Chapter Sixteen: Meresin

I first had to acclimate. Everything was too bright, too sharp, even the musty trailer hallway from Noah's bedroom to the living room. The house was unusually dark and quiet. There wasn't even the cacophonous noise of barking from the neglected dogs. Where were they? Where was Noah's father and little sister? Since I had been gone for two weeks, I felt I had missed something. It left Noah's mind confused, because I felt that he knew where they were-- somewhere in his mind. He just wasn't immediately accessing it and left us feeling disorientated. It felt like we had slept for over a year and were just now waking up to a new reality.

Noah looked outside the front window. His father's car was still in front of the trailer, ruling out his job. Noah's body kept nagging that it was hungry. So as I attempted to unpack his mind to find out what I was missing, Noah began to make himself some breakfast. I did not care to input my opinion on food, so I allowed him to make himself a sugary breakfast of pancakes and eggs.

The smell of food caused a stirring in Noah's trailer. Jodi, Noah's younger sister, emerged from her room. She seemