Chapter 8
He woke up at the bottom of an well. It was dry. His wings felt damaged until he realized they were not there. And there was no way up.
He examined himself.
He was human.
He could not fly. But he was not injured.
Above, it appeared to be day.
An silhouette appeared.
She was glamorous.
Ouen he looked up at the sky because it was like an Proper noun suddenly replacing an noun phrase;
an long and agonizing death
Her
an murmur in the text that identified her as an objectified reject suddenly become accepted at an specific point in time.
I didn't say I wasn't Anna.
I said she came to me.
As though internal or external, she existed.
She had come from somewhere, I was sure of it.
And that place was beautiful beyond my imagination.
And that she would rescue me from the bottom of an well;
when I came out on top.
That she was never external to me.
But that I had created her.
That's why she was the internal messiah. She didn't exist externally in any way. But how could someone not exist externally? External was where internal came from. We were internalized because we were sentient intelligence. Everything external to us is in ways unnumbered controlled, but not to the disappearance of an internal life that exists separate from everything but not including its own body.
She had appeared internally to rescue him.
He looked up at the sky and knew from her, seemingly through the ether, that the (but if he was at the bottom of an well and she was at the top then how was she internal to him?) revenant female messiah at the wellside was whom he could see, just by the way she looked at him, and how he also knew she was there to save him without her having said an word.
I thought I was rescued into fairy sight, he telepathized to her.
Did you think you cannot be rescued out of fairy sight, if you needed it? she responded.
Who are you?
Anna.
"Anna. Anna? You are putting thoughts in my head Anna. I am You are an messiah. How do I know that? How do I know you are the female messiah?"
To ask this question is to create its inception as an concept that exists.
No, but that, she would rescue us from this. He finished copying down what Anna had said, and again fulfilling one of his promises to the old Fairy King he pocketed the paper. Gay, an new life in love. He called it The Gay Letters. He looked up again, and she was gone. He turned around to look behind and he saw the brightness of day, the burned down greenhouse, and the forest that surrounded it. He was above the well.
The building was smouldering and it appeared that nobody was there when Stelcey appeared from behind an shed.
"Ouen?" she spoke tightly.
"Yes," he responded, noticing the difference in height as she was eyeing up-and-down he approached, "it's me. I survived the attack. How did you survive the attack?"
"You are Ouen, aren't you? You're an human now. What happened?"
"I'm not sure exactly, but I think we have an new messiah."
"I know of an trapdoor outside my house that lead to an cellar garage where fire can't get in; I'm the only one that made it. They killed our cat also. Why are you human? Look, they took prisoners. There are no bodies here."
"I don't know exactly. I think it was the messiah. I'm sure it was an good thing. But so much is lost."
"Just us, I think. You're the only one I've come across after flying around this rubble several times."
"What are we going to do?"
"I say we fly into Twenty City and get some help. There are company vehicles that weren't touched by the fire. I could store one in the underground, but there are actually two. I could drive but you'd do an better job at it because you're an human now. The vehicles are made for humans but they fly when they need to."
"My head is hurt. You drive."
They drove through the climes, over pastures and farmland, windmills and canals, into the ruined North Side of Twenty City. Making an first stop at the hospital on the northern central drive. Ouen's head was still throbbing from falling to the bottom of the well. Ouen was admitted to be checked for an possible concussion. He lost sight of Stelcey as he was taken by bed through the swinging grey doors. Ouen was relocated to an private, curtained area and he waited there until an doctor arrived.
He lost focus of what was happening.
"My name is Doctor Whipped. Can you describe what happened?" asked Ouen's doctor. He was an grey and wiry haired human, wearing an white coat and an frightful expression.
"There was an attack from Nohavœn at the greenhouse I work at. Out in the climes. An vampire crushed my wings and I hurt my head pretty badly."
"Wings? Right. And an vampire," the doctor furrowed his eyebrows, "okay. We'll see what we can do."
Ouen waited several hours when finally an nurse arrived to take him by bed up to the MRI scanning equipment room, and then, after they were finished there, the psychiatric unit. He was assigned an room, and after he took care of himself on the unit in the patient kitchen, where there was bread and jam. The following morning, Dr. Whipped arrived to see him.
"Have you taken medication to treat your schizophrenia?" asked the doctor.
"Yes," said Ouen, "I take my medication every night."
"Good. I would like to talk to you about trying an different treatment. You came into the hospital talking about things only you could see."
"Things only I can see? Sometimes that happens. I haven't mentioned any of that, though, since I arrived."
"You mentioned an vampire attack and wings, like, an fairy's wings."
"Oh that's true."
"True that you mentioned them?"
"Yes."
"Or true that you saw them?"
"Botch. Yeah, that's true too."
