Disarm Evil

Chapter 22: Coexist

Our mission to district seven must have taken less time than it felt like it did, because the family is still working out what should be packed and what should be left behind.

I don't know what to pack given that I don't know what is and is not Viadu's. So Jove is taking care of my packing alongside vers. However, I notice Jove is packing with a glazed-over and hardened expression. Either ve is deep in thought or dissociating, I cannot tell.

"Are you okay Jove?" I ask.

"Why me specifically?" Jove asks, "If things go poorly with this escape, none of us will be okay."

"I mean, are you going to be okay abandoning everything you have been working towards? You have worked so hard for a degree, and now you will leave before all of that hard work can pay off."

To my surprise, Jove cracks up at my words, "Pay off. I'm glad I won't have to pay off my schooling. Do you remember three deposits ago when I was trying to figure out our finances? Right before we had to send the pups to work in the mines."

"Yeah, I remember." I say.

"Do you remember how I told the pups that they would only have to work in the mines until either I got my degree or you two were able to work?" Jove asks.

I nod.

"I lied." Jove says.

"What?" Shibi and Mebi cry out simultaneously.

"That night, three deposits ago, I finally braved figuring out our financial situation. I hadn't wanted to do it before because it felt hopeless, but having just moved up in society, I was optimistic. Turns out, with all of the debt we have accumulated, even if I got my dream job, we would all have to keep working just to sleep in our new home."

Apart from Jove, everyone else has stopped packing in shock at the hopelessness of our situation, even if everything had gone right.

"Doesn't matter now," Jove continues, "If this one thing goes well, we will be able to start over with a clean slate!"

Jove's words trigger a wave of distress within me. Ritu, the ministry teaches that exaltation is a matter of receiving You and then the manifestation of Your virtues equips us to multiply our blessings, bettering our circumstances by extension. However, it wasn't Your virtues that got us out of the slums, it was Fami.

The image of the incomplete tower once again returns to my mind.

Did we build a tower when we accepted Fami's gift? If so, why didn't you stop Fami? What were we supposed to do with the gift? Just toss it aside? Maybe, though that feels like a completely unrealistic thing to expect from a family that is in such a desperate situation. Still, all that has happened would seem to lend merit to the idea that you have designed nature to bring us back down. Yet here we are, about to build that tower even higher in a desperate attempt to resist nature's efforts to bring us back down to where we belong.

"Hey," Jove says, looking at me with a curious and concerned expression, "What about you, are you doing alright?"

"I'm fine." I say, not sure if I'm ready to have Jove rip my beliefs to pieces again.

"Don't give me that shit. You look like someone who is waiting to die." Jove's demeanor feels far less hostile at this moment than it has ever felt before. Ve seems like ve might actually want to help me as opposed to tear me down. I am curious to see where this goes, and so I take the risk of opening up.

I let out a sigh, "Makes sense... I'm anxious that we may die. It's more than that though. Recently I began to realize that I am not obligated to believe the things I was told I had to believe. There is one thing I would rather not believe, but it just makes too much sense with everything that is going on."