The Secular Center

  I heard shouting, and not happy-my-team-won shouting. I wandered out, unconcerned, I'd died just a moment ago and wasn't worried, much, about the shlub in the living room.

  He was standing, red-faced, furious! His team had lost, clearly. Tearing up a ticket, a betting slip? Like the ones they'd been holding in the casino, all those guys staring at the screens, at the scores.

  The roommate was looking on from the kitchen door, curious, interested now. Very interested, excited even.

  It began as a shimmering, then solidified. We saw it first; he was too busy yelling at the tv. First thing he knew, they had him by the arms, pulling him ... somewhere, not up or down or back, but away, getting smaller and smaller.

  "I can pay! Give me another day! I gotta sure thing! Demons vs Spartans, Eurotas pulled a hamstring in practice, his sub is no good! It's a sure thing! A sure thing!" and his voice got small, guttered out as the shimmering dissipated.

  I went over, turned the tv off. We sat in the gorgeous silence for a while, just soaking it in.

  "So. We get a new roommate now?" I knew it couldn't last, but for now it was divine.

  Nope! "Not if we don't say anything, not for a while? Nobody will miss him, he never left that chair."

  I put out a hand and we shook on it, smiling broad smiles.

  Finally we’d caught a break! Maybe I'd move into his room. If I could get the stank out. He hadn't cleaned it, probably not in a year. Maybe longer?

  I had no idea how 'old' he was, here.

  My roommate cleaned up 'his' chair, the table he put his takeout on. Bundled it all up, wiped the table down. Compulsive tidier? No problem, the HOA lady would be pleased next visit.

  Once scrubbed down, she plonked into the stuffed chair, picked up the remote and turned the TV to a news channel.

  I was confused. "Why do you care about that? Turmoil and greed, it never changes. Doesn't affect us any more."

  She lit up. "It's like a soap opera. You can’t make this shit up. I love it!"

  They droned on about some war, some corruption, some starlet, somebody lost all their money, somebody else made a bunch. All sounded the same to me, in one ear and out the other.

  Then they turned to a human-interest piece - a mystery couple were found dead, embracing, naked, embedded in the shore of a lake. Fallen from an airplane? The tv news announcer seemed amused - What a way to go!

  She listened, rapt, anything salacious was bread and butter to her.

  I was in shock.

  So it was real?! I'd been there, had fallen, fucked and died. It had happened; it had mattered.

  That changed things. Didn't quite know how, but this was significant.

  Important learning.

  Impulsively, I pulled back my sleeve, showed my palm to her.

  "How do I get rid of this?"

  She looked shocked, backed away, like she was trying to crawl up the back of the chair.

  "Get rid of that quick honey! That thing goes off, nothing in Heaven can keep you here."

  "How? How do I get it off?"

  "Dumbo tried gambling, you saw how that worked out."

  "What else?

  "Dunno. Do some good deed? Save the innocent? Help a couple find true love? But not up here; down there." She waved at the tv screen.

  "How can I do that? Can I just ... go down?"

  "You can apply! They're always looking for suck...candidates. Messengers of Inspiration, they call them."

  That was a thing? More my speed.

  "You ever try it?"

  She looked evasive. "Got dropped in a war zone, got shot, hurt like fuck-all. My left arm blown off, I died of blood loss. Never found the guy I was supposed to save." She shuddered at the memory, changed the channel, ending our conversation.

  Shit that sounded brutal.

  More brutal than falling to your death from 10000 feet?

  I'll think about it.

  What else is there? And gotta get back to that casino. That was a true thing, I knew it in my bones. Maybe I could combine them. Couldn't see how; just an idea.

  I spent a month (or two? a year?) just existing, walking the neighborhood, avoiding the gangs.

  A crew came by, dug a hole in the yard, left the gaping wet pit, didn't come back. Visited by little fluttery things, like tiny birds. Pearly and gossamer wings, tiny almost-human faces, they collect by the bubbling pit slime, drinking?

  A little curled tube extends from their face-hole delicately, they stick it into the oily pool. Some get stuck, writhe and struggle, wings fouled, get stuck further, eventually drown in the piss and shit.

