I thought I loved her at some point.
Being a voice in another person’s head, it’s hard not despising the person whose consciousness you belong in, to loathe the one thing keeping you from moving on. She thought she was crazy. Her doctors thought she was crazy. I knew she was crazy, but not because of me—I knew she was crazy because she’d grown up to be me. And I hated her for it.
But she was my daughter.
“No, you’re not,” she told me once when we got into an argument, later in her miserable existence. “You left me when I needed you the most. You took me in when I needed you gone. You’re a pestilence, you’re an inferno, you’re hell in a turtleneck, and the last thing you’ll ever be is my father.”
But she was. I knew she was. Perhaps it’s different for mothers, perhaps it’s another mad thing that separated the both of us from the rest of humanity, but I knew she was my daughter the moment she looked me in the eye. She carried the endless abyss of space behind her childish gaze, the emptiness only she and I could understand. She was madder than I was, and I’d met her while trying to burn down a church.
It was Sunday morning. She was eight.
“Grandpapa,” she told Barley that morning, pointing at me. “What’s the funny man with the lighter got in his mouth?”
Barley, my saint of insanity, the only man who understood that I couldn’t be saved, stared at me with somberness in his eyes. The same pitiable look any theist would give an agnostic, or an atheist—yet with a less condescending air to it. “A cigarette, my dear,” he told her. I could hear him from across the pews, clutching at my silver lighter like it was a rosary. “Don’t come near. You’ll catch his illness.”
“What illness, grandpapa?”
He paused for a moment, continuing his stare. “Lung cancer,” he said. “And doubt.”
Like lung cancer, doubt passes down to many generations.
“How is she, Barley?” I asked him, still clutching at my lighter nervously. My sweater smelled of gasoline and my hair could be coal for all he knew, he’d figured out why I was there. He may believe in God, but he knows a devil when he sees one. “Growing up well? Normal?”
“Reasonably sane.” He glared at my lighter. “How are you, Faulkner?”
“I’m fidgeting constantly and I’ve taken off the nicotine patches, how in God’s name do I look?” I answered, my laugh like a scared shudder translated into sound waves. “I hate this place. I loathe it’s spirituality, I detest all this talk of faith and guidance, I abhor the fact that it’s still here today, and I can’t stand that I can almost smell the smoke seeping into my skin every time I come in.”
“Then why come at all?”
I frowned at him. “Because you made me this way,” I told him. “Because I look up at your damned cross and I remember the few nights where I dreamed of angels instead of demons. Because I feel your God like He’s an illness, and I can almost hear Him in the ashes of the furnace. Because you made me believe in God when you knew it was the last thing I needed.”
“Faulkner,” he said, calmly. “It was the only thing you needed.”
“I have enough imaginary men wrecking my psyche already,” I screamed at him, losing grips to my lighter. I jumped as it bounced to the floor, by my feet. The elderly man reached down to take it, but I shook my head. “Don’t bother. I have another at home, and I’d probably blow your church into smithereens if you gave it back to me.”
“Ichabod Faulkner--”
“Shut up.” I paused. I tapped the burning cigarette between my fingers against the back of my hand, leaving burn marks by the knuckles. “Just shut up.”
I didn’t end up burning that church down.
…
The second time I tried burning that church down, some were more aware of my presence. Some of Barley’s colleagues would try to hold me back, and I’d nearly obliged them if it weren’t for her voice.
“Mr. Harlan,” she said, her brown hair tousled and her eyes gleaming. She was nine; still a baby, in my eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Stay back, Louie.”
“Why?”
He was tempted to say ‘he’ll burn us down’, I could tell. Caretakers curse their orphans with their most apparent flaws; I possessed Harlan’s blunt and belligerent mind with Barley’s stubborn heart. I’m not sure what she got. “He just wants to come by and visit Barley,” she told him, earnestly. “He wants to get better—that’s what Barley said. Can’t you let him get better, Mr. Harlan?”
I had glared at the girl for an uncomfortable amount of time, wondering where she had gotten the idea, but I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Barley liked his prodigal sons. Though I doubt he wanted to make me any better.
“Harlan gave you a hard time,” Barley stated, when I was finally allowed in.
“I don’t mind,” I replied. “I would, too, if I knew some motherfucker with a lighter and a car trunk of gasoline was coming in one night to take everything away.”
He sat by me in the front bench, staring. “I have to tell Harlan not to curse, too,” he chuckled. “How you’ve grown, Ichabod.”
