Page Six: Deity
The character Rex Kingrey had come to Gon about a month
after his best friend Nate’s death, when Danny’s publishing
company had started reprinting Nate’s work. The public seemed to
like an author’s books better after he was dead.
Gon
had always thought that the novel Under the Skies was
probably famous mainly because of this ruthless character, who
killed people in the belief that he was giving them a better
life. “Earth is nothing more but a hell for those who sinned in
the past life,” was what Rex said to explain his crimes. “And
the only easy way out of all the tortures that this life gives
you, is to be killed by a messenger of God, for even God himself
won’t forgive the ones who commit suicide in order escape from
this hell.” Rex believed that God was the one who told him to
kill, “a gift that God was giving to them”.
A
lot of readers wanted Gon to break his ‘one novel per year’
tradition, and give them more of this bizarre character. Gon
never gave in. He wrote not for his audience or money. He wrote
for himself.
Gon
thought about all these things as he walked back home, yet all
thoughts were now disappearing, as he stood once again in front
of his house, the dark-green door greeting him. The door was
unlocked. Lynn never locked doors once she was inside. She was
too trusting of the human race. A few weeks before, she had
moved in with Gon, after his breakdown on the rooftop of the
Empire Hotel. She was worried about him.
“I
don’t really know why I’m here to teach you how to write
stories,” he heard his own voice say, resonating around the
hallways as he stepped into the house. The voice sounded as if
it was coming out of the television speakers. “Considering that
nobody can really teach anybody to be a writer. This isn’t like
football, where you can teach a kid how to catch or throw.
Writing comes from the inside of your soul, an instinct that was
born with you when you first saw the lights of this world,
something that can never go away…”
Gon
said nothing as he leaned on the doorway of the living room,
watching Lynn with undisturbed eyes. “The first step of writing
a story is really simple.” Lynn was sitting with her legs
crossed, as the Gon in the TV continued to give his speech.
“Take a happy and/or normal person, and change his life into the
most miserable one you can think of.” She was wearing nothing
but her pink underwear. She never wore anything when she was at
home. She wasn’t ashamed of the body God had given her.
She
seemed to have sensed his presence, for she turned around and
looked at him.
“Hi.” He smiled
as he said this, her perfume scenting the room.
“Welcome back.” She pointed at the TV. “I didn’t know you did
speeches.”
“It
was a promotional thing,” Gon replied as he let his book bag
drop down onto the floor. “I only did it once.” He paused, as he
stood there, looking at the TV screen.
“Why didn’t you tell me you kept videos of it?”
“I
didn’t. The video is Kara’s.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
Gon just nodded as he picked up the plastic video
case, showing Lynn the inside of it. There was an inscription
there, written on the dried lines of white-out: “Kara
Mesiroiben’s property: Gon, you better not throw this away, or
you’ll regret it for the rest of your loser life!!!” It was a
beautiful handwriting, firm and clean.
“…Treat your characters as real human beings,” the TV went on,
as Gon sat by his desk, getting ready to write again. “For they
may be fictional in our world, but they are as real as ourselves
in their own worlds.” The untitled had now grown to three
hundred and some pages, the ending of it slowly nearing.
Lynn looked out the glass windows, the sun golden once again as
it got ready to go to sleep. “It’s such a nice day out,” she
mumbled, her eyes staring aimlessly at the skies. “Let’s go
outside.”
“But I thought you wanted me to finish the novel.”
“Not anymore.” Lynn turned to look at him, her eyes watching at
him. “Let’s go out, please?”
Gon
just nodded, as his television self raised his microphone, and
spoke for the final time before they closed the TV: “The last
rule for writing a story is: Learn all the rules, and then break
them all…”
* * * * * *
Lynn drove him
to a club named ‘Shooting Stars’, on some far off location that
he knew nothing about. He was thinking about the first time he
dated Kara, as Lynn drove on some weird road that he didn’t know
at all. He was fifteen then, when he was just drafting his
first novel. His parents had always called him a ‘genius’ and
repeated that word even more after he had received university
scholarships from every corner of the nation, after he had
graduated from High School at the age of sixteen. They were
against him though, when he announced that he wanted to write.
They yelled at him for not thinking about his future straight.
“What if you don’t succeed at writing?” his father
had always said. “What if your books don’t sell?”
He would have been lost, if it wasn’t for Kara, if
it wasn’t for her…
Gon
smiled when he saw the name of the club, and wondered how more
coincidences could come later in his life. Maybe that’s why
movies always have those “The events and characters of this
movie are purely fictional” comments at the end, for the world
was just too wide for no coincidences to occur. Gon didn’t
recognize a thing about this place, or the area the club was in.
Lynn must have gone to a lot of places to find this far-off
place. Gon was glad, for the change of scenery was definitely
good. Besides, he was with Lynn, and that’s pretty much all that
mattered to him then. He didn’t care about anything else. Life
will just go on.
