Chapter Thirteen: WHAT IF?
Sherman Homes bowed low before
God's throne, his deerstalker hat in his hands.
God smiled, "You British!" You can stand up. You don't have
to bow. I would ask you to get in my lap, but it would embarrass you."
"Yes, my Lord." said Homes.
"Ask your question."
"But my Lord don't you already know what I am going to ask?"
"Yes, but this is being televised all over the Great City,
and other people want to experience the historic meeting, too."
"Televised Lord?" Homes asked.
God placed images in Homes's mind of television, everything
from the first shadowy images to the supernatural channels the Great City used.
Homes shuddered. "What an absolutely amazing waste of time!"
God laughed, "You're not the first to make that comment, but
we have a LOT of time to waste, as well as other dimensions you're not ready to
comprehend right now. Ask your question."
"My Lord, I don't want to get on the Multiverse ship. I want
to stay in VR London."
God smiled, "London is going with you, Homes. I wouldn't deny
a Life form its mansion just because I wanted him to travel somewhere."
"You are going to put the entire virtual reality London
aboard the ship?"
"And the rest of virtual reality Victorian Earth too. I
couldn't separate you from your deeply loved environment. I Am a kind God, when
I can afford the luxury of being kind."
"Won't that make the ship kind of crowded, and won't
everybody else find it upsetting to have to live in Victorian London? I am quite
sure that First Officer fellow wouldn't find that to his liking."
"They won't have to, Sherman. I'm putting their environments
aboard too, their entire universe as they understand it and believe it to be."
"How, Lord?"
It is a VR environment, Sherman. In my Father's house are
many mansions. You are only now beginning to comprehend how many."
"I'll never run out of things to think about! Lord you are
amazing! I certainly won't need cocaine any more."
"We'll stage a few murders for you to solve, too. They won't
be real murders, of course. But We'll do our best to keep you intrigued until
such time as you learn to occupy your mind with other pursuits."
"For me, what other pursuits could there be?" I kind of wish
my arch enemy the Professor were up here. I know, Lord, that's evil of me, but I
miss having any kind of a real challenge."
"Sherman a being does not have to be truly evil to enjoy
opposing you if the murders aren't real and the crimes aren't real. Tubal-cain,
several fans, and Sir Author Konan Royale are working on a Professor for you
right now. But you may find more important things to do. In the rare chance that
the Multiverse crew does find a non ‘I Am' built Multiverse, their thought
processes may be so completely different from Ours, you might spend the rest of
your existence trying to figure them out."
"I wish you could go along."
"That is the one thing I will not do. I Am needed here."
"It's going to be hard to live away from You, my Lord, now
that we have experienced You."
"Yes. Real beings could not manage it at all without going
completely insane. That is why the Multiverse ship is being crewed by fictional
beings."
"When do we leave, Lord?"
God smiled, "When you feel The Call inside of you, like a
baby bird who realizes finally that it can spread its wings and fly, you will up
and go, and no force in the Multiverse can stop you. Look how Humans spread all
over the Multiverse during Day Eight. When they felt The Call to Space, they
went. You will go too."
Homes nodded, "You know, God. I think I would like to sit in
your lap for a while, if you can turn that television device off."
God smiled and waved a hand, and it was done.
Homes exclaimed, "I never dreamed when I was on Earth, that I
would ever sit in the lap of Providence."
God smiled, "You were always in my lap. You just did not
realize it."
Homes leaned back, "I sat down once and calculated the odds.
It is utterly amazing that any one individual being exists, much less a
fictional one. A dinosaur could have decided to snack on mammal one day, instead
of lizard, and even the Human race would not have existed."
"I guided every bite every creature ever took, every step
they stomped, every breath they breathed, if it had anything to do with the
Human race, or any sentient creature, Homes. There was no danger of Humans not
coming into existence."
"Amazing."
"No it's not, Homes. I can multitask, that's all. Your
extraterrestrial friend would understand that. Ask him to explain computers to
you sometime."
"But you are not a computer."
"But I have more computers living inside of me than you could
ever comprehend, and more organic minds too. Anything any computer can do, I can
do and then some."
Shermon Homes nodded. Then he said, "I might as well ask another question while I am at it. Your Son had only one real competition and I kind of wonder what happened to him. "
God sighed. "You of course mean Buddha. He was never my competition though some of his less educated followers thought He was. He said, "I am not a god, but awake." So he never meant to compete with me.
Homes nodded.
