The Angel Experiment

By Glenn Fain

Ten strangers. Two pills a day. And one alien angel with a ticking clock. And so the angel experiment begins. The chosen ten, drawn together by a shape-shifting newspaper ad, all want something desperately. When they gather at the home of the mysterious Dr. Nathan Gold and Myrus Golgochan, they’re offered something none of them can pass up—a one-time chance at a better version of themselves. No loneliness. No stutter. No addiction. No anger. No dead-end career. No soul-killing despair. Whatever has been keeping them from living the lives they’ve always wanted will be wiped out by two pills a day. Or so Nathan and Myrus promise. When the ten strangers decide to take a chance on this strange proposition, they have no idea that change has a ripple effect, and that the world will never be the same. But as the ancient maxim says,  beware of getting what you wish for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glenn Fain
• Release date: Mar 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781634912150

Glenn Fain

Glenn Fain lives in Seattle with his two cats.

Book preview

Chapter One – Ruby

Ruby McMillian sat at her usual table at a Tully’s coffeehouse in Seattle’s Ballard District. The table was the one in the corner at a large window giving her a view of everyone who walked by. It was just another Friday night, like a million others these past thirteen years. Coffee at Tully’s and then an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the Episcopal church around the corner where she would try not to interrupt one of the speakers by pushing them off the dais and screaming at everyone: Be Free! Just be free, damn it! Let go and be free!

She had resisted a strong urge to do exactly that this past month, at every single meeting she had attended. And she attended them every day. This AA thing wasn’t working, she knew, but she couldn’t lose control and start drinking again. That was worse. Unthinkable. Much worse than committing a misdemeanor against one’s fellow neighbor in hell. Be free! she repeated to herself every day like a mantra. But it didn’t help. Why was being free so damn hard?

Not hard, but impossible, Ruby told herself bitterly, flipping through the latest Stranger, one of Seattle’s two weekly newspapers. She wasn’t really reading it; she liked the texture of the paper on her fingers, the slight distraction it provided from her own thoughts. Ruby’s eyes did linger at all the bar and club advertisements: fabulous live music, happy hours with delicious drinks at ridiculously low prices. Happy Hour! She remembered those. Oh boy, did she remember those. They still made her mouth salivate, her tongue flicker sensuously across her lips as she imagined a martini running down her throat. I still want a fucking drink, and it’s been how long? Thirteen years? She lingered on The Drunk of the Week, a picture of some poor, fucked up sod doing something they would seriously regret the next day. This was always a reminder to herself how bad it could get. Every issue of the paper had a picture of a drunk doing something super stupid. Or simply looking as if they might topple over. This week was a fat black woman with the biggest tits she had ever seen. She was staring at the camera proudly with a shit-eating grin and glazed eyes as if she had just single-handedly drunk an entire case of beer all by herself in thirty minutes flat. She was impressive in a ludicrous way. 

Ruby closed the newspaper and checked her watch: fifteen minutes before the meeting. Plenty of time for a smoke. She stepped outside onto Market Street, got as close to the street as she could (mustn’t contaminate anyone, right?), lit up her Marlboro Red, and inhaled deeply. Smoking was her greatest pleasure these days. Let’s be honest here—it was her only pleasure these days, and had been for thirteen years. She loved cigarettes. Although the social pressures to stop had gotten stronger year after year, the thought of stopping was another impossibility, making her want to throw herself under the next passing car. If she halted this disgusting habit, she really would have nothing left to live for.

Ruby felt her chest tighten as she noticed a middle-aged couple walk by holding hands and chatting quietly to themselves. When Ruby asked herself when was the last time she had held hands like that with anyone, her mind fastened onto Jim and their three dates. When his visage popped into her head, she groaned out loud. Jim was someone she had met at a meeting a few months ago. All her friends, except for her co-workers, were AA people. But after the third date, he had had enough.

You’re too angry, he told her after a meeting when everyone had gathered in the courtyard outside the church for a smoke. Too goddamn, intolerably angry for one man to stand. Just being around you I want to go to the nearest bar and get shit-faced. I can’t stand it. I don’t know how you can stand yourself. Good luck and goodbye!

Those were his last words to her. Paraphrased. Not very pleasant ones. Not very pleasant at all, in fact, which was strange, because he really was such a nice guy. Maybe he did start drinking again, because she hadn’t seen him since. Or perhaps he had gone to different meetings to avoid her?

She threw her spent cigarette under a passing car, imagining it was Jim getting crushed instead of the butt, his head mashed into the shape of a pancake. Smiling contentedly now, Jim gone from her thoughts, she returned to her table to waste the next five minutes reading the paper before it was time to leave for the meeting. When she sat down, she noticed the advertisement on the back cover:

Are you stuck?

Are you doing the same thing over and over again?

Craving something you can never have?

Do you want to start living and finally be free?

Find out all you’ll ever need!

When: July 16th, 1:00 p.m.

Where:

Queen Anne District

124 W. Blaine St.

As soon as Ruby read this, it was as if time had stopped and everyone around her in the coffeehouse disappeared. She read the ad over again, slowly, savoring every word. Although a part of her told herself she was crazy, Ruby knew this ad was meant for her and her alone. This was going to be the solution she had been looking for all her life. She knew it deep inside her bones. When she realized this with complete certainty, time picked up again and everyone in the coffeehouse returned to their normal routine. Ruby, only peripherally aware of her mind’s acrobatics, ripped out the advertisement from the paper, kissed it, and dropped it into her purse with a dramatic flourish.

She got up from her chair and checked her watch: just in time for the meeting. This time she wasn’t going to make a scene. Ruby felt calm. As a test, she held up her right hand and stared at it: it didn’t even shake.

~

Myrus Golgochan and Nathan Gold sat in their viewing room, in the front center row of two rows of red movie-theater style seats, watching Ruby on a giant movie screen that took up the entire space of the far wall. There were sixteen seats in total, and they looked like they had been taken directly from a neighborhood movie theater and transplanted here: soda, popcorn and candy stains included. Ruby nodded her head to a barista behind the counter, walked quickly out the door, and down Market Street to the Episcopal church. She was wearing a slight, inward-looking smile, as if she was thinking deeply about something and liked what she thought.

Nathan held a clay figurine in his hand. Its detail was magnificent. He passed it to Myrus, who examined it with curiosity. It was the representation of a middle-aged woman with messy red hair, a lot of freckles dotting her too-pale face, staring with large, eager eyes at a bottle of Jack Daniels she held outstretched in her left hand. In her right hand a bottle of wine was turned upside down, its red contents pouring out onto the ground. Myrus scrutinized the figure and handed it back to Nathan.

Yes, Nathan said, staring at the figurine with fascination, his right index finger unconsciously caressing the woman’s face, brushing her long red hair. It’s beautiful. He always liked the figurines solidity and their inner force, as if they were more alive than the actual people they represented. In a way, Nathan knew, they were—in the same way a person’s soul or spirit is more real than the physical wrappings of the people themselves. He had been doing this for decades, and he still didn’t know what the figures were made out of. Something special, that’s for sure. Something out of this world. Something alien.

Nathan read from a piece of paper, which contained a brief biography of Ruby’s life in one succinct paragraph. The ink was red and written in an immaculate long-hand that resembled calligraphy more than handwriting. He summed up the writing concisely for Myrus. Name’s Ruby McMillian. She’s a journalist. An alcoholic who hasn’t had a drink in a long time, but still has the urge. Definitely a classic example of what society calls a ‘dry drunk.’ Think of George W. Bush, but without the power to invade helpless countries. She wants to live again. With a semblance of freedom.

She’s a bitter one, Myrus said, still gazing at the screen, watching Ruby nod to the group of people standing outside smoking cigarettes, then rapidly entering the side door of the church, head down, as if she were ashamed of being there. He pressed a button on the armrest of the chair and the screen turned blank. Angry too. But they usually are. We always get the angry, bitter ones. But, of course, a requirement is not only incredible potential, but a deep need for change and extreme dissatisfaction with one’s life. That will surely piss off most people.

Of course. But why her? After Nathan said the words, he knew it was a stupid question, but it just popped out. He had asked this many times before, both to himself and to Myrus, and had never gotten a satisfactory answer. Myrus never had one either.

Myrus gave Nathan an inquisitive side-long glance. We never know, do we? It’s not our job to choose or question why. We have free rein once they’re chosen, but until then, well.... Myrus shrugged. It’s in the hands of the Creator. Come on, let’s go. I have work to do.

You mean poetry to write? Nathan wanted to say, but controlled himself. After Myrus left, Nathan remained seated, still caressing the figurine, fascinated at the life he felt flowing within it. Eventually, Nathan pulled himself out of the chair and walked to the front of the room by the movie screen. There was a large table under it, covered by a red velvet cloth. He kissed the figurine, whispered good luck to it, and set it down on the cloth. It shimmered there in the dim light as if it were alive.

Ruby was the first. Nine more to go.

Chapter Two - Richard

At least it isn’t cold in here, Richard X Rose thought, as he looked helplessly around his van, listening to his girlfriend Patty snoring disjointedly beside him. Richard sat on the bed Indian-style, the top of his silver afro grazing the ceiling. The place was cramped, but he wasn’t here often enough for it to get on his nerves. Unlike Patty, who was lying on her side, her face contorted by the pillow into a mask that was barely recognizable. Tonight her snores went right through his skin and into his nerves, squeezing them tight.

Sometimes he thought he should move out of the van, but there was something comforting in its compactness, its mobility; he could be in full motion in less than a minute, away from wherever he was, everything he owned in a state of permanent transit. He also liked that it was cheap. There was the SSI, a little savings, but nothing else coming in that came nearly close enough to paying rent on a decent place to live.

Richard looked at the alarm clock, its red digits hurting his eyes. 2:15 a.m. He thought of lighting a cigarette, but knew it would keep him up even longer. And besides that, his lungs were dry. He was getting old, almost sixty. Sleeping for only a few hours a night didn’t cut it. Tonight wasn’t bad-open mic night at Conor’s on Sunday was always a blast. Since it was still the weekend, most of the people were either drunk or stoned or both. Usually both.

A lot of Presidents there. They were kind to Richard. He gave them some blues, some pop, and a helluva lot of down-home righteous truth blasting. They gave Richard applause, drinks, weed if he wanted it, but most importantly they gave him solidarity. That was key. The people against the machine. Working together, they might beat it. If not beat it, slow it down. Power to the people.

Some people thought he was crazy, but Richard knew better; he was saner than all of ’em, much saner. He could blast through the illusions this dying society was placing on everyone. He could blast through them like dynamite. All it took was enough will and anger, and he had plenty of both.

He thought of waking Patty, but thought better of it. Lately he had been appreciating her much more when she was asleep. He didn’t have to hear her nagging voice all the time. She was getting more annoying every day. This week’s constant refrain was the horrors of sleeping in the van.

I need a real apartment, she kept telling him. A real bed, a kitchen, a fucking faucet.

The week before she thought she was a shrink and got on him for his anger. You got to relax. You’re so angry all the time. It’s not going to solve anything. You hurt so bad. I can see it even if no one else can. You gotta heal. You gotta let it go.

That made Richard laugh hysterically. He thought he would bust his gut he laughed so hard. Let it go? he told her with a smile, but his eyes were cold. Like steel. "Who you kidding, woman? The only reason I’m so together is that I’ve let nothing go."

Not the abuse as a kid, not Vietnam, not the racism, not the endless stupidity he’d seen all his life. It was all inside him, the tiniest details from his deepest past. They were all grinning at him and shouting hysterically: remember, remember, remember. If he let it go, as Patty so naively put it, what would he have left? He wouldn’t even know who he was. And then I would really break.

Instead of smoking, he picked up a Seattle Weekly from the floor and stared at the ads on the back page. Soup Daddy Soups Now hiring, Jasmine Massage, Asian Herbal Spa, and then an ad which not only caught his eye but nearly knocked him over it was so perfect. He was struck by it so hard he had to catch his breath:

Are you angry?

Having problems letting go?

Afraid you’ll lose yourself if you do?

We have the solution for you!

Find out all you’ll ever need!

When: July 16th, 1:00 p.m.

Where:

Queen Anne District

124 W. Blaine St.

This advertisement dove-tailed so precisely with his thoughts that Richard banged himself in the head a few times, shook it back and forth violently, and read the thing three straight times. Had he smoked too much grass earlier? No, the ad was certainly real, but he felt he had created it himself. It came straight from his deepest self. It didn’t come from outside him, but from within. He had experienced this feeling a few times before, and it was always important. Yes, I am going there. It’ll likely shut Patty up, until she gets onto some other nagging kick.

He ripped out the ad and stuck it on his corkboard with a tack, next to the picture of Obama he had drawn over with a Hitler mustache and devil’s horns. He then closed his eyes and fell asleep immediately, dreaming once again of the jungles of Vietnam.

Bang bang bang, killing the yellow fuckers.

~

Myrus and Nathan sat in their theater watching Richard X Rose sleep. He tossed and turned and mumbled to himself, obviously having terrible nightmares. Nathan’s gaze went continuously from Richard to the paper that contained Richard’s mini-biography. Myrus stared at the screen, but Nathan sensed he wasn’t really seeing it.

I think the ‘X’ stands for the same thing it stood for when Malcolm X used it: the African name he never knew. And I think—but don’t quote me on this either—the name ‘Rose’ is a name he came up with himself. So, in a sense, he has attempted to recreate himself. But as you can see, well, it’s not that easy, is it?

Creation is never easy, Myrus mumbled, thinking of the poetry he had tossed out earlier today. Let’s see. Hand it over. He stuck out his hand in which Nathan placed a figurine of a tall black man with a large head of fuzzy, gray hair. He was holding an ankh in one hand, a rifle in the other. Over his camouflage shirt he wore a tie. Despite the incongruity of dress, he looked stylish.

