If God Choose
By Gordon Kearns
I know what death will mean. It means there will be no more me. No more feeling anything. No more thinking anything. My body will be eaten. But that means nothing to me because there will be no thought in my head to consider it. I will be dead. Unfeeling unthinking dead. Forever. I don't believe there is such a thing as paradise. I think the gods are nothing but stone carved by men. When I die there will be no "will be." Not even nothingness to feel or consider. There will be no feelings arising from my body. Feelings will cease to be, just as my body will cease to be. Just as the thoughts in my head will cease to be, just as my head will cease to be. After tomorrow morning when the high priest rips out my heart, nothing ... nothing of me, my feelings, my thoughts ... forever. I have not much fear. But I am filled with sadness.
I look out from my balcony to the courtyard below. It is afternoon. My last afternoon. My little sisters and brothers romp naked in the sun. My mother coo's proudly at them. My father naps in his chair. It's as any other afternoon with my family. Except I am usually out there with them, romping naked in the sun. Were I not to be sacrificed, it would still be many months before I am woman enough that my body should be covered.
They had a white gown for me to wear tomorrow. And a white cloth to cover my loins. But the gown would have been swept away as soon as I arrived at the top of the pyramid. And being yet a child, why should I wear a cloth about my loins on my day of dying when I am not wearing one the day before? I am being sacrificed because I am a child. Let the crowd see that I am a child. I will go naked to my death.
A stranger approaches the courtyard gate. He is tall. As old as most adults. And handsome to my eyes, even if I am a child. His hair is not cut as the men in our country. He is a stranger to us. Our loyal servant goes to him. Then goes to my father and tells him what the stranger said. My father tells the servant to bring the stranger to him.
They talk and talk. My father sometimes gestures to the balcony from where I am watching. The stranger sees me and smiles. It is a friendly smile. I don't know him, but I like him. I return the smile. My father gets up from his chair. He and the stranger come towards the house. I know my father is bringing him to me.
"He is a teacher of children," my father says. "From a far away country. And he wishes to talk with you. He says he is writing a journal."
I see no journal. But he still smiles, and I agree to talk to him. My father gives him permission to stay with me as long as he requires, although I should be allowed to sleep enough tonight that I will be well-rested in the morning. Does he fear I will fall asleep on the sacrificial stone?
The stranger sits at my side on my couch. He talks of the weather.
"I doubt that you came from your far away country to talk to me about the weather," I say.
He smiles again. If he smiles, I won't care much what he answers. But I do prod him. "Will you watch me die tomorrow morning?" I ask.
He thinks on the question. His voice quavers slightly: "Yes, I will watch if you would like me to." He returns the question to me.
"But I think it is because I will die tomorrow that you want to talk with me," I say.
"That is true," he says.
I change the subject because I am curious. "A far away country," I say. "It must be very far away. Your hair. Your child's way of speaking. The tight weave of your garment." He starts to answer, but I put my fingers to his mouth. "Not yet," I say.
I kneel before him and reach up to hold his face in my hands so that we are looking eyes into eyes. "I'll tell you anything you want to know. All my thoughts are on my death tomorrow morning. I am terribly sad, and I want very much to tell my feelings. And your eyes seem so warm to my heart. But there is more to you than a teacher from a far away country come to talk with me. It was not known until yesterday that I was chosen to be sacrificed. You could not have come from such a far away country in that time."
His eyes look back into mine. He understands my sadness. And how I am so desperate to tell my feelings. His eyes reflect my sadness and desperation.
Still holding his face in my hands, I say, "Please do not use my soul as they will use my heart and body tomorrow. The priest will cut out my heart to placate the god. The generals will eat my body to become strong and brave. They will do these things for the problems they face. It is for me to accept these things so their problems are relieved. They will take my heart and body for their purposes. As if I have no purposes of my own. But I have no choice. So naked I will climb the steps of the pyramid and show no fear, but for purposes of my own, not for those of a stone god or arrogant generals. They may have my heart and body. They will not have my soul.