I paused. I looked up at the cross by the podium, slowly letting my gaze drift to the side. In the distant corner, hiding behind a pillar, stood a nine-year old version of myself, with longer hair and eyelashes. “Does she know?”
Barley’s smile faded from his lips. “She’s catching on.” He confessed. “You’re…much too alike. And she’s much too clever. I can’t claim you another lost lamb for long, especially if you come by every year.”
I wished I was lost. “No imaginary friends?” I asked. “No strange voices in the middle of the night?”
“Nothing.”
“Lucky girl.”
I didn’t burn down the church that time, either.
…
I came back every year when the business of running away from the divine became pathetic (said business entailed logging, various odd jobs, and, at some point, simply waiting for death in the cold wilderness). I had the same conversations with that old man, the same argument with Harlan, and the same distant glares with a broken mirror. I managed to avoid an actual conversation with my own daughter for the longest time. It was almost anti-climactic when we finally got to it.
“What are you doing here?”
She was fourteen. I didn’t have a lighter.
“I should be asking you that.”
Barley wasn’t around to busy either of us. It was much too late in the evening for anyone to be there, the lights of the wooden church (it’s like the walls are consciously taunting arsonists—come and get me! I’m deliciously flammable and have nothing but an invisible man in the clouds to protect me!) turned off, replaced only by candles near the podium. The snowstorm beat against the window panes outside, and I wondered if I would finally be able to do it. There were candles. I could always tip them and see where destiny took the flame. There was nobody there to talk me out of it. Well, almost nobody.
“I like it here.” She propped herself down by my bench, her hands clasped in a prayer gesture. “I sleep here every weekend, at the back where Mr. Harlan used to stay before he got married. They let me, so long as I come back every morning for breakfast. Sometimes they’re nice and come here instead.” She turned to me. “Would you like to stay here, too?”
I chuckled. “You oughtn’t ask strange men to stay with you.”
“I don’t think there are any strange men; only lost ones. I can’t condone them, but I can’t leave them out in the cold, either.” She had Barley’s mind, I realized; stupidly hopeful. Seeds of Harlan’s heart peeked every now and then, characterized by her innocent skepticism. “And you don’t look like you have anywhere to go.”
I reached into my coat, pulling out a pack of bubblegum. She watched me keenly as I popped one into my mouth. I offered one to her. “Strawberry.”
She took one, smiling. “Are you getting better?”
“What?”
“Mr. Harlan used to chew bubblegum so he can stop smoking.” She told me this while sliding a piece in her mouth. “Does that mean you’ve stopped?”
No, it didn’t. It only meant I left my lighter and foreign cigarettes in the car so I wouldn’t have to waste my time when I inevitably decide not to end my misery. “It means I like the taste of strawberry better than death and self-pity,” I answered, instead. “There’s an evident difference between that and being a mentally healthy individual.”
“Oh.” She looked down, digesting the new information she was given. “Well, I hope you get better, Mister Faulkner.”
I arched a brow. “How’d you know my name?”
She chewed on her bubblegum, blowing a piece and letting it deflate anti-climatically. Admittedly, I couldn’t form a stillborn bubble for the life of me. “Mr. Harlan and Grandpa Barley keep arguing about you, and Grandma Nina tells me stories about you,” she answered. “I hope you go to heaven, too. I know you don’t like God, but He still likes you.”
I almost laughed, until the last sentence fully struck me. “How’d you know that?”
She smiled. “He told me.” She said.
“What does He--” I paused. Oh no. “What does He look like?”
She chuckled, blowing and deflating another bubblegum. “God doesn’t look like anything,” she said, as if it was obvious. “It’s just His voice. He’s a friend of mine, so He talks to me when He can. He could talk to you, too, if you’d like.”
I widened my eyes in horror, and then smiled in dismay. It always starts with the voices. “Do you love Him?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
“Yeah. I thought so.” I answered. “Charming little rapscallion, ain’t He?”
“You know Him?”
All too well.
We talked through those weekend nights, about a voice that may or may not have existed, about various Bible verses she was particularly fond of. She was more religious than I was at her age—that lanky child who’d wake up screaming at midnight had little left to hold onto besides a coverless bible and his dead mother’s rosaries—still clung to holy ghosts, long after he burnt both artifacts.
She slept in Harlan’s bunkers, down in the basement where the snow couldn’t reach her. I stayed with her, despite my earlier stance on the subject. She liked my God. “He’s nice,” she told me. “He never goes anywhere or anything, and He’s always there to help. Mine only comes by in my dreams. He sends His angels down to talk when I pray, but He only talks when He can.”
