Gabriel Eris (Chapter 3)

CHAPTER THE THIRD


He awoke to a spider. It was a terrifying spider, with long, shiny, thin, black legs. It was crawling along his cheek before he brushed it absentmindedly to the floor and never noticed it at all. He only knew that something tickled him and he awoke.

In "the common room", as they called it, most of the patients were already awake and doing their own thing. Beneath an open skylight, stood a man with his head back, his eyes shut, and his mouth open wide, as though he were lying in a dentist's chair. By the far doors, a pale young man was sitting in an odd position, rocking himself endlessly back and forth. Another man was taking his fingers for a walk along the windowsill. He had a long grey beard and his eyeballs were a pinkish-white. Gabriel went and talked to him.

"My name is Gabriel," he said, offering his hand.

The fingers stopped walking. The man looked up. A crooked grin snuck across his face and he winked one pinkish-white eye. A moment later and he had turned away, while his fingers continued their walk.

Gabriel was no longer surprised to find himself so confused by the actions of these people. Their entire world was so different from his, and he knew so little about it. All he really knew is that he was in no position to judge anyone here. If he was going to survive, he would have to learn a lot more about this world, and forget a part of the world from which he had come.

Next he went to see the boy by the far doors. The boy was rocking. You couldn't say he was rocking fast, and you couldn't say he was rocking slow. He was just rocking. His eyes were staring, but not at any thing in particular. Not anything in the outside world, anyway. He seemed immersed in something of his own. The angel was not at all reluctant to disturb him, but he knew somehow that God wanted him to speak to this boy, if only to learn more of this world.

"Hi there. I'm Gabriel."

The boy continued to rock and stare, but he spoke. His voice was quiet and soft and a little bit squeaky.

"Gabriel is the angel of the voice of the Lord; that is, the voice of truth," said the boy, "Are you that one? Are you he?"

"I am," said Gabriel, whose reputation preceeded him.

"You are the first. The messenger. The one I've been waiting for."

"Then you knew I was coming?"

"I summoned you with my prayer. You have a message for me, or you would not be here."

"It's true, I have a message always. But I never know what it shall be, or what God shall cause me to say. It is as if He had entrusted me with letters I could never open on my own. Only when the time comes, and I have found the one to whom I am to speak. Then the letters open by themselves. My mouth opens by itself, and the Word is there. But I have no message for you."

"You have none because you've delivered it. What you said is what I needed to hear. All I do is think, and plan, and speculate on a trillion things that I will never know. You are telling me to live in the moment, and that somehow, when the moment comes, I will know what to say, and how to act."

"If I planned," said Gabriel, "I'd never get it done."

The boy stopped rocking and looked up at the angel. He was tall, handsome, with delicate features, almost like a girl's, and eyes as innocent as a newborn's. He seemed not to realize the profundity of what he said. And yet he called himself the voice of God, because that is what God called him. He must have trusted God to put wisdom in his mouth, but as his mind worked-out whatever God had given him to think and speak, he could not see the profundity of it himself. He always spoke as though it were only dawning on him. Like the thought had only just been born, and even he had no idea what it's nature would be.

The boy stood up and embraced him. It was not something he ever would have done, if he had given himself a moment to think about it, but it was nonetheless something he wanted to do.

"Well, hello," said Gabriel, cradling him.

"Speak to me again, angel. Tell me one more word of the Lord."

"He's listening to us, now," answered Gabriel.

The boy knew what he meant. The words he had spoken were a prayer. God was listening, and would answer them.

"You need to stop seeking now," said the angel, "And, anyway, you can never find God. He can only find you. First, you must stay in one place. He is never very far behind you, so, if you will wait a little, He will meet you here."

"I need to calm down," said the boy.

"Stop looking, and you will see clearly."

"But I want so badly to know so many things at once."

"There is nothing to know," said the angel, "Or, rather, there is only one thing, and that is to be present with God in this moment. All the rest will come to you. The knowledge, the answers, are all within you. You cannot see them before it is time, but you must trust that they are there, and they will come."

The boy's shoulders visibly relaxed.

Gabriel smiled, then went to see the man beneath the skylight. He was standing in the same position as before; head back, eyes closed, mouth open wide. When the angel approached he changed. He looked at Gabriel, spread his legs, and raised his fists.

"Don't come any closer," he said.

"I won't," said Gabriel, even backing up a step.

"This is my window. I stand under it."

"All the time?"

"No, not all the time. What do you think I am? I stand under it when the sun comes through. To catch the sun. I have to catch the sun when it comes through. Don't you get that?"

"Why do you have to catch it?"

"What do you mean," the man cried, growing more agitated, "You want the ground to get it? You want it to end up all over the floor?"

"No," said the angel, "not if you enjoy catching it."

"I have to," said the man.

"But you don't have to. Not if you don't enjoy it. Don't you think the floor would appreciate it more than you? Why would you keep the floor from being warmed."

"The floor? The floor!?"

"Why, yes. The floor has feelings, too."

The man looked at him in the most befuddled way. He looked back at the long shaft of sun spreading over the blue linoleum.

"It's beautiful," he said.

"It's alive," said Gabriel, "because it's beautiful."

The man looked back again at the angel. The phrase seemed to contain something. In his mind, he wanted to dig it out, like the bottom of a peanut-butter jar.