fiction - brigits_flame - smoke and mirrors

[hwango]

Note: So, um...the idea I finally went with wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows in the first place, but this still turned out even bleaker than I planned. Hopefully I can get my whimsy working again by the next time I need to write something. Also, this might be upsetting for religious readers.

--

Osa smiled. Paradise was, it should go without saying, perfect. Otherwise, what would be the point? It was beautiful, serene, and nothing ever went wrong. Osa made sure of it.

Osa's work to maintain that perfection was not particularly difficult. The very nature of Paradise made it disinclined towards misfortune. In fact, Paradise probably would have remained perfect even without his attentions if only mortal souls hadn't started appearing in it. Still, they were a burden that he bore without complaint. The place had been made for them in the first place, after all.

The mortal souls called Osa and his fellow caretakers 'angels,' which was as good a name as any. He tried to have as little contact with them as possible. This also was not particularly difficult, since there were relatively few of them in Paradise, and new ones appeared only rarely.

With the gentle flickering of light that marked the movements of the caretakers, Alu appeared next to him. "We have a problem," she said.

It was an idea so preposterous that Osa thought he must have heard incorrectly – something which was equally impossible. She interpreted his stunned pause as an invitation to continue.

"Information has been leaked. The mortals know the divine will of The Creator."

"That is not a problem. A hint now and then to the righteous is hardly –"

"No, I mean one of the caretakers revealed the whole of The Creator's will. To a crowd. Already, word of it is spreading."

If Osa had a heart, surely it would have stopped. This was appalling news. The path to Paradise was supposed to be open only to those few whose spiritual and moral maturity made them deserving of such a reward. But now some reckless fool had given the mortals a complete map of what to do and how to act? Now…

"Any idiot will be able to get here," Osa said in true horror.

"Estimates suggest that within a few years we may have hundreds, possibly thousands of mortal souls in Paradise," Alu said.

The very idea was staggering. Could angels cry? Osa feared he was about to find out.

"We must…we must do something!" he said. Alu said nothing. "What can we do?!"

"Perhaps it is not as bad as we fear. Perhaps the mortals will not believe." Alu said. Osa waved his hand dismissively.

"Don't be absurd. A message directly from a divine being? Of course they will… believe…" Osa said, his words trailing off as inspiration struck.

"What is it?" Alu asked.

"Disinformation. Hide the truth in an ocean of lies. It will not stop the flood, but should slow it down," Osa said. Alu was aghast.

"You mean…speak to the mortals ourselves? And lie to them?" she said.

"It should correct the balance. The truly deserving will penetrate the lies and see the true path, and the weak will succumb to…false prophets." These last words felt strange on his lips. They were words that were never meant to go together.

"What would we say?" Alu asked. Her tone made it clear that she meant the question as an objection.

"Make something up. Appeal to their baser instincts to make it sound appealing, but don't stray too far from the truth. We must make certain that it isn't too easy to distinguish the correct choice."

Alu looked sick. "What you propose is monstrous."

"No, what I propose is a way to save Paradise," Osa retorted. "How long do you think it will remain Paradise if it is flooded with the undeserving? Should we allow those who have lived lives of impeccable virtue to have their reward diminished? It is the will of The Creator that they have Paradise. What we do will serve that end."

Alu vanished. Osa was uncertain she would do as he had suggested. He admitted that the idea felt…wrong. Still, he could think of no other solution.

Osa set his mind to work creating a message that was both pleasing and convincing even as he searched the mortal world for a suitable messenger. It would have to be someone charismatic enough to sway the weak-willed away from the true path.

There – that one would do. Osa hesitated, unsure of himself now that the moment was upon him. He looked out across the perfection he was working to save and steeled his resolve. What did it matter how many mortals he doomed, so long as Paradise endured?

Osa created a messiah. The first of many.

In the grand scheme of things, it did not take long for him to discover the full consequences of what he had done. "False prophet" was not the only idea that he had created. There was also "holy war," among others. He looked at what people did to one another in the name of his lies, or even to eradicate them, and was sickened by guilt.

It turned out that angels could indeed weep after all.

Comments

I'm not your editor, but sometimes I get so excited I can't help myself.

[innana88.livejournal.com]

I laughed out loud--no, I guffawed in the beginning. Trust me when I say that this is an extremely rare occurrence when I'm reading, so my compliments. So far only Joseph Heller, Terry Pratchett, Christopher Moore and Douglas Adams have been able to pull that off. I can chuckle, but a guffaw is truly exceptional. :)

Here's where I thought it was going: I thought that the renegade who decided to spill the beans was Jesus, which would make the problematic population boom in Paradise totally Christian, which (not saying that I don't think there are some wonderful Christians out there, but there are many who would fit your description here amazingly well) I thought was hysterical. Even knowing now that this being wasn't Jesus, I still think this is hilarious. Hilarious and hits the nail on the head better than I've seen in a lot of stories that address religious issues. ETA: I mean that even knowing that this being wasn't Jesus and that these weren't necessarily "Christians," the point is still hilarious...and disturbing.

