movies.
“Okay, so we get maybe one second of total enlightenment, now that’s depressing.” I couldn’t see who was talking. “At least in a fantasy novel, everybody gets to know the truth. Moral order is restored, the One True King returns, Jesus rises from the dead.”
Somebody else said, “You’re confusing theme with genre.”
“No, he’s talking about destiny,” Tom said. “As soon as you introduce destiny, you’re in a fantasy, even if you dress it up as The Matrix or Star Wars. As soon as the universe starts responding to you personally, that’s magic—you only get to draw the sword out of the stone if you’re King Arthur—”
“—or Bugsy Siegel,” someone said.
“Yeah, sure,” Tom said, waving him off. “But in an impersonal science fictional world, anybody who knows the trick, the technology of sword extraction, gets to be King of All Britain.”
“Or else you scuba dive down and wrestle the Lady of the Lake for it.”
“‘Strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords,’” the pale man said in a not-quite British accent. “‘Is no basis for a system of government.’”
The conversation instantly degenerated into a flurry of Monty Python quotes, then fragmented into a variety of smaller conversations. The tall man had left with the frizzy-haired woman, but other people joined the group. Tom seemed to know everyone, and everyone at least recognized Valis. The volume of noise and smoke climbed, and it wasn’t just our little band; DemoniCon partiers were descending from all levels of the Hyatt towers. At some point in the night—1 a.m.? Certainly past midnight—I found myself in the john, Valis at the urinal next to me. I was pissing away what seemed to be gallons of Coors Light, amused by the fact that it looked almost exactly the same going out as coming in.
On the wall above the urinal, someone had written DOGMA: I AM GOD.
“So…,” I said. “You piss.” I realized at this point that I was a little more buzzed than I’d thought.
He nodded without turning to face me. “The body has its own imperatives,” he said.
I couldn’t argue with that. Out in the bar, someone shrieked in laughter.
“People don’t treat you like a demon,” I said. “They like talking to you.”
“They like talking to Phil.” He stepped back from the urinal, zipped up, and walked toward the sink. “They prefer to think of me as their old friend who is not gone, but merely gone crazy. It comforts them.”
“Wait—you let them think you’re faking, but you’re really…” I processed this for a second. “A demon pretending to be a man pretending to be a demon.”
“Exactly. A fake fake.” He turned on the faucet. Hot only.
I was surprised to realize that I believed him—or at least didn’t disbelieve him.
“Okay, so if you’re really a demon,” I said, “how come you never possess anybody else? Jumping would pretty much settle the matter, wouldn’t it?”
He addressed me through the mirror as he washed, steam rising past his face. The water temperature didn’t seem to bother him. “Divine intervention is not always divine invasion. I have intervened in Phil’s life twenty-two times. Nineteen of those disruptions involved simple transmission of information, compressed into cipher signals that would trigger anamnesis.”
“Say what?”
“Anamnesis. The loss of forgetfulness.”
I blinked at him.
“Total recall.”
“Oh.”
“A few times it was necessary to take more direct action. The first time he tried to kill himself,” he continued in that distant voice, “I seized his body, wrote the emergency room number on the palm of his hand, and awakened him. But the watershed moment came in 1982. Phil experienced a stroke followed by cardiac arrest, his third and most damaging attack. In order to restart his heart and resume blood flow to the brain, I had to seize complete control of biological functions. It was necessary for me to install a
“Okay, so we get maybe one second of total enlightenment, now that’s depressing.” I couldn’t see who was talking. “At least in a fantasy novel, everybody gets to know the truth. Moral order is restored, the One True King returns, Jesus rises from the dead.”
Somebody else said, “You’re confusing theme with genre.”
“No, he’s talking about destiny,” Tom said. “As soon as you introduce destiny, you’re in a fantasy, even if you dress it up as The Matrix or Star Wars. As soon as the universe starts responding to you personally, that’s magic—you only get to draw the sword out of the stone if you’re King Arthur—”
“—or Bugsy Siegel,” someone said.
“Yeah, sure,” Tom said, waving him off. “But in an impersonal science fictional world, anybody who knows the trick, the technology of sword extraction, gets to be King of All Britain.”
“Or else you scuba dive down and wrestle the Lady of the Lake for it.”
“‘Strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords,’” the pale man said in a not-quite British accent. “‘Is no basis for a system of government.’”
The conversation instantly degenerated into a flurry of Monty Python quotes, then fragmented into a variety of smaller conversations. The tall man had left with the frizzy-haired woman, but other people joined the group. Tom seemed to know everyone, and everyone at least recognized Valis. The volume of noise and smoke climbed, and it wasn’t just our little band; DemoniCon partiers were descending from all levels of the Hyatt towers. At some point in the night—1 a.m.? Certainly past midnight—I found myself in the john, Valis at the urinal next to me. I was pissing away what seemed to be gallons of Coors Light, amused by the fact that it looked almost exactly the same going out as coming in.
On the wall above the urinal, someone had written DOGMA: I AM GOD.
“So…,” I said. “You piss.” I realized at this point that I was a little more buzzed than I’d thought.
He nodded without turning to face me. “The body has its own imperatives,” he said.
I couldn’t argue with that. Out in the bar, someone shrieked in laughter.
“People don’t treat you like a demon,” I said. “They like talking to you.”
“They like talking to Phil.” He stepped back from the urinal, zipped up, and walked toward the sink. “They prefer to think of me as their old friend who is not gone, but merely gone crazy. It comforts them.”
“Wait—you let them think you’re faking, but you’re really…” I processed this for a second. “A demon pretending to be a man pretending to be a demon.”
“Exactly. A fake fake.” He turned on the faucet. Hot only.
I was surprised to realize that I believed him—or at least didn’t disbelieve him.
“Okay, so if you’re really a demon,” I said, “how come you never possess anybody else? Jumping would pretty much settle the matter, wouldn’t it?”
He addressed me through the mirror as he washed, steam rising past his face. The water temperature didn’t seem to bother him. “Divine intervention is not always divine invasion. I have intervened in Phil’s life twenty-two times. Nineteen of those disruptions involved simple transmission of information, compressed into cipher signals that would trigger anamnesis.”
“Say what?”
“Anamnesis. The loss of forgetfulness.”
I blinked at him.
“Total recall.”
“Oh.”
“A few times it was necessary to take more direct action. The first time he tried to kill himself,” he continued in that distant voice, “I seized his body, wrote the emergency room number on the palm of his hand, and awakened him. But the watershed moment came in 1982. Phil experienced a stroke followed by cardiac arrest, his third and most damaging attack. In order to restart his heart and resume blood flow to the brain, I had to seize complete control of biological functions. It was necessary for me to install a
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