The Alpha and the Omega: An absurd philosophical tale about God, the end of the world, and what's on the other planets (14 page)

“Hawaii is not just an island, it is the greatest possible island.” This time Zack and Lilly said it too.

“Aloha,” Father Kai said.

“Aloha,” the congregation repeated.

“Now then, let us have the cacti,” Father Kai said.

Klatu reached into a tattered cloth bag and pulled out several pieces of dark-green, mushy cactus. The four Limbeans quickly passed it around and began de-needling it, licking their lips.

“We better eat some too,” Zack whispered to Lilly, “or we’ll appear rude.” Zack and Lilly dug in with the others, and it was the most disgusting thing they had ever tasted.

“It tastes like what garbage smells like,” Lilly whispered to Zack.

“Big smiles,” Zack whispered back.

“Yum!” Lilly said. “Thank you Klatu.”

“Don’t you ever take any from me,” he responded, with a veiled aggression that seemed completely uncalled for to Zack and Lilly. “I swear to Makaio. I poison some of them, and only I know which ones.” He nodded assertively and with great self-satisfaction. “Only after a customer pays do I pull out the safe cacti for him, and if anyone tries to steal any…” He slid his hand across his neck as if he was slitting his own throat.

“Excuse me,” Zack said delicately, “but what if you make a mistake and give someone the wrong one?”

“Well, then people will stop buying cacti from me, and I will go out of business.”

“See,” Zack said, turning to Lilly, “the free-market in action!”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Klatu, in Hawaii, you would never be able to do that. The… er… King… forces all of the farmers to sell only non-poisoned food.”

“Why would he do that?” Klatu asked.

“So that people don’t have to worry about whether they will drop dead from eating a piece of cactus,” she said.

“Why would the King care?” Klatu asked.

“Because,” said Sot, “if someone dies, that’s one less soldier to fight for him.”

“Yes,” Lilly said, “that’s true. But it’s also because it is right. People need to be safe.”

“Because then they’ll want to pay the King higher taxes?” Kosos asked.

“In a way,” Zack said, with an ironic smile.

Lilly poked him in the stomach.

“But how are the farmers supposed to keep people from stealing?” Klatu pressed.

“The King does it,” Lilly said. “If he catches someone stealing, he locks them up in his dungeon, and if the farmers catch someone stealing, they can go to the King and ask him to force the thief to give their property back or pay for it.”

“This sounds like an awfully meddlesome King,” Klatu said.

Zack smiled at Lilly.

“Yeah, how’s he supposed to focus on conquering other kingdoms when he’s doing all of that other stuff?” Sot chimed in.

“He’s not supposed to be conquering other kingdoms,” Lilly started. But before she could complete her thought, a loud, ghostly howl, distinctly canine in nature, seeped into their sanctuary from somewhere outside.

“Uh oh,” Father Kai said. “That must be a coyote.”

“Coyote?” Zack asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “Sot, you better go stand watch.”

Sot nodded and left the room.

Then Father Kai turned back to Zack and Lilly. “When you hear that sound, take it very seriously. These coyotes are as big as horses and they love human flesh.”

Zack was suddenly very grateful that he and Lilly could go back to Heaven at any time. He looked at her and could tell that she was thinking the exact same thing.

“Ok,” Father Kai said, resuming the service. “I think it would be best if we tried something a little easier than food-safety laws. Forget about the Hawaiian King for now, and instead, imagine this: you are on a deserted road several hours away from the village, and you see a fellow villager lying on the ground about to die of dehydration. You know him from the village, but you are not very closely related and do not do any business with him. You have a choice. You could easily kill him and take his coin purse. However, if you wanted, you could also easily share your water with him and help him walk the rest of the way back to the village. Now, I would submit to you, that a good Makain… a Makain
that wants to hopefully make it to Hawaii someday
, would do the right thing and help the injured villager. Who can tell me why?”