“So, why did
you choose pre-med. as your major?” Lynn asked now, as they sat
at a small square glass table, glasses of various alcoholic
mixes stood before them.
“It
was my parents’ decision,” Gon said. He was drinking something
that tasted like lemon-flavored vodka. “They always wanted me to
get a ‘real job’. It was the only logical thing for me to do
anyway. I had to put my life together somehow. I kind of just
drifted around for a year after Kara died…”
“She must have meant a lot to you…” Lynn paused, as if she were
sad. Gon couldn’t tell what she was really feeling with the
club’s dancing rainbow lights. “How did you guys meet?”
“She had track practice, and I was just passing by on my way
home. She bet me to take her out, if she could jump above my
height.”
“Did she do it?”
Gon
shook his head, a smile stealing onto his face. “No, she didn’t.
But we still went out on a date anyway, because I wanted the
same thing as she did when I won the bet.”
Lynn rested her chin on her hands, her long dark hair covering
one of her eyes. “Was she like, the girl of your dreams?”
Gon
shook his head again. “No, she was way too different from my
dream girl. Yet I loved her still with all of my heart. I didn’t
really care if she was my dream girl or not… I just wanted to be
with her…”
They were both silent for a while, as Lynn stared lovingly at
him. “Do you think that people can change their own fate?”
“Well,” Gon paused as he thought about it. “We should be. We’re
not characters manipulated by some God, we have our own desires
and dreams…”
“Speaking of God,” Lynn interrupted him. “Would you consider
what He did with the Virgin Mary incest?”
“What?” Gon was so surprised by the question, that he almost
spit out what he was drinking. “What did you say?”
“I
mean, God is the one who created this world and its people,
right? And he’s the father of us all. So, I was just thinking,
wouldn’t it be considered incest, considering that the Virgin
Mary conceived a child with her own Father?”
“Good point,” Gon answered as he drank some more of the mixtures
in front of him. “I never thought about it that way.”
As
she slowly got up, Lynn just nodded. “I’ll be back. I’m just
going to the restroom.”
“Okay,” Gon replied as he watched her go. Lynn mixed in with the
evening crowd, her figure distinguished no more from the
thousands of colors in the crowd. He didn’t notice the man then,
he didn’t even bother looking at him, as the man walked slowly,
alone, into the middle of the dancing crowd. It wasn’t until the
screams resonated in the small club, that Gon got a good look at
him.
“God is dead!” The man screamed as his pistol shot randomly on
the dance floor, wounded people falling, nobody caring about
them enough to help them. “God is dead!”
Gon
felt cold sweat slide down his cheeks, as he looked around in
confusion, the man with the long jacket still shooting around,
not caring about the lives that he took, reloading his gun every
time it ran out. More then ten bodies now lay on the floor, and
the ones who were alive were shocked in panic, stampeding,
trying to escape from the bullets that searched for a victim to
kill. The exits were now cramped, too many people trying to get
out, some failing and falling, stomped to death by the thousands
of feet that stepped on them, a death worse than the ones shot
by the killer. Mania, fear, no control. The music now replaced
by the screamings, the dances turned into runnings for the exit,
runnings for escape, to save their petty little lives. The
people being stumped to death were no longer people to the
panicking crowd, but just plain obstacles for them to go over,
just something that stood in their way toward the exit.
This felt too
familiar to Gon, as if he had seen this all before somewhere.
The club, the shooting, Lynn…
Before Gon knew it, his body had gotten out of the seat with a
mind of its own, walking slowly toward the mad shooter. Gon
didn’t know why he was walking suicidally toward the killer, and
he didn’t know how to stop himself either. The shooter was
pointing frantically in every direction, yet Gon was able to
walk unspotted to where the killer was, until he was just a
couple of feet away from him.
“Stop, you mother…” The killer stopped his sentence abruptly, as
he saw Gon, his hands now shaking uncontrollably, as he let out
a breathless moan of fear. “Jesus… There really is a God…”
Gon
felt scared, yet he did not shiver. He couldn’t even move. “You
didn’t even give me a fucking name!” The killer now screamed
angrily, as he pointed the gun muzzle at Gon, tears running out
of his eyes. “You didn’t even care enough to give me a name!”
As
the gun was pointed at him, Gon didn’t even budge a nanometer.
He was standing still in his place, in either shock or extreme
fear. Gon could only stare blankly at the killer, his vocal
cords not even responding to his commands. When he saw Gon’s
response, the killer cried loudly, the gun now shaking along
with his body. Gon saw the tears dripping down onto the floor,
the many tears that rolled off the man’s eyes. The gun now moved
toward the killer’s head, the muzzle digging itself into his
dirty red hair. He smiled as he did this, his eyes no longer
alive. “How do we pray, in order to feel alive?”
The gun went off as soon as the killer finished
saying those words. Gon felt the warm blood splatter onto his
face, yet he did not move. He didn’t even blink, as he blankly
watched the cadaver fall down onto the floor, the loud thud as
the skull cracked under the rainbow lights. |
