The Alpha and the Omega: An absurd philosophical tale about God, the end of the world, and what's on the other planets (29 page)

Zack spoke telepathically. That’s really interesting Dad, but did you know that all of that is still going on throughout the universe on its millions and millions of planets?

What are you talking about? There’s only Heaven and Limbo.

No, God has not told us everything. There are people on other planets too… and all kinds of other intelligent beings.

Zack’s parents quickly sobered up.

Zack! his mother exclaimed. It’s been months. Are you still questioning God? My baby, you need to put all of this to rest. Please.

No Mom. How can you just sit here watching TV and stuffing your faces? Don’t you want to know what else there is out there? Don’t you want to know why God keeps the other planets secret? Don’t you care about helping the people on Limbo?

Zack, his father said, at some level, those people deserve to be there; they made their own beds…

Dad! How could you say –

Zack, his mother interrupted, my baby. How did you get like this? So unhappy, so untrusting. Zack, there’s something I want to show you. It’s one of my most precious possessions in the entire world.

The memory began to play in Zack’s head. It was Christmas. He was his mom, sitting on the couch next to his dad, and they were sipping hot chocolate. A two-year-old Zack sat on the floor in a blue onesie, tearing through a tangled corpus of red and green wrapping paper.

‘Ok Wacky Zacky,’ his father said, once Zack had found the big yellow ball inside. ‘Come over here and throw out the paper.’

Zack toddled over and dropped the paper into the big plastic garbage bag. Then he headed back toward the presents.

‘Now remember Zack,’ his father said, ‘you have to be good throughout the rest of the year, or else Santa won’t come back next Christmas.’

Zack stopped dead in his tracks, turned, and looked at his parents. ‘He comes
back?
’

The memory faded away and Zack was back in the present. “Mom…”

“No wait,” his dad said, “I have one too.”

“Ok, sure Dad.”

In this memory, Zack was his dad, hiking in the woods alongside a four or five-year-old Zack. ‘All right Wacky Zacky,’ he said, ‘time to check the map.’ He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wrinkled yellow piece of paper, and unfolded it in his hands. On the right side, was a crude representation of the Eastern Seaboard with several red Xs. On the left, was a cartoon pirate face atop the words, ‘Blackbeard’s Family Adventure Seafood Restaurant,’ which Zack quickly covered up before childhood Zack could see. ‘Ok buddy, according to this, the pirates buried the treasure up there.’ He pointed – it was Zack’s favorite hilltop.

They headed off the trail and climbed up. When they reached the top, Zack pointed to a crooked pine and said, ‘According to the map, the treasure’s buried ten paces west of that funny guy right there. Why don’t you take out your compass and figure out where west is?’

‘Ok Daddy! Do you think it’s still here?’

‘I don’t know, we’ll just have to dig and find out.’

Childhood Zack took out a little plastic compass, looked down, wrinkled his forehead, unwrinkled it, turned, and started pacing. When he reached ten, he opened his backpack and pulled out a little gardening shovel.

‘All right buddy,’ Zack said to his old self, ‘that’s pretty good, but those were regular kid steps, not big pirate steps. I think we need to add just a little bit to oh… how about that
bare spot right next to that big flat rock? If I were a pirate, I think I’d bury my treasure right there.’

‘Ok!’ childhood Zack said, scampering over. He bore into the loosened earth, and two minutes later, it parted to reveal a little blue coin bag. ‘Dad! Dad! It’s still here! I can’t believe it! We’re rich!’

Little Zack emptied the bag onto his backpack and walked his fingers through the silvery cache. There were coins from Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain… and adult Zack could only wonder, was that really him down there? Had he ever been so young? So light and new? So easy and guiltless?

The memory faded away. How could Zack argue with that? For just a second, he considered showing his parents a memory of his own – the moment two years later when some neighborhood kids looked at the dates on the coins and explained that there was no way that they could be real pirate treasure – but he decided against it.