"Now you, with your warm and caring eyes, would want to talk with me. You would want the thoughts of a child who will be sacrificed in the morning; what else of meaning does such as I have to pass on to a stranger from a far away country? But I need to know the truth of your interest. If I am to let you see my soul, I must know that you will be true to it. Let me first see your soul true. You who happens along to talk with me the day before I die. I want to know who it is you truly are, not the story you tell to please my father. Talk to me true, stranger."
Gently he takes my hands from his cheeks. He stands and moves to the balcony to gather his thoughts. Was my request so complicated? He sighs and returns to the couch. He touches his hand to the place beside him. I again sit at is side, and he puts his hands over mine on my lap. I like that he does this thing of touching as he is about to speak of his soul. And now I realize also that he takes the time to consider my request because he thinks of me as if I am one whose wishes have meaning.
He says, "It is true that I am a teacher of children. That is why I was chosen to come to you. And it is true that I come from a far away country. Farther away than I think you can imagine. But it is not 'far away' as in a measure of distance. Rather it is 'far away' as in a measure of time." Another sigh. "I am from a time hundreds of years to come."
I am surprised at this. A far away time? "I do not understand how this can be. You are here now sitting at my side, but you say you are from the future?"
"Yes." he says. "The world of people changes all the time. It is the nature of people to learn and find new and better ways of coping with their world. In times long before this, people lived in caves. Now they live in well-constructed homes such as this. In the same way, people of the future have found a way of traveling through time as well as distance."
I find myself excited that he will be telling me something that I've never heard of before. Something remarkable. Something even the priests and sages of today could not know. A way of traveling through time! A chill runs through my body.
The stranger looks about the room until he sees the small pond for floating lilies my father had built for me in the corner. He takes my hand and walks me over to it (I enjoy his holding my hand for that short time). Two small lily pads float idly on the surface. Because the water is always kept clear by the servants we can see the small colorful fish swimming lazily near the bottom.
He takes my finger and touches it to the surface. "Watch," he says.
I say, "I see ripples rolling to the sides of the pond."
"Yes," he says. "And if there were no sides, the ripples would have kept going on and on."
I say, "But eventually to disappear."
"I think they would only seem to disappear," he corrects me. "I think they would just get smaller and smaller until our eyes no longer could see them. But whether or not our eyes could see, the ripples would keep going."
We walk together out to the balcony. Holding hands again. I don't know for sure if he took my hand or I took his. I don't think it matters. We stand looking out over the courtyard. "Though we don't live in the water like fish, we also are sending out ripples. Ripples of a strange kind that we in our time have only recently discovered. With our every thought and movement we are sending out these mysterious ripples. Added together the ripples we send out will carry the story of our lives in every detail. And each person represented in the ripple will carry along all the information residing in him in every ripple that is sent out." He gives me time to catch my thoughts up to his words.
Then I say, "You said you were from a time hundreds of years in the future." He nods yes. "I think I'm understanding a little of what you say." Though I didn't tell him there was still much confusion in my mind.
"Then my life was in your past," I say.
"Yes," he says.
"And you from a country far away in the future caught one ripple out of my life," I say.
"Yes," he says.
I think some more. But there is only one thought that comes to me. "Then my life must already have concluded." He nods yes. But his eyes turn sad for the moment.
I frown. "But if my life has already concluded, how can I be here talking with you?"
He says, "Because we've caught a ripple that was made before your life ended."
I say, "But is a ripple real, then? Is what is happening this moment between you and me real? Or are we just a rolling ripple of no substance?"
He again pauses to consider the question. Yes, he must be a teacher by the way he considers a child's question, and then strives to answer so even a child as young as me might understand. I am still having a hard time grasping the meaning in his words, but I trust his caring eyes and listen closely to his answer, even if it requires so much thought.
"It is both," he says. I lean closer to him and touch his chest with my hand. I want much to catch his intention. "You have lived and you have died. But such is the paradox ... the magic of our science that in catching the ripple from your life, it became truly real life. What is happening between us here on the balcony is truly happening right now. So in that way, even though you died in the past, right now you are truly living these moments that grew from our catching a ripple from your life before you died. And you will keep on living as long as I am here with you and am wearing this." He lifts his tunic so I might see his thigh (I see something else as well. I smile; he smiles) . Then I see a little black box tied high on his leg. "That little box," he says, "is what we used to single out one of your ripples to visit. And that little box made the ripple real life until I turn the switch and it returns me to my own time."
