The Spaces in Between (28 page)

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied, “You don’t have to leave.”

Cameron opened his mouth to reply, but found that someone had plucked the answer right off the tip of his tongue. Instead he shook his head. “Business. I need to talk to God. It’s really urgent. Can you point me in the direction of him?”

Kristina shrugged. “God’s not here.”

“Excuse me?”

“He doesn’t live in the Creation, you know that. Heaven is still part of the Creation.”

“Then what about all that crap about being with God when you die!”

“Well, that’s mostly true. You can see God here, because Kether is closest to him. Heaven is lit by his radiance. He can be seen or heard, but it’s kind of garbled like through water. Or rather it’s like he’s pressing his face against the glass to look in.”

Cameron ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Then I need to get outside of all this- This aquarium.”

“But you haven’t even come inside of this, yet.” Kristina grabbed Cameron gently by the hand and pulled him off the marble platform. A feeling immediately washed over him and warmed his insides. It was a post coital feeling. Contentment.

Cameron bit his lip. He felt no pain, but the pressure was enough to snap him back into focus. “Are you sure that there isn’t a service exit or something like that? A toll to pay to someone for the next path?”

“There aren’t anymore paths. You’re done. You’ve reached the top of the Tree.”

“There is more. I should know I’ve been
out there
. It was an endless godforsaken desert like something from the
Dark Tower
books.”

“Go on. There are more worlds than these.” Kristina was now pulling Cameron along through Heaven. He didn’t quite notice it.

“Jake Chambers from
The
Gunslinger
,” Cameron replied, “I wonder if King ever wrote an ending to those…”

“He did. We have them all, of course.”

“I’ve never really had the patience for fiction.”

“This is Heaven, Cam. You don’t have to just read it. You can watch it like a movie. Not a Hollywood movie, but the movie in the heart of the writer and fans as they go over those words. If you want you could even live it as any character you want.”

“Live a King novel? Sounds like a damnation to me.” Cameron scratched the back of his head and looked around.

“One person’s Heaven is another’s Hell,” Kristina said in a matter of fact tone.

Cameron’s ear perked. “Did I just hear a scream? That sounded pretty chaotic too me. Is the exit down here?” He broke Kristina’s grasp and darted down a white corridor that he had not noticed before. She ran after him, but Cameron’s feet carried him far swifter. He made it through the door at the end first.

And stopped with his mouth agape.

“What- what the hell is this? Another test? A trick?” Cameron shouted.

“Hell? Close, but not quite.” Kristina placed one of her hands on Cameron’s shoulders. He shrugged it off. He found a reassuring weight reappear in the waistband of his
Hakama
, and he drew Ryoma’s massive revolver before stepping into the room.

In the center of the room a man with black hair hung from an upside down crucifix. A pair of red-scaled devils towering at over fifteen feet cracked cat o’nine tails that flayed the man’s flesh. He was so wounded that it was impossible to identify any further features of him. The man’s cries of agony almost drown out the singing and chimes, but not quite. Not enough for comfort.

The devil at the man’s right exploded under the force of anti-matter shell from Cameron’s revolver. He quickly spun the cylinder on his mini-dragon and vaporized the other devil. Cameron holstered the pistol and dove to the base of the inverted cross. He wrapped both of his hands around one of the bolts through the hanging man’s wrist and pulled with all his might.

“What are you doing?” the hanging man cried. “I’m supposed to be here. This is the only way I’ll ever connect to God. Oh, if only I had accepted Jesus into my life instead of heroine…”

“Calm down,” Cameron said in his most hush tone. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

“No, this is a trick. I repent! I accept my punishment with open arms.” Cameron freed the man’s right arm, and the hanging man swept his gnarled hand at him in an easy to avoid arc.

“Heaven is right through that doorway! Come on it’s just a few steps.”

“I will not allow you to trick me into renouncing the Lord, Satan!”