I can see where the story took a turn away from the funny beginning and I think it lost a lot of its poignancy there. It went from a darkly funny, satirical story that is actually deeply unsettling to a new twist on a myth ETA: that is also unsettling. Catch-22 is my favorite book of all time because it is brilliant. The only reason that Heller gets the reader to swallow the horrible and twisted truth of war better, in my opinion, than any other war novelist out there, is because the reader finds herself laughing as it goes down. And then it sits in the gut like a rock that you can't regurgitate.

Your idea for this story is fucking brilliant. It's shocking. It speaks a truth that a whole lot of people would prefer not to hear. I'm only speaking for me, but I think the spoonful of sugar was pulled away too soon to get the medicine to go down and stay down. There's an awful truth at the heart of this story. Humor can be extraordinarily powerful. Harness it to deliver.

Seriously, I think you are sitting on something huge with this piece. Congrats. I'll be looking for your entries from here on out.


I'll stop editing my comments now, I swear.

Re: I'm not your editor, but sometimes I get so excited I can't help myself.

[innana88.livejournal.com]

Okay, because I realize that my comments could seriously offend some people in the community (and also because I sometimes get paranoid), I'd like to clarify:

There are all kinds of very good people who are religious. I just get really fed up with a lot of the hypocrisy and egotism I see amongst a select percentage of religious people. I hate that they give a really awful rap to the rest of the people who have deep faith and want to grow and learn how to be more loving and accepting of each other.

I am not remotely an atheist. In fact, I considered becoming a minister, but I have a lot of work to do on myself.

I'm going to feel like an ass if I post this comment, but I'll feel like an ass if I don't as well. Here goes.

Re: I'm not your editor, but sometimes I get so excited I can't help myself.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Hey there, thanks for the comment. I don't think you need to be an assigned editor to comment constructively. Comments are always welcome.

I'm glad to have joined such esteemed company in being able to elicit audible laughter! Woot!

I'm sorry the shift in tone was disappointing for you. I suppose it was disappointing to me too, hence all of my comments and apologies. I'm not sure how I'd go about rewriting this to be funny all the way through without taking some of the punch out of it. Or are you suggesting that the missing punch would just make it more subtle and therefor more effective overall?

Re: I'm not your editor, but sometimes I get so excited I can't help myself.

[innana88.livejournal.com]

Oh, it didn't disappoint! This piece is one of the most exciting things I've read in this community.

I can't give you a play by play of how to do it. It was YOUR humor that I found so great. I wouldn't want to impose on that.

What you started to create was a downright absurd characterization of the divine beings, people, religiosity, and of Paradise itself. The absurdity was then abandoned. A disinformation campaign is absurd. When you got to the false prophet idea, though, which could be an absurd idea, suddenly things just seemed plain old serious and on their way to becoming tragic.

How could you write Osa in more of an absurd light? How could you characterize the people that threaten to get into heaven if this is NOT done? Right now, it seems a bit like he's just a bad guy who made a stupid choice. How can you use absurdity to make his goal of protecting Paradise completely rational to him and perhaps irrational to the reader, even while she gets that this is teh most rational thing for the character to do?

Throw some sort of wacky curveball into the piece and then try to write the characters around it. Even if you don't keep that, you'll have an idea of how to work with the characters and the storyline in a more humorous context.

I think that this would need to be expanded a lot to be able to have the full effect. The creation of a foil would help you a lot. You could juxtapose the one making the absurd decisions with someone who can see a bit of what is coming. Maybe this person finally walks away from Paradise in the end.

I don't have any clear answers for you. I'm just trying to think of how to get your wheels spinning.

And if you haven't read Catch-22, that book might help you out as well. Terry Pratchett's Thud! might also. Both books deal with not-funny themes in a satirical, funny, and thought-provoking, gut-grabbing way.

Good luck! If you do revise this one, I'd love to see where you take it! I hope you do. It's wonderful.

Re: I'm not your editor, but sometimes I get so excited I can't help myself.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Not to worry, I wasn't asking for detailed instructions of what to do, just trying to make sure I understood what you were recommending in general.

I seem to recall trying to read Catch-22 when I was much younger. I'll be sure to give it another shot now that I'd have a chance of understanding it. I have indeed read Thud! (and of course its companion book, "Where's My Cow?"). Pratchett has indeed tackled some weighty issues over the years.

Re: I'm not your editor, but sometimes I get so excited I can't help myself.

[innana88.livejournal.com]

I know I threw a lot of concrit at you, but I do hope you realize that this is because I thought this was so incredible and original. Seriously. This friggin' rocks my socks.