Schism

Sunshine and showers the beautiful Indian weathergirl had forecast; he hadn't seen much of the sun, but the showers had been permanent for two solid days. It drummed incessantly upon the corrugated iron that his landlord called a roof, and dripped Chinese torture style through a fissure in his wall, that the landlord called a superficial hairline crack in the plaster.
John Spencer pulled the Weekly Tabernacle off his one armchair and slumped into it. The vision-tube started up automatically and he sighed deeply. He was down on his hours of watching and the vision-tube knew it; if he wasn't careful they would take away his license and that meant no more beautiful Indian weathergirl once a week.
The static cleared and digits flashed up on screen: -6:24. He had to watch another 6 hours and 24 minutes before the end of the week ' he had already received two warnings, a third time and they wouldn't only deprive him of his weather reports but might stop his manna too.
Still, they could make sure he was sitting in his chair with the vision-tube on and volume up, but they couldn't force him to actually eye it.
As the timer shrank to bottom right and began to count down, Spencer reached under his chair and searched for something. The screen cleared. There was a picture of a round debating chamber with the curved wooden benches packed with people shouting and waving bits of paper in the air.
'Jesus, like a bunch of kids,' Spencer said.
'Order. Gentlemen, remember who you are!' the High Prelate shouted, bringing down his mitre hard upon the floor.
Slowly the silence began to spread around the chamber.
'Priest Udo, please continue with your reply; gentlemen, please refrain from interrupting.'
Priest Udo stood just as Spencer found what he was looking for.
'The Augustinians have been the Episcopacy for twelve years; if that isn't a resounding vote of confidence in predestination I don't know what is! The people of this land believe in predestination. Therefore, I can see no reason why the closures should not continue. The economy has taken a downturn and industry must be pruned. The way things are, are the way things are meant to be.'
Spencer flipped open his viz-book and pressed the bookmark button, immediately words began to fill the screen on the left, whilst on the right a series of animated pictures sprang into life.
The High Prelate gestured to Lemuel, leader of the Lutherans.
'High Prelate, gentlemen of the house,' Lemuel began. 'It seems to me that Udo will justify any amount of misery by predestination. He abnegates any responsibility by declaring pre-dest-in-ation. Is it God's will that his people suffer? Is it not our duty to protect our flock and provide for them, rather than let them roam free amongst the wolves of avarice?'
Spencer kept his viz-book ' The Dirty Escapades of the Naughty Nuns of Cologne ' in front of his face. He was at a particularly good bit, where one of the nuns ' Sister Negligee ' was teaching a shepherd boy the right way to confess his sexual sins, which included him putting his head under the Sister's habit and using his tongue in a way the local priest had never taught him.
'The people of this land only follow predestination as long as the market is thriving; now we see a downturn the people will depart the Augustinians in droves.
'Just look at the facts: since the Augustinians took over the Episcopacy the number of people claiming Manna has risen threefold. I put it to Udo that this has nothing to do with predestination but downright incompetent leadership.'
Spencer put down the viz-book and looked at his watch. Shit, if he didn't get a move on he'd miss his Manna signing.
As he stood up the vision-tube went black and displayed a time: -6:04.
Spencer shifted his erection and sighed again.
Outside the brief showers continued to be continual rain, regardless of the beautiful Indian girl's assurances to the contrary. He wondered what her name was; since the Stalking Laws had been introduced, everybody on the vision-tube had been given pseudonyms. The weathergirl's pseudonym was Herbi, but he didn't think she looked like a Herbi.
Spencer pulled up his collar against the wet. He had found an umbrella last week but had been forced to give it to a beggar under the Two Cloaks Rule.
On the corner of St Jude and St Thomas, a group of teenagers were dancing around a car that they had set ablaze. Spencer paused for a while to watch them, enjoying the heat from the flames. As he warmed himself, he heard the ubiquitous swooping noise of air being expelled from vertical engines, and looked up to see an angel coming in to land. The angel scattered debris over the road and whipped up the flames, as it settled to a soft landing on the tarmac. Two saints stepped out; their black uniforms were emblazoned with the badge of St Michael, his foot on Satan's head. Their utility belts were loaded with a nightstick, radio, pocket Bible, silver cross, pepper spray and a Glock 22. They were seriously armed with big white smiles that they flashed indiscriminately at the teenagers.