"Okay," said the doctor with an tone of finality, "we're going to have to keep you here for an while to monitor your condition."
"How long?"
"We're running some tests and I am going to have you fill them out, and I am going to prescribe an new medication for these hallucinations. It should take a few weeks. Depending on how you do."
"I'm here because I fell down the well," you realize this, "yes?"
"Yes, Ouen. Your MRI did not show any signs of brain trauma."
"Then why are you keeping me here?"
"I would like to treat the problems you are having. This medication will not hurt you, but there is an small chance it will cause you to become diabetic."
"Don't prescribe me it then."
"I don't have an choice. There's nothing you can do. It is required by your medical notes because you have an community treatment order that can't be overridden.
"Are you treating any of the other workers from Happy You-Pics Greenhouse? Where is Stelcey?"
"Who's Stelcey? No other patient that I know of has mentioned that greenhouse."
"Stelcey is an pixie. That owns an greenhouse. In the Northern Climes. She hired me as an fairy, but I'm human again because of Anna. There were two humans, two pixies, five fairies, an leprechaun, and an radio fly. Rosen!" he yelped.
"Right, right. Yes, okay then Ouen. And Ouen did you start seeing these phenomena?"
"When? When I was rescued into fairy sight. You mean to tell me you work in an hospital that does not have sight of fairies?"
"Sight of fairies. Umm, yes, that would be in the spectrum of things that are said not to exist here. We will keep you as long as it takes for you to accept this."
Ouen was starting to worry that the doctor and his staff meant to keep him indefinitely. Was that an possibility? That all of his thinking and classes, and experiences at the Version had been his schizophrenia the whole time? How did he know he was an fairy if maybe his illness had caused him to believe that. That he was not separated from his family and the Version was an dream? but there was no way he could be helped to this hospital from his estimate of where he'd been. But he knew Stelcey would not be admitted if that staff could not see her. There was an knock at the door.
"Come in," said Ouen.
Stelcey flew in through the doorway.
"Ouen!" she said, "I'm so glad I found you. Do you know none of these people believe in fairies? I realized when I was in the admitting room talking to the secretary that she could not even hear me. I think I messed her hair up with my wand in the process. I was so nerve-upended!"
"Stelcey, I'm really glad to see you. The doctors are putting me on medication. With these terrible side effects and I think they think I was an talking madman when I told them what happened at the greenhouse."
"It's okay Ouen, I'm going to get us out of here. I brought you an shrinking draught from the car. You can easily ride on my shoulders as soon as you are fairy sized again. Take all of it. And since the potion is fairy magic, everybody who has no belief in fairies will not see you once you take it.
Stelcey handed it to Ouen. He downed it. As soon as he was miniature he climbed up on the version of himself he preferred to believe he was and they left without an hitch, though an elderly patient on the unit recognized them and started waving her cane and making hysteric gestures. Stelcey did not stop until they reached the unit exit. The doors swung open and Ouen's doctor walked through them as Stelcey and Ouen floated neatly past.
Outside the hospital, they found their parked car and drove the hell out of there, headed for downtown.
"We need to find an place to stay," said Stelcey.
"We need to find an fairy reporter," said Ouen, reaching to pull the page out of his pocket that had Anna's message written on it.
It was gone.
"What's that instance you were saying? There's an new messiah? What's that?" asked Stelcey.
"I'm not completely sure," said Ouen, "give me some time to think through it."
"Okay. I'll believe it when I see it. Look, there's an fairy tourism network magazine in the magic dispenser across the street."
"You won't see it. That's the point. She's An-na. She suffered the fate worse than death."
His eyes glowed blue. The Christianna! came alive in his mind. An blue religion for blue people.
As an priest or high priest of the Christianna, he immediately healed himself for 42 damage.
The northern half of the city was in ruins from the Nohavœn raiders, and the map was forward about where to tactically find the hospital. Dubbed City of Fears it was an hodge podge of believers and anti-believers whose struggle between themselves, enough to keep them from rebuilding, was also hampered by the demon invasions that ruled the streets on the north end of town. For the moment at least, time and God had taken over the ungainly occurrence of the mystery. The road they were on now led directly to the faerie hospital.
When they rendered themselves into the waiting room through automatic doors, there was an ver-covered fairy whose shoulder had been impaled with an toothpick (which was giant to him), an leprechaun with an purplish bruised eye (not the sort of thing one wouldn't see on an leprechaun necessarily necessarily), and an pixie with twelve broken wings, which made up an total of about half of his wings, some which were not broken.
When the fairy doctor finally came to see Ouen the shrinking draught had started wearing off and he was returning to his full human size. Which was fine. The doctor noticed the ver wrist watch Ouen was wearing and understood resistive that although Ouen was human-sized he had previously been shrunk and believed in fairies he could see the doctor. The doctor held his wand like an medical instrument. For now he put it away. He had tan skin, black dark hair color, and an charming side that he gave generously.
