The Alpha and the Omega: An absurd philosophical tale about God, the end of the world, and what's on the other planets (13 page)

“Well, perhaps you can make Limbo a better place. You have all of eternity to try. Just realize though that in Limbo you will not have any of the powers that you have here. You will feel pain, and the only thing you can do if things get too difficult is come back to Heaven.”

“What if we die on Limbo?” Zack asked.

“If that happens, you will
automatically
reappear in Heaven. However, although Limbo can deal you no permanent harm, you must both remember that this is no videogame. The people there are very real, and if you do wrong to them, you could lose your place in Heaven. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Lilly said.

“Yes,” Zack said, “but –”

“Good,” said God. He snapped his fingers, and they were standing on a plateau in a red desert wasteland. It looked like the surface of Mars. There were no clouds in the sky, and the sun was gigantic. It was unbearably hot, and Zack and Lilly could feel the sun burning their skin within seconds. “Here.” God gave them each a very light, white cloak for cover. “If you wish to go, I would send you to that village down there.” He pointed, and far off in the distance, Zack and Lilly could see a small patch of green dotted with little orange and red buildings. “I would arm you with the knowledge of the Limbean language, but oddly enough, the people who live in that village know some English words. Makaio taught them.”

“Who’s Makaio?” Lilly asked.

“You will learn more about him there,” God said with a smile. “He started a new religion, Makaism. Father Kai will tell you all about that.”

“Father Kai?” Zack asked.

“He is the current head of the Church. He is very spiritually advanced, so I revealed the existence of Limbo to him just a few days after I brought my kingdom to Earth. He wanted to help the rest of humanity get to Heaven quicker, so I sent him here. On Earth, he was a Buddhist.”

Zack and Lilly looked at each other.

“Now, as I was saying, the Limbeans generally do not accept help from anyone. However, some of them will, on occasion, make exceptions for religious people. That is why you must be a part of the Church in order to help them.”

“Um, who said that we want to help them?” Zack asked.

“We want to help them,” Lilly said.

“I had a feeling,” God said, with a subdued chuckle. “Now, when you are down there, listen closely to Father Kai. You are the only three people from Heaven to have ever descended to Limbo, but eventually more will come. I am going to leave you now in your quarters in the Church. If you want to leave at any time, just telepath it to me, and you will be back in Heaven. Good luck!”

God snapped his fingers again, and Zack and Lilly found themselves in a dark, bare, orange-red, rock-clay room with a bright-red dirt floor. The room was smaller than a prison cell, and the only thing in it besides Zack and Lilly were two body-sized lumps of hay. “I hope those aren’t our beds,” Zack said.

“Hi! I see you’ve found your beds!” an excited voice cried out, announcing Father Kai’s abrupt entrance into the room. “You must be Zack and Lilly.” He wore a plain, white, loosely-flowing robe, and spoke quickly and enthusiastically. “God told me you were coming, and I am thrilled to have you! Right now, it’s just myself and a few villagers, but in time, with your help, there will be more.”

“I hope so,” Lilly said. “We’re happy to join you!”

“Yes, yes. Oh, there’s so much to tell you! Where to start? I know, why don’t I show you around? Come this way.”

They left the room and walked into a short, dark hallway.

“You must please excuse these meager conditions,” Father Kai said, turning left, “but the village is very poor, and we have to make do with what we can. On Earth, my work was so much easier. My village had plentiful food and shared everything with the monastery, but that was there, not here.”

They emerged into a larger, rectangular-shaped room, about the size of a grade-school classroom. It was also plain, except for one important feature: each of the two longer sides had three beautiful stained-glass windows. Their panels were colored with bright blues, greens, whites, and everything in between – and told a complex story of mounting ocean waves, frolicking fishes, and dolphins leaping over palm-covered isles. The windows’ breezy colors and images contrasted sharply with the severe reality of the fiery desert walls encasing them.