'Don't you know that you shouldn't burn other people's property?'
The teenagers stopped dancing around the car and massed in front of the saints; some admired the angel, whilst others whistled at the guns in admiration.
'I want to be a saint one day,' one of them said.
'If you want to be a saint then you better stop burning cars.'
'But it doesn't matter what we do, does it? It's already been determined if I'm going to heaven or hell.'
The saints smiled. One said, 'The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.' The other added, 'We shall pray for you.'
As the saints knelt in the gathering puddles, Spencer moved on.
He was late at the Manna Dispensary, but he still had to wait half an hour before being seen.
'Sorry about the wait, some of our staff have suddenly become Adventists and refuse to work Saturdays. OK, so you are¦Spencer, John¦yes, here we are.' She produced a tatty form and passed it over to Spencer. 'Are you prepared to work for God?'
Spencer scribbled his name on the form. 'Yes.'
'Do you believe that man does not live on bread alone?'
'Yes.'
'Thank you, brother. Here is your Manna chit; you cannot cash it on a Sunday and you can only exchange it for food.'
But Spencer was already outside the Manna Dispensary; he had heard the instructions every week for five years.
At the Fargo, he exchanged the chit for tobacco and beer. The sun came out from behind dark clouds; maybe Herbi was right after all. He headed home, thinking he could get in a few hours of Episcopacy watching whilst reading his viz-book, downing some bottles and smoking some rollies.
But on his way home, he saw a commotion outside the Baptist Mall and went to investigate.
There was a severity of saints mingling outside the walkway between God's Own Furniture and The Saviour 7-11; they were attempting to keep the crowd back by asking them to remain outside the mall, but the crowd passed through them like butter through smiles.
Spencer pushed through to the front of the crowd. Where the saints had failed to keep the crowds back the suicide bomber succeeded in keeping people at a healthy distance.
She was dressed in a black t-shirt that was emblazoned with a DK symbol. Wrapped around her waist was a belt packed with dynamite; wires ran from the sticks to a little box which she held in her right hand. The box had a red button on it. Why was it always a red button, Spencer wondered. The saints were talking to her.
'Why do you want to do this?'
'I can't take it anymore.'
'What is wrong?'
'I'm an atheist.'
'God still loves you. He doesn't want you to kill yourself.'
'There is no God.'
'That's why you are in despair. Turn to God and he will heal you.'
'I'm in fucking despair because I'm not allowed to be left in peace.'
'It isn't illegal to be an atheist.'
She laughed, her thumb wobbling over the button. 'Tell that to all the bloody proselytisers who keep knocking at my door! What about my freedom to believe what I want to believe in private? Why do I have to register my atheism?'
Spencer wondered why the girl didn't just lie; he knew many who did. All you had to do was put in your hours watching the Episcopacy and viz-booking the Bible, and they left you alone.
'We can pray for you. We can turn you from your darkness and show you the joy of the light.'
The girl lowered her hand and gazed about her. The people stared back at her with interest. The saints smiled at her.
'You'll pray for me?'
The saints knelt. She smiled. Her thumb slipped from the red button. A saint raised his gun and shot her perfectly through the forehead.
Back in his apartment Spencer switched on the Episcopacy and rolled himself up a smoke. He was practising doing it one-handed, just in case a suicide bomber took off one of his arms. Then, with the Lutherans calling for better health care, he reached under the chair for The Dirty Escapades of the Naughty Nuns of Cologne.
It was darkening outside when he put the viz-book down. He stood up and stretched. The vision-tube displayed -4:58. Good. There was a bang from outside and the sound of raised voices. Spencer went to the window. The window was sticky with passive smoke. A man was outside on the walkway staring in at Spencer. Spencer stared back at him. From the darkening sky an angel hovered, its searchlight scanning the walkway. The man saw it. There was fear in his eyes. He mouthed the words, 'Help me.'
Spencer opened the door to the stranger. The man was small and had an untidy beard.
'Thank you, sir,' he said, in an accent that Spencer could not place. 'They are after me.'
'The saints?'
'Yes.'
Spencer nodded. Now that he had let the man in he wasn't sure what to do. For a few seconds they stared at each other. Spencer became embarrassed. 'Would you like a smoke ' or a beer?'
