The Omnist

Let's pretend I know what you're talking about

A woman and two men make their way to the cave by the light of a half moon. The woman is willowy, and beautiful with age, her hair rippling like water in the silver light. The first man is tall, straight-backed and broad-shouldered despite his snowy beard. The second man is younger, darker, with eyes like shining black wells.
   They walk deep into the cave, where sacred stories are told on the walls in pictures and symbols. They light a candle and in its flickering light painted snakes, women, trees and stars seem to writhe and come to life. Finally they stop. A dead end.
   “My love,” says the older man, “we need total privacy for this. Not even the ancestors can eavesdrop.”
   “Are you certain you know what we’re doing?” she asks him, “the truth is like smoke, and the path towards it is fraught with blind alleys and traps.”
   “I am positive,” he gazes at her for a moment, as if memorising her face, then she nods and closes her eyes. There is grating, grumbling, ear-splitting groaning sounds and the rock slides and tumbles together to block their way in.
   “Good,” says the man and before she can open her eyes he draws his dagger and plunges it into her heart.
   “Mother!” cries the young man, falling to her side, "what have you done?” and he begins to sob, stroking the woman’s hair as the life leaves her eyes.
  “I had to do it,” says the older man quietly, “this is the only way. If it fails, well, I’m sorry my child. You had a whole life to live and I may yet have wasted it.”
   “What do you mean? I don’t understand, don’t you love us?”
   “I do. More than anything. But I didn’t do this for love.”
   “Then why?” the young man stands and facesthis father, his face tear-stained but resolute, full of anger and betrayal.
   “The visions,” says the father, “of the destruction of the Old Things, the Holy Things, they show a time far in the future.”
   “Exactly! There is nothing we can do about them!”
   “No, we can go there, I have found a way. But we must enter the Dark Doorway, your mother has already walked through it, it was quick and easy for her. She would never have sealed us in if I had told her what I’m telling you now. But we will need her on the other side.”
   “But how can you know that we won’t rest here until the end of the world?” he is still distraught.
   “In the visions every sacred place was over turned, every Old Thing unearthed. They will find us, and when they do we will re-enter the world as spirits and try to fix it.”
   “I can’t,” gasps the young man, “we alone can’t fix the world! That’s madness. We are only prophets, not gods. I cannot do this!”
   “It is too late,” says the older man, “we are sealed in our tomb. It is already done.”

Wednesday

The streets were sweetly laced with birdsong.
   And then the city jumpstarted, traffic rumbling, voices humming, horns honking, chirping of pedestrian crossings and the seagulls screaming with surprise that another day had begun, the earth turned, life went on in spite of everything. It was March, but unless you looked closely you would hardly notice; it could have been any winter month.
   Lydia dodged a car sat in the bicycle lane, its hazards winking, and she wished for the zillionth time that she had a helmet camera. “Shitting piss-buckets,” she said, wished again, this time that she had said some cooler swearwords, not that anyone could hear over the traffic.
   Lydia was dark-eyed and florid-cheeked. Lydia was sweaty and cross. She arrived at the office, although it was not the office where she usually worked, it was the office where she was going for a job interview. So it was more difficult to find and further from home, hence the bike-ride of death through the city centre at rush hour.
   The office looked onto the floating harbour. To reach the front door on foot you could walk along a cobbled street which ran between the offices and the water. There were London plane trees all the way along, like soldiers in camo, and in the dock were house boats made homely with potted plants, bicycles, strings of lights, dirty tarpaulins, planks and bric-a-brac. Throughout the day ferries went to and fro, grinning their toothy shark grins, and laden with tourists and people.
   Lydia didn’t care about any of this. She locked her bike to an honest-looking railing and buzzed into the lobby, where (of course) there was nobody around and no signs telling her where, in the entire 12 story building, the offices of Drury and Rayes were.
   So, intensely aware of her own sweat like a skin disease, she began to climb the stairs. two floors, three floors up. She saw an open door: it had to be Drury and Rayes, the door open to welcome the interviewees. Walked confidently into a tiny reception area (it was much more homely than she had expected) where she found a woman sat at a desk, raptly watching the screen of an ancient Mac.
   As soon as the woman saw her approaching she leapt over the desk, kicking a potted plant onto the floor in the process, and grasped Lydias hand in a frighteningly firm handshake. She was taller than Lydia, thinner too, she was very pale and freckly, her hair cropped short and her smile – full of small, neat teeth – too wide to seem sincere.
   “Hello! Welcome, welcome,” she said.
   “Er, is this Drury and Rayes?” asked Lydia.
   “Absolutely not!” beamed the woman, “but please, take a seat.”
   “No thank you, I’m going for an interview at Drury and Rayes and I’m going to be late. Do you know where it is?”
   “Next floor up,” she said, “but look, you’re 15 minutes early,” the woman pointed to a clock, “stay a few minutes, I’m incredibly bored.”
   Lydia glanced towards the clock, then shrugged and nodded: it might give her a chance to compose herself before the interview.
   “Are you sure you’re meant to be at Drury and Rayes? I feel certain that you actually have an appointment with me,” the woman returned to her seat.
   “Who are you, exactly?”
   “My name is Evelyn Ody. I’m a consulting Omnist”
   “A what?”
   “And you are American. And a cyclist. And you... you like lilac”
   “What are you, like some sort of Sherlock Holmes?” smiled to show it was a joke, narrowed her eyes to show it wasn’t.
   She leaned back and put her feet on the desk, “not really.”
   “Are you like a PI?” Lydia was feeling less bewildered now and more certain that this person was stupid, deluded, rude.
   “No,” said Evelyn, “not like a PI. Subtler than a PI. And more interesting.”
   “Right. You know what, I think I’m just gonna go because I don’t wanna be late. I need this job.”
   “Yes,” said Evelyn thoughtfully, “you do don’t you.”
   Lydia wondered if her outfit looked shabby (it couldn’t be any worse than Evelyns oversized denim jacket), she wondered whether this was a sort of subtle British insult. She decided to be insulted, “goodbye,”” she turned away crisply.
   “No no no, wait!” Evelyn was suddenly serious, “I really think that you are here to see me. Has anything unusual happened to you recently?”
   “No. Goodbye.”
   “Wait!” Lydia could hear the crazy woman shouting behind her, “something has happened hasn’t it? Something weird! Come back!”