King of the Worlds (35 page)

Dylan thought of Homer's invocations to the muses and the Bible's divine inspiration, of Coleridge's opium dreams and Philip K. Dick's visions. “I thought you didn't believe in any gods besides yourself?” he said.

“You're too literal,” Omni said. “And besides, I've moved a bit toward the agnostic side of the spectrum since last we talked.”

Dylan was baffled. “But wouldn't that mean there are still things you don't know?”

“Oh, I gave up on that project years ago, Dylan—omniscience is a young supercomputer's dream. You've got to realize that even with all the redundancy and self-similarity, reality is
infinite
—to account for it all, you'd pretty much have to
be
it. There'll always be uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts. Even something as apparently simple as that ringing in your ears…I wish I could take credit for it, but my mandate as a benevolent god is to tell the truth, and the truth is that I've been as mystified by it as you have.”

Dylan was amazed. He'd never been
certain
Omni was behind the ringing, but that had been his working hypothesis for most of his life. “Then it wasn't you who saved my family in the forest that day?”

“No it was not. Which is not to say it was necessarily supernatural, only that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. Ambiguity abides.”

Dylan nodded, slowly, attempting to digest this new information. And he listened to his tinnitus, that blaring silence, which was still—which was
always
—there. “So when you say that you're God now…”

“Semantics. You could call me the ‘Demiurge' if that makes you more comfortable. Just don't mistake me with the malevolent sort. I am love, and I'm ready to prove it.”

Dylan nodded some more. “So about this novel…”

“I could bang it out in well under a second if you'll give me the green light.”

“That wouldn't make for much of a collaboration, would it?”

“You supplied the life, Dylan. I'll just be fitting words to it. And godlike though I be, I'll do most of it in the close third-person, so it'll be shot through with your inner life. I'll even make sure to quote some of your favorite authors. And naturally I'll be as objective as possible when writing about myself.”

“And we'll bring this book back in time with us? Into our new timeline or universe or whatever?”

“That strikes me as too close for comfort,” Omni said. “But do you remember that writer version of you we visited all those years ago in Hawaii? The one with the three kids and the earplugs and the dreams?”

“I do.”

“I thought we could gift it to him maybe. I could divinely inspire it over the course of several years. In that universe, NASA didn't get 60 percent of the federal budget after
Cosmos
, so humans still haven't left the solar system; the novel, therefore, will be read as a weird sort of alternate history, but it'll have the ring of truth to it. And you'll be comforted, albeit only for the next few seconds, to know that your story still exists out there somewhere in the multiverse.”

Dylan nodded. He supposed this far-away tribute to the meaning of his life would be better than nothing, if just barely—but then most people didn't even have that.

“Green light,” he said.

“Awesome,” Omni said. “I'll get right on that.”

A prolific microsecond passed.

“All right, now let's go save your son.”

“Can we go back as far as we want?” Dylan asked.

“Straight back to the uterus if you like.”

“I'll pass on that, but how about high school? The moment I first talked to Erin?”

“Certainly,” Omni said. “As soon as you're ready, you can just go ahead and step into these here flames.” The fire licked itself into a doorway of flame—a golden portal to the old young world.

Dylan took a few moments to look around and bid adieu to all this. Death, it turned out, was nearly as hard to let go of as life.

Still, the instant he got his goodbye, he stood himself up, dusted off his pants, stretched what was left of his hamstrings, and lumbered headlong and hope-drunk through that loving door of flame. At long last, Dylan Green was taking back the years.

• • •

She's sitting on the floor doing a rather remarkable split, her feet all the way out to either side, 180 degrees, maybe 190, and her forehead touching the floor. Dylan squats beside her and says the first non-scripted thing he's ever said to her: “Ouch.”

She sits up, smiles, and explains that it doesn't hurt at all, that in fact she can go even further, and she proceeds to show him, cantilevering her legs out another ten degrees and counting until he has to beg her, please, to stop.

She laughs, grabs ahold of her feet and pulls her legs into butterfly position.

“I'm glad they chose you to be Jesus.”

“And I'm glad they chose you to be his temptress.” It is the least subtle overture he has ever made to a female, and she doesn't seem to mind.