'I'm a Buddhist.'
Spencer felt as though his heart was being squeezed in a vice. He coughed. 'I've known Buddhists who enjoyed the vices.'
There was the sound of saint boots on the walkway outside; they were knocking on people's doors.
'May I leave through the back?'
Spencer looked down on the man. A Buddhist. 'Sure.'
The man took a step towards the back of the apartment and then paused. He looked up at Spencer. He took a leather thong form around his neck and pressed it into Spencer's hand. 'For thanks. Meditate upon it.'
Then he was gone. Spencer opened his hand and saw the thong held a highly polished dark stone in the shape of the figure 8 on its side, or the infinity symbol ∞.
There were saints upon the stairs and angels flashing their lights across the sky: searching, searching. The boots of the saints were soled in rubber and made a squeaky noise once they became too old. They were on the landing.
Spencer pushed the thong into the back of the vision-tube. The saints were coming; they were at the door. Spencer reached under his sagging armchair and pulled out his favourite viz-book.
'Brother, please open the door.'
Spencer was breathing heavily. He wasn't used to this shit anymore ' the last time he'd been raided was when he was 18 and had been on a paradise trip. Damn, that drug was nothing to what the kids took these days. Yes, the paradise, where did he used to hide that gear?
'Brother, we are going to break down the door. Please stand back.'
'Just a second!'
Spencer grabbed another viz-book, ripped off the cover and did his best to wrap it around The Dirty Escapades of the Naughty Nuns of Cologne.
The door exploded with a sudden pop and four saints appeared through the dust and plaster.
'I told you I was coming,' Spencer said, shrugging.
'Sign here, please,' one of the saints said, pushing a clipboard and pen at Spencer.
It was pretty standard stuff: the saints had given fair warning before damaging property, they had the right to enter any home, they promised not to show any discrimination, any claims against the saints should be made within 48 hours etc etc.
Spencer signed it. Everybody did.
The saints fanned out around the room, examining objects, looking behind and under pieces of furniture.
'Did a man come in here; small, beard.'
All saints were supposed to be equal but there always had to be leaders. This one stood at ease in the middle of the squalid room. He was the one who would ask the questions.
'Yes,' Spencer said.
'Where is he?'
'He went out the back.'
One of the saints picked up the viz-book from the chair. 'The Humour of Jeremiah in Lamentations,' the saint said. 'That's a great read. My thesis at university was on the lost humour of Jeremiah. What do you think of it?'
'I find it incredibly exciting,' Spencer said.
The saint turned the viz-book over in the palm of his hand.
Please, God, forgive me my sins, Spencer thought, and don't let the saint open the viz-book. Spencer was desperately trying to remember the current punishment for owning viz-porn (he thought it might be a month on St Kilda), when another saint held up a photograph.
'She's very pretty, brother.'
The saint who was holding the concealed Dirty Escapades of the Naughty Nuns of Cologne put it down and looked at the picture.
'A very pretty sister.'
'My wife.'
The saint who was too good to search, said, 'We have no record of a woman living here.'
'She's dead.'
'Better to be with Jesus, by far, but I am sorry for your loss. When did she pass on?'
'She was in the Martyrs; she died in the Buddhist war.'
The saint was putting the frame back on the shelf, but it slipped and it fell to the floor, the glass shattering into a cobweb of pieces.
'The man who came through here, he was a Buddhist.'
Spencer looked at the shattered frame.
'Did he say anything to you?'
'He asked the way out the back.'
'And you told him?'
'Be kind to the alien, for you were aliens in Egypt.'
'Did he say anything else to you, or give you anything?'
'No. What is it he has done?'
'The report is at the station for all to read.'
Spencer nodded. Yes, the report would be there, but they would never tell him the name of the man, so it would be impossible to find. He knew that freedom of information gave every citizen the right to see 99% of all official documents, but only if they were willing to search through millions of documents in the hope that what they were looking for would be there.
The saints filed through the apartment in the trail of the Buddhist. Spencer wondered if Buddhists left detectable trails, like the slime of slugs. The last saint told Spencer that they would need him to make a statement at the station. The angels whirred away and darkness and silence descended once more on St Stephen Towers. Spencer was left alone, with the small pieces of the broken glass glinting at him like diamonds.

