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Chapter 93 You Know What They Say About Assumptions
🕑 Added 2023-05-29 16:01:01 +0000 UTCThey didn’t talk much after that. Truth didn’t know if he said the wrong thing or not. He probably did, but… it was hard to be “Tommy Wells” right now. It was usually freeing to be “Tommy Wells” in that he wasn’t carrying all the things that “Truth Medici” was carrying, but he didn’t want to have to lie. To make up things about himself. Part of it was he really liked Etenesh and Jember. Even Merkovah, beardy weirdo that he was, had grown on him. Liking them was part of it. A bigger part was hating that his life had been dedicated to a series of lies.
Truth felt that most people didn’t have to pick apart their personalities to try and find the bits of them that hadn’t been tampered with. Like the talking poorly about himself thing. He had known for a long time that the schools he went to were shit. He never felt good about it. It was as far back as boot camp- he was made to feel stupid because he didn’t know things. Not just ignorant, dangerously ignorant.
Violence came naturally to him, and he didn’t know a lot of things everyone else knew. He must be a dangerous moron, right? Probably into some cruel, disgusting things. Fitting for an ugly bastard like him. Yeah, definitely into some sick shit. No wonder nobody has ever seen him with a living “friend.”
He could feel the intrusive thoughts elbowing their way in. Reminding him that his pretty new face and fancy muscles weren’t his. They were things done to him. Nobody could love him, even like him, if they knew the real him. The ugly monster of violence, wearing some pretty skin.
“Amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt someone slip into a depressive spiral before.” Etenesh said with a flash of her old spark.
“Eh?”
“I mean, a bit rude. A bit un-galant. I’m sitting here having an existential crisis and fearing for the future of my nation, and here you are, making it about you.”
“Oh. Um. Sorry? Unintentional?” Truth was flummoxed. The romance novels didn’t cover this.
She grinned a little. “Well, you see, I was already feeling poorly, and then the fella I’m interested in dropped some heavy history on me. I was processing. Sorting through the emotions. Glad you finally let me in a smidge, though.”
“Ah… wait a moment. I have something for this…”
“You have something? Like an ointment?” She was really grinning now, more of that spark shining.
“No, something witty. I think witty is the right word.” He turned towards Etenesh and looked seriously at her. “I have fallen into the cerulean ponds of your eyes.”
She stared blankly at him for a moment and cracked up. “That has nothing to do with anything. Cerulean means blue! What? How?”
“Ah damn. I was pretty sure it meant deep.” Truth muttered. Etenesh snorted, wiping a tear from the corner of a tawny eye.
“How many women has that line worked on?”
“Did it cheer you up?”
“It did.” She nodded with mock seriousness.
“It has been one hundred percent successful.” He replied with equal seriousness.
She smiled at that and said, “Hey. I want to nudge you. You ok with nudges?”
“You may nudge me. Once.”
She scooted closer and leaned into Truth. Prodding him with her shoulder exactly once.
“I’m depressed. I mean that in both senses. I’m feeling depressed, and I think I have the actual medical condition Depression. It’s a little early to go self-diagnosing, but. Seems pretty likely.” The smile drained off Etenesh like water into sand.
“I… don’t know how to help.”
“I don’t either. Don’t try to cheer me up. That much I know.”
“Alright. Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be. The highlight of the last couple of days, right there.” Etenesh stood. “I’ve booked room 1-03 tonight. A basic double. I’ll leave the door unlocked if you want to join me. Just for sleeping. No pressure, I won’t be hurt if you don’t come.”
She gave him a little smile. “Though I would like it if you did. You are warm.”
She walked off, shawl covering her head and shoulders. Truth thought she was the warm one. But he would do his best to be brave.
Merkovah finally called Truth into a small conference room. Once the door shut, the room glowed with cosmic energy flowing through dense webs of formations. He more or less recognized some of them as anti-surveillance formations. He had seen and used similar working in the PMC. Some of his bodyguarding clients wouldn’t so much as take a piss without them.
“Alright, Tommy. The room is warded to a profound, even paranoid level. The counter-surveillance spellwork is genuinely upsetting once you understand how it works, and privacy is guaranteed. Now, after knowing you for a little while, I am quite certain you won’t tell me everything. You will probably treat this room as though it wasn’t warded at all. Am I right?”
Truth nodded. It didn’t matter if the room was warded. If he told Merkovah anything, the odds were excellent that he would tell a third person, and so on. He would only reveal things that were unlikely to get traced back to him.
“Haaah. Well, that’s exhausting. Still, anything you can tell me will be enormously helpful.”
Truth laid out what happened at the border crossing in the most bare-bones terms possible. Merkovah displayed a keen sense of propriety. His questions tightly focused on the smuggler (Do you know what kind of crow the bird head was?”) the talismans (“Were they soaking in blood, or did it just look like blood? Could you smell whatever it was?”) and to Truth’s considerable surprise, the details of the fight (“So the needlers did essentially nothing? But you could kill him with a wagon?”)
