Into the Light

Chapter 15: Strange things afoot

Chapter: 15

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

Siddhartha Gautama: the Buddha

A personal day passes and the city of windows gets by without Blake. A deposit is made to the bookie and not seeing any masked ones on the walk to get groceries, no cookies, prompts him to call Stiggy. They decide to meet at Blake's apartment. In his cramped chamber covered in papers, Stiggy and he hunker down on the couch and discuss the nature of reality. A lucky silver-plated pen, twirls between Stiggy's twiggy fingers.

"So what's your last name?" Blake asks and gets up.

"Michael Mara is my given name but I never use it unless it has to deal with official business or the DMV," he says.

The pen twirls as Stiggy flattens the cushion behind his back with his other hand and then watches Tyger climb up on top his tiny plastic house. Blake heads to the refrigerator and then grabs two beers in brown bottles because he read online that brown bottles keep beer from spoiling.

"Interesting pet, most people are afraid of venomous animals," Stiggy says as Blake hands him a chilled bottle and then plops down.

"So God is gone and the religions are shit?" Blake asks.

"God left long ago and religions aren't shit. The do a great job of keeping people tribalized and that is what the masked ones want."

"What about angels and the afterlife?"

"The Afterlife would imply just one condition. I don't think there is just one. Angels, or the ones of light, don't really do much except maybe come to a person in a vision while they're having a drug overdose and tell them to change their ways. Bunch of impotent messengers. Angelos is messenger in Greek. You can find them telling humans things and not doing much in all the religious texts from the Book of Enoch, Tobit, Elijah, to the Hindu Bagavadgita."

He pauses as the pen slips from his fingers down to his lap. The pen safely back between his fingers, his digits begin to roll along.

"Sorry. What was I saying? Oh yes. All refer to beings like that. Listen to this. Saw a TV show where some loon professor where he theorized that angels, demi-gods, giants, Nephilim, where all extra-terrestrial aliens. He took the sky battles in Hindu texts and said they were space ship battles. I have a feeling that professor is a masked one throwing out disinformation."

"So we can't find angels and ask for help?" Blake asks.

"No. They won't help do anything that changes the game," Stiggy says and take a slug of beer. His teeth chill and his eyes burn from the carbon dioxide bubbles rising through his nose.

Blake shakes his head as he relaxes into the seams of the couch when he feels the room sink and a low-pitched boom cracks his ears with a slap.

"What the fuck was that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The noise what else?"

"What noise?"

"The fucken crazy loud explosion."

"I didn't hear it."

"What?"

"I didn't hear anything."

A knock at the door breaks the confusion and Blake gets up to answer. He peeps the peephole and sees Ms. Braque with casserole dishes covered by crumpled foil. Blake closes his eyes for a second, sighs and opens the door. She flows in like a storm surge.