He placed the photograph of his wife next to the Day-Glo statue of the Japanese (Virtual) Superstar, Rei Asuka (beachwear version). He lit a small blue candle and turned down the light switch.
He was surprised, as he nearly always was, by how beautiful she had been. It wasn't just because he had loved her, everybody thought she was really good looking, could have been a model if such a thing still existed. He thought about the models in his viz-book (those cod nuns who must be middle-aged now) and wondered if they had ever been loved for who they were and not just because of their pneumatic fleshy qualities.
He had been loved. He had known love. It was a mixture of the love that Paul talked about in I Corinthians, and the love that had driven Tristan and Iseult into death. All great romances end in tragedy. It was Spencer's tragedy to be the one left behind.
She had joined up in the first six months of the war; he had been in a protected industry. When so many had died that the industry became unprotected he was bared from joining up due to the Spousal Law. By the time she was dead the war was almost over, and with her passing he lost all will to fight. They told him that she was a martyr, but that meant nothing; the only woman who had ever loved him had left the earth.
The darkness settled around the flickering candle. He stared at the picture of his once upon a time wife for a full hour, until her image became nothing but black and white shapes, set in the blackness of his room; a swirling nebula in the vastness of space.
At the end of the hour, which had become out of time for him, he felt his mind slowly shifting, as though he had been hanging upside down and was gradually being turned the right way up. His hand was in a fist and within the fist was the symbol the Buddhist had left, and within his skin was the imprint of the interlocking symbol.
He felt like he had awoken from the sweetest dream, and for a full minute he felt as though he was in exactly the right place and the right time.
He hung the symbol by its cord above his bed. He made himself food of pancakes and bananas. He sat watching the vision-tube for a while; a debate about the age a child is deemed to be aware of its sin. But Spencer found himself transfixed by the timer in the bottom right hand corner that was counting down the hours and minutes that remained of his watching quota that week. The numbers hypnotised him.
When he turned the tube off there were still three hours left to watch.
He found himself attracted to the darkness more and more; he knew that meditating on anything other than prescribed icons (available at licensed chemists only) was illegal, but he didn't really see it as meditation. It was just relaxation, with a little thinking; though the thinking became non-thinking. He had started with the photograph of his wife, then with the ∞ symbol hanging over the picture, but he began to discover that his wife's face intruded too much upon his thoughts and that the ∞ on its own helped to send him to that place where he wanted to be much quicker. He didn't know what to call the place except nowhere: for nothing happened there, there were no thoughts, there was no good or evil, there was no desire, there was no regret; there was no pleasure in being there, but just that feeling of complete peace and centeredness.
One night, early on in his experiments, he had opened up The Dirty Escapades of the Naughty Nuns of Cologne to the page where Sister Cleavage was joined in the shower by Sister Buttox and a loofah. Spencer had wondered if he would be able to transport himself somehow into the escapade. He thought that he might be able to produce a trancelike state in which he would feel as though he was there in the shower; autoeroticism taken to wet dream nirvana. But, just as the photograph had intruded, he found that anything rooted in the material/sensual world hindered his journey into nowhere.
Then, after some time (he wasn't sure how many days, for the longer he spent in nowhere the more he lost track of actual time), he suddenly realised that he couldn't remember the last time he had eyed the viz-porn, nor had he any desire to. All his desire ' though more longing than desire ' was for nowhere.
One day they came to take the vision-tube away. If he wanted it back he had to pay a fine and his daily viewing quota would be increased by 50% for a year. He couldn't remember when he had stopped watching it, and felt no regret as it was unplugged and carted away.
When he ran out of food, he went to sign on for his manna. The clerk had trouble finding his file and told Spencer that, as he hadn't been in for his manna for nearly two months, he would need to complete a new claim form.
Spencer completed the form. He stared at his name, as he had written it, and was fascinated how the pressure of ink, pushed and manoeuvred, had formed into his name. What relationship did the inky scrawl have to him? And as he stared at his name, the ink began to unravel, until it was nothing but a straight line of ink.