“Really?” I chuckled, tossing her another slice of bubblegum. “Mine can’t seem to shut up.”
“That must mean He really likes you.”
I smirked. I leaned against the wooden walls of the bunker, wrapping a blanket over my shoulders. “My doctor tells me it means I haven’t been taking enough of my medication,” I said, frankly. “But you know, it’s strange. Sometimes He reminds me to take my medications. Other times He tells me to jump off a bridge.”
“Oh.” She hid underneath her covers, her hands tucked safely under her pillow. “Well, maybe you can hear the Devil, too.”
I shook my head. “I hope they aren’t there,” I admitted. “For my sake, and others. Just so we don’t need to tell the difference.”
“It isn’t hard to know which one is which,” she answered. “I mean, everybody wants to be God, and nobody wants to be the Devil. I think it’s different for everybody, but it’s simple enough; God is powerful, God is great, God is kind, God is good. The Devil is weak, the Devil is horrible, the Devil is cruel, the Devil is bad. It can be different for everybody. I mean, your God is open, so maybe you want to be more open to others. Mine is quiet, so maybe I’m happy to be quiet. But the principle is the same.”
I smiled. “Now, I wouldn’t say nobody wants to be the Devil.”
“Why?”
“At least the Devil’s proud of being evil,” I said. “Have you ever met a human who’s never been ashamed of themselves?”
She narrowed her eyes, snorting. “I’m not ashamed of being human.”
“Then you wouldn’t need to believe in God.”
She didn’t believe me.
She didn’t believe in a lot of things.
I left without burning anything down, and I came back the next weekend to accompany her through her nights under the church. Barley and Harlan noticed. They each reacted the way their personalities stated they should. I don’t think Louise cared as much as she should’ve. She was mostly occupied with our discussions and my silver lighters. Her infatuation with fire started at a very young age, but only I was mildly worried about it. She was Louise. She wouldn’t grow up to be her fuck up of a dad.
…
My death was a sudden arrangement.
It came to me one evening, while I was away. I had Louie promise me to teach me how to blow a bubblegum; I promised her I’d teach her how to start a fire without a lighter. I was driving down to the church, fighting against piles of snow on the driveway, when a flicker of light came into view. There was shouting. I somehow knew.
“You bastard,” Harlan screamed at me, the moment I entered the area. The robust building had fallen in half, and I realized someone had accomplished what I haven’t had the guts to do for years. “You bastard, how did you do this?”
“Harlan!” Barley echoed in the distance. There was a fire truck rolling by. I had not taken notice. “Use your head—you know he couldn’t have done any of this if he’d just--”
“Louie,” I whispered to no one and every one.
There was a scream.
I thought I saw God as I charged into the fire.
…
“Faulkner, I--”
“Come on,” I screamed, pushing a wooden beam away from her leg. It was visibly injured, and the burns on the side of her face would take years to heal, but she was conscious and speaking. As much as I denied it then, I thanked God in my thoughts. “We need to go.”
“I’m sorry,” hot tears streamed down her face, and I remember clutching at her jacket, feeling a lighter in her pockets. She stole it from me. “I didn’t mean for it to get so big.”
I paused. It was the worst time for it, but I had gone mad, and I didn’t know what time meant. “What did you see?”
She dug her face into my shoulder. Perhaps it was the crackle of the fire around us. Perhaps she’d gone mad, as well. But I heard her laugh the happiest, most sickening laugh she ever mustered, and in that moment I knew she was just as lost as I was. “I told you I believed in God,” she told me. “And I believe in the Devil, too.”
I held onto her hair. I think I was weeping. “Oh, Louie,” I whispered, “What have I done?”
Barley was screaming from the outside.
We had to go.
I carried her, limply, to the door. A demon came down from the top of the threshold, slicing a wooden beam down to block the way. There was only a little triangular space in between, like a gate from hell to heaven. I limped towards it, desperately, not for me; never for me. Only for her. A firefighter crawled through the triangle while others held it up, his hands pleading for her. I left her body in his hands. “Your turn, sir,” he told me, and I followed to crawl after.
Perhaps it was because I didn’t believe in God. Perhaps it was because, secretly, I did.
The beam crashed down.
…
“You ought to have died,” she told me, during one of our many arguments. “You ought to have died and went straight to hell, where you belong.”
She was running away again, chasing shadows on the pavements. She looked up to the starless night, and she saw the abyss—she saw reflections of her eyes, she saw the emptiness in her heart. She was a young flame, feeding off of oxygen and blame. I was ash, a carcass of her making. “Where are you going, Louie?”