Klatu spoke first. “If you help him, then maybe someday the situation will be reversed, and he will help you.”

“Very good,” Father Kai said.

“That’s craaaaazy!” Santar roared, as if pretending to be a lion. “How do you know he’s going to help you later? Why wouldn’t he just kill you and take your money? First you help him, like a sucker, and then boom!” He clapped his hands loudly. “He’s got you! That’s what I’d do!”

“Because,” Kosos said, “when you’re lying there injured, he’ll remember what you did for him, and he’ll know that you would probably help him again in the future. By saving you, he’s got one more friend in the world.”

“
Very
good,” Father Kai said. “Now, let’s change the example. Let’s say that everything is the same, but this time, the injured traveler is from a different village, and you’ll never see him again –”

“Wait, I don’t get the first example!” Santar shouted, far too close to Zack’s ear. “My dad says that all of this helping-people church stuff isn’t natural. He says it’s
funny
. He said that fighting is the natural way of the world, and if you look at animals, they all fight, and the weakest ones die out, and the strongest ones live, and that’s the way it works. He said if we stop fighting, we’ll all get wimpy, and another village will take us over.”

“Actually Santar, that’s not entirely true,” Zack said. “Some animals actually help each other.”

“You mean like the golligans?” Klatu asked.

“Golligans?”

“Yes,” Klatu said. “They are little lizard creatures that plague our cactus crops. They live in holes in the ground and pop out when no one is looking, and in order to reach the higher parts of the cacti, they take turns climbing on top of each other in clumsy columns and pyramids.”

“Hmmm,” Zack said, “I was going to talk about ants, but I suppose that’s a pretty good example too.”

“Golligans and ants are wimpy!” Santar shouted. “I don’t want to be an ant! I want to step on them!” He stood up. “Ha!” He stamped his right foot down. “Ha!” He stamped his left foot down.

However, before the rampage could go any further, Sot called to them from outside, interrupting: “I spotted the coyote! Way out there! A little grey dot on the horizon…”

The other three Limbeans rushed out the door, leaving Zack and Lilly alone with Father Kai. “You must be patient with little Santar,” he said to them. “God told me that on Earth, he was a very prominent American politician.”

14

O
ver the coming weeks, Zack and Lilly spent more time on Limbo teaching the congregation than even Father Kai, who had taken a keen interest in studying the histories of the world’s religions in Heaven’s library. Even so, when Lilly would suffer it, Zack would occasionally steal breaks in Heaven as well, zipping off to such exotic and feral grounds as the Galapagos Islands, the Serengeti plains, and the jungles of Indonesia to examine the living relics of the natural, pre-apocalyptic world. On these excursions, he experienced many spectacular scenes, sounds, and species, but somehow, nothing could beat his favorite hilltop, and this was usually where Lilly found him.

“Oh good Zack, there you are. I need you back on Limbo.”

“Oh jeez Lil, can’t it wait a little? One more hour, please.” Zack thought it ironic that he worked longer hours in the days after God than in the days before.

“
Oh jeez Zack
,” she mocked. “You’ve already been gone a bunch of hours. And right now we need every strong-bodied man down there.” She hoped that the compliment
would get him moving. “We’ve got a new construction project.”

“You’ve got Lucky down there now, he’s strong.”

“We need you too.”

“Ok, but can I ask you a question first?”

“Sure.”

“I was just thinking about something. Do you remember New Year’s Eve 1999?”

“Yes, I was in college. Er… well, home from college, on Christmas break.”

“Yeah, and do you remember how a lot of people thought the world was going to end?”

“Well, not
a lot
of people. But yeah, I remember.”

“Well did you hope that something would happen? You know, when the ball dropped, and the clock hit 12:00? I mean, I know we were both atheists, but secretly, in the back of your mind, didn’t you hope that something would happen? Even if it was the actual
end
? Just because then it would show that there was a meaning to everything?

“Because I did, even despite my atheism. And I feel like a lot of other people did too. I don’t know. I don’t know what my point is, but I just think it’s interesting… that’s all.”