The conversation, interrogation, really, ran on much longer than Truth had expected. The whole fight, from the time the smuggler pulled up to the time he expired, was less than ten minutes. The fighting part might have been less than four. By the time they hit the fifty-minute mark, Truth deeply regretted saying anything. Merkovah must have picked up on it because he called for a quick break for drinks and snacks.
“Teacher, if you would forgive a massive change in topic-”
“I would welcome it, actually. Nice change of pace.” Merkovah gestured for him to continue.
“It’s a religious question, I guess.”
Merkovah made a gesture of thanks. “Praise be! I wondered if this day would ever come.”
Truth decided to ignore that. “Why is everyone so hung up on God?”
Merkovah looked like his brain locked out for a moment. Like he heard the words but couldn’t process their meaning.
“Pardon?”
“I remember what you said before- everyone agrees there is a God. And that the universe was created by God, and that in some way I don’t really understand, the universe both is God and is God’s thoughts. But… so what? The world is kind of trash. There are good bits, absolutely. And it’s a lot bigger than I will ever know or understand. But I don’t think you can look at the world and go, “Yes, good job. Do it the exact same way next time.”
If there were a living sculpture of the concept of not knowing where to begin, it would look like Merkovah.
“Young man, leaving aside questions of blasphemy-”
“Is it? Blasphemous?” Truth asked. He didn’t know.
“Depending on who you ask, yes! And as a nationally respected and internationally known Teacher of Cannon Law, if you ask me, I would say yes, it absolutely is blasphemy.” The old monster disguised as a young man glared at Truth. But, proving he really was a university-level teacher, Merkovah felt the need to tack on- “Of course, this is a much-debated point, with no really satisfying answer.”
“Oh?”
“Well, you are hardly the first person to look at the world and wonder about the origin of evil, sin, or the pinky toe.”
“So what’s the word from on high?” Truth asked.
Merkovah grinned slightly. “How long do you have? Answers range from (and I am speaking just for the prophets of my own faith here) “The world is perfect, but a lack of faith leads to sin, and from sin to misery” to “The world is a test of your faith and your ability to lead a good, godly life.” Other religions take a different tack, ranging from infernal intervention, divine punishment, or even a sort of corporal punishment intended to morally correct us. Sinful living results in pain. But safe to say that it’s an open question… between religions.”
“More conflicting information from the prophets?” Truth asked.
“Remember how I said that there may well be multiple, yet mutually exclusive, versions of God? This is part of why we think that. Also, there is another philosophical debate over whether God can change his or her or their (depending again on the religion) mind. Or if they simply reveal different portions of their mind to us at different times, as necessary. So it’s a mess, theologically. A significant degree of faith is required.”
“Right, but… all that sounds like God intentionally made the world the way he did. What if God…” Truth searched for a euphemism, “didn’t quite nail what he was going for?”
“Tommy… God is definitionally perfect. A being without error. Above everything.”
“Is he, though? I mean, if we don’t actually know what God wants and we are getting contradictory information here-”
“Alright, now that IS blasphemy. Young man, I know you don’t have any religious training, but that is simply too much. The universe, the entire, endlessly complicated fabric of reality, relies upon God to exist. He is the cause with no cause, the essence before existence. God may be strict. He may even be cruel. But he is never wrong.”
Truth remembered his Dad splitting open his cheek with a sloppy punch when he asked if there was any food in the house. Truth had been nine. Mom screamed at him that same day for being ungrateful and a leech. Maybe he deserved it, but the sibs didn’t deserve to go to bed hungry. And wake up hungry. And stay hungry until Truth could shoplift a few handfuls of food, carefully split between them. But the old monster looked truly angry.
“I’m sorry. Now I know better.”
____________________________________________________________________________
Truth sat in his little room, thinking about what he learned. Apparently, the transformation magic used by the bird-headed smuggler was a sort of demonic possession. It used to be quite common many centuries ago. It had fallen out of favor due to improvements in talisman technology, as well as the fairly extreme demands it made of its users. Ironically, it was supposed to be extremely popular off-world. The demons could last a lot longer and fight a lot harder in a body that had practiced body cultivation. The smuggler hadn’t. The demon could endure the little needles and resist the magic, but he was too squishy to hold up against a speeding wagon.
Truth thought about the Meditations of Valentinian and what, exactly, he was trying to do as a human and a mage. He needed to become stronger. The ability to resist spells was crucial, but so was the ability to resist physical damage. To become, if not untouchable, unaffected by the evils of the world. So he could make things right. Maybe not fix the whole world, but his little corner of it.
He closed his eyes and tried to meditate. He had a pretty good idea of what “untouchable” might look like. His rough patron existed like an ancient mountain in his mind. Those strong hands picking him up and throwing him around. Truth focused as best he could on his hands, trying to hold the memory in place as he ran the spell. It was slow going, but he thought he had made some progress.
Then he dusted himself off, washed up, brushed his teeth, and found Room 1-03.
Comments
Addicted_Reader
Wow. An extended conversation about God in a webserial. And I'm as confused as I am about the real(?) God!