Vietnam, Nathan said. We used to get a lot of them, didn’t we? But not so often lately. Troubled childhood. Of mixed-race heritage. A musician. Like I said, he wants to recreate himself into the image of his own choosing, I think, but he can’t escape his past. And yes, another angry, bitter one.

Myrus mumbled tsk-tsk and returned the figure. The dichotomies are interesting with him. Good. Married?

No. A girlfriend. Patty.

Hmm, Myrus said, rising and walking quickly out of the room. Come and get me when the next one arrives.

Will do, Nathan said with a tinge of bitterness, wishing Myrus would put more effort into it all. Nathan was the one who did most of the work while Myrus got the glory. Yes, he told himself, the perpetual complaint of the second-in-command. He turned his attention back to the figurine and shook his finger at it vehemently. Vietnam fucked up a lot of our boys, didn’t it? he told the statue. Too damn many. You’ve alive though. You made it. You’re one of the lucky ones, although you don’t realize it yet.

He set the Richard figurine on the velvet cloth so that Ruby and he were facing each other.

There were two now.

Eight to go.

Chapter Three - Arthur

Arthur Finkelstein stared at the burning candle, attempting to clear his mind of all thoughts except one: move, damn you, move!

He was trying to elevate the candle with only the force of his thoughts. He squatted on the floor, the flab of his stomach falling over his belt, staring at the candle as if it were the only thing that existed in this world. There was his mind, and then there was the candle. Nothing else. With his imagination Arthur tried to become the candle, join with it, and attempt with the force of his thoughts to elevate it into the air. Move, bitch, move!

This should be easy, Arthur thought. Work for a novice! But the candle didn’t budge even a micrometer. So Arthur buckled down and concentrated even harder. He started with his frontal lobe, turning on his brain cells there as much as possible. When he thought they were sufficiently energized, he tried again, with all the strength of his will, to send out his brain waves with enough force to elevate the candle. Nothing. Move! Please, damn you. He focused on his parietal lobe and tried the same thing. Then the occipital lobe. I’m dying here. He ended with the temporal lobe. Just as he began to feel an immense force building between his brain and the candle, his timer went off, startling him out of his mental exertions. His brain felt fried, as if it might explode from the effort. In disgust, Arthur violently blew out the candle and struggled to his feet.

This was the routine Arthur had been doing every night for three months, ten minutes a day, in the pursuit of telekinesis. He believed it was possible for any human being to use their God-given paranormal abilities. He told himself people only used around fifteen percent of their brains, and the other supernatural, paranormal, hyper-reality, transcendent states of mind were all there in the remaining eighty-five percent, just waiting to be tapped into. So why is it so fucking difficult to do this simple exercise? It should be as easy as eating cake, shouldn’t it? Other humans have had these abilities. Why not me? Am I a total putz, or what?

Arthur had always been obsessed with the paranormal, ever since he was a kid. There were also aliens and space travel, which had an equal fascination. He had watched every episode of Star Trek many times over and fantasized often he was abducted by aliens. There was no doubt in his mind at all that aliens were visiting Earth and were curious about humans. No doubt whatsoever, although nothing even close to a UFO had he ever seen.

Trying not to get angry, feeling an emptiness in his stomach, he dejectedly opened the freezer and fished out a bowl of ice cream, a vanilla/chocolate/strawberry combination he loved. His massive body sank heavily into his couch as he powered on the DVD player and television and hit play. He was watching the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series for perhaps the hundredth time. Gene Roddenberry was a prophet, Star Trek was indeed the future and human beings were destined to cruise through the galaxies, seeking new worlds and meeting strange aliens on equal terms someday.It’s true! he said between bites of ice cream. I know it! We’re meant for more than this! More than being planet-bound! We’re going to travel the universe! Someday we won’t even be living in our bodies, at the mercy of our few senses, unable to do something as simple as read someone’s mind. All that will be as easy as snapping our fingers.

To enunciate his point with a physical action, Arthur snapped his fingers savagely, which hurt. He thought of dipping his fingers into the ice cream to stop the pain, but he didn’t want to waste any, so he blew on them instead.

When the ice cream was finished, he brought it into his kitchen and washed the bowl, still fuming inside. He went out onto the balcony and looked up at the stars. Instead of giving him peace like they used to, they made him furious.

Goddamn you! he said to the aliens he imagined were watching him. Show yourselves! I know you’re up there! You know I know you’re up there, so get it over with and show yourselves! He even raised a fist as high into the air as he could and shook it threateningly. "Cowards!"

