Don’t Look Back

Simeon Dharsh twirled his glass and shook his head. “I don’t buy it,” he said, with decisive finality. “I mean, if the universe is run by an all-powerful deity, why is there suffering and death? Who makes bad shit happen?”

Shona Drien tried her best not to look condescending. “Simeon, it’s way more complicated than that. God is all-powerful, yes, but there is still evil, sin and wickedness in the world. That state of affairs is reconciled by theodicy, the vindication of God. You see, it has to be that way. There simply must be suffering, for us to appreciate the good in life. It gives us all the choice, to follow the right path, or the wrong one. Both must be there, or we have no free will.”

Simeon took a deep breath. “That’s bullshit, Shona. Free will can be, like, do I have a coke or a root beer? People don’t have to go through misery and agony just to preserve my free will. Don’t try to load me with that responsibility.”

Shona looked about to reply but Lee Marx cut in. “Simeon, I get what you’re saying. Thing is, can you deal with not being around, one day? What have you to look forward to when your time comes, if you don’t believe in God? Squat, that’s what. Emptiness. Extinction. I can’t come to terms with that, so I’m throwing in with God and his promise of eternal paradise.”

Simeon slapped Lee between the shoulders. “Hey, dude. You’re right. I just can’t come to terms with being broke so I’m onto First National tomorrow morning for their guarantee of perpetual riches.”

“Good evening, Mr Dharsh.” The voice was calm, suave, in control. “I watched you at dinner, and just now. I think you are the person we have been looking for. If you are sufficiently brave, please step this way.”

Before Simeon’s disbelieving eyes, in the centre of the blank, burgundy wallpaper before them, shimmered into existence a handsomely gloss-painted blue door, of the type that might grace an upscale residential front entrance in any European capital city. While Simeon was understandably lost for words, Shona and Lee did not appear to have noticed anything unusual.

“Oh, they can’t see it. They can’t hear me, either. Step through and we’ll talk. That is, unless you’re a faint-hearted type. But I don’t think you are. Oh, forgive me. Thorn Keogh. Trust me. Your friends won’t miss you; I’ve taken care of that. Step through, and the world you live in will never seem quite the same again.” The pale-grey suited Keogh, with hair to match his attire, extended his right hand. As Simeon shook hands, noting Keogh’s firm grip, the blue door swung open onto a green-carpeted lounge suite, with two leather-upholstered armchairs on either side of a hexagonal occasional table. A white-jacketed steward nodded in welcome. Thorn Keogh gestured to Simeon, who stepped decisively through the portal and took a seat in the nearer chair.

Thorn Keogh settled in the other chair. “I appear to have made a good choice. Your poison?”

Simeon smiled, without a flicker. Keogh mirrored the gesture. “G&T, please,” Simeon said to the steward. 

“Make that two large G&Ts,” said Keogh. The steward nodded and withdrew.

“Please forgive the melodrama,” continued Keogh. “You see, we enjoy certain… privileges here in Pirochri. Rarely do we exercise them; only when needs must. I am increasingly convinced I have found the right man.”

The steward reappeared with two tumblers, iced and beaded with condensation.

“Well, he was quick, but after the door and all that, I can’t say I’m surprised.” Simeon did his best to keep his tone calm and level.

Thorn Keogh took a sizeable swallow and set down his glass. “I want you to join the Illuminati, Mr Dharsh.”

“Simeon, please. What is the Illuminati? Isn’t that a religious term, for those exalted echelons who are privy to classified information inaccessible to the common man? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a sceptic when it comes to religious authority.”

Keogh smiled. “You are a realist, Simeon. And that makes you ideally suited to join us. Would you say you are a brave man, Mr Dharsh?”

Simeon sipped his drink, relishing the sharp, chilled tang. “It depends on what you mean by brave. If you are looking for devil-may-care, testosterone-fuelled, reckless abandon to impress the girls, please know that I’m not that kind of brave. I was scared shitless when that door appeared. But you intrigue me. I’m honoured to be the reason for a temporary, local suspension of the universe’s natural laws. So I’m prepared to shit myself and find out what’s going down, rather than back off into my comfort zone and spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been if I’d joined you.”

Thorn Keogh nodded. “I was right. My judgment is well placed. You are, by any practical definition, a brave man. One whose fears are real and large, but one who is prepared to conquer those fears. I must tell you a few sobering facts about this world in which you have spent all your life.”

Simeon narrowed his eyes a little, and sipped more of his drink. “And when I’ve heard you out, what if I’m not interested?”

Keogh applauded, without sarcasm. “Bravo. Prudent, and brave. Yes, you can back out at any time during this interview. If you choose that path, your memory of this meeting will be erased, and you will resume your conversation with your two, erm, less enlightened friends outside. You will forget my existence and you will never have seen the blue door.”

A nod from Simeon. “Understood. Please continue. Bring it on.”

