Boon: Book 7

The Haunt of Conscience

"Religion cannot be evicted by humanity. It always amuses me whenever someone tries, because religion isn't just worshiping services or saying you believe in a god or even cannabis. It's the organization of beliefs, and every individual has an organized set of beliefs that they use in deciding who they will associate with, aka, who will make up the congregation of their personal church. Whether those beliefs are worthwhile or whether the individual themselves are loyal to them is a different story, and also one of the main reasons for negativity towards the concept of religion. Tolerance of others beliefs isn't just about being okay that someone thinks differently than you, nor is it accepting others beliefs as your own. It's being okay when someone lives their beliefs so well, they remind you how badly you uphold your own.

There is no possible way for one to be completely okay with being reminded of their own failure. Rather, tolerance is not attacking another for being exceptional where you are not.

Whether or not you decide to change or to better yourself because of that reminder is a different story. But it isn't so far fetched to say that happiness doesn't come with a refusal to change. That is, after all, why some call a refusal to change, to grow, to develop, to repent, damnation.

But then the question is: how to change? Not all change is good, after all.

And that, friends, is answered by religion."

-Oliver Davis in Plain, under a different name

I sensed a tension in the room. Intuition tickled me that something had been hit.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "I didn't offend you or anything, did I? Though I don't know what's so offensive about that, bringing babies to a work site-"

"I'm asking how prevalent drugs are at your home," he said in that tone I knew meant he was utterly unimpressed with someone. I knew it so well because of how often he had used it with me in the beginning. "You have no reason to assume we'd take our baby to a possibly dangerous site of a haunting, and even if we did bring him, most people wouldn't think much of someone carrying a baby while asking a college student some questions. Not that it is unorthodox for you to be a bit uncomfortable, but I would like to be reassured that the reason isn't because of drug abuse."

Her shoulders hunched a bit, bunching her long, bleached hair into little arcs. "What, are you the narc police or something? Not that it matters, there aren't drugs in our house, no way."

My intuition binged. I didn't believe her. And even if I did, a part of me wondered if she'd even care if a baby were exposed to it. Suddenly, I felt very unnerved by this girl, though I shook it off. I was being extremely judgmental and paranoid. Just because she was afraid to wake up the baby didn't mean she, what, didn't like kids? Must be my new mama nerves. Definitely that.

"It's a college sorority," Naru said. "It was stupid of me to ask. I never take my son onto sites anyways. I am, after all, a professional. You should know, having no job whatsoever. Makes me wonder how you can afford to pay for a paranormal investigator and why. As far as I can tell, your parents don't approve of the paranormal, so it's not like they'd pay."

The temperature of the room plummeted.

I shrunk from my peeping corner and back into the kitchen and facepalmed.

Way to go on not being completely offensive. Sometimes I wondered if that man's comprehension of social decorum wasn't fully developed.

There was a stillness before she asked, her tone a new kind of quiet, "How do you know that?"

"It's nothing special. I am currently in the middle of the application process of teaching at Tokyo University and I happened to meet your father, who didn't especially approve of the university's choice to add psychic and paranormal curriculum to the science department. A Dr. Yusmishi, if I'm correct."