“Oh, hi Ray.”
Ray held for a moment before continuing gently: “Did you have a thought or question for me to respond to in one of my recordings?” Somehow this version of his standard strategic call-back line, polished through months and years, still felt incomplete.
For a split second more, the tired office remained a quintessentially boring setting, perfect for a quiet afternoon when even dust in the air stood still.
Then a hidden volcano beneath the surface abruptly erupted. Everything in Ray’s view changed in a lightning flash, and he forgot all about his rigmarole of leading questions and necessary waivers. He was far more concerned with the sudden streaks of shadowy flame he saw seeping in and through from all around, consuming what was left to them of the ever-present fog as fire licks up dry grass.
Ray willed himself not to react as walls, desk, iun, notes, and Psychologist were all engulfed at once in dark, billowy tongues. Black and lit with red, the flames combusted large in chaotic bursts, reeking of a hell far closer than any abysmal, burning lake.
Reality in the room appeared as some distorted photo fed back in a loop through its own effects. Ray fought to shift his focus to Johnston and the call, like steering a speeding car through a raging storm.
“Yes,” said Johnston. “I do have a question.”
“Okay,” Ray was astonished to hear himself utter so plainly, “I’d like to hear it.”
“Well,” began Johnston, his voice as even as a machine, “I started calling churches to speak to the ministers, but it seems that is never possible. So I thought to call you. I heard one of your episodes, and I figured that I would probably be able to get through to you. So I will start with you. Anyway, someone told me about a deal made long ago to make all those ministers into TV stars and millionaire celebrities. I want to know: Is it true? I know that you worked at one of those churches.”
How…?
Distracted, Ray watched in silent horror as the outline of a small not-a-person slithered along low near the floor. As he stared, Ray felt an invisible muzzle being fixed upon his lips. A familiar voice, small and peaceful, whispered from deep within, “Not yet…”
“Mr. Golel?” Johnston pressed.
Ray heard himself say into the iun, “Who told you that?” Ray had never disclosed in any of his recordings that he had worked at The Church. He had certainly told none but The Psychologist of The Pastor’s shift in mindset (or “deal”) to make or keep The Church successful in The City.
It suddenly occurred to Ray that perhaps this conductor of crazy fog-eating flame saw things somewhat as he did. This had the effect of splitting the whole world open like a piñata.
Ray realized then The Psychologist would be aware of only the words said out loud. He envisioned an eager blind man wandering, chipper and blissful, amongst a war.
“It does not matter who told me!” snarled the digital crunch through the speakerphone, “She said that she heard it from an unusually cheerful prisoner who spoke in funny sayings. But I do not care where it came from. I just want to know the truth. Do they all get to be rich? If so, then why? Why them?”
Ray could all but see rows of bared teeth like tiny needles concealed within an infant’s face flushed with indignation.
But he saw something else as well, there, hidden in the reddish black. It was something good . . . a treasure Ray might dart around and bypass even the worst of otherworldly flames to reach. The thing had the look a homing beacon, glowing white . . . even as silence screamed through the iun in tones of empty triumph, and boredom, and disappointment.
Ray felt a stab of compassion for Johnston, the same as one might feel for a vicious animal found caught in a deadly trap. Could this be how The Psychologist always felt? The notion of grasping a slippery wild predator and wrestling it back to…
But it was hopeless from the get go.
Held under . . . pressed deep until unstoppable convulsions, heaving, and dimming of perception could never be reversed . . . all Ray saw approaching was an eternal dusk soon to eclipse every immediate sense of shock and pain. Prophetic onlookers might have described Ray’s state as akin to drowning in dust.
“Just, please, tell me,” insisted Johnston, folding a barely concealed rush of ferocity over and pounding it out to forge a shiny blade, “Is it true? If so, that would be unjust. That would be something that I cannot have. Besides, the one who told me said that she was unsure. That is why I am asking you. That is not the point! AAAAHHHH!”
And with that, all veils of civilized Q&R were torn completely from bottom to top.
No matter.
Ray caught sight of the little, frightened not-a-person again, which had scrambled its way to a corner and now twitched rhythmically as if shivering to a pulse. He reached out toward it, and then heard his own voice say in slow motion into the iun, “Which ministers did you try to call, Johnston?”
The shaky not-a-person was touched by the dark flames and vanished.
Ray felt that same suffocating void overtake him again, emptying his mind and voice of all sound. It was for the best, he knew.
And Johnston was already gone.
I don't know anything 