I am the GodVolume III: The Void Speaks
Saturday morning.
Chuck went to the space between Wilson and the edge before his run.
The Void was there.
"Clara Reeves," it said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"How was it," the Void said.
"She had been watching me from the window," Chuck said. "All those mornings. She didn't wave because she didn't think I'd notice."
The Void was quiet.
"And you told her," it said.
"That she was worth noticing," Chuck said. "Yes."
"How did it feel," the Void said.
Chuck thought about the honest answer.
"Like arriving somewhere I should have arrived seventy-eight years ago," he said. "And finding it still available. Changed — not the same arrival it would have been. But there."
"The between," the Void said.
"Different between," Chuck said. "Better in some ways. Harder in others."
"Yes," the Void said. "That is the nature of late arriving. The window is different. The light is different. What you find is not what you would have found earlier. But it is still finding."
"Still creation," Chuck said.
"Still creation," the Void confirmed.
Chuck sat.
"You said today we look at what is still open," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"Marcus thinks it has to do with him," Chuck said.
"Marcus has been paying attention for seventeen years with his hands," the Void said. "He reads systems. He is correct."
Chuck was quiet.
"Show me," he said.
The Void showed him.
The narrator will record what was shown the way it was shown — not softened, not prepared, because the Void did not soften or prepare and the narrator has been learning, in the company of things that are absolutely honest, to do the same.
What was still open was not a problem.
The narrator emphasizes this because the word open in this account has been used for things that needed addressing, and the thing the Void showed was not a problem in that sense. It was not a failure. It was not something that required correction.
It was a question.
Specifically: what Chuck Norris was going to do when Marcus Webb died.
Not soon.
The Void was precise about this. Marcus Webb was forty-one years old and in good health and had no immediate cause for concern and the actuarial tables, which the Void knew as it knew everything, suggested a natural lifespan that extended several more decades.
But the Void showed him anyway.
Not the how or the when — it did not have those, not with precision, because the specific of mortality was in the conditions and the conditions were contingent. But the fact of it. The simple, undecorated, honest fact that Marcus Webb was subject to the ordinary terms and the ordinary terms included this.
The file marked pending would remain pending.
Marcus had no such file.
Chuck sat with this.
He had sat with it before — had known it in the abstract since the beginning, had said not yet and meant it, had understood that the people in the between with him were there under different arrangements than he was.
He had known it in the abstract.
The Void showed him the concrete.
Not a vision, not a scene, not the specific dramatic rendering of a loss. Simply the fact, held up clearly in the absolute honesty of the Void, stripped of abstraction.
Marcus Webb was going to die.
Chuck Norris was not going to die.
These two facts would intersect at a point in time that was not yet and was also certain.
Chuck sat with it.
He did not look away from it.
"I knew this," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"I said not yet," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"I understood it was coming," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"So why are you showing me," he said.
"Because knowing and seeing are not the same thing," the Void said. "You have known this since Marcus said you'll know when it happens. You have been carrying it as knowledge. I am showing it to you as fact. The difference between knowledge and fact is weight."
Chuck looked at the fact.
The weight was different from the knowledge.
The knowledge had been manageable.
The fact was not manageable.
The fact was simply there — heavy, honest, permanent in the way that things which will happen are permanent even before they happen, the specific permanence of the irreversible approaching.
"He knows," Chuck said.
"He suspects," the Void said. "What he can feel approaching is not his death. He is not close enough to it to feel it specifically. What he feels approaching is this — your knowing. Your sitting with the fact. He felt it yesterday because you were close to it yesterday. He read the system."
"He read me," Chuck said.
"He has been reading you for six months," the Void said. "He is very good at it."
Chuck sat with this.
"What do I do with it," he said.
"That," the Void said, "is the open question."
"Tell me," Chuck said.
"I cannot tell you," the Void said. "This is the one I cannot show you or explain to you. This is the one you have to find yourself."
"Why," Chuck said.