“I’m leaving,” she said, as she said several times in the past few nights after the fire. “I’m leaving, and I’m never going back.”
I nodded, stashing my fingers in my coat pockets. Her mind gave me bubblegum, at least. No cigarettes. I popped one in my mouth, blowing. Huh. Must’ve finally learnt it from her. “Why?” I asked. “It won’t get rid of me.”
She shook her head. If she could cry, I’m sure she would. But she lost many things in that fire; half her face, her left eye, her sanity, her emotions, and me. She was done crying. “Is there a heaven, Faulkner?” she asked me. “Is there a hell, as well? Or is that why you’re here? Do you have nowhere to go?”
I blew another bubble, before chewing at it. “I don’t know,” I answered, “You know I don’t know.”
“You’re dead, you should,” she shouted at me, stopping her limp movement. Her foot was evidently in pain. “I burnt down the one thing my grandfather had—the one thing I had—to prove you wrong, and you won’t even admit it!”
I paused. I blew one more piece. “If you proved me wrong,” I replied, “Why would you need my confirmation?”
She glared at me. Her face was a perfect picture of sorrow; shriveled and burnt, one eye milky white, her hair balding out of shame. One day, the physical deformation will fade. One day she’ll be the girl I never had the chance to raise. But I’ll always be here, no matter how many pills the doctors shove into her throat. “Who are you?” she asked me. “What do you want from me?”
I’m your father, I wanted to say. But that wasn’t my choice to make. I was a slave to her consciousness, a ghost. “Schizophrenia is generational. I got it because my mother had it, because my grandfather came back from war a little deranged. You have it--” I paused. Not because I couldn’t say more, but because she couldn’t take it. “I’m your doubt. I’m your reason. I’m the truth you constantly deny.”
She shook her head. Again, with the disbelief. I wish I had her incredulity. That why, I wouldn’t have needed to come back to the God forsaken church. “How could you be me denying the truth when you don’t even know what the truth is?”
I smiled. “You’re learning.”
She didn’t run away that night.
The neighbors caught her leaning on a lamppost before she could go anywhere and sent her back. They talked about her like they did about me, when I lost my mother; poor child, lost lamb, changed. Soon they’d be calling her what they were calling me, now—mad.
We wanted separate things, she and I.
She wanted to replenish her faith.
I wanted nothing more than to lose it.
We were both disappointed.
“Maybe we should’ve listened to the lunatic and left the girl out of her faith,” Harlan said, one night, in the living room, while she sat outside listening by the door. “She has too much in common with her father.”
“Let’s not think about Louie for now,” Barley replied. “Let’s see if we can gather the funds to rebuild the church. At least then we won’t have to think about how we’ll support her school and her therapy.”
She heard Harlan groan. “If only I could get my hands on the arse who did all of this--”
“Harlan.”
“Fine.”
They didn’t know, of course. I made sure she didn’t say anything. The guilt would eat her alive, I knew, but it was better than seeing Barley’s face further delve into disappointment and failure. The man had gone through enough, losing two of his own flock. He didn’t need to know one of them followed the same path her father did.
She got into arguments with Barley. She couldn’t believe I was her father. He wasn’t sure if he should oblige the illusion or not. He’d obliged so many other illusions, why shouldn’t he do this one?
But, unlike God, genes and history had more definite answers.
The neighbors knew.
Barley and Harlan knew.
And then, so did she.
“Why couldn’t you just stay dead?” she asked me once. She’d run away again, to the ruins of her church this time. “I was just an orphan before you came. I was just a church child. Now, I’m a mental case. Now, I’m you.”
I stood by her, putting a hand over her shoulder. “I loved you too much to let you go.”
She shook her head. “If you loved me, you’d tell me what’s on the other side.”
I stopped. “You know what makes us both different, Louie?” I asked. “I’m a faithful non-believer, and you’re an incredulous disciple. I can’t help but believe in God. I’m too humble, I’m too ashamed not to. But you? You don’t need God. You never did. You burned brighter than any star in this universe; you had no need for anymore light.”
She stared at me. “But I could hear Him,” she said. “I swear, I could.”
Perhaps she did hear God. Perhaps He stood in those flames, and was buried underneath the rubble, as well. Perhaps He was never there to begin with. We stood there for the longest time, pondering too deeply into matters bigger than ourselves. She lost her faith in the fire. I found mine in the ashes.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
