I don't know anything

They sat together atop The Church’s highest roof in the silence of two who should be friends. The sky down near the horizon had faded to a rich wash of maroons swirled with various oranges and yellows. Above remained clear blue.

Ray blinked to keep from gazing off through the fog below. It was hard to remember why he should go on restraining himself now that everything was changing. Still, he wanted to be polite. He knew Mo was about to answer an important question, probably without meaning to—a question posed long enough ago to have surely been forgotten by all parties.

“I don’t think you’re being as honest with yourself as you think you are,” said Mo.

And Ray forgot again as well, his gaze cascading off once more beyond the tops of buildings spanning outward in all directions in neat rings and squares like toddler toys. All those structures now bowed low gave Ray the urge to wink.

“I was walking with Jolie and Todd the other day,” said Ray into the passing winds, “and we were talking about cigarettes. One of them said how workers who take smoke breaks with their bosses get an unfair advantage. I think the other mentioned something about, like, smoking can be a sort of comforting ritual, y’know? Then they went back and forth like that. And near the end, I told them how relaxing it had been when I used to go to this friend’s house after work, smoke a cigarette, and drink a beer. But they didn’t say anything. I don’t know if they even heard me.”

“Is that true?” said Mo. “Why did you tell me that?”

Ray blinked and realized he was in fact not with The Psychologist. Still, he wondered why he might feel so compelled by the types of instances Jolie and Todd had seemed to want to stick to that day on their walk. Why would whatever could be called most common or ordinary happen to be exactly what was least predictable and consistent, and also never supposed to really matter? But such did seem especially important to some.

Ray felt his focus snap back to Mo. “You’re an artist,” Ray stated flatly, failing to meet Mo’s penetrating gaze. “I hope you’re not stuck somewhere you should be free.”

“What?!”

Ray fought to draw himself yet again to the particular world in which he was seated high above a great expanse with an old friend. Each return was beginning to feel more tiresome and unnecessary than the last. He thumbed through in his mind to his latest words to Mo, amused to watch himself work to catch up to the conversation the same way The Psychologist always seemed to do. He realized he might have blindsided Mo without intending to.

“We should be running across rooftops together,” Ray clarified.

“Wouldn’t you agree,” began Mo, his face a tad squirrellier than before, “that there are more important things than fantasy?”

But Ray’s attention was caught away now in the joyfully exuberant windstorm of a troupe of not-a-persons down half-below the ground . . . gripped by the near whimsical appreciation each showed simply for the sound of others’ voices. They were slaves turned free like chosen ones, collaborating for the very first time in celebration of their collective release from dark solitude and silence. Amazed . . . privileged . . . Ray was a ready wire, elated by their current passing through.

“I will also ask you about what’s important,” Ray uttered outward toward the sky. “Say you hear a story that tells you something about your life. It touches on what makes you human in a way. And you find yourself better off for having heard it. Now, would you deny someone that same experience . . . that benefit . . . if they were told a different story, but it could have the same effect?”

“Ah,” said Mo thoughtfully, “I think I see where you’re missing it. In truth, the story is the benefit. And there’s no denying that it’s really all the same story in the end, even if we try to approach or frame it any other way. The gospel is at the heart of every story mankind will ever tell. Everything we see and know testifies to that! Ray, that’s all I’m trying to show. I want to open people’s eyes—to let what they see, and believe, and tell themselves about it line up with . . . with what’s really obvious to everyone if they’re honest! I would say showing people that is my art.”

Ray wished to allow the love he felt to pour forth and envelop his heroic companion. Instead, he heard himself respond, “I see a room that’s always filled with life, color, fun, music, and lights, and… And it’s a room I think most will pass through at some point. But the room I see is just, like, a single line to cross. It’s a moment we might grow to meet and then fade away from after. You could take anything in that room, and show it, and call it everyone’s story. But, really, it’s the story of an endless, shifting, living mass. I mean, we can be its tissue for a while. But that’s all.”

The words sounded wrong to Ray as they left his lips, setting him on edge. For he knew the story of the lively room was a far cry from Mo’s art. And Ray desperately wished to find a way to prize Mo’s beloved story—a good story of redemption, which made sense of an experience so widespread and real . . . so beautiful.

…made sense of…

Yanked back over and up to where the two sat alone together, all Ray saw then was the fog. He heard only an onslaught of old questions, each fighting to be screamed first.

Why? Why is anything? Why should everything be whatever it is?

He shuddered, hating the harsh immediacy of what he knew would soon combust to form a string of familiar arguments in his mind.

Sure, ticker-tape angst, and blah, blah, blah.

And it was all so stupid Ray almost laughed. He probably would have if not for Mo.

Could anyone really suspect Ray of thinking he was somehow superior?

But if he could just come to hold and profess their same explanation . . . their same accounting interpretation…

Inward wheels spun poorly to wonder and wander after relevant importances.

And could believing ever be a choice?

But wouldn’t any and all answers be anathema to Ray’s art, even despite his art appearing identical to theirs?

In the mirror opposite void of a burning, incessant need to know, Ray found he would give his life or soul to show Mo and The Pastor what he thought he recognized woven in amongst their reachings—stitched into every fabric of Mo’s rich intricacies and painted across all The Pastor’s touching word-pictures for his flock.

How Ray adored their sacred story.

Then his inner being catapulted down and across, bounding through fog like a child hurtling through waves on the first day of summer. He heard himself speak again, and wished to fill the gaps in what was said with his true feelings: “Okay, what if there was a bigger room, like a wider line that’s really no line at all? What about something more than we could ever see or understand? I guess just everything . . . exactly how it is . . . and every life, y’know? And whatever’s in between? It’s like, the more I see the not-a-p… The more I see of . . . of what could be . . . the less excited I get. I mean, could any of us make it do, or be, or mean anything? But, honestly, I’d lose my peace to give it to you, Publican.”

Ray felt prone to cower back at the sheer sincerity of his words.

Mo said nothing for a moment, then quietly asked, “Why do you call me Publican?”

Ray smiled, feeling an old sadness shape his eyes. He knew nothing for sure. Perhaps the role Mo had chosen (or been chosen for) really had just been captured and shown somehow in Ray’s imperfect, seemingly transcendent, though ultimately droll, approximations.

Ray also saw a world where Mo knelt with a fist to his chest before releasing clenched fingers and wailing in prayer without design or human audience, begging simply for mercy.