On his way home, he cashed in half his manna chit for food and water, and gave the other half to a glazed looking beggar who sat behind a cardboard sign that read: Jesus loves me, do u? As Spencer put the chit in the tobacco tin that overflowed with offerings, he gazed at the message and wondered at its relationship to the down and out. He wondered at the name of the Saviour. But however much he stared at the name, he couldn't make that ink unravel to a straight line.
He found that he could get to Nowhere quicker and stay for longer. He also found that Nowhere was seeping into his world. He could sit for hours, thinking of nothing, needing nothing. He sought out his desires in order to overcome them. He wondered how long he could go without eating. He couldn't remember when he had last smoked, and couldn't understand how he had been addicted to them. He hadn't tasted alcohol in weeks. He wasn't against drinking or smoking, nor was he for them.
In his hand he held the infinity symbol. He stared into Nirvana. He had only had water for the past three days. Nowhere was a deeper, darker black than he had ever known. He could feel the absence of everything, including himself. He was floating in the dark universe. He had no desire for anything. There was not one single thought in his head.
And then there was a sharp beam of light pointing straight at him, like the birth of a sun. It stung his eyes and he raised his hand to protect himself from the glare. He blinked away the distress and became aware of shadows moving around behind the light.
'Do you know where you are, Spencer?'
The voice was calm and slow.
'I guess not nirvana,' Spencer replied, his voice sounding like one who was just waking up.
The shadows shifted around the room; as Spencer's eyes became more accustomed to the light, he could count four, maybe five figures ' androgynous shapes, with only the speaker, identifiable as male.
'You are in Saul Row.'
The words entered Spencer's body like acupuncture needles; Saul Row was the headquarters of the Ghost Force, that branch of the saints that dealt with matters pertaining to national security, blasphemy and treason.
'How did I get here?'
'You came of your own free will. You chose to use the amulet. You chose to meditate upon it. You chose to rid yourself of desire. You chose the negative; the absence of light. You chose to come here.'
'It isn't a negative. There are no negatives or positives. The darkness isn't absence of light, it is just what it is. To be in the darkness is to find liberation.'
There was a stirring of the shadows.
'Has does the darkness bring liberation?'
'By the destruction of desire. You are emptied out of all lust and need; you experience true understanding.'
'Through negatives, through emptiness. What is there to understand when you are a hollow shell, a bell without a clapper?'
'Because we are too defined by our needs; if we remove our desires we strip away the world and reveal the true self.'
'The desires in this world are just a shadow of our true desire: to be with the Lord. That is the only desire we should have, but if we have not that, then we are nothing ' just an empty gourd waiting to be filled with nonsense at best, and evil at worst.'
The shadows murmured, as though in agreement. Spencer lent back into the chair and tried to push his emotions ' fear, anger, hatred ' out through his fingertips. He had a great desire to be back in his apartment and he struggled to quell that feeling; he told himself that his essence was one with the universe and it therefore didn't matter where he physically was: it was all the same.
'What would your wife think if she knew about your conversion to Buddhism?'
Spencer wished he could see the infinity symbol, even though he knew it was just a symbol.
'I don't know enough about Buddhism. I don't know that I am a Buddhist; I just know that in the darkness I found myself.'
The shadow behind the light held out his hand and opened his fingers; the emblem unravelled, dangling in front of the light, casting its shadow directly upon Spencer's forehead.
'Do you know what this symbol is?'
'I believe it represents infinity.'
'That's what I thought to start with, but we asked your friend, the one who gave it to you ' yes, we did catch him ' and he told me it is actually the figure 8. It represents the Noble Eightfold Path, the fourth of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. But you wouldn't know this because you aren't a Buddhist, are you?'
Spencer stared at the symbol.
'I wonder if those men in the Buddhist army, the ones who raped and tortured your wife, understood the Noble Truths, or had they just let the abyss swallow them up like you have.'
Spencer concentrated upon the figure eight, which was slowly turning on the dark thong. Against the bright light it was like a sunspot.
'We helped your friend to extinguish all desire, and achieve nirvana.'
Slowly the figure eight came to a stop. Spencer felt it growing in his mind.
'We can help you to nirvana, or you can accept the light.'
Spencer stared and stared, letting his desires slip from him.
The light was turned out and darkness enveloped him like dark water sluicing through a beached dam. And he realised, in a twin moment of beautiful epiphanies, that he neither grieved for his wife nor remembered what her face looked like.