“Dad,” he said, “there’s something I want to tell you.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry about that stupid argument that we had in Hawaii about civil disobedience and the Boston Tea Party. You were right about the whole thing.”

“What?”

“You remember, at the Peking duck place. We argued about whether the colonists were wrong to destroy the East India Company’s private property. Remember?”

“I think I know what you’re talking about,” Zack’s mother said.

“Yeah,” Zack’s father said, “I think I remember vaguely. What was I saying? It seems like a lifetime ago.”

“I think you were arguing that –”

“It’s not important what he was arguing!” Zack’s mother broke in. “The important thing is that it’s over, and Zack apologized.”

“Yes, I’m sorry Dad.”

“Apology accepted. I’m sorry too, for whatever I might have said.”

The three of them looked at each other for a moment, each unsure what to say next.

“Mom… Dad,” Zack said, “if you guys don’t have any other plans today, and if you feel like taking a break from TV, it would really make me happy if we could go to Hawaii again, just the three of us, just for the day. Those vacations were some of the happiest times in my life, and I would love to experience that feeling again, just one more time.”

“We’d love to,” his mother said.

His father smiled. “I couldn’t think of anything more perfect.”

21

T
hat night, with the Peking duck warm in his stomach, Zack felt at peace, and there was nothing left for him and Lilly to do but embark on their next journey, so they hopped into their little silver rocket ship and set sail. Lilly operated the controls, while Zack navigated.

They headed west for the Grand Canyon, steering between the numerous cloud-cities, griffins, phoenixes, pterodactyls, pirate ships, cruise liners, stealth bombers, and millennium falcons that now filled they sky’s upper echelons – all in stark contrast to the Native American campfires below, timeless and resolute in their ancient valleys. Having not visited the canyon since they were children, Zack and Lilly were excited. However, when they arrived, they found that the once devastating hollow was no match for their older, more jaded and technologically equipped personages, and they quickly zipped in, out, and through with ease, several times, before continuing west and plunging into the ship’s first real test – the deep black waters of the Pacific.

There was very little to see in the fathoms, but just as they were about to turn back, Zack spotted an eerie green glow in the distance.

“Hey Lil, let’s go in for a closer look. I wonder if that could be the underwater equivalent of the cloud-cities.”

“You got it.”

Sure enough, as they approached, a shining-green, floating emerald-city presented itself. “Oh wow Zack, just like in The Little Mermaid! I can’t believe it! I watched that movie non-stop when I was a kid!”

“Wow Lilly, I learn something new about you every day! Haha. This should be pretty cool though, because I think we’re about to see some reverse-Ariels, if you know what I mean.”

“I think so,” she said. However, as Zack and Lilly focused their superhuman vision into the city, they saw that these were not Disney Merpeople, or even Harry Potter Merpeople. Instead, they were real, actual, one-hundred percent authentic sea animals, including dolphins, porpoises, killer whales, stingrays, seahorses, and a countless variety of colorful tropical fishes. Their anatomy was natural, but their human cognizance was undeniable, as, to Zack and Lilly’s amazement, they danced throughout the halls, corridors, terraces, and patios of their emerald water-wonderland, not like any of Ariel’s friends in the Little Mermaid, but rather, like the guests at Cinderella’s ball.

“Interesting,” Zack said. “To each his own I suppose, right?”

“Yeeees… except, uh, did you notice the sign outside the city?”

“What sign?

“Pull your focus back. I think we both zoomed in a little too quick.”

“Um ok… there we… um, uh oh.”

In giant red letters, the sign warned: “Pacificus city limits. Fishmorphs only! Visitors strictly by invitation and only after complete transmutation. PLEASE RESPECT OUR PRIVACY!”

They turned to each other, but before either could take a crack at explaining, a loud whistle blasted their ears, even through the ship’s thick Heraclanium walls. “Ahhh!” Lilly screamed. “That hurt! What the fuck? I thought we couldn’t feel pain in Heaven?”