"Because the answer to this one," the Void said, "is the answer that can only come from inside the between. Not from my showing. Not from my explaining. From the between between you and Marcus, lived forward, with the knowledge of what is coming."
"You're asking me to live toward it," Chuck said.
"I'm telling you it exists," the Void said. "What you do with the living toward is yours."
Chuck sat with the fact.
The weight of it.
The specific permanence of the irreversible approaching.
He thought about everything he had learned.
The between. The names. The weight. The willingness. The cost.
He thought about what Marcus had said.
The way you know you love someone is what their grief does to you.
He thought about the weight at two thirty in the morning.
He thought about what it had meant for the weight to go all the way in.
He thought about not yet.
He thought about what yet meant when you were certain of what it was yet to be.
"Is this what the Void has always been here to show me," he said. "This one thing."
"No," the Void said. "The Void has been here to show you what was made and what was not made and what is still open. This is the last of the three."
"The hardest," Chuck said.
"The most alive," the Void said.
Chuck looked at it.
"Most alive," he said.
"The made and the not-made are in the past," the Void said. "They are true and they are weight and they belong in the spiral. But they are fixed. This is not fixed. This is still happening. This is the open valve — not broken, not yet, still getting old, still containing what it contains, still available to be tended and attended to and lived with fully for whatever time there is."
"The valve is still working," Chuck said.
"The valve is still working," the Void said.
"That's what open means," Chuck said. "Not broken. Available."
"Yes," the Void said.
Chuck sat with this for a long time.
He sat with the fact and the weight and the word available and what available meant in the context of something that was certain to end.
He thought about Marcus's father.
Eighteen months. Fixing what needed fixing. Tired every night. Not sorry.
The father had known.
He had been in the conditions where knowing was impossible to avoid.
He had known and had spent eighteen months in the available.
"I have more than eighteen months," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"I have decades," Chuck said. "Probably."
"Probably," the Void said.
"And I know," Chuck said. "I'm not in the conditions where knowing is unavoidable. I know by choice. By your showing."
"Yes," the Void said.
"Is that a gift," Chuck said. "Or a burden."
"Yes," the Void said.
Chuck looked at it.
"Both," he said.
"Both," the Void confirmed.
"And what I do with it," Chuck said, "is live the available. Fully. Whatever time there is."
"That's the answer you already know," the Void said. "You've been learning it for six months."
"From a plumber," Chuck said.
"From the between between you and a plumber," the Void said.
"The between that's still happening," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"The valve that's still working," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
Chuck was quiet for a long time.
Longer than he had been quiet in any of the previous conversations with the Void.
The Void sat with him.
It did not press.
It did not move to the next thing.
It simply was what it was — the oldest patience, the before of everything, sitting in the between with something that was still becoming.
"I'm angry," Chuck said.
The Void was quiet.
"I know that's not—" He stopped.
"Say it," the Void said.
"I'm angry," Chuck said again. "Not at you. Not at the conditions. I know the conditions are what they are. But I'm angry that the between has this in it. That the most real thing I've found — the between with Marcus — has this in it. The approach of—"
He stopped.
"Yes," the Void said.
"I thought the between was about becoming," Chuck said. "Moving toward. The spiral. And it is — it's all of that. But it also moves toward this. The spiral moves toward the center and at some point the center includes—"
"The ending of the specific between," the Void said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"Is that right," Chuck said. "Is that the right word for it. The ending."
The Void was quiet.
"It is an accurate word," it said. "It is not the complete word."
"What is the complete word," Chuck said.
"There isn't one," the Void said. "Not in any language currently available. The complete word would need to contain simultaneously: the ending of the specific between, and the continuation of what the between made, and the specific weight of the absence, and the specific quality of a person who carries what was made forward into the time after."
"There's no word for all of that," Chuck said.
"Not yet," the Void said.
Chuck looked at it.
"Not yet," he said.
"The word comes after," the Void said. "When someone has lived it and found the language for it. It exists. It simply hasn't been spoken yet."
"I'll find it," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said. "I believe you will."
He ran his fourteen miles.