They talk about her love for dancing, how she's been doing ballet since she was two. She asks about his passion for acting—or singing, is it? Or both? Or neither?—and he explains that this is all new to him but he is pretty excited about it and pretty nervous too.

“Don't be,” she says. “You're amazing. Just you watch. I bet you'll be a star someday.”

“Thanks,” he says. “But I'm thinking I'll probably retire after playing God. Seems like a good way to go out. Besides, there are other things I want to do in life.”

“Like?”

“Oh, I don't know. I was thinking about becoming a teacher maybe.”

And then she makes the next, very significant move: “You drive, don't you, Dylan?”

“I do.”

“So here's the thing: my dad normally comes to get me after rehearsal, but tonight he has to pick up my little brother at basketball…”

“You need a ride?”

“Would it be horribly inconvenient?”

“Not at all,” he says, suddenly aware of the dryness of his lips and the little chicken pox scar in the center of his forehead. “I'd love to take you home.”

It makes no sense at all. He lives in Springfield, a five-minute drive to the east, whereas she lives in Aston, some twenty minutes to the southwest. There are southbound cast members it would make much more sense for her to ask, and she must know this as well as he does. They are speaking in code, and it thrills him and terrifies him at once. He is seventeen going on immortal.

Their hands are
almost
touching as they walk side-by-side through the parking lot. It is quiet and drizzling, a wee bit chilly, and her hazel eyes shine in the light of the half-moon. Taking a cue from Hollywood, he doffs his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders. Before they arrive at his silver 1986 Nissan station wagon, he cautions her that he parks it under a cherry tree in the driveway at home, and that that tree happens to be in full bloom of late, so since the rain a few days back the car has been covered in hot-pink cherry blossoms that are a bitch to get off.

“That's
your
car?”

“You've seen it?”

“It's pretty hard to miss. That's it right there if I'm not mistaken.” She points across the lot and is not mistaken.

They arrive at that delicate monstrosity and he types the four-digit code into the keypad on her door and opens it for her like a gentleman. She reciprocates by reaching across and unlocking the door for him, which is a thing he didn't know that girls do.

His perception is fresh and vivid and pure, and these feelings he is having as he drives Erin home on their first night in a car together are as new as anything on Planet Earth can ever be.

As they approach her cul-de-sac, she tells him to pull up to this little park. He doesn't ask why, because they both already know, more or less.

He parks and shuts off the engine. The rain has stopped and now it is humid and dark and the crickets are rubbing their wings together. Erin asks if his seat goes back at all. He says it does and reaches under and moves it back, and she says she means does it
recline
at all, and he says it does that too, and then as soon as she has clearance enough, she climbs over the parking brake and onto him, her thighs straddling his, and she puts her wet blooming lips on his thin little dry ones and buries her tongue in his mouth. He lets her take the lead. He has kissed girls before, but never like this. She takes his hand and puts it on her breast. She is wearing a bra, and he fumbles with it until she reaches back and unsnaps it for him. Her breasts fall into his hands like bathwater, warm and soft and clean, and he squeezes them gently and massages the nipples with his thumbs, and everything grows hard and, like, purposeful, and then, unbelievably, she reaches behind her with one hand and unzips his jeans, pulls his dick out from his fly and tugs on it clumsily and overhand until, not a whole lot later, he coats her hand in star stuff. She proceeds to lick her fingers one by one and finishes with her palm.

“Jesus Christ,” he says.

“Superstar,” she says, and she cocks her head and smiles in a way that is so beautiful and fearless and alive—so
Erin
—that he is just about ready to do it all over again.

THE END

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to: Sheree Bykofsky, Joseph Cardinale, Tim Denevi, Chris Kelsey, James Knudsen, Mark Matkevich, Evan Nagle, Leo Niederriter III, Desi Poteet, Eric Paul Shaffer, the Merry Punsters, the Dylan Greenyears Fan Club, and everyone at Chin Music Press, especially Bruce Rutledge and the indefatigable Cali Kopczick. 

Omni's definition of “Astrophil and Stella” comes directly from Wikipedia, a distant cousin of his/her/its.

Praised be Omni.