Arthur returned to the couch exhausted, sat back down, put his head between his hands, and literally sobbed out loud. "All my life I’ve believed in what is hidden, and what has it gotten me? Scorned, ridiculed, made a joke of, and I’m sick of it, you hear me! Oh yes, I believe, but give me a sign! Show me a UFO! Let me move the goddamn candle! Let me read someone’s mind! Let me go to sleep tonight and dream the future! Let me close my eyes right now and wake up tomorrow with memories of aliens inside me!

Yes, I believe, but I don’t want to! Registering his last thought, Arthur laughed in between his tears, appreciating the humor in it.

Taking himself too seriously was dangerous, he knew, and one can only function on faith alone for so long before going mad.

That night, after getting into bed, he picked up the latest copy of The Stranger beside his bed, thinking he’d peruse it mindlessly until he fell asleep. When he was on the last page, about to throw it aside and turn off the light, he noticed the advertisement, which jolted him awake:

Do you think you believe too much?

Are your powers not strong enough for your dreams?

Do you want to move the candle in your sight?

Find out all you’ll ever need!

When: July 16th, 1:00 p.m.

Where:

Queen Anne District

124 W. Blaine St.

Extraordinary, Arthur thought, rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. This is exactly what I need, exactly what I’ve been thinking! This is eerie. Too good to be true. It’s so true that perhaps this is the paranormal sign I’ve been waiting all my life for. He ripped out the advertisement and put it on his night stand. He was going, that was for damn sure. Nothing would hold him back.

Arthur turned out the light, closed his eyes, and was soon asleep. Two hours later he was dreaming he was in his office at the college, grading papers, thinking he would die from boredom.

~

He’ll love you! Nathan joked, poking Myrus in the ribs.

Myrus smiled paternally at Arthur, like a father watching his child sleep. He will, won’t he? We epitomize everything he’s always dreamed of. It’s rare, but most welcome! He has been waiting for me most of his life. What do you have on him?

Nathan cleared his throat. He’s average, in most respects. Has led a dull life. A lapsed Jew since his parents died. He feels guilty about that. Teaches a few classes at a community college. Lives frugally on his salary and what his parents left him. He’s a dreamer, that’s for sure, as you saw so blatantly.

Nathan handed Myrus the representation of Arthur, which was of a fat man staring into a telescope he held in his left hand. In his right he was holding the tarot card of the Seven of Worlds, from the Voyager deck, the one with the DNA pattern on the back of every card. The card was Breakthrough, with a giant horse off to the side, and distant worlds all around it seeming to explode.

His life is going to change soon, isn’t it? Myrus laughed. Let’s hope he likes what he sees.

Nathan, chuckling softly, took the figurine back from Myrus. Dreamers like Arthur were the easiest to deal with in some respects. But in others, well, they would have to wait and see. He placed the Arthur figurine far away from Ruby and Richard, not sure what part he would play yet.

Chapter Four - Henry

Henry Applebaum sat hunched over his chessboard, staring at his chess pieces that were all slain, massacred, brutally and mercilessly destroyed, especially the king, which was lying on its side, dead. Dead, dead, dead! Henry had just knocked over his king in resignation, knowing more resistance wasn’t merely futile, but humiliating. He picked up the dead king—it felt heavier than usual—and massaged the piece as if trying to bring new life into him. If giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation would help, he would have given it gladly.

He had lost another game of five-minute blitz chess and wanted to cry. Anyone merely glancing at him without paying attention would think he was his normal, jovial self—all smiles, light-hearted, the perennial patzer eager to lose to one and all. No hard feelings! But they’d be wrong, because Henry was devastated. He was always devastated when he lost. He didn’t merely like chess, he loved it, with all of his heart and soul. It was the one thing in this world he did love. And losing not only one game of chess, but five in a row, to someone he knew wasn’t even very good, was too much to bear. It was always too much to bear.

Another game, Henry?

Henry looked up across the table at his enemy, his loser’s smile firmly planted on his face, his armor hiding his true feelings. Henry shook his head, still staring at his king, feeling an emptiness inside him that was painful. I don’t think so. Not tonight. Have to wake early.

Don’t want to lose another one, do you, Henry? And then the bastard laughed. They always laugh! Henry’s fists clenched. He wanted to pummel the prick into dust. He’d show that bastard—one of these days!—he’d show him who was boss.