Over the next hour, Simeon Dharsh learned a lot about his world. More, he was sure, than he had ever learned in fifteen years at school, nor in four years of higher education. 

First, Pirochri was a part of universe created by a conscious entity. In the unimaginably distant past, and in another universe, there had existed a planet called Earth, orbiting a nondescript star in an outer spiral arm of an equally unremarkable galaxy. Technology had romped along on Earth during intelligent life’s tenure. Some particularly far-sighted visionaries, including and led by one Will Fence, a Silicon Valley trillionaire, discovered a way to create a micro-universe, a miniature replica of their own world, where they would be in complete control - gods in the truest sense.

Thorn Keogh had paused, looking long and hard at Simeon. At this point, most of them caved in: full-on emotional meltdown at the life-altering shift in perspective. They just couldn’t handle their life, their ancestry, their universe, being made up by a bunch of scientists and computer geeks. If Simeon freaked, that would be it. Game over, back to his religious spat with his friends; seamless and smooth. Keogh, free to seek a fresh recruit, would never have been at that party.

Satisfied Simeon was hanging in there, Keogh went on with the narrative. Long story short, Will Fence found himself alone at the helm of his universal new republic. The rest cleared off when they realised just how much responsibility came bundled with being God. Parenthood? Forget it. This is on a completely different scale. The welfare, or otherwise, of every damned man, woman and child in Pirochri rested on Fence’s shoulders. Small wonder he was keen to delegate.

There was one more thing, and it was a big one. Will Fence’s original design spec had been for a universe of immortals, with a fixed number in permanent, idyllic residence. No death, no loss, no grief. Thing was, reliable computer simulations of the new world, packing a couple of millennia into a few weeks, didn’t bode well for that plan. Immortals started growing tired of life and began to take their frustration out on their nearest neighbours. Fence soon realised that would mean the end of his brave new world, sooner or later, as the residents either belted one another off or suffered total nervous collapse, unable to tolerate their own existence a moment longer. To head that off, Fence had reset the constants, and made his creations mortal.

Simeon recalled his friend Lee’s words, on the real world side of the portal, minutes before. Lee couldn’t face extinction but, it seemed, human beings couldn’t face eternity. And what was the real world? Simeon had learned from Keogh that his own reality was the product of someone else’s mind - some guy named Fence, from way back when and far beyond. This was right through the looking glass, no mistake.

“So, you’re offering me a stake in running reality, welded to the fact I’ll forever know more than I can tell my parishioners. Have I got that about right?

Thorn Keogh raised and drained his glass. “Pretty much right,” he confirmed.

Simeon Dharsh finished his drink. “I’m honoured to accept,” he said.

Simeon Dharsh’s alarm buzzed. It was six thirty, Monday morning. He vividly recalled the drink and the conversation with Thorn Keogh. The blue door appearing from nowhere; the seismic revelations about his world and his existence. It was unreal, but it had happened. Now, he was waking up in his own bed, completely unaware of how he’d got here. It was like a time warp.

His phone pinged. Text from Thorn Keogh. Shit, when had he added the guy as a contact? He was certain he hadn’t. The text read, “Your appointment confirmed. Report to 2611 Messianic, 12 noon. Be on time.”

Appointment confirmed? Sounded like a dental booking, yet Simeon was as sure as he could be that he’d been hired. Was there any way out? He doubted it. As of now, he was a fully subscribed member of the Illuminati.

The building stood at the heart of the financial quarter. He could barely believe this nondescript office block was the seat of religious authority in Pirochri. Until Keogh had pulled the mental rug from under him, Simeon had thought of the clergy as just isolated blokes in their churches and vicarages. Presumably they must have been to college and studied theology or divinity, but he’d never thought of them as a coherent whole before now. And perhaps the city location wasn’t so surprising. The church controlled enormous wealth, garnered from the gullible, convinced they were investing in their soul’s eternal bliss. What a protection racket, high stakes bringing high returns, selling an immortality neither there nor theirs to deliver, then blackmailing believers into handing over their savings.

The young woman who shook hands with Simeon could have been a junior partner in any financial consultancy. Hiding in plain sight, the Illuminati recruited and operated behind the grey, plate glass facade of the city. Her icebreaker questions were inane. Why had he applied to join the Illuminati? He hadn’t. He’d been headhunted by Thorn Keogh. Was he a good communicator? She would be a better judge of that than he, he’d replied. The woman had held his gaze for a moment, face impassive, then scribbled a note on her tablet. Abruptly, she rose and walked quickly away, leaving Simeon sitting at the table by himself.

It seemed ages, then she was back, smiling, shaking hands again. “Congratulations and welcome on board,” she said, pumping his hand and smiling a too-perfect white-toothed smile. “Now you are going to walk quickly toward the door over there. It will open as you near it. You are to walk straight though without breaking stride. Do you understand?”