  I try to go to better neighborhoods, it never works, just end up back in bed. Once got as far as the door of an Italian place, some brutal guys like gangsters inside, laughing too loud, eating like gluttons, belching and dribbling fat and cheese down their chests, once-fine suits stained and greasy.

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  Took a step inside then whango! and I’m back in my bed, the sheets clammy from sweat. Was it a dream?

  This was getting too, too tedious. Had to be another way.

  "How do I enroll as a Messenger of Inspiration?"

  Roommate doesn't look up from the latest socialite scandal show, speaks to the room. "Just take the bus to the Secular Center."

  OK, bus fare?

  "No fare honey, what would you pay?"

  I remembered the bus stop, where I’d got into all this mess, went back. The gnome is not there, hot-pocket wrappers and empty syringes litter the bench.

  A parchment bus schedule shows regular times but nothing, not for hours.

  I sit, and wait.

  Finally a smoking yellow bus with grimy windows rounds the corner, somebody leaning out the back, vomiting down the side. Lurches to a stop, kneels like a handicapped bus but it's just bad shocks. Door bangs open, a guy in a yellow jumpsuit driving.

  "Hey! Didn't I see you on the square, doing landscaping?"

  That got a sour look, so I stepped up and the door smacked me on the ass as he closed it.

  "Where to?"

  "Secular center?"

  A wicked leer, he glanced at my hand, the deaths-head brand, bigger now, nodded. Had the upper hand now.

  "Sure thing sweet cheeks. Take a seat, no standing in front of the line."

  And the bus lurched into motion, almost tossing me into the lap of an enormous fat guy, leering, hands out to grope me. I pushed off, hands sinking into his obscene flesh up to the wrist.

  A holy roller, slumming it?

  Made my way back, sat near the rear door, ready to get off when we arrived, not sure he's gonna stop for long.

  Nobody else got on; nobody got off. Some regular folks like me, staring out the windows, just riding? Getting away from roommates for a while.

  The fat dude, turned so he can look at me, making ugly leering faces whenever I caught his eye.

  A figure in a brown robe, a monk? Rocking and mumbling, chanting? Smoke rose from the peak of his hood, like he was smoking. Smelled like spice but charred, more like a spicy fart.

  We pass the Penitent Society building, long long line of folks shuffling in line. Yellow-suited gals kept order, which meant shoving people forward, yelling, standing them up if they tried to sit, slapping, more yelling.

  The line going through a door in a grey building, one at a time. Nobody coming out?

  Bus drives on.

  Passed a burned-out zone, how can that be? Gangs scrabbled in the rubble, screaming and waving burning lumber, torches, lobbed rocks, a gang war? A play? An entertainment, like a video game?

  Why not, if you couldn't die, not permanently.

  Passed through a shopping district, better neighborhoods here, boutiques and stalls, no bus stop, our kind not welcome here. Shops selling figurines of saints, incense, robes, sheet music, flowers but only lillies.

  Little harps! One is in demo mode, throwing off too-cute notes, the same sequence again and again, a bored shopkeeper on a stool, enduring.

  Groups of white-robe-clad severe people sniffed at the merchandise, not buying anything, just shopping, criticising, feeling superior.

  A small street-corner park, a bandstand, half the orchestra seats filled, folks with harps and flutes, one drum, even a tuba! In mismatched uniforms, each played something different, cacaphony! A bandleader waved a stick, not in time with any of them, in his own world.

  Something like a business district, three- and four-story glass-and-chrome buildings, very familiar to a city girl. Folks in actual suits walked out, caught cabs that winked in and out of existence.

  Through window glare you could see file cabinets, rows of desks, coffee machines. Heaven for some?

  The Secular Center. There it is! Giant stone letters over an arched doorway, older than the everything else, like some Greek temple, out of place.

  I yell Stop! This is my stop! He ignores me, kept trundling along, smoking and belching, even increased the speed a little.

  What to do? Pull the cord! Yank on it, a bell rang and the cord parted but the bus lurched, the tires squealed, the door jolted open from the violence of the emergency brake.

  I got up, caromed off the railing, stumbled down the steps, barely got out before it ground closed, staggering on the pavement, the bus never really stopping, just rumbled on accelerating, leaving me in a cloud of diesel smoke.

  Coughing, making my way back, the Secular Center is impossible to miss, two blocks.