Then God sighed. “What happened to Buddha breaks my heart, and you don’t have any comprehension of what that means. You are finite. I am infinite. You have NO idea. Many think I sent him to Hell or destroyed him. I would not have but I didn’t have to. He was a righteous individual and meant Me no harm. So as I do with many who had no chance to accept me in the flesh life, I let Him see me. When He first saw Me he believed in Me as in the John 6:50 clause. some call that the "love at first sight, clause. It goes, “This is the will of my Father that All who see me and believe in me will have eternal life and I will raise them up on the Last Day.” So Buddha has his chance to stay in my Presence. But Sherman, I could never get Buddha to repent of desiring to desire nothing! And I will not break my free will directive so he wasn’t forced to repent. So there he was in this place where all get their desires. And he desired to desire nothing. So then he really did desire nothing. And because then, nothing was what he desired, nothing is what he got. And many of his followers too. They reached their Nirvana, Sherman. It is I and the rest of us who suffer now without their presence. It is good not to desire sin, but I wanted them to desire good, Sherman. But they would not, not even good.
There were tears in God's eyes. "I meant ALL of my children and grandchildren to exist forever and ever, close to my heart!"
Sherman Homes swallowed a lump in his throat.
Then he asked, "How did I come into existence, God? I was told a person has
to accept Christ in order to make it to Heaven. I never did. I believed in
Providence and that was all."
God smiled, "A fan of yours wrote an amateur piece where you
did accept Christ. He was a sad fellow, lots of health problems; major
depression and chronic pain and exhaustion. It was the only thing he ever did in
his life that had any permanent effect upon eternity. Because it was a n amateur
piece, not done by Royale, and not even fan-published, you don't remember your
conversion, but we used it anyway to get you up here."
"Astounding!"
"And now that fellow goes everywhere in Heaven bragging he
rescued Sherman Homes from oblivion!"
Grandparent and Grandchild laughed.
"Will I feel The Call soon?" Sherman asked.
"Soon."
And it was a glorious day when it came.
Noah's animals entering the Ark had nothing on the scene of a
multitude of fictional creatures from every place in the Multiverse entering one
huge rainbow glowing ship. They came from everywhere, humanoids and felinoids,
and ursinoids and caninoids. There were elephant like creatures, and things as
small as proto-viruses. They walked, and ran, and hopped and swam, and flew, and
floated and teleported. They squeaked and squawked, and roared and talked, and
they all understood each other.
It took one hundred millennia loading The ship, this great
enterprise that God had built, and when it was loaded God shut the door, and the
beautiful bird took off.
Everyone that did not go, all the beings directly created by
God, and the computer programs that did not count as fictional characters,
watched it leave. This took forever, or no time at all, relatively speaking.
The party was over, the ship was gone, a multitude of newly
made friends now gone. There was a sadness to the Multiverse for a few days.
Even in Heaven there are tears, for without tears there can be no laughter.
But God wipes every one off the faces of those that shed
them.
Fireflower shed no tears but he missed them. He floated
comfortably, sitting on nothing, staring at the supervoid. Creator and creature
stood watching the nothingness, wondering, contemplating the possibilities.
God's presence was sweeter than honey, warmer than sunlight,
more needed than life itself. Fireflower's heart was heavy.
"We still don't have them now, Lord," he commented sadly.
They are just as gone now, as they were before they were edited into existence."
God smiled and hugged His angel close. "Tubal-cain can select
tape them again and again. He can make as many copies as we need."
He continued to hug Fireflower. "I plan to do it again and
again, Fireflower. I Am going to make as many copies of that Multiverse ship as
I need, and I Am going to send out as many fictional characters as I need. I
need to know, Fireflower. I need to know!"
"That you are the only one Papa God?"
"Or that I Am not."
They sat there for a few eternities, thinking about THAT.
"What if we have neighbors, Fireflower, and they are mean and
nasty?"
"What if, God?"
"We've experienced the Fall, seen Satan's wrath. It has
toughened us. We can handle it."
"Yes, Papa."
"What if we find our neighbors are in desperate need?
Fireflower, We can handle that, too. We have suffered so much; all of us so
much! We have learned compassion and know how to reach out to those others if
there are any and they need Our help."
"What if the next Multiverse over is filled with those
strange and different from ourselves? I have created a Multiverse full of all
that is strange and different, and We have learned to love one another. We can
cope with our neighbors if they are strange and different."
"Yes, Papa."
"I have tried to prepare this Multiverse for whatever may
come our way."
Fireflower asked, "But what if we are alone?"
God hugged His angel close, "We are never alone, Fireflower.
We have each other."
Fireflower relaxed into God's
arms and hugged Him back. "Maybe they will be good too, Papa, and we'll all get
together and have a big party for the rest of forever, like it was in the old
days, before the Fall."
"Maybe, little one. Maybe." God tousled Fireflower's already
rumpled hair and sent him on his way.
God continued to stare at the super-void. "Maybe." He said.
"Maybe."
And God's laughter roared like thunder and church bells
throughout the entire Multiverse.