[Requiem] Making the cut

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

There is a face and a voice that is Kevin. There is a face and a voice that is Father Callaghan. Neither is a lie, of course, but neither is truth by itself. She becomes angry when she hears Father Callaghan. She does not -- cannot -- understand.

She speaks of the Plan as if she knew what it meant. Even I do not know what it means. How many nights did I pore over the diagrams and equations, working without sight of the sky or sound of another voice, mapping its lines and conjunctions in my head, as intricate as the veins or nerves of the body? How long did I sit hunched over the books of our history, teasing fragments of fact from lies penned by madmen and pinning them, butterfly-like, to the nodes of that ever-growing tangle?

I have seen my line in the Plan. It is black ink, faded, not red or gold; neither long nor short, high nor low. That is not my place, nor would I wish it to be.

Don't let this make you think that I am not listening to you. I hear your story. You were given strength, and your young mind left to find its own way. You are not wicked, not truly, in the upper reaches of the mind, and you see that the world is unjust. The strong oppress the weak, and you are strong too -- why should you not act?

And on the surface it seems logical to ask this question -- but this logic has led you here, looking for answers reason cannot provide.

I have seen your line in the Plan too, my young soldier, and placed the variable upon a page to work and be worked on. But it is not so impersonal as it sounds. These are the mathematics of history, which is to say the mind of God, which is to say love. Even, perhaps, for us.

I tell you what I have told you before -- save that before, you could not hear it. Perhaps you will not hear it now. But this was the time it needed to be said.

And the lines cross, and tangle, and continue on.