I ask, "What happens to our ripple then?"
He says, "The moment I interrupted you ripple, it became real and our life on it is real. But it is real in no place that exists in the universe except on that ripple rolling along. But now it isn't the same ripple. I didn't meet you in the past when you first were preparing for ..." - He looked away for a bit - "for the sacrifice." I met you in the ripple. And now we are making new ripples from that first ripple. So when I leave - when the box leaves - the real-life we've spent will cease. And the new ripples will cease, because the real life of you and me will no longer be sending out ripples.
I say, "My father, me, my brothers and sisters, my servant - we will die?"
"No," he says. "They will just ... stop existing."
I say, "I think that's the same thing, isn't it?" Then I say, "Can a person die, die in truth, in this time we are being made real by your little black box?"
"Yes," he says. "Even I could die while living on this ripple."
"Die forever?" I ask. "Even in your own world and time?"
"Yes to both," he says.
I say, "And if something happens to the box? You will also cease to exist? Even in your own time?"
"Yes to both," he says.
I say, "And if you do as you promised and watch me tomorrow, I will truly die on the sacrificial stone?"
He almost whispers, "Yes."
I smile. "Are there many people you know of who got to die the same death twice?"
He smiles a very sad smile. "No. None."
I say, "But if you went home tonight, I wouldn't die again, would I?"
He says, "No. You would just stop ... existing. Your life of hundreds of years ago would have happened either way. You did die on the sacrificial stone those hundreds of years ago. Nothing can change that. But if you allow me to leave tonight, you won't go through the torture and pain of also dying in this ripple life. But you should remember, if you go through with the sacrifice tomorrow, no one will ever know, because once I leave everyone here will cease to exist. You've already been sacrificed once, and it has been recorded in history. These new ripples we are making are not part of continuing history. You might say we are existing in a ripple glitch."
I giggle at the strange word. But I do understand the meaning. I say, "So it would be pointless to allow the ripple to continue."
"Yes," he says.
I ponder the mysteries riding in the stranger's revelations. I feel as if I want to cry. Quickly I say, "Come, I would like to take you swimming in the lake with me."
The lake is on my father's estate, but somewhat removed from the house. I've always enjoyed the lake. It is clear and clean. And rests easily in a little valley surrounded by trees. There is a sand beach my father had made. As the high general my father is a man of great wealth and influence.
That is why I was chosen for the sacrifice. Usually, they use slaves or the children of slaves for sacrifices. But the soothsayers all predict in the near future there is to come a terrible invasion by a fierce army of strangers which will swallow up our beautiful Aztec empire. All our country's leaders and generals fear this invasion and want desperately for the gods to take our side in the conflict to come. Slaves would not be enough to satisfy the gods for such an important issue. And for such a great cause only the dearest child of a very important general was deemed sufficient to move the gods to attend to our needs. My father, seeing the importance of winning against the invaders - and the honor such an event would bring the family - offered me for the sacrifice, even though, he said, it tore his heart to lose his beloved daughter. "Tore his heart." Yet it is my heart that will be torn from my chest.
I take the stranger to the sand beach.
"Take off your tunic," I say. He blushes. I laugh. "Why be bashful? I've already seen your penis. I saw nothing unusual about it."
"Thanks," he says with a small grin.
We swim naked in the clear waters of the lake. He swims well. As do I. My father taught me to be strong like a boy, and able to play at rough boy games. We leave the water and lie side by side on the beach, allowing the sun to warm our bodies. We look at the sky. "Is it the same sky you have in your time?" I ask him.
"The same," he says
"And the same sun?" I ask.
"Yes," he says.
"And am I a child as you would have in your school?" I ask.
"Yes. No," he says. "Yes, you would fit in with them very nicely. You would find many friends your age. Many of them would enjoy very much swimming with you." He turns on his side to face me. "And no, not the same, either. None have been called upon to have their hearts cut out by a high priest."
"Put your hand on me," I say to him. "On my bare chest. Can you feel my heart beat?"
"Yes," he answers. "It has a gentle child rhythm."