“Water is very important to the Limbeans,” Father Kai said. “They believe that Limbo and its moons, its sun, and the stars, all lie submerged in the middle of an infinite black ocean, and that in order to create humanity, God sealed Limbo in a giant glass sphere to keep the water out. They believe that God made holes in the sphere so that just the right amount of water would trickle in as rain, but that the Devil, who absolutely hates water, hid inside the sphere when God sealed it, and is constantly plugging up the holes to keep the rain out. God unplugs the holes, but the Devil is quick, and God cannot open the sphere to get him out because then
too much
water would flow in, and it would destroy all of the villages. Every Limbean believes this. However, only a few Limbeans, all of them living in this village, believe in Makaio.”

“Ah yes,” Zack said. “Who is Makaio?”

“He is the savior of our young religion, Makaism. He was born in this village sometime between seventy and one hundred years ago, during a great rainstorm.”

“That’s a wide range,” Lilly said.

“Well, the villagers do not keep written historical records, and I only just got here myself a little while ago. At any rate, when Makaio was born, in some cosmic mistake, or perhaps as the result of divine will, he could already speak in his own language and had a complete memory of his past life. The villagers who believe in Makaio say that he claimed to have lived on an island called Hawaii.

“Now, at this time, none of the Limbeans had any concept of a blue ocean with islands and an open sky above. So Makaio described it to them, in words and in pictures. He crafted the stained-glass windows, and he told them about the fish and the dolphins, the palm trees and the coconuts, and the magnificent waterfalls endlessly pouring over black volcanic rock in the center of the lush tropical forest. He taught them some of the Hawaiian language, English, and he told them that Hawaii was not just an island, but that it was the greatest possible island that could ever exist. He said that God sent him from Hawaii to tell them that it was there, and that they could be reborn in it after death if they led good lives. He said that if they did not accept his message and continued to live in sin, they would be doomed to live multiple lives on Limbo, again and again, for all of eternity.”

“Interesting,” Zack said. “Is it true? I mean the part about Makaio being from Hawaii? It would have to be right, because how else would he know the name Hawaii?”

“Well, he could have made the name up,” Father Kai said.

“No he couldn’t have. The real Hawaii is just like you described it. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“Hawaii is
real!?
”

“Of course,” Lilly said, “it’s in the middle of the Pacific. It’s a state.”

Father Kai stared blankly.

“In
America
.”

“Ohhhhhhh… ok. I did learn about America, briefly, after the resurrection. You’ll have to excuse my ignorance about the rest though! God must have forgotten to mention this, but I lived my natural life in a monastery in Southern Asia hundreds of years before the resurrection, and I never knew anything about America during that life. Still, I suppose it shouldn’t come as a total shock that Hawaii is real. Based on everything else I’ve learned about God and the world since the resurrection, it seems like most of Makaio’s basic message is true. But wow, still! Have either of you ever been to Hawaii?”

“Yes,” Zack said, “on family vacations.”

“Vacations?” Father Kai asked.

“Yes, my parents and I would hop on a plane once every few years and fly to Hawaii for a week to take a break from work and school.”

“Plaaaane?”

“Uh huh! It was a giant flying machine with jet engines. See, the wings and propellers had a special curve to them like a bird’s wing –”

“Zack, can we get back to Makaio?” Lilly broke in.

“What a wondrous time you both lived in,” Father Kai said. “Did you know that some sacred texts teach that the Buddha could fly?”

“We did,” Lilly said. “It’s really interesting, but before we get too far off track, can you tell us more about Makaio?”

“Of course, sorry to digress. As I was saying, Makaio was attracting a small group of dedicated followers, and when news of this reached the King, he grew very fearful. He sent a small army of riders from the north to destroy the village, but at the last minute, Makaio reversed the course of the village river and summoned a powerful flood that engulfed the riders and their beasts, thus saving the village. Unfortunately, Makaio himself drowned in the flood as well. But his followers were not disheartened, as he had told them beforehand that this would happen, and that someday he would come back to defeat the Devil in an epic battle and cast him out of Limbo forever.”

“Hey Lilly, maybe
you’re
Makaio!” Zack teased.

“Maybe
you’re
Makaio!” she teased back.

“Of course, all of this is coming third-hand,” Father Kai said. “Limbeans live very short lives, and no one who lived during Makaio’s time is still with us.

“Anyway, that is Makaism, and now, if you please, it is time for me to show you the most sacred room in the Church. Come.”