When Henry saw the killing combination, he knew he had the game won. It was a pretty sacrifice of the bishop to waste the enemy king’s pawn covering, and then queen and knight would swoop in for the kill. But when it was time to sack the bishop, his hand shook. He became tentative. What if he was wrong? If his sacrifice was a mistake, the game would be lost immediately. So he played it safe. Why take the risk? He’d queen a pawn instead. Wait for the endgame. There was enough time on his clock for that. But the bastard mated him with his own elegant sacrifice before Henry’s pawn got even close to the opposite end of the board. Fuck!

It was too much!

His father had taught him chess as a kid, barely six, or was he seven years old? He fell in love with it immediately. He was good too. It was soon after that he was beating every member of his family. They all went down like bowling pins. He had a gift, a God-given talent, and would be great someday. That’s what they all kept telling him: You’re going to be great, kid, just like Bobby Fischer!

Just like Bobby Fischer!

How many children’s lives had that line ruined?

Henry was sure it was too damn many. Like him, they lost the gift too. If they ever had it in the first place. He was captain of the chess club in junior high and high school. But at some point, he stopped improving. No matter how many chess books he read, no matter how many games of the great masters he pored over, it did nothing for him. If anything, he had gotten worse. Henry played in college and ever since, faithfully, like the dog who loved his master but was always getting the shit kicked out of him. Come

here, little boy! Thwap!

Henry lived for chess. He breathed chess, he dreamed chess, it was all he had in this life. But, he had to admit to himself, which he did almost every single night, he seriously sucked at the game. But there was a part of Henry—a tiny part, he had to admit—that told him equally as strongly: I’m good at chess! I know it! Somewhere inside me, I’m great!

Henry couldn’t understand how such a thing was possible. People told him as he was growing up to find his passion and live for it. If he did, and if he dedicated his life to the pursuit of this passion, he’d become great. It’s an eternal rule, they told him. Find your love, pursue it faithfully, and you can’t lose.

What a load of crap!

It was 10:15 p.m., and there were still a few people playing. Henry forlornly scanned the crowd, then packed up his pieces and chess clock and threw them loudly into his backpack, not caring if the clock broke. Henry had had enough humiliation and suffering for one night. There was always tomorrow. Like suffering, chess was eternal.

Fuck, he groaned again, out loud this time, covering his mouth in embarrassment.

Henry picked up his knapsack, pulled it over his shoulder, and grabbed his empty coffee mug to take up to the bar. Emily was serving tonight. He liked Emily. She was pretty to him in her awkward way. She reminded him of himself, but a helluva lot more lovable. Henry thought she felt sorry for him but didn’t quite know what to make of that.

Goodbye, Emily, Henry said to her as he dropped his empty mug on the bar. He couldn’t meet her eyes. See you tomorrow?

I’ll be here. As Emily picked up the coffee cup, she watched him carefully, with a maternal look. How did you do?

Henry fiddled with a newspaper that someone had left on the bar. He flipped it over, not sure what to do with his hands. He wanted to reach out to Emily, touch her, rub her shoulders, kiss the top of her head, but he couldn’t even look her in the eye. Not too good, I’m afraid.

You’ll get ’em next time, right?

Sure. I’ll see ya, Emily. As Henry was about to leave, he saw the advertisement on the back of the newspaper:

Not living up to your potential?

Do you feel greatness inside

But aren’t delivering?

Do you want to finally kick some serious ass?

We have the solution for you!

Find out all you’ll ever need!

When: July 16th, 1:00 p.m.

Where:

Queen Anne District

124 W. Blaine St.

After staring at the ad for nearly a minute, he heard Emily from faraway say, You look like your eyes are going to pop out of your head.

Henry sat down on a stool to control himself. He looked up and smiled, a real smile this time. This astounded Emily, who had only seen his grimace-like smiles with the chess players. She always thought there was something beautiful inside Henry, but she didn’t think she would ever see it.

What is it? Emily asked, smiling back at him warmly. Her voice was even different now, softer, more rounded.

Henry thought of showing her the advertisement but felt a strong urge to keep it to himself. My secret! My secret strength. Oh, nothing, Henry told her, still smiling. I think I may have found something. Something I had lost. He folded the paper, put it in his backpack with the rest of his stuff, and stood up to go. Tomorrow, Emily?

Of course. Even though Henry annoyed her because he wouldn’t tell her what he saw, she wanted to kiss him anyway. But instead she watched him walk out the door, whistling to himself. She didn’t know the tune, but it sounded vaguely familiar.

~

Nathan called up into the sky, We have another one! He stood in the middle of the back yard next to the fountain of the angel that murmured softly. He hoped the neighbors wouldn’t hear or see anything inappropriate. If they saw anything, Nathan knew, they wouldn’t believe it anyway. They never did. Come on down.

