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DLO 15: KISS ME SON OF GOD
As we\u2019ve previously established, forward and backward are not necessarily stable concepts.
Conway makes a choice. Wren steels their nerves. A familiar face appears. This is the end.
(CWs: food, brief allusion to bullying, mild apocalyptic imagery, death)
Nathan of The Storage Papers as AGENT/DIRECTOR; Jess of Nowhere, On Air as Liz. Go listen to their shows!
https://nowhereonairpodcast.weebly.com/
Kiss Me Son of God originally by They Might Be Giants (John Flansburgh and John Linnell)
Quotes from Jean Baudrillard's Fatal Strategies\xa0and\xa0John Stuart Mill.
*Projector clicks, a dark smoky room filled with people*
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AGENT: That brings us to the falling hand incident from a few years back, dead case 0069.
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*sparse chuckles from audience members*
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AGENT: *exasperated* Jesus, I\u2019m running a daycare here. Now those of you who were with the office at the time will already know all this. You new guys won\u2019t know anything about it. But that\u2019s why we\u2019re here, right? One of our field agents witnessed the whole thing, and gave their testimony during a thorough debriefing here in HQ. Pay attention to Wren\u2019s account. I\u2019m only going over it once.
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*slide click*
*INTRO MUSIC*
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WREN, on tape: Falling to earth from somewhere I chose not to think about was a left hand.
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AGENT, on tape: So what did you do?
WREN: Well, I tried the one thing I hadn\u2019t done yet. One last shot before the end of the world. I called Conway.\xa0
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CONWAY: Hard to explain how I got into that lighthouse. Can barely remember it myself through the fog of exhaustion. I was so damn tired. But get in I did. And at the top--or was it bottom?--was a dark, steamy room. An office of sorts, filled with smoke pouring out from some sort of awful machine in the corner. The engine\u2019s shape was irregular, almost hard to look at, but it kept spewing its haze like humid breath. In the center of the office was a desk, set with--you guessed it--a phone, some stationary, a blank nameplate, a painting of an old lighthouse in a gold frame. I sat in the plush leather chair behind the desk. A highly welcome respite after the day I\u2019d had. The woods, the mall, the deerhead priest, the lost fisherman. I needed a minute to put my feet up. I\u2019d earned it.
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I leaned back and looked at the empty notepad. \u201cWelcome to the Deerland Mall\u201d was printed at the top of each page. I had the materials to send a letter to the DLO, but what to actually write? \u201cHey, I\u2019m in a weird lighthouse somewhere, come get me?\u201d I didn\u2019t see how that would work. Still, according to the fisherman, I had two paths in front of me: write home and go back to my life as it was, or answer the call and take the promotion.
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And then it rang. No, not the offwhite rotary phone in front of me, it was my cell phone. Didn\u2019t recognize the number. Probably somebody calling about my car\u2019s warranty or a $50 walmart gift card. But at that point I was willing to take that risk just to hear someone who didn\u2019t talk in metaphors again.
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CONWAY, on the phone: Hello?
WREN, on the phone: Conway? Oh my god, is that you!?
CONWAY: Yeah, this is Conway. Hard to make out what you\u2019re saying. Sorry, who is this?
WREN: Oh wow, I don\u2019t know how I got through to you but listen: I\u2019m coming to get you.
CONWAY: I don\u2019t reckon that\u2019s the smartest idea. I don\u2019t even know wh--
WREN: I\u2019ve followed your trail. I think I\u2019m nearby now. But there\u2019s something going on. Something you\u2019re connected to. It\u2019s bad. Lucy told me where to find you. I think she\u2019s--
CONWAY: Now what is this about Lucy? You talked to her? Are you with the office? How...how is she?
WREN: I just got a postcard from her. But listen, something\u2019s coming, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to end well. I need you to come out of the cave now. I\u2019ll be at the entrance waiting to take your hand.
CONWAY: Cave? THAT cave? I\u2019m...wherever I am, I\u2019m not in there.
WREN: Where are you? This may be it, Conway. The end.
CONWAY: I\u2019m in a lighthouse. The fisherman in the place that looks just like a blockbuster said...well you know what, that doesn\u2019t make any sense saying out loud...I\u2019m tired, you know? I don\u2019t want to keep going. I want to sit down for a minute. At this desk. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s selfish.
WREN: Desk?
CONWAY: Yeah there\u2019s like a whole swanky office here. Guy said I could be the boss if I wanted to. Kenji didn\u2019t have what it took, but I just might. I\u2019m so damn tired of it all, you know? The grind. And there\u2019s some kind of machine. I think I\u2019ve heard of it before. Somebody called it the lucid engine. If I\u2019m the dreamer, that means\u2026
WREN: Conway I don\u2019t think I follow. Boss? Just come back, okay? We need you.
CONWAY: Now you too, huh? Seems like everyone\u2019s got something for me to do. More work. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve got it in me. I need a break.
WREN, over static: Conway, you\u2019re breaking up. Come back to me. I think you\u2019re responsible for--
CONWAY: Can\u2019t it wait 15 minutes?
WREN: I can\u2019t hear you--
CONWAY: Look, I\u2019m not sure what you expect of me, but I have a feeling you\u2019re gonna be disappointed, like everyone else. Like Lucy. Even myself...I shouldn\u2019t be reading mail in a damn office. What am I doing? I studied art, I did radio. Poorly, I might add, but I put in the time. Now my dad worked the same job for 40 years, bought a house, got a pension, and retired. I\u2019ve got nothing to show for my labors but a pile of debts and a sore back. Feel like I\u2019m owed something after all this or it\u2019s for nothing. Look, I want to go home, but home kind of blows. Just live to work, work to live...It ain\u2019t human. If I have a chance to get out of that hamster wheel...well, sometimes when an opportunity comes along, you have to snatch it.
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Take care of yourself, kid. See you on the other side.
WREN: The line went dead. I had no idea what he meant, and it sounded like he wasn\u2019t too sure, either. I left my car parked in the grass. I managed to tear my focus away from the falling hand and ventured into the woods.\xa0
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I had plenty of time to myself to think as I stepped through the crackling branches and deep grass between the trees. Why was I even pursuing this? Was finding someone I\u2019ve never met before worth losing my job over? What if he didn\u2019t want to be found? Wanted to disappear? Here I was trudging through the buggy forest looking for a cave. What was in the cave? No idea. Why was I looking for it? No idea. Still, I went on with my little task despite everything. Maybe it was the last thing left I felt I had any control over. Maybe I was just stubborn. Maybe I wanted someone to praise me. Well that\u2019s for my therapist to sort out now.
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I came upon a creek by a shale ridge. I hopped across on the smooth black stones breaking through the water. One, two, and slipped on the third. I fell into the creek. Not deep enough to be dangerous, but it didn\u2019t help my mood. I sat in the muck for a moment. The stream was clear and cool. Looking down at the rippling surface, dappled sunlight bounced along the contours of the tiny waves washing away from me. I watched the light dance on the water for a minute or a year, and then saw something reflected in the water. A break in the sheer stone beside me that I hadn\u2019t noticed before, or couldn\u2019t see before. A gaping wound in the rock.\xa0
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I slowly rose from the creek, water pouring out of the pockets and folds of my clothes. I kept my eyes on the reflection on the surface, and walked backward to where the cave should be. I saw myself in the water, glaring sun alight on the ripples, my back to the cave. Then I went in.
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AGENT, on tape: So far I\u2019m not seeing how all this connects.
WREN, on tape: I was only barely starting to then, as well.\xa0
AGENT: All right, go on. What was in the cave?
WREN: Clarity.
*music swells, then abruptly cuts out*
AGENT: Come on, really?
WREN: Yes, really, but more than that too, if you\u2019d let me finish without interruption.
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*Music continues*
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WREN: I was surrounded by damp dark stone. My footsteps echoed with such resonance that the cave had to be massive.\xa0
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After minutes of stumbling through pure black, a dot of light appeared in the distance ahead. It was as good a waypoint as any other I had. So I continued toward it.
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It may come as a shock to you, but I was a bit of a solitary child. No brothers or sisters. Parents kind, but busy. We rarely did anything as a family or even dined together, other than breakfast. Before they left for work and I went to school, we shared whatever bits of news we had, then parted ways. It may sound less than ideal, but I preferred it that way. I think I did. I\u2019d spend the evenings looking up at the night sky, trying to tune in to astral signals I wasn\u2019t supposed to know about. Surrounded by the hypnotic drone of cicadas and the polyrhythm of cricketsong, I found joy. For a time.