They walked back through the dark hallway toward a very low doorway.

“The main room that we were just in is where we discuss the teachings of Makaio, but in here, you will find something even more divine than the stained-glass windows.”

The room was even smaller than Zack and Lilly’s quarters, and had just barely enough space to embrace Zack, Lilly, Father Kai, and the peculiar slice of God that was the fountain – a simple, everyday implement, fashioned out of ordinary, light-grey concrete, with no ornamentation of any kind, other than the singular line of water that it sent no more than a foot into the air – but which possessed a great secret. “This is the one bit of magic that God has given us here. It is an infinite, everlasting water source for us and all that we invite within these walls. The only catch is the size of the room. Only a few can enter at once, so it would be impossible to use the fountain to provide water for a large population. And, according to what God told me, the magic only works within the confines of this room, so it would be impossible to build any kind of pipe system. Nevertheless, the fountain is a huge boon to this village, and is probably the only reason that anyone still believes in Makaism at all.”

Just then, there was a clamor in the main chamber, and a harsh, masculine voice beckoned them in an ugly accent: “Father Kai, we’re ready!”

“Ah, great, they’re here. Come, and I will introduce you to the flock.” They traveled through the narrow hallway yet again, this time emerging to find four guests from a very foreign world waiting for them.

“First,” Father Kai said, “we have Klatu. He is a cactus farmer, and is the most senior member of the congregation.”

“Hello,” Klatu said gruffly, revealing himself to be the owner of the voice that had called to them, as he stepped forward to shake Zack’s hand. He was tall and heavy set with white hair and a thick white beard, and he shook
Zack’s hand with great force, looking Zack directly in the eye as he did it.

Ok, Zack thought, as he tried to match Klatu’s strength, I guess we do this bullshit here too, as if a strong handshake was actually a sign of character and not something that anyone could do.

“Then we have Kosos. She is married to the village chieftain, Sacat. They have several children, but Sacat does not let her bring them here.”

“Hello,” she said with an artful smile. She was tall and shapely with long brown hair.

Lilly looked at Zack out of the corner of her eye.

“Then we have Sot, the soldier.” Sot lowered his head respectfully. He was tall, well-built, and dressed in iron and animal-hide armor. He carried a sheathed sword at his hilt, and reminded Zack of Roman soldiers he had seen in the movies.

“Finally, we have little Santar, our youngest member.”

“I’m gonna kill my parents!” Santar burst out. He was a small boy, no more than five or six years old, with short, messy, black hair. “I’m gonna bash their brains in. Then I’m gonna kill her husband –” he pointed at Kosos “– and become Chieftain, and kill King Sork, and build a mighty empire to rule over all of Limbo!”

“Santar,” Father Kai said, “I keep telling you, if you keep talking like that, your parents or Sacat are going to kill you in a few years.”

“Don’t you know anything?” Klatu added, in a jokingly serious manner. “If you’re going to try something as stupid as murdering the Chieftain, at least have the sense not to announce it to everyone!”

“Thank you Klatu,” Father Kai said. “Now everyone, this is Zack and Lilly. They, like myself and Makaio, also come from Hawaii.”

“In all truth?” Sot asked. “Tell us about it.”

“Now now,” said Father Kai, “there will be plenty of time for that later. First, let us pray.” Father Kai went back into the hallway, and emerged a minute later with a stack of little red clay cups, which he passed out to the group. Then, one by one, each of the four parishioners went to the fountain, filled his or her cup, and returned. Zack and Lilly followed. Then, everyone except Father Kai, who stood solemnly at the front of the room, sat down cross-legged on the floor with their cups.

“Now then,” Father Kai said. “Hawaii is not just an island, it is the greatest possible island.”

“Hawaii is not just an island, it is the greatest possible island,” the four Limbeans repeated in chorus. Then, each of them carefully turned their cups to the side and poured a little water onto the ground.

“Hawaii is not just an island, it is the greatest possible island,” Father Kai repeated.

“Hawaii is not just an island, it is the greatest possible island,” they sang back, tilting their cups again.

“Hawaii is not just an island, it is the greatest possible island,” Father Kai said a third time.