“Hmmm. That is interesting, but I’m going to have to confess something and tell you that I was totally hammered that night and probably couldn’t even do the countdown from ten to one, let alone contemplate the meaning of life. So that’s a big negatory on sharing your secret hope in the world going down in flames! But anyhow… Socrates… forget about that for the moment. We’ve got work to do!”

Zack sighed. “What about the other volunteers you found recently? Didn’t you get like a dozen new people?”

“Yeah, but most of them aren’t very good. They come down for like two hours, and then I don’t see them again for a week. I’m not even sure their help is worth the cacti they eat!

“The whole thing reminds me of the
pro bono
cases that I did at that private firm. Most of the other lawyers didn’t do any real work; they couldn’t give two shits about non-paying clients. They would just take those cases to look good, and then I would get stuck doing everything!”

“Yeah… ok. I hear what you’re saying, but Lilly, you have to give the volunteers on Limbo a break. They want to spend time with their friends and families. They worked hard their entire lives, and they’ve earned the right to relax a little in Heaven.

“You know, now that I think of it, it’s kind of like the bankers and traders that you always criticize. I mean, I don’t know about those people you worked with, but most people that I knew before Heaven who were cheap with their time or money were only like that because they put everything they had into their families. Only a very small percentage of people were truly greedy, you know? Like where they had tons of money and easy lives and they could’ve done a lot more but didn’t.”

“I know, you’re right,” Lilly said, making a rare concession, “but it’s a real shame. There are thousands of villages all across Limbo, and if we had more volunteers, we could open up churches in all of them. But as it is, we barely have enough to run one.”

“Oh how the mighty have fallen! I never thought I would see the day – an atheist complaining that there aren’t enough churches!”

“Heh, right. But you know this is important. We’re saving these people from an eternity in hell. It’s far better than anything I was ever able to do in my previous life as a lawyer.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They each waited for the other to add something, but neither did.

“Anyway Mister,” Lilly said, “it’s time to get moving. You’ve distracted me long enough!”

Zack knew that further resistance was futile. “Ok, ok. So what’s this new project? More quarters for volunteers? A city wall?”

“No.” Her eyes light up. “A great hall!”

“Huh?”

“You’ll see. I’ll explain everything when we get there.”

“Ok, just one thing first. Have you noticed all the ants around here lately? I think I might have helped them a little too much with my tree and all.”

“Ewww,” Lilly said, looking down. There were hundreds of them.

“Ok queen, where are you?” Zack closed his eyes. “Ah, found her! Let the queen’s reproduction be limited so that she only produces enough eggs to keep the population where it was before I gave the ants their enhancements. There, that should do it.”

Back on Limbo, the congregation was astir. “Zack,” Father Kai said, “Lilly has come up with a brilliant idea! Just brilliant!”

Lilly beamed. “Come here,” she said, leading him around to the back side of the Church.

There, under Lucky’s direction, some villagers were constructing three stone walls, which, with the Church’s back wall, formed the beginnings of a new, longer, rectangular building.

“Oh, great,” Zack said, attempting excitement.

“Don’t you get it?” Lilly asked.

“What? It’s a new building?”

“No, dummy. What’s behind that Church wall?”

“Uh, the inside of the Church?”

“What else?”

“Uh… wait, no, that won’t work, will it?”

“Yep! You got it! And yes, it’s gonna work. A
great hall
. It will be long, with a big table, and when it’s finished, and the entire thing is enclosed, we’ll knock down the back Church wall, and bam! The fountain will be sitting at the end of the hall!

“Remember, God only told Father Kai that we couldn’t use pipes to carry the water out – he never said anything about not being able to expand the room! It’s going to be great. The whole village will fit in that hall, and we’ll even be able to invite people from the neighboring villages. The merchants will prosper, the villages will be at peace, and we’ll be able to help everyone get into Heaven!”