"'"Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?"' is how I started my last conversation with Eve," Anders says to the Robot on the now-dark shore. The waves heave lightly, dependably. He weeps with silent intensity.
(I have been in love. I have had my heart broken, betrayed; and I broke her heart, too, betrayed her trust. We were young. It was a long time ago, now. I am again in love, so this girl I loved is only but a dream. But even so, to hear the pains of Anders' first interaction with the light of love after living life in darkness, blinding light this Eve had giv'n freely to him, seemingly without a thought for how her light would break his soul to pieces--it hurts to type, and I remember what it feels like...)
Then, collected somewhat, he says, "I don't understand. Why won't she wake up? Why can't she hear me? I just want to talk to her. She, we, we weren't supposed to still be here, that's what we were told--!"
"I know," the Robot says. "Anders. Tell me the story. Please. It will be good for you, and I need to hear it." There is a desperation in her voice, and this is what convinces him to focus.
"How did you meet her?"
He pauses, then begins:
-
I knew I needed to leave home as soon as I was able. I thought that meant serving a full-time two-year proselytizing mission somewhere abroad. Then right before my senior year of high school ended, the new Prophet, Robert M. Smith announced the end of the missionary program. I was, I can see now that I was relived. So I instead went to the school for the Elect's children, full of Young Single Adults.
The energy there was incredible. Everyone was smiling all the time, which was fairly normal in the Church, but it was hugely magnified after the announcement. This kinda surprised me; it was a four-year school mostly made up of people who had served missions. I think I expected them to be betrayed, as if they would find a futility in their sacrifice.
It was the total opposite. Though President Smith didn't offer any explanation other than opening the announcement by saying he had, "received an urgent revelation from the Lord, that the time has come--" that part was what everyone was basing their lives around, myself (obviously) included: we all believed that he meant The time had come, the Last Days.
And, well, we were apparently correct about that--
-
"No," the Robot says. "It was actually your belief, whispered to him from every Stake in his Kingdom, that gave him the 'Revelation'."
Anders laughs, head between shivering knees and chattering teeth. "I--fucking knew it..." (He swears as a novice pretending otherwise.)
"Well, it was the belief of the membership that helped a lot. There were also many powerful people in the church leading him along into their own desires. There were some who...wanted this for a long time. Anyways, continue."
-
Alright. We met there. Everyone I met there is...well, married, for one thing. Some even managed to become polygamists and polyandrists by nineteen, with kids by twenty. Polyandry was only newly revealed to be acceptable in the Temple around this time, too.
All are asleep, now. Even the toddlers. Some dead.
But, uh, I was assigned by our YSA Bishop to be Eve's Minister. Eve and her roommates. And for some reason I wanted to meet with them on a one-on-one basis instead of all three at once.
("Either way, that's fuckin' weird that they assigned you, one male, to 'Minister' to three women," the Robot says.)
Agreed. I don't know which would've been the more honorable path, to not waste their time and get it out of the way with all of them at once, or try and get to know them and serve them with my Priesthood blessings if they needed one.
(They were trying to set you up, Anders.)
... What? No. No! I doubt they did it intentionally, but, I mean, it did happen that way, and it did feel like a date when Eve and I first met. We talked about art. I wanted to be an art historian, and she was an artist. We both liked Van Gogh. What else can I say, I was in love and I knew it. I hate how that sounds, I hate how that sounds! I was nineteen. Eventually, a few weeks later, she held my hand and asked me to be her boyfriend, and I had a panic attack. Never happened before. She kept holding my hand, even though it was sweating and trembling. I didn't know what was happening, so I smiled, said, "Let's do it," and kissed her forehead.
That's it.
YOU ARE READING
Pale Fragments
Science FictionAn alien Robot came to me before she left to die. She sang to me the stories of how her ancient world and species ended, how she was created to travel through Time, how (in the far future) she met an essential boy named Anders, how she named herself...