Nathan felt a breeze, the air change slightly, and Myrus appeared standing beside him, wings visible. Seeing them still startled Nathan after all these years. For a second, the statue of the angel and Myrus were identical twins. But with a second of concentration, Myrus’s wings disappeared as if they had never been there at all.

Just stretching the wings, he said. If I don’t exercise them occasionally, they’ll ossify. That happened to Malcolm, and he was never the same again. You’ve met Malcolm, haven’t you?

The angry one? Yeah, I met him. He was mean.

That’s what will happen to me, if I don’t get my exercise! Enough chit-chat. You said we have another bite?

Yeah, if we hurry, we won’t miss much.

Well, let’s go then. What are we waiting for? Nathan chuckled as he followed Myrus back into the house. Myrus walked like a soldier late for a mission. Erratic, that’s what Myrus was. Some days he could care less about the experiment, while on other days it seemed like his main purpose in life. The poetry and drawings and even movies would disappear. This never lasted long. Watching Myrus like this was a great pleasure for Nathan. It reminded him of when they were both younger, when Myrus’s contagious power looked like it would last forever.

A minute later Myrus and Nathan were at their usual places, watching Henry Applebaum lose a game of chess and then stick out his hand, smiling broadly, as if losing was one of the greatest pleasures of his life. For ten minutes they watched with close attention, until Henry whistled himself out the door, the newspaper article safely in his backpack. Nathan was sure he would break out skipping any second.

Look at that! Myrus said. A man who knows what he wants. You have to respect it.

He’s focused, that’s for sure. His potential is enormous.

Yes.

He works at Starbucks as a barista. All he cares for is chess. Went to college, but didn’t graduate.

Chess? Myrus asked.

Too much chess. But he’s not very good. I sense something is holding him back. Anyway, that’s it. Chess, chess, and more chess. Not much of a bio, really. He wants to be great. It’s his only love. It’s kind of sad. He does like the girl though.

Nathan put Henry’s figurine on the velvet cloth off by himself, but closer to the center than he had with Arthur. Their new candidate appeared to be a simple man, but the figurine told another story. It depicted a man with two heads staring at a chessboard. One face had an expression of absolute horror, as if staring into the depths of hell, the other face an expression of intense pleasure, even ecstasy. Nathan understood the expression of ecstasy as an intense love for the game, but the expression of horror worried him immensely. He had seen that expression only once before, on Bobby Fischer’s face.

Before Myrus turned off the screen, they saw Henry sitting on a bar stool with a pint of beer. His jovial expression was gone. He was looking off into space, his eyes dark and cold, his face twisted as if in pain. Then, suddenly, as if remembering something, he tore open his knapsack and brought out the advertisement again and read it, his expression changing instantly from one of agony to one of hope. He left the ad out beside his beer while he drank, staring at it occasionally, a miniature smile on his face, eyes bright and clear.

We give people hope, Myrus chuckled, as he turned off the movie screen.

That’s something, isn’t it?

Chapter Five - Stephen

Stephen Malworthy stared at the bubbles of his beer, fascinated by their uniqueness, their eccentricity. He imagined he was a bubble swimming in the amber liquid, hollow, clear and weightless. Stephen kept staring, oblivious to everything else around him, until the bubbles finally all disappeared, popping into nothingness. He sighed audibly, disappointed, telling himself that although the show was over, there was always another beer to be drunk, more bubbles to watch appear and then disappear as mysteriously.

Stephen walked here after lunch every day, to the Blue Moon tavern, at two p.m. for his post-prandial pint of Elysian beer. He had his habits and he never deviated from them. Not even on the weekends. Deviating was dangerous. His mind was too fragile for impulsive decisions, even ones most people would consider trivial.

Thirty-three years ago, around Christmas time, Stephen had the strange thought that he was Santa Claus. He didn’t think he was the jolly fat man in red with the long white beard hanging out in shopping malls and street corners, but the real, authentic Santa Claus of lore, here on Earth not only to distribute presents to the worthy, but to judge and punish the ones who weren’t. After three long, sleepless days of sheer chaos where he gave away everything he owned to the ones who deserved it, and got in numerous fights with the ones who didn’t, his crazy journey culminated in Stephen waking up in a hospital room the day after Christmas, not knowing how he got there, suffering from many bruises and scrapes and a black eye.

I’m Santa Claus! he had informed a group of nurses, as he tried to limp past them and out the door to freedom. I have work to do!

Two husky, overweight security guards appeared out of nowhere and escorted him to a locked floor on a higher level of the hospital where the doctors attempted to pacify Stephen into submission with sturdy ropes tied to his ankles and wrists, and a massive dose of Thorazine injected into his bloodstream.