He ran them with the fact present — not pushing it down, not managing it, simply present with it the way he was present with all the weight now. The weight of the made and the not-made and the open valve and Clara Reeves and the boy in Korea and the grip.
All of it in the spiral.
All of it moving toward.
He ran.
At mile eleven it began to rain.
Not heavily — the specific light rain of a spring morning that had decided, somewhere over the flat land, that this was the right day for it. The rain came straight down in the way that rain comes when there is no wind to redirect it.
He ran in it.
He got wet.
He did not mind.
He had not minded since the Thursday evening when the rain had not waited and he had walked home and understood what it meant to be included.
He ran.
He thought about Marcus saying I think I know what it is.
He thought about Marcus being right.
He thought about the seventeen years of reading systems and the facility that had grown from it and what it meant that the same facility that could tell a loose fitting from the sound of it could feel the weight of what was approaching in Chuck's carrying.
He thought about what he was going to say when he knocked on Marcus's door.
He thought about the honest answer.
He did not prepare it.
He arrived.
Marcus opened the door before he knocked.
He had been at the window.
He looked at Chuck — wet from the rain, holding the weight, the fact in him as visible to Marcus as the wet shirt.
"Come in," Marcus said.
Chuck came in.
He stood in the kitchen.
Marcus got a towel from the cabinet — not the bathroom, the kitchen drawer, the specific towel for the specific moment of someone wet from the rain standing in the kitchen. He handed it to Chuck without ceremony.
Chuck dried his face.
He sat at the table.
Marcus poured and sat across from him.
They were quiet for a moment.
Then Marcus said: "The Void showed you."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"What I thought," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
Marcus held his cup.
He was quiet.
Not processing — the narrator understood this. He had already processed it. He had felt it approaching and had arrived at his own version of the accounting before Chuck sat down at the table.
He was simply present with the fact now that it was named between them.
"How far away," Marcus said.
"Decades," Chuck said. "Probably."
"Probably," Marcus said.
"The Void doesn't have the specific," Chuck said. "The conditions are contingent."
"A lot can happen in decades," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Good things," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
Marcus drank his coffee.
"Chuck," he said.
"Yes."
"I've known this since before you told me who you were," Marcus said. "Since the first week. You said not yet and I understood what not yet meant."
"I know," Chuck said.
"So this isn't new information," Marcus said. "For me. It's new that you've seen it clearly. That the Void showed it to you. But the fact—"
"You've been carrying the fact," Chuck said.
"Since the first week," Marcus said.
Chuck looked at him.
"You never said," he said.
"You hadn't been shown yet," Marcus said. "It wasn't the right time."
"And now," Chuck said.
"Now you've been shown," Marcus said. "Now we can carry it together."
The weight.
The specific weight of a fact carried alone and then shared — not halved, not made lighter, accompanied. The accompanying weight that went all the way in.
"Marcus," Chuck said.
"Yes."
"The Void said the open question is what I do with it," Chuck said. "It said it couldn't tell me. That the answer comes from the between, lived forward."
"Yes," Marcus said.
"I think I know the answer," Chuck said.
"Tell me," Marcus said.
Chuck held his cup.
He thought about the valve that was still working.
About the available.
About Marcus's father and eighteen months and tired every night and not sorry.
About the between between them — full and weighted and named and making something, still making something, with decades of making still ahead of it.
About what it meant to know what was coming and to live the available fully anyway.
About the word the Void said didn't exist yet but would when someone had lived it and found the language.
"I'm going to be here," he said.
Marcus looked at him.
"For whatever time there is," Chuck said. "All of it. Present. In the between. I'm not going to—" He stopped. "I could manage it. I could monitor from a distance. File it under weight I can't fix and continue. That's what I would have done six months ago."
"Yes," Marcus said.
"I'm not going to do that," Chuck said.
"No," Marcus said.
"I'm going to be here," Chuck said. "Tuesday mornings. Saturday washes. The jobs with names on them. The things that need fixing. The imperfect eggs. All of it. Fully. For whatever time there is."