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Flashbulb memories pulled forth by the cave. Ghostly afterimages and faroff scents. Birthdays, weekends, cardboard castles and polaroids. Enthusiastic child. A butterfly emerging from its chrysalis in a mason jar. Precocious. Singing, learning. Gentle. Someone playing soccer too rough, but only with me. Tackled, pinned, forfeit. Difference. The scratching of nails and humming of speakers. My first dance where I didn\u2019t dance at all. Perfume. Laughter. Clothes that didn\u2019t fit. Words that didn\u2019t fit. Burnt scrambled eggs. Dark poetry and bad movies. Static. Carving sacred names into bedframes. Horizontal lines. Flowers emerging then shrinking. Summers smeared like watercolor into fall. Dripping paint.\xa0
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A college dropout. Destined for menial labor. A gear dislodged from the system. Quiet. Only a matter of time.
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But the conjurers of tradition were wrong about me. I wasn\u2019t meant to turn wheels. It took some time to unlearn these thought patterns I\u2019d been forced into by school, work, and law. To undo the oppression of orthodoxy. Time and effort. A lot of pain. Mill said it\u2019s better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. But look at the pig\u2019s face, watch it frolic and splash, and then look at the prisons built for us: cubicles, luxury apartments, retail warehouses, slums, mass graves. If this is what it is to be human...you tell me.
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At least I knew that as the curtain call approached, I was truly who I wanted to be. I was doing what I wanted to do. I wouldn\u2019t die dissatisfied in a cage. I would die smiling in the mud.
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Tiny points of starlight flicked into existence in the cave overhead, swirls of constellations and galaxy arms reaching. I heard crickets in the grass that was sprouting under my feet. The dot of light ahead grew into a blob, expanded in a luminescent rectangle a dozen feet over my head, then letters appeared. I smelled butter on the grill, cheap coffee. A beaming yellow sign in front of a yellow building. It was beacon for a wayward ship. Sitting alone at the end of the world, bathed in cosmic glow, was a waffle house.
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\xa0Of course it would be a waffle house.\xa0
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***
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CONWAY: I\u2019d have to be some kind of moron not to answer that call, wouldn\u2019t I? How could I just go back to my life knowing all this? Knowing what I passed up? That\u2019d be like handing back the winning lottery ticket. Though I\u2019d heard stories about what happens to some lottery winners.
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Of course I picked up the phone. There was no voice on the other end, only humming, crackling static. I felt electricity run from the receiver into my ear, down my shoulders and back, all through my limbs. A giddy bolt. I dropped the phone. Who knows if it hit the ground or disintegrated. I felt energy surge through my body. I was elated, unlimited. I suddenly knew that this is where I was supposed to be. I belonged to it, a missing limb returned.
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My step was light, like walking on water, to the engine. I felt it calling to me, singing in smoke, waiting for my charged touch. This would be my deliverance and my deliverer.\xa0
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Lucy, I...Lucy, I couldn\u2019t face you again. I wasn\u2019t ready yet. I had to let that part go. I had to let go all the things that bound me to who I was, sever all ties if I were to succeed. My finger made contact with the holy motor and my body was no more.\xa0
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***
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WREN: Buzzing lights flicked overhead inside the diner. I scanned the place for any signs of life, but no results. I took a seat at one of the sticky booths and picked at the duct taped upholstery. I tried to peer outside but all was dark. I could only see my face reflected in the glass. I looked tired. Lonely. Someone was standing behind me in the reflection. A waitress at my table. I couldn\u2019t see her expression, but she silently held out a menu.
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\u201cOh, no thank you. I\u2019m just resting for a moment.\u201d
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Her arm remained outstretched, menu aloft.
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\u201cYou\u2019re the only one here. It\u2019s late. I don\u2019t want to be an imposition.\u201d
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She didn\u2019t budge.\xa0
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\u201cSo be it. I\u2019ll have two eggs--over easy but not too runny--two pieces of toast on white, a double side of hashbrowns--smothered, covered, and capped with ketchup on the side--and a cup of coffee--black if it\u2019s fresh, a dash of milk if it\u2019s been out a while.\u201d
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As if I needed a menu. She nodded and withdrew toward the kitchen. I heard eggs hit the griddle, sizzling and squeaking, crisping just so on the edges. My mind left my body for a moment. I floated above the restaurant in the void. I saw a family of possums digging through a dumpster out back. I wondered if I should have gotten a waffle. The clatter of a plate in front of me brought me back. A little smiley face of ketchup on the hashbrowns looked up at me.