Simeon had barely framed, and certainly not uttered, the obvious question - what door? - when the door flashed into existence. Right in the middle of the panoramic window that gave a view across the cityscape to the river. A moment before, there had been only glass. They were on the eighty-fourth floor. On the other side of the glass - now the door - was fresh air, and a drop of hundreds of feet.

“Do you understand?” she repeated. Simeon found himself nodding. He wanted to tell her he simply meant he understood what she’d said; that he wasn’t agreeing to follow the instruction. But she was already half way across the floor. His feet stepped on after her. The door began to open. She was walking faster, striding longer. He urged his legs to keep up. She dodged to the right. He hurtled toward the door as it swung further clear of its jamb. His mind barely had time to register that it was darker beyond the door than through the glass on either side - then he was through.

Everything was wrong. Had he just committed an act of bravery, or one of stupidity? There was no plunge into space, no rush of air, no pavement hurtling up to granulate his bones. He was standing on a solid floor. That could not be. He was outside the building, eighty-four floors up.

Two realisations impacted Simeon’s consciousness at the same moment. First - and he wanted to slap his own head, in a flash of duhhh - the universe he lived in was made up by some guy named Fence. Anything could happen. You could pass through a portal and what was on the other side could be nowhere near what you thought was right ahead of you. The second realisation was less abstruse. He was in someone’s bedroom. Thick, dark red drapes hung around a four-poster bed, parted to reveal a slight figure within. Eyelids flickered. Simeon looked down on a face that could not be far from death. The old man was trying to say something. Simeon stepped forward and leaned down. The sunken eyes locked with his.

“Father,” rasped the emaciated, skeletal figure on the bed. “My time is near. Please tell me, shall I find absolution? What awaits my soul? Shall I need… to be purged… before I can enter paradise? Or, shall my soul….” The voice tailed off before the man could articulate the unspeakable.

On a rational level, Simeon had not the slightest idea what to do. Yet, he knew exactly what to do. He placed his own hand over the man’s.

“You have nothing to fear,” Simeon assured him. He could feel the man’s relief. The hand softened and relaxed.

“You shall sleep the deepest, most restful, dreamless sleep you have ever slept. And then, everything will be all right. Trust me. Trust your faith.”

The man on the bed sighed. His haggard face gave way to serenity, years younger than just a minute before. A faint, fleeting grip on Simeon’s fingers, then soft again. A final, erratic breath, then the same air hissing outward. After that, silence.

The room pixellated and dissolved. Simeon was back at the same desk, the same neat young woman seated opposite him.

He fought down rising nausea and had to grip the edge of the table while he regained control. Cold sweat prickled as his pulse returned slowly to normal.

“Well done,” smiled his youthful mentor. “I don’t think you could have handled that any better. You passed the first test - you’re prepared to accept faith as a guide when there is no alternative. You launched yourself through the door, your rational mind screaming there was no floor beyond.”

The nausea threatened to return. “Faith? No, miss, I don’t do faith. Faith is a copout. It’s for those afraid of the truth. Of reality.”

She sat back and lowered her forehead, meeting his eyes through her dark fringe. “Oh yes, and what’s reality? We think we see the whole world through those little pinholes in the front of our faces. Think about it. We miss a hell of a lot more than we see. We all take life on faith. With the door, you put your faith in me, and you didn’t plunge eight hundred feet to your death. Do the math.”

Simeon felt he had to concede the point.

She continued. “And you passed the second part. The main part. You didn’t bullshit that bloke. You sold it to him like it is. There’s no hell, no heaven, only oblivion, once you stop oxygenating your brain. Every night of our lives, we seek oblivion. We climb into bed, chose our eyes and wish for a peaceful night. Socrates said death is but a long and dreamless sleep. More recently, Samuel Langhorne Clemens observed that death would render him as he was at the time of the dinosaurs - completely unconscious of himself or of the universe. As he said, that did not cause him the slightest inconvenience, and neither shall the time we spend dead throughout the future of the world.”

Simeon folded his arms. “Neither Socrates nor Mark Twain existed in this universe.”

She sat forward and placed her elbows on the table. “Oh, yeah? Did they exist in Fence’s own universe? How the fuck do we know? Their history was written and here we have it. Like our universe’s history is no more than the fallible narrative our consciousness streams agree on.”

Simeon felt that he was beginning to glimpse what this young woman - he did not know her name - and Thorn Keogh had meant, about needing only the brave. This job was going to take every ounce of courage he could summon.

She gave a curt nod. “You’re ready. Go.”

Another room. Another old man; another life about to end. Simeon Dharsh began the usual farewell platitudes. Yes, you have led a good life. You have nothing to fear afterward. No next world holds torment in store because of some indiscretion. Yours shall be the sleep of the righteous.

Simeon froze, his voice croaking and grinding to silence. He had recognised the wizened, white-haired man on the death bed before him.

The voice, still suave, came as a thin whisper. “You are right, Mr Dharsh. I can die knowing I chose well.”