"I would go to my death tomorrow as a virgin," I say to the stranger. "It is a point of much importance to me. I want it to be that it is truly a child being put to death. A child who has no growing up experience. A child only. Who knows nothing of invasions or men's wars. Or religions that glory in the deaths of innocents. Men talk of a glorious life the gods will give them after death for their brave deeds. I don't think so. If the gods hunger for the hearts of innocents, how much will they care for brave soldiers? Tomorrow they will put a child to death. And I accept their sentence, but I will die bravely not for their purposes, but my own, that they cannot have my soul. They will think it is out of duty to them I die so bravely. No. It is for my duty to myself that I die - in defiance of them and their god. Death comes to people because it is part of life. That I accept, and tomorrow I will embrace it. I don't think they will understand that about my soul. But I understand; that is what matters to me."
I think I have stunned the stranger. Even from the future, even as an adult, even as a teacher, even as one who I know has in such a short time come to love me, he hadn't realized children could harbor such thoughts. Tears form in the corners of his eyes. I smile. "But now touch my body, my love. Touch every bit of my skin. Touch my head, my cheek, my breast, my belly, the lips between my legs. Touch me, my love, but only with your gentle lover's hands - nothing more. I need to feel your touch; but I need to remain a child."
It is late - and dark - when we arrive back at the house. "My father wants me to sleep tonight. That might be wise after all. Please sit on the bed by me as I sleep," I say to the stranger. Then I call to my servant to get my father to come to my chamber. I need him to attend to the requests I have concerning tomorrow's event.
"Father," I say to him. "I am your beloved daughter, who you volunteered for tomorrow's sacrifice. Please, do not fear. I will go to my death bravely as befits a great general's daughter. You will not be ashamed. But there are things that must be so I can accept my death with contentment."
Tearfully, he nods his consent.
I say, "I must be permitted to climb the one hundred steps unescorted. I shall not resist my fate. I shall not hold back. But I must be allowed the dignity of walking the steps to the sacrificial stone with my shoulders back. And proud of doing what I have to do. So there are to be no soldiers anywhere in the vicinity. I must be allowed my lone climb."
He nods his assent to this request eagerly. He could ask no more of me than that.
I say, "I would ask that only the high priest have the honor of killing me and taking my heart. No other priest is to be present. And there is to be no one to hold my arms or legs or head in place as in most such ceremonies. For this purpose I would have you see to straps and rings into which I may voluntarily place my wrists and ankles. As well as a strap for the barbed neck brace to hold my head in place, which I also will fit to myself. I realize my body must be stretched to receive the obsidian knife in my chest, so I would give the high priest permission to pull the straps tightly so that I am properly spread-eagled for the sacrifice."
My father hesitates at this. The ritual is well set and practiced. But he is so eager to have the sacrifice done that he accepts my demand. He will see that my wishes are followed. Such is the influence my father wields.
I say, "And if he accepts, I would have my lover the stranger on the altar platform with the high priest so that he can witness my death and record it in his journal. And if he accepts, I wish my lover the stranger to drink the first draft of my blood, and have an honored place at the banquet table and given the prime portions of my body to eat."
My father has no objection to the stranger's presence at the sacrifice or his partaking in my blood and my body at the banquet. Small requests for such a major event in my father's life.
My father leaves me to rest with the stranger sitting at my side.
Tears flow from the stranger's eyes. "You will be there for me on the altar platform, won't you?" I ask. "I know it will not be easy for you, but I will feel comforted that my lover is close by as I die."
"I will be there," he says.
I say, "And you will drink my blood and eat my flesh, won't you? Thus, when you return to your time, there will always be something of me a part of you. Even if this world where I died a second time disappears forever into a lost ripple. In a way what was me will live a little longer in you. And your children and children's children perhaps."
"I will," he says softly.
I say, "Then please hold my hand while I rest. I am nervous, and though I talk easily of death, I am almost overcome with sadness."
I pretend to sleep. Perhaps hours have passed when I feel he has let my hand go. I sense his touch on my thigh. When I open my eyes I see him bending over me in the act of trying to strap his black box to my upper leg. I reach down to push his hands away. "No," I say.