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Tell me, director, have you ever wept over breakfast? I have. There I sat, still wet from the creek and caked in mud, huge streams of tears running down my hot face as I dug into the greasy pile. Someone made this for me. Cared for me. Not in a familial or romantic sense, just in the way that people take care of other people. Nothing else in the world mattered beyond this plate, this place, for just a moment. It\u2019s the little pleasures that keep us going even in the shadow of apocalypse. A waffle house left standing after a hurricane.\xa0
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Clarity. The odd letter, the directives from above, the fuzzy call. The pieces fell into place. Conway wasn\u2019t coming back.
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The waitress returned from...somewhere to take my empty plate. I thanked her, but she didn\u2019t respond. Instead she turned to leave, which is when I realized that she was only using her right hand.
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I tried to ask for her name, but she was gone. A receipt left stuck to the table made the answer clear: \u201cYour server today was: Lucy\u201d accompanied by a smiling face.
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AGENT, on tape: Wait, Lucy\u2019s real?
WREN, on tape: Real as you or I.
AGENT: But what happened to her? Where is she? WHO is she?
WREN: I\u2019ll get to it eventually. Promise. First there\u2019s the issue of the Boss.
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****
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CONWAY: My physical form dissipated in streaks of light, as did any lingering doubts I might have had. My fingers reached out across the beach, bending over the land. My feet were tree roots, ancient and intractable. My heart caught fire and burned eternally underground. Never again did I need to worry about hunger, pain. Money. I\u2019d have people for that. Speaking of\u2026
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I became aware of all those under my domain. Offices like hives, honeycomb cubicles full of shadows. Warehouses of hollow shells sanded down to nothing throughout this great right-to work-state. Souls destroyed by the midwest burned in the lucid engine, now they were husks, but working husks. All at my command with a single impulse. And if I ever needed more workers, I could reach through the wires, touch some hearts, and set them aglow. I wouldn\u2019t abuse that power, I thought. I\u2019d make a fine boss. Great, even. Pay\u2019s not bad for entry level work so they shouldn\u2019t complain.
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So what would my first order of business be now that I was the Boss, Wren? Well, it would behoove me to make sure someone like me doesn\u2019t find me and take over. I\u2019d need a way to contain any traces of myself, this place, and its inhabitants. I\u2019d need to prevent word from getting out to the public about...well, any of this. I would need people, not just my shadows here but real hands and feet employees, to do it.\xa0
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I\u2019d need to form an organization, one dedicated to cataloging things out of place and setting them right. Or at least keeping the things that shouldn\u2019t exist hidden from public view. A web of people all over the country, a low-profile surveillance network, a vault. I\u2019d form The Dead Letter Office of Aisling, Ohio.\xa0
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It all lined up. All those piled up cliches, the missing person, the mysterious town, the odd letters. Of course they were all a ruse designed to grab my interest and not let go. It\u2019d been me the whole time. I built this place, on the backs of those I used to work with.\xa0
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To quote a great philosopher, if I may: \u201cPerfect is the event which assumes its own mode of disappearance...Imagine a good resplendent with all the power of Evil: this is God...creating the world on a dare and calling on it to destroy itself...\u201d
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Once I was gone, I needed to make sure no one went looking for me. I\u2019d have to find some cog and keep them at my old desk to sort through the mess. A real beaurocrat. Tell them they\u2019re looking for clues. Keep them on a track.
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I\u2019d need an intermediary to pass between me and the membrane of the real. Someone of the dream but outside it. It had to be Kenji. The second man, the son of god. My courrier, my herald. He brought me here--at my own behest I knew then--and he would keep me here.
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Now all I had to do was sit back and let my word be known. Kenji, take dictation:\xa0
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There\u2019s electricity in the margins on the page, an atom bomb\u2019s worth. In the space between the words, there\u2019s energy. The things we can\u2019t see are made of that energy. They travel through the wires and hide in stoplights. We can\u2019t see them because we\u2019re not meant to see them. They come out at night and ride on the electrons in the air. We are made of electrons. When the twilight is gone, and no songbirds are singing, God comes through the lines and sits in the streetlights. He waves but you can\u2019t see it (fades into The Boss voice)
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AGENT, on tape: He told you all that, huh? But he\u2019s gone.