The revolver flew from Cameron’s belt again and the barrel slapped the hanging man across the face. “You idiot! I’m trying to help you! Heaven is only a few feet away!”

“He’s in Heaven,” Kristina whispered in Cameron’s ear. She placed a hand on Cameron’s shoulder leading down to the gun. “This is what he wants. He feels that he deserves to be punished for all eternity, but really has done nothing wrong.”

“Why doesn’t someone tell him?” Cameron whimpered.

“These people are hard to get through to. Sometimes we can never get through to them.”

“Then why doesn’t God tell them!” Cameron was now crying.

“God simply just doesn’t work that way. It would violate free will.” Cameron gritted his teeth in rage. Appeared to consider unloading a third shell into the hanging man, but thought better of it. He swats away Kristina’s hand instead and storms back out the door. She hurries after him again.

“Cam!”

“Hey God can you hear me? Can you FUCKING HEAR ME? I know you can!” Cameron yelled at the sky where only a thin layer separated him from God. “If this is what we do with free will then I don’t see the fucking point! You know what? I renounce my free will. I don’t want it anymore. I take your gift of free will and throw it back in your fucking, stupid face!”

Before Kristina could make it back to the corridor and stop Cameron from yelling, the Dread Pirate Cameron Styles also known as the Pirate King and countless other names as well as Sakamoto Ryoma ceased to be.

31

Before continuing it is prudent to properly define God. When God is mentioned and has been mentioned it is not solely referring to the male ultimate being of the Christian faith. Or the shared male creator of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths. No, when God is mentioned here it is referring to the genderless force beyond humanity’s true comprehension that created all universes, all worlds, and all life that all other religions are established in an attempt for mortals to relate to it. All religions to some degree are correct to the nature of God or at least an aspect in that nature, but all fail in the end of actually defining God because they apply human traits such as good and evil to a force that is not remotely human.

God does not meddle in the affairs of everyday mortal life. That would be a violation of free will, but there is a system in place. God may be the creator, but he is also the delegator. After creating a Universe a set of angels and multitude of other spirits are created to carry the Will as well as keep the Universe running. It would be folly to believe any mortal could understand the Will of God, but it seems to involve experimentation.

Let’s give these mortals the potential to be limitless creators through me and throw them into different Universes to see just how they abuse that power. God has lent each mortal the ability to be a limitless creator, but mortals do not realize this. On top of that mortals use the power to grant a series of the stupidest wishes. Usually “I’m not a limitless creator and I don’t think anyone else in my Universe is either.”

So that is not to say God is not a passive force either. God has set up the Universes to influence mortals to developing and creating in a certain way. Only through God can mortals create, but no mortal or wish is denied. They just get lost and mixed up by the short sightedness of mortals. For example the most classic history of this:

“God, I would like to be a living creature so that can feel a multitude of Earthly delights.”

“Sure.”

“I would like all the sustenance I need provided.”

“Well, that one was almost a given.”

“I’d like a wife…one that is not any sheep that wanders too close.”

“I’d thought you’d never ask.”

“Um, this wife is defective she has free will too. Could we try this again?”

“…alright.”

“Ew, gross I don’t want to see you make her! Let’s try this again.”

“Ok.”

“Yes, this is good, but shouldn’t I…well I don’t know… earn all this?”

“If you feel you must, but that’s not really necessary…”

“We need to be cast out of here and have to experience death and suffering. However give us all the mental facilities to survive and secretly give my wife free will. Also you are good so we need someone else to blame for all our troubles.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Wow, suffering really sucks. I’d like a way to get back in your good graces, but make sure it’s a real pain in the ass.”

“All you have to do is ask.”

This is an annotated version of the Adam, Lilith, and Eve story, but accurately describes the ultimate flaw in human nature. No matter how greedy the person if you keep handing them millions of dollars they eventually think they need to do something to earn it. Hence the eccentricities of most celebrities especially those that champion the environment or space aliens.