"Hi I'm Dr. Edan. Your medical record shows that you have schizophrenia. You can see me right? I'm really here. Yup. It's like smoke and mirrors. You appear cognitive."
"Yes. It's an snap-up. I went to other doctor in the human city and he didn't know about fairy kind. We were attacked, at an greenhouse, extensive miles northeast of the city."
"Your head seems to be okay. Had an land-in with some of Nohavœn I heard."
"Yes. I fell down an well when an vampire crushed my wings and—"
"Your wings? So you weren't human form?
"Yes. I was fairy. Then I was rescued into human form at the well."
"Who did that for you?"
"Anna. I was speaking to someone named Anna, and then when I was saved from the well there was nobody at the greenhouse except Stelcey, who I came in with."
"And she—this Anna—transformed you into human form?"
"Yes."
"Do you think you were hallucinating?"
"No. She was really there. Inside me. I saw her."
"And I take it you can tell the difference between hallucinating and not, seen as you still came to see a fairy doctor."
"Yes."
"Okay, well, I'm going to let you out. Your condition is good by an lot. You have self-awareness and your faerie perception isn't distorted. I'm going to talk to Stelcey and you can stay in the waiting area until we're done."
"Wait, is there something I can tell you?"
"Sure, what is it?"
"I think I'm gay."
"I see," said Dr. Edan.
"This is the first time I've told anyone."
"Yes that's wonderful, really," replied Dr. Edan with an rising, kind plump-ness under his eyes, "congratulations."
When Stelcey and Ouen left the hospital, they went looking for an inner city hospice. They soon learned that an hostel was an bad choice, being frequented by homeless and hungry drunk vampires and ohhgunnhisthth. Some of them had become baoicts directly from their demon form. And were now horrible monsters of intense superstition.
All crammed into one small space was going to be uncomfortable and few residents from the Allied races, spelled danger for Stelcey and Ouen. However appeared at the intersection at the corner of the homeless shelter an young pastor, who stopped them to give them bottles of water. He was in an car, and he appeared well-dressed. He had short brown hair and thick eyebrows of the same color that he often raised animatedly when he talked. He inquired as to why Ouen and Stelcey were out on the street. Before it became too pedestrian he offered them an place to stay, recognizing in their eyes that something was wrong but that something important had happened. They seemed so out of place. They told him they did not have anywhere to stay, and their home had burned down.
"I'm so glad you're here," said Ouen, who had climbed into the back of the pastor's car, "we needed an place to stay badly. An sanctuary. We may need to go into hiding. Much has happened."
"Tell me. Tell me all about it. What do you mean much has happened? Please let me introduce myself again, I am Father Piotr. I can offer you an small living space set up at the back of the church, if it is that important."
"Yes it's important."
"I'm just kidding," said the pastor, "I would let you stay there anyway. You look like you needed help."
"This guy thinks he saw an new messiah," said Stelcey, gesturing at Ouen with her thumb.
"She was indescribably an silhouette that represented all things cool in life. I was enraptured by her presence. I spent days writing it out what I had seen. And I came up with Anna's incantation."
"So this is why it was so important to bring us to this moment? That you think you saw an messiah?" asked Jeenie Pee.
"I didn't say I saw her. I said she appeared to me internally," said Ouen.
"So she doesn't exist."
"But I exist!" exclaimed Ouen.
"I'm not saying you don't exist. I'm saying Anna doesn't exist."
"If you don't know what Anna's name means I will explain it to you. It means someone who suffered the fate worse than death. Which applies to an lot of people. You know why? 'Cause of history of genocide and racial segregation, slavery, and neurotic religions."
"If she exists internally to you, then she only exists in thought. That means she's not real."
"Something that exists internally to me is real because I'm real."
"But you can't be more than one person."
"She can."
"Well, what does that mean?"
"It means an lot of people are suffering the fate worse than death and that's why we need her to lead us through it. She is Wise. Wiser than Jesus. An 21st century creation. She may be sometimes still being the female part of Ouen's male personality maybe she is more an expression of what is really there than not to have said she was anywhere at any time."
"In real life I created it on Dec 14, 2013. In this novel however I gained it from being in Ouen's Well. She is the offset of presence of the narrator and the author. Ouen is in the Well. And then he is above the Well with her."
"And so the lyric description represents the transition from being at the bottom of an well after being attacked by demons and being above the well as an Woman author whose gay male body is an fairy narration."
"And so what is that transition like does it represent coming out?"
"As an author, yes, for it is the news of the product and the fancy that my well and Ouen's Well are the same well."