"Please," he says. "I am an adult and have lived enough years that I have enjoyed much of what life has to offer. That I cease to exist is of no matter in the greater scheme of things. You are yet a child. A child I love and cherish more dearly than life itself. In my time they will heap on you the love and attention you deserve. You will have a chance to grow and learn and live as a child should. No child should face the sacrificial stone. Let me do this thing for you. Please."
Now tears form in my eyes that my lover the stranger would surrender his own existence that I might have a chance to live as a child should. I let him hold me to himself. Yet I push away his hand holding the black box and strap.
I say, "I would never be more a child than I will be tomorrow when I am spread-eagled on the sacrificial stone ready to receive the priest's knife. I accept death not as a sacrifice to any god or for any great cause. I embrace death as a child, because I want all to see it is truly only a child they are killing for their own causes. Causes I as a child have nothing to do with. I think I am doing this even as I am like any child you will find in your classroom when you return to your time. No one but myself might understand why I so embrace death. But myself is enough. Please understand that to deny me this is to deny that my childhood has a significance other than to satisfy what the world has defined it should be."
"But it's so unnecessary," he says. "You've already died in that pursuit. Here we are only in a ripple glitch that will end when the black box leaves.'
I say, "But don't you see, my lover, that if I didn't go through this on what you call your glitch ripple, it would be denying the truth of what I did the first time." I let him squeeze me even closer to himself. "Please return the black box to your own thigh. And please say that you will be on the altar platform to watch me die. And drink a full draft of my blood. And eat your fill of my flesh. I would be the happiest knowing you will do these things for me. When you have drunk my blood and eaten your fill, do the mechanism on the black box and return to your time with me circulating through your veins. Let my father and the priests and the cheering crowd then cease to exist. You will do these things for me?"
"Yes," he says.
Much later I am still awake, as I know he is. A thought occurs to me. "Tell me, it didn't work, did it?" I say. "My sacrifice didn't stop the invasion. The Aztec empire was destroyed, wasn't it?"
"Yes," he answers. I smile and say nothing more.
The morning arrives so quickly. I tend to my body functions and have my lover the stranger bathe me. Then I send him out that he will precede me to the temple. When my appointed time comes, I leave my room, I leave my house, and I leave my courtyard and walk the short distance to the temple. Crowds cheer from both sides of the road as I walk along.
The temple looms ahead. It is not such a grand temple as temples go. One hundred steps only. My knees shake. I'm not sure I could do more than these hundred steps.
I stand at the bottom of the steep steps. Steep so that after my death the priest might easily roll me down to the old men now waiting at my right, who will take my body apart and cook me for the banquet. It is a beautiful morning. The air is pure. The breeze wraps gently around my naked body. The sun is warm on my naked flesh. I do not pause, but immediately start on the ascent. I see the figures of the high priest and my lover the stranger waiting on the platform at the top of the steps.
I hold my back straight and my shoulders firm. I look neither right nor left, nor up nor down. I concentrate on the climb so that I suffer no misstep that they might think results from fear. I do not count. I take each step in its turn. My pace is the same when I start as it is now that I am almost to the platform. One is the same as the other. I am at the top. My death is at hand.
I only glance quickly at my lover the stranger. Neither he nor I smile or give any other hint of recognition. The only business here is the death of a child.
I climb onto the sacrificial stone. I hook the rings over my ankles and the barbed neck brace around my neck. Then I lay back on the stone, rounded so my chest is thrust up for the priest to do his work. I reach back and put my wrists in their rings. "I am ready," I tell the priest. He moves around me quickly pulling the straps tight. I am spread-eagled over the stone. My arms and legs ache from the pull of the straps. My back is bent uncomfortably over the stone. The barbs sting harshly as they pierce my throat. From close by I hear the softly spoken words of the stranger declaring his love for me. I am happy. I am so stretched back over the stone now that I can only see the blue sky above. Then the priest's head and hands come into my view as he raises the obsidian knife. It is as if my chest were hit with a heavy hammer. I see the priest again ... and his hands holding up my bloody heart, which somehow is still beating so strongly that he must hold it firmly.
I sigh. It is over.
*****
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