And all that nonsense about God creating mortals in his own image? That’s referring to the limitless creator deal again. Residing in every living thing is a spark of the Divine. A piece of God that he places in each soul. Sometimes people want to give these divine sparks back in fact in many religions that is the ultimate goal. This is not really a bad fate at all though.

Cameron was no longer a tiny divine spark, but he also did not cease to exist. Like a droplet of water in the ocean. It was no longer merely a droplet, but part of a much greater thing. So now was Cameron and it made him finally feel at peace.

Except deep within this water droplet there was another voice. One that did not want to be here at all.

“Cameron!” Sakamoto Ryoma bellowed from within. When they had first merged the voice had slowly faded, but now it was loud and clear again. “We’ve gotten very far off track! This must be fun for you, but I’m getting nothing from this! We have to get the Ark!”

“Cameron!
Cameron!
”

The water droplet then remembered something. At one time it had a body. That body was named Cameron amongst a number of other things. And it realized that all the things that it had given up could be taken back.
I have a free will!

I am embodiment of the divine mother as well as the divine father!

I am in touch with my lower and higher selves.

I am capable of both wrath and mercy.

My memories and emotions are mine and mine alone!

“My name is Cameron Styles,” he said. “And I’m addicting to being an immortal being trapped in a mortal shell! And this is Sakamoto Ryoma. I guess you could call him my sponsor. He’s quite dead though.” Cameron was now standing in a sea of white light dressed as his Pirate King self. He felt alive and rejuvenated. Like he did when he first accidentally brought himself to the Astral.

“Thank you for that great vote of confidence,” Ryoma said from beside him.

Before that mortal guilt could kick in that made Cameron think he had to earn things he decided to make one more request. “Also I’d really like to have the Ark. Could you take me to that?” Unfortunately, that guilt had already kicked partially in.

32

Cameron and Ryoma passed from a land of perpetual light to a land of perpetual darkness. It took nearly a minute until Cameron realized that he wasn’t in some kind of transit, but was actually there. He knew that he was not in Creation, but also far from God now in the
Ain
. That’s Hebrew for nothing. This was worse than space. This was an emptiness that Cameron had never felt before. A true separation from God.

Even as far away as the bottom of Creation God’s light still shone just through many filters. But here deep in
Ain
there was nothing. Not even a glimmer of God’s light. Except in…

Cameron.

He stopped restraining his aura and it flared around his body in a brilliant white flame. By the light of God that shone from within Cameron, a light that had been recently restored by being in the Presence, he could see it. A small golden pyramid floating in the
Ain
. He grabbed the pyramid, which easily fit in the palm of his hand as it if were made just for him. He turned the pyramid around in his hands intrigued by the millions of tiny scripts etched on it.

They were so small that Cameron could not actually see them, but he knew they were there. He could feel them as his thumb brushed over a side of the pyramid. He was sure that if he could see the script he could spot the Mehmet talisman, or even the Anchor. This was the back-up copy of creation. The template that all new Universes are built upon. It vibrated within his grasp. He could almost hear the music beyond the spheres through it.

The silent arc of the Caduceus coming down on Cameron’s head brought him out of the pyramid’s trance and the music was lost to him. Ryoma moved between them before the point of the spear landed and deflected it across the base of his blade. The revolver in Ryoma’s left hand barked fire and vaporized Tsuen’s midsection.

Tsuen floated back and his abdomen reformed in seconds. He swung the doctor’s emblem over his head in a wicked arc that deflected two more reports from Ryoma’s gun and then took both of the renaissance samurai’s hands clean off. Cameron quickly shoved the Ark into his inner coat pocket and drew the newly restored flintlock pistol from his belt. He pushed Ryoma aside and fired.

The droplet of antimatter arced across nothing with the speed of sound. Before reaching Tsuen the droplet struck something and annihilated. Nearly a score of little gray men were vaporized in the attack, and the outlines of thousands of tiny grey men were visible in the brilliant flash. Now that Cameron had noticed Lam they couldn’t dim themselves away.