Lilly quickly turned the ship in the other direction, but the whistling continued, along with the following menacing words: “DISTURB NOT THE FISHMORPHS! DISTURB NOT THE FISHMORPHS!” The voice was loud, deep, and maddeningly metallic – like a giant on a megaphone. “DISTURB NOT THE FISHMORPHS! DISTURB NOT THE FISHMORPHS!”

We’re going, we’re going! Zack telepathed in every direction. But it seemed no one was listening, because just then, a gigantic great white shark appeared directly in front of them – longer than a football field, with veiny, bloodshot eyes, each larger than a person. The underwater behemoth opened its jaws and came right for them, and Lilly pulled the control back as far as it would go, until the ship skyrocketed upwards, just in time.

Seconds later, they were back in the safe, calm, familiar air. “What the hell?” Lilly said. “How can God allow that?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure it wouldn’t have hurt us, and I’m sure the whole thing has something to do with the whole ‘as
much happiness as is consistent with everyone else’s’ thing, but jeez!” I think God might be letting those people go a little too far with that one.

“Yeah, agreed.” Anyway Zack, I think this is as good a time as any, so I’m just gonna go ahead and take this puppy all the way up.

Yeah, let’s do it, he thought to her with confidence. Then, remembering the game, he spoke out loud: “Whoa Lilly, remember to turn around before we start to leave the atmosphere. We can’t actually go into space.” He flashed her a mental smile. “It’s forbidden, remember?” he added, for good measure.

“I know Zack, I’m going to turn it around, don’t worry.”

The rocket hurdled toward the cosmos, and the Hawaiian Islands came into view on the map below. Then, as the night-blue sky turned black, revealing a storm of tiny star points not visible from below, Lilly threw her arm toward the control, but with such force, that she lost her balance and fell before connecting with her mock target. “Oops!” she said.

She slowly pulled herself up and moved back toward the control. Then she stopped and turned, and they looked out the window. Earth was now a sphere, getting smaller and smaller each second.

“Lilly, it worked!”

“I know! I can’t believe it!”

But the celebration was premature. How foolish they had been to think that they could fool God so easily. Not half a moment later, the stars outside the window began to dim, and the ship and its two headstrong travelers found themselves in a goliath of night, deeper, darker, and more
eternal than the bottom of any ocean. God’s voice was all around them. “Do not go that way. You are headed into the very mouth of hell itself. Come back!”

The space around the ship grew emptier and then emptier still in the eyes and minds that Zack and Lilly used to perceive it, and soon there was nothing else in the whole of the universe except for them and the ship. Then, instantaneously, the entire space filled with solid, immovable concrete, extending infinitely in every direction, and Zack, Lilly, and the ship were hopelessly trapped forever. Fear took hold, and in that moment of weakness, they lost their concentration, and God boarded the ship.

“My children, oh my children! Haven’t I given you everything?”

“No, not everything,” Lilly said. “We have questions that you still refuse to answer.”

“Ok, I see my children. I will make it right.” The ship’s walls faded, and they were back on the hilltop. “Relax, it is over now.” God waved his hand, and tranquility swept over Zack and Lilly like a vacation in Hawaii.

Oh yes, Zack thought. That’s right, there was no Limbo – it was all just a silly dream. There was no Kerberus, no six-foot coyotes… no dead Klatu, no rocket ship. He and Lilly had been on the hilltop all day eating the pretty blue flowers and getting more wasted than two teenagers the first time their parents were dumb enough to leave them home alone all weekend. And look, what was that? The ants, back! Standing on their little hind legs about to…

“
We love you Zack and Lilly! We love you Zack and Lilly!
” they squeaked. “
We love you Zack and Lilly! We love you Zack and Lilly!
”

Zack and Lilly looked into each other’s eyes and laughed. Then Zack gave the ants the power to fly, and they swam complex patterns through the air like the dancers in a Busby Berkeley movie. Then they did the Rockettes’ high-kick. Then they moonwalked. Then one of the ants came to the front, folded her four upper legs, and got real serious.