  Occupies the whole block! Columns and steps, like an old library in a city center of modern crass commercialism. No cabs here, nobody in evidence at all as I approache.

  A discontinuity like the whole building was plonked down on a slab, the pavement changing color, a few inches misaligned. Or is the City misaligned with this part? Don’t think about it.

  Laboring up the steps, too tall, too long, as if made for some ethereal beings, much taller than a mortal. The sound of the city diminished, quiet, the first really reverent place I’d found.

  Through the pillars, across the portico, into a grand hall, the only room here, filled the place.

  A nice lady at a podium in back, a book or tablet in front of her. In a brief robe, like a Greek godess, not really attending to it, gaping, her beautiful body visible.

  Such breasts! A toned torso, a perfect hip, strong lean legs! Bare feet, that's appealing somehow. I approach nervously. Feeling like this lady was so much better that me.

  She looked up, smiled!

  "Welcome! No judgement here, honey. No shame, no guilt. You can say anything, do anything that you feel the need to."

  I felt that like a drug, like a drink of cool water after a long march in a desert.

  "I...I don't know how this works." Felt suddenly foolish, like I didn't belong here. I didn’t.

  "Start by telling me about yourself?" The lady took my hand, turned it, admired the brand. Smiled a neutral smile. No judgement.

  "I...lived a selfish life. Got sick, couldn't do anything for a while, good or bad, ended up here. Then I went to a place, did something with an elf, something exciting! Dangerous. Woke up with this. Can you remove it?"

  Nervously, shamefaced, unworthy to even ask.

  "No.” and I feel momentary panic.

  “But you can. You are responsible for yourself. If you want it gone, we can arrange a visitation. If you persist in it, control your own emotions, are responsible for your own behavior, complete the task well, then anything is possible. Purification. Redemption."

  Desire, like a pulse. The lady saw, smiled her warmest smile, stroked her book with one delicately poised finger, scrolled. Considered, kept scrolling, like she was looking for a particular entry.

  There.

  "I have just the thing. You'll have to do things, hard things, hard for you. When you've completed your task, you'll return, refreshed. Renewed."

  "How will I know? When I've completed it? How to return?"

  "That part is easy. Just do what you know is right, help where you can, make a difference. You'll know when it happens. Then you'll simply return."

  OK, I could do that. Resolved, straightened my back, curious now, wanting this.

  "What do I do? Save a life? Help the poor? Find true love?"

  The lady nodded, glad to see me on board now, somehow knew I would agree.

  "This one is quite simple. There's a girl, simple and pure. She has killed someone. Find her, help her understand what she's done."

  Confused. "That's it? Help her understand?"

  Nod, yes! "That's all there ever is to it. All the chants and rituals, the rules and admonitions, the threats and promises, it's all theatre. At the core, there's understanding."

  Didn't understand that, but no matter. "So I find this girl, tell her what she's done? Punish her?"

  No! "She knows what she's done. You don't punish her; she's already punishing herself.

  “Your part is just to listen, mostly. Offer her a path, one she already knows she should be on. Hold her hand while she takes the first steps."

  Wow! This was a peach of an assignment. Just play big sister to some murderous twat, lay it out for her and shazam! I’d be off the hook.

  "I'm in! Where do I go? Do I need to get changed?"

  A big smile. "We take care of all that. You see that door? Just go through and you'll be on your way."

  Behind the podium, I hadn't seen, my attention had been on the beautiful lady with the superb tits, back there was a little door. I’d have to duck!

  Old, old, stone like everything here, ordinary, unadorned. No panel, open but light behind, too bright to see much, like bright daylight.

  "OK. I'll be right back!" Impulsively I leaned across the podium, took the lady's face in two hands, kissed her. Really kissed her! I could do anything here, whatever I wanted, right? This was what I wanted.

  Felt her responding, warm and accepting. A little tongue! A minx? Before I was quite done the lady broke off, stepped back, with one arm wide ushered me to the door, robe completely open now, off her shoulders, completely revealed. Beautiful! Perfect!

  Shoulders, face flushed a little, her nipples stiff, responding to the embrace.

  "We can continue this later" and the lady actually blushed, nodded once, quickly. Waited, actually looked eager, tilted her head to the door again.

  I strode to the door, ducked through.

  Next: A new, old profession