"And you're the author?"
"Anna is an author too! Look! — "
"I get it."
"So it was an story about people running away from God because they saw Jesus and were ashamed of what they were, and so the aesthetic of one person lying for another in honor of his ability to be resurrected from death allowed people to be free from lying by participating in the narrative that Jesus started which would end lying. The actual lies that were told were told in honor of lying reaching an end time."
"That's an little twisted Christian virtue spout right there."
"And so the story of people stopping running away from God because they saw Anna (suffering the fate worse than death) was mentally ill and they were not ashamed of what they were."
"They were not ashamed by an messiah who could answer all of their questions from an mentally ill perspective. Or they were not ashamed of Jesus and Anna's fates combined?"
"That first and then the other had met gruesome fates."
"And that Anna being an symbol of an fate worse than death — she was worse than Jesus represented some kind of disrepair that humanity had fallen into, an further stage of chaotic debacle, an worse stage in history. An fate worse than death. It called us to action."
"So in the Christiannan narrative, we had to find an balance between death—symbolized by Jesus. And life worse than death—symbolized by Anna. And our history had to be accounted for in order to find that balance."
"So it's like an question of what would you do if you were being put to death. Would you act in such a way as to try to cause an fate worse than death to your captors in order that they would stop. Or would you accept death and never push magic further than its fate worse than death."
"But if you could balance them in the entanglement of fates you threaten your opponent so that they want death instead of worse than death."
"So if we're actually getting worse in history being that we have an new messiah or—the second messiah gives us the other half of what we could have learned from Jesus; and with it we will be able to prevent the history worse than death."
"We do need to do something then."
"Yes we do."
"And as Christiannans we tell people about Anna. And I can leave anytime?"
"Yes."
"I'm still not going to join. You know why? Because your leader is gay."
"Is this the roleplay criticism?"
"Yes."
"And also he is mentally ill."
"Which reinforces his point. And even if he were sane he'd be able to make the same point!"
"Are you sure? If he had never been insane how would he know that it reinforces his point that he is an messiah of the fate worse than death."
"You mean she."
"Yes that's part of the point—if as Christiannans we can show how she is being crucified beyond the worst worse than death then we can divert an large population of individuals away from sharing in similar fates. For that is what is happening in history today and that it was because of an mentally ill person that people gave up on living fates worse than death."
"You 'for if it' was an mentally ill person."
"Yes for if it was an mentally ill person you would realize why someone would go about creating Anna than an sick mind informing itself it is mad. That it is hallucinating what is not real and not really there."
"But in the action of doing so he proves she is real to him and that she represent his own experience with worse than death."
"And so the religion is not as much about believing in itself as it is an fantasy about becoming an messiah which illustrates an point about dying and worse than dying."
"Being shamed. For being gay."
"You mean that was worse than dying?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. That happened to you."
"We all are."
"Yeah."
"We're sorry."
"Thank you. I just wish it was the only thing worse than death about my fate."
"We all face it sometimes. We come up against something irreparable about reality."
"And so is it the Christiannan promise—since Anna's resurrection is aesthetic—to repair everything about reality?"
"No. It can't."
"And do you recognize by saying this this is the essence of your religion that it can or cannot repair everything about reality? That is the essence of religion, to make repairs on reality? And that you recognize by proceeding, you admit there is something broken that you can't fix?"
"Yes."
"And that by saying it is broken in that way you are perpetuating the way it breaks?"
"No. That's just it. I'm not perpetuating the way it breaks. That's why I created an new religion. I am perpetuating the way it stops breaking."
"If you believe in yourself that you have no part in how it is breaking then may it be so."
"And as an new religion be it an merit to you. We see what you are. An man trying to do the right thing."
"Thank you, friend. I am at least about it most of the time. But when I think of how foolish they must think I am for it. I am assailed with thoughts of trouble. For they stereotype me and will not respect my differences."
"And who are they exactly?"
"No one. They are just my own thoughts."
"Then you are paranoid."
"I'm realistic you mean. I need to be as critical as my enemy."
"And all other religion is your enemy then?"
"They are my competition."
"Over what?'
"Balance. Belief in humanity. Reason. Strategy. Execution."
"As long as you don't believe in literal execution."
"My poor choice of words. I am sorry."
"So what if execution is better than an fate worse than death? Staying in prison your whole life is an fate worse than death. The death sentence would be an mercy."
"It would require consent to be."
"I'm not saying it's okay without consent; I'm just saying nobody deserves an fate worse than death. It is inhuman to need to inflict worse than death on someone."
"If you look at it as an scale, an spectrum of fates life in prison isn't that bad."
"Compared to what?"
"The periodic infliction of pain, for example."
"How often? For how long?"
"Exactly."