The treatment helped. On New Year’s Day, Stephen came to his senses, finally questioning for the first time in days if he really was Santa Claus. The fantasy didn’t make as much sense to him as it did before. It wasn’t nearly as clear. Although he was reasonably certain he wasn’t Santa Claus, he wasn’t confident he was Stephen Malworthy either. And that was a problem.

You’re schizophrenic, the doctors told him. You have a disease. But it can be controlled. With drugs and discipline. Discipline and drugs. For the rest of your life.

I’m schizophrenic, Stephen whispered into his beer after taking the first sip. He said it like it was a curse. That’s all I am. All I’ll ever be. No matter what I do. For the rest of my life! A madman!

Stephen looked around the bar, at the pictures on the wall, the posters, some going back decades. Stephen thought he could spend years wandering around this bar and not come close to seeing everything there was to see. That’s why he loved it so much—for the history, the artifacts. Stephen felt like an archeologist sitting here. He certainly preferred living in the past. He felt alive then. Now he was dead.

He was glad it wasn’t close to Christmas. That was always the worst time for him. No matter how diligently he took his meds, no matter how much he moderated the beer and the weed and the Xanax, the madness always came creeping in on December 1st, like clockwork. He’d feel his fingers tingling on and off during the day, his head felt lighter than usual, and objects in his visual field suddenly disappeared and reappeared as if they had a life all their own. Stephen thought of it as a form of mental rape. After three years in a row acting out his Santa Claus fantasies, which ended up with him in jail or a hospital or both, he learned to check himself into the psych ward of the hospital well before Christmas, He told himself he was taking action, making a preemptive strike.

Merry Xmas, fool! It’s that time of the year again! Have you taken your meds? Don’t worry, it won’t matter anyway! You’re gonna go mad as a fucking loon!

Before the madness transformed him, Stephen was a poet with three published books of poetry and another on its way. He was still in high school when he published his first chapbook, called Confessions of a Rebellious Teenager. It was even reasonably popular, for poetry, which never sold well. The modern Rimbaud, the people that mattered called him. He got a full scholarship into the MFA program at the University of Washington right out of high school, which was unprecedented. Stephen Malworthy, the bright boy, the boy wonder, the boy who could not only make words sing, but make them waltz and tango at will.

Navigating the paths between teenager and adulthood wasn’t as easy for him as writing a poem. Five years later, when he had his first stint as Santa Claus, he still hadn’t graduated from college, although he was close. And he hadn’t written a poem since he first went crazy. Not even one. His meds made him feel dead inside. Risperdal, once a day, to kill the hallucinations and the delusions. Then there was Xanax to control some of the wicked side-effects of the Risperdal. The side-effects were so bad, especially the uncontrollable twitching, that without the Xanax, being Santa Claus was infinitely preferable. Then he had the weed and the beer to make life at least mildly interesting, to keep him a human being, to allow perceptions and feelings flowing halfway decently. But he still felt numb, an alien, a stranger from the rest of the human race.

Although his poetry was gone, he did write in his journal constantly, the same apathetic shit day after day after day. Rereading old passages nauseated him sometimes, but he kept up the journal because he thought it helped keep him sane. And there was nothing else he wanted to do. 

Stephen wished he was normal, before the madness hit him. He wanted to write poetry. He yearned to feel. He couldn’t remember the last time he even liked a woman, much less wanted her. To be part again of the human race, to care about things, was his greatest wish. He hadn’t had a strong feeling for as long as he could remember. That was the key: he needed to feel deeply enough inside to write a poem again, without losing his mind. Then his life would have meaning.

Stephen put a thumb and forefinger under his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then squeezed his gray goatee between his thumb and forefinger, and pulled on it. He stared at the people at the bar, focusing on someone arguing politics with the bartender. The guy was getting all worked up, his voice rising in agitation, his hands waving wildly. Stephen couldn’t imagine caring like that about anything. A cold shell, that’s all I am. An empty shell. He would trade his life with any of them in a second.

When his beer was almost done, he walked stiffly to the bathroom to take a piss. On his way back to his table, he picked up a Seattle Weekly. He sat back down and started reading the back page, his eye struck by the advertisement for Bewann Thai Massage. He imagined a group of little brown Thai women with waist-length, jet black hair pressing oil into every follicle of his quivering skin. The image almost got him worked up, but the feeling died before it could get deep enough to make a difference. His eyes moved lower, and then he saw it, the ad that gave him the immediate thought, This is going to change my life!

Are you always numb?

Are you trying to be free?

Do you want to start feeling again like before?

No matter your condition, we have the solution!

Find out all you’ll ever need!

When: July 16th, 1:00 p.m.

Where:

Queen Anne District

124 W. Blaine St.

The meeting would cut into