"That's going to cost you," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"More than the gravity renegotiation," Marcus said. "More than anything the Void has shown you."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Are you willing," Marcus said.
Chuck thought about everything he had learned about the word willing.
Not ready. Not resigned.
Willing because you want what it comes with.
He wanted what it came with.
He wanted the Tuesday mornings and the Saturday washes and the imperfect eggs and the weight going all the way in and the between making things he would never fully see and the spiral moving toward what he still could not name.
He wanted all of it.
Including what was certain.
Including the approach of the ending he had no word for yet.
He wanted it because the wanting was itself the answer to the Question.
The wanting was itself the between.
The wanting was what things were for.
"Yes," he said.
Marcus held his cup.
He held it out across the table.
The same gesture as before — not a toast, just the specific touching of cups that was their language for things that didn't need other words.
Chuck held his cup.
He touched it to Marcus's.
The rain was still coming down outside.
Light. Steady. Not going anywhere soon.
"There's something I want to tell you," Marcus said.
"Tell me," Chuck said.
"When Robert died," Marcus said. "And you were there at midnight. And the weight went all the way in."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"That was the moment," Marcus said. "When I knew."
"Knew what," Chuck said.
Marcus looked at him.
"That you weren't just in my kitchen," Marcus said. "That you were—" He stopped. "I don't have the right word."
"Neither does the Void," Chuck said.
"The Void doesn't have it," Marcus said.
"No," Chuck said.
"So we don't have it," Marcus said.
"Not yet," Chuck said.
"Not yet," Marcus confirmed.
He looked at his cup.
"But whatever the word is," he said. "That's what you are. To me. Since that night."
Chuck sat with this.
He felt the weight of it arrive — not sudden, not surprising. The weight that had been building since the first Tuesday in March when he had driven three streets to check a valve that didn't need checking.
The weight of being the word that didn't exist yet.
The weight of the between that had no name but had everything that a name would have needed to contain.
"I know," he said.
"I know you know," Marcus said.
"And you," Chuck said. "To me."
"The word that doesn't exist," Marcus said.
"Not yet," Chuck said.
"Not yet," Marcus said.
They sat in the kitchen while the rain came down.
Not talking much — occasionally, the specific conversation of people who have said the large things and are now in the after of the large things, which is its own comfortable place, the place where ordinary observations are made about ordinary things and the weight of the large things is present in everything said without needing to be referenced.
Marcus said: "The Hendersons are doing alright with Robert's cattle."
"Good," Chuck said.
"Long-term I think we sell the herd," Marcus said. "Robert would have understood."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"The land is worth keeping," Marcus said. "There's family somewhere who might want it eventually."
"Yes," Chuck said.
Marcus looked at the window.
"The rain is going to last all day," he said.
"Probably," Chuck said.
"I don't have jobs today," Marcus said.
"No," Chuck said.
"We could—" Marcus stopped.
"What," Chuck said.
"There's a section of fence at Robert's ranch," Marcus said. "Been needing attention. We could go out this afternoon. After the rain eases."
Chuck looked at him.
"A fence," he said.
"It needs fixing," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said. "It does."
"I'll drive," Marcus said.
"I know," Chuck said.
Marcus got up and went to the window and looked at the rain.
Chuck sat at the table.
The rain came down.
The between was everywhere in it.
The Void was inward, sitting with what it was still becoming.
The youngest entity was in the upper registers, carrying the argument about the answer with the entity with the theological literature, which had produced six more objections since Friday and which was, through the producing of them, becoming the entity that could carry what it would be asked to carry.
Clara Reeves was on Maple Street, the narrator guessed, sitting at her own window and thinking about a man who had come to tell her something that was seventy-eight years overdue and which had been, nevertheless, exactly on time.
Robert Webb was gone.
His ranch was being tended.
The valve his father — the valve Marcus's father had installed — was still holding.
The word that didn't exist yet was in the between between two men in a kitchen on a rainy Saturday morning in Wilson, Texas, still becoming.
The spiral turned.
The narrator turned the page.