WREN, on tape: In a manner of speaking, yes.
AGENT: Was he ever really there?
WREN: In a manner of speaking, no. He was a mask.
AGENT: What about you?
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WREN: I walked back through the darkness of the cave satiated, but determined. The stars disappeared, the grass receded, and the balmy woods returned. I wandered back to my car and looked up into the clear blue. The hand above had closed into a fist, and it hung motionless in the air, waiting like the cocked hammer of a pistol. The insects in the woods had gone quiet. A hawk was frozen mid-strike. Everything was still and silent. The missing second that only comes along once in a million years.
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If the world were a just place, it all would have ended there. The hand would have disappeared, the world would keep spinning, the birds would sing. But it\u2019s not, and it didn\u2019t. The only justice in the world is that which we make ourselves, by olive branch or blood.\xa0
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You must understand: this is the inevitable outcome when things are out of balance, when we submit to orthodoxy. When we try to drown out that strange frequency. When all is built on bad faith, entire structures in our brain designed to lie to ourselves. It all collapses eventually. It\u2019s fatal. Slow death.\xa0
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I tried calling Conway again, but he didn\u2019t answer. He made me care about him and then turned on me. Damn it all, I let myself get vulnerable. I couldn\u2019t be afraid to get my hands dirty this time. I wouldn\u2019t be the beetle, devoured by the hungry bird. I would be the wasp, stinging all the way down.
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I slammed the car door and sped off in a cloud of gravel and dust.
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It\u2019s fatal, but it is preventable, this collapse. There\u2019s a solution; we\u2019re not yet at the end of history. If I couldn\u2019t convince Conway--the Boss--to face what was coming nicely, I\u2019d drag him out, kicking and screaming if necessary. I couldn\u2019t do it alone, but I could find others. We had the numbers, we could do it. For me, for Lucy, for everyone.
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By blood it is, Boss.
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I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called the blood of the exploited working class
But they've overcome their shyness
Now they're calling me Your Highness
And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"
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I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect
Between the only people left who'd even look me in the eye
Now I laugh and make a fortune
Off the same ones that I tortured
And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"
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I look like Jesus, so they say
But Mr. Jesus is very far away
Now you're the only one here who can tell me if it's true
That you love me and I love me
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I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called the blood of the exploited working class
But they've overcome their shyness
Now they're calling me Your Highness
And a world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"
Yes the world screams, "Kiss me, Son of God"
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AGENT, in projector room: So we\u2019ve covered that Conway was the founder and Boss of the DLO, Wren tried to track him down, and we were all about to die. Any questions so far? No? Good. Now let\u2019s get to the weird stuff.
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END
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LIZ, floating in the void: Where am I? All I remember is...fire...am I dead? If I\u2019m dead, how come I\u2019m still like...thinking. Suck it, Descartes.
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Damn. Does that mean I wrong about the whole god thing?
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WREN, from the shadows: Who might you be?
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LIZ: I\u2019m Liz, who the hell are you? Wait...you\u2019re not\u2026
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WREN: No! No, I\u2019m Wren. I\u2019m looking for collaborators. Shadows with some bite left.\xa0
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LIZ: Uhh...
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WREN: I understand this is all very confusing. But if you help me, I\u2019ll return the favor.
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LIZ: Just tell me this: how\u2019s Priya? Is she okay?
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WREN: Let me show you.
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LIZ: Oh god...
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WREN: I know who did this, and I\u2019m coming for him. Are you in?
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REAL END
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OUT OF FICTION CREDITS:
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Hey everyone, it\u2019s your host here. Thank you for listening to the first two seasons of the show (assuming you didn\u2019t just skip to this episode, that would be a bad idea). Now I\u2019ll be taking a break from here on out to work on some season 3 ideas. I would like to thank my patrons, carriers Flo and Jessica, Receiving clerks Ezra, Elena, Jennifer, Patricia, Paul, Spicy Nigel, and Gadz. Thank you all for your support throughout season 2, and to everyone else sharing and supporting the show. If you\u2019d like to get your name in the credits next season like these fine folk, sign up at Patreon.com/somewhereohio and select one of the tiers there. If you like the show, drop a rating or review on your podcast platform of choice. It\u2019s free, if you do a rating you don\u2019t even have to write anything and it helps the creators a lot (even though it seems like maybe it shouldn\u2019t). Until next time.\xa0\xa0