“Want to go for a walk?” C.W. came into where
I was reading. He had assumed what is rapidly becoming his favorite shape, the
Galilean.
“Not with you looking like that,” I said, “you know how much
road-rage you cause in the South.”
“We’ll stay off the main roads,” he said. “Besides, I have a
problem.”
“You have a problem? How can the savior of humankind have
problems? Did your last batch of wine go sour?”
“Up yours,” he said. I knew that he was serious.
“Let me get a walking stick.”
“It’s the Falloonian Elders again,” he said once we were out
of earshot from our farmhouse.
“I thought you had soothed things over with them.”
“Oh, this isn’t about that speech I gave at the old-folks
home.”
“The one where you told them they were exceeding expenses
and were going to become expendable?”
He ignored me. “Each day has problems of its own. This is a
new one,” he said. “Well, verily I say unto you that it is a recurring one, but
much more serious. The rain falls on all of us, you know.”
“Yes,” I said, “the just and the unjust.”
“Everyone,” he said, “The tellers of truth and the ones who
know not truth.” He paused, “Although,” he said, “that last bunch has been
getting away with a lot of crap lately.”
“Are we talking politics here?”
He had perseverated on his last thought and ignored me. “The
sun riseth on their evil daily.”
“Is that the problem?”
“No,” he said. “The Elders think I seek to exalt myself. You
know as well as I that I only seek to be humbled.”
I stopped and thought for a few seconds. “Let’s get back to
that,” I said. “Tell me what’s bugging you.”
“I am being persecuted for my righteousness.”
“What righteousness?” I said before I thought. “You know I
catch a lot of grief on account of some of your stunts.”
He turned and glared at me. “Were I not blessed in being a
peacemaker, I would terminate our friendship.” He paused and I could feel him
relaxing, “But,” he said, “I suppose you are also blessed when people insult
you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
I suppressed a groan. “Why don’t you just tell me your
problem?”
“You know I am the truth and reality for you Americans,” he
said. “No one comes to the Elders except through me.”
“So what is the problem?”
“I am being falsely accused of ahmekencheatep.
“Of what?”
“Don’t you remember when I told you that, back on Falloonia
I had wanted to become what we call a “chronicler of imaginary cosmic pathways?”
“Yes,” I said, “our equivalent of a writer of fiction.”
“Close enough,” he said, “someone who binds himself not to
the truth, but to forgetfulness of reality.”
“A writer of fiction.”
 |
| The trick of being a good liar is to have an honest face. - C.W. |
“But not harmful fiction, unlike those who write for that
imitation news channel named after a small furry animal.”
“Okay,” I said. “So why is that a problem? People read real fiction
all the time most would agree that it is good for them.”
He stopped and pulled a small dead branch from a tree. He
thrust it toward me like an attorney producing evidence. “It is not the healthy
who need a doctor,” he said, “but the sick.”
“Elucidate.”
“I’m not sending fiction to the Elders I’m sending truth. The
reason I was created and came into this world is to testify to the truth.
Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“And well they should.”
“The Elders don’t believe me. The say I lie. They say that
an honest alien does no deceive but a false witness—me, they say—pours out
lies.”
“What are they saying you lie about?”
“Only that you American band of homo sapiens has elected a
man as ruler who would start wars causing millions of deaths, would allow the
unhealthy to die, bears false witness hourly, loves riches beyond all things, covets his neighbor’s wife,
rules according to the color of one’s skin, thrives on intemperate speech, promotes
the wicked to violence, mocks the differently abled, enters into divorce—and
you how that gets under my skin—ignores those who mourn, mocks the righteous, and
hates those who are poor in both spirit and riches.”
“I see.”
“Oh,” he said, “and they can’t believe that he hates aliens.
They think we are lovable and have come here to testify to the truth.”
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