John Anastacio
I wonder if Merkovah will ever realize that Truth agreed with him only because he felt afraid of what he would do if he continued to dissent. He still hasn't been told the horridness of Truth's upbringing. He's very old so he might have deduced it by now, but he seems to have some blind spots.
eternalephemera
not my brand of wisdom
gostsamo
"I choose to believe what I've been programmed to believe in!" I humbly accept all the stones at my direction. :)
Nonnyor Business
I, no joke, will set up my Ipad next to the shower, playing one of his lectures, just so I'm not missing valuable listening time. The number of times I've thought "well, that's way better than my idea. Good job, 300 CE Egyptian dude, good job."
Lazerus56
damnit, id say you have no idea what you have just done if i wasnt sure you knew exactly that! im axtually watching all my free time evaporate.
Nonnyor Business
In fact, I just did that, on my Patron account. Seriously, if you have any interest in the subject, his Youtube channel is pure gold. You will also immediately spot a lot of things I directly stole. So. Spoiler warning?
School work
Considering God (or some aspect of God) has literally turned his back on the world (or at least on the people), I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say blasphemy doesn't matter. The question is irrelevant outside of what it reveals about Truth's mindset and personality, as God isn't going to do anything about it. God doesn't seem to care about this world. And tbh, it's in character for someone of Truth's background to question this, especially since God isn't exactly communicating to anyone anymore and he wasn't raise with much religion in his life. Also, we might be reading about a universe in which God isn't some infinitely benign being, or even a being at all. Could be God is just all encompassing, both good and bad, or a natural force with no desires and the shit state of this world is just kind of how events have played out over time.
Nonnyor Business
If you really want to blow your free time, check out https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel where you will discover answers to questions you didn't know you had, and many, many, many more questions on top of that. He's got a Patreon too, and I keep meaning to pledge to it. Well worth it.
Lazerus56
Never in my life have I wanted to learn me some religious texts but i feel like there is a bunch of references to the text that could deepen my understanding here. Might just do that, since i have only read a bit of the inferno, a few bible chapters (catholic), and just general osmosis through other media. Im far more versed in say Greek myths in contrast. Another great chapter!
Baconwargod
If your retort for ‘why can’t someone question someone or something’ is that they can do shit we can’t and they know more than us I genuinely don’t know what to tell you. Is a homeless man not entitled to question those above him even if he doesn’t know as much? If I were a paraplegic could I not question you because you can walk and I can’t? Ability means nothing. If I became a god tomorrow and decided to make a planet were everyone must kill each other to live the people on that planet and on earth would be well within their rights to question me. Just because something is more powerful or more knowledgeable than something else doesn’t make them beyond reproach and the fact that you seem to think that is frankly weird as fuck.
Aaron Weingrad
And that would show a kind of hubris. You couldn’t make a single ant. You couldn’t generate one blade of grass. No offense - none of us can. Where do we get off passing judgement on someone’s creation that allowed us to even exist in the first place? We don’t understand even a tiny bit of the universe God created. We have been around for such a small slice of time. I get being angry at one’s lot in life or feeling bad for those who suffer in the world but given our ignorance and weakness compared to a being who could generate the universe and everyone and everything that ever has or ever will exist it is the most massive case of Dunning-Krueger to think we know enough to judge. Obviously if one is an atheist this is all moot. But Truth and the rest can’t really rationally be atheists.
Aaron Weingrad
It’s like an infinitely amped up version of some regular shlub critiquing Brady’s work as a QB. Or someone looking at a Rembrandt and saying that the painting could be way better. God is the creator of the entire universe. From stars to snails he made it all. To look at something this massive and complex that has lasted billions of years and will go on for so much longer - all the galaxies and each and every electron in their orbits and say “could be better” is filled with hubris. Who the heck is any human to pass judgement on God’s works?
Baconwargod
Why?
Aaron Weingrad
A valid distinction but I’m still thinking there is some hubris involved in passing judgement on god.
Baconwargod
Did I say you shouldn’t believe I can believe in god and still say he did a shit job.
Aaron Weingrad
Glad to see that in a world where god is confirmed to exist and faith is unnecessary people will still blaspheme. Which is more out of touch: choosing to believe without proof or choosing not to believe in the face of proof?
Baconwargod
Truth didn’t say he could do better he just said that he didn’t do great.
Baconwargod
Glad to see that even in a universe where god is confirmed to exist religious people are still out of touch and can’t stand to be questioned.
Aaron Weingrad
The beginning of the path to wisdom is to learn to fear god. Truth’s background and major complaints are actually focused on the strongest apologetics for theodicy. He is scarred by his parents’ cruelty. But free will is a pretty easy way to keep a benevolent picture of god without making them responsible for people’s sins. A god who didn’t allow for his parents to make their terrible choices would create a world where Truth and his siblings wouldn’t be who they are either. Railing against existence is inherently adolescent. And Truth is written as relatively stoic and accepting of the world as it is. His temperament should lend itself to embracing a god who can often be felt as cruel in his choices. There is a deep narcissism in thinking one could do better than god that is an interesting contrast with Truth’s self-loathing.
Svensonsen
Well that's a good example of how abrahamic religions really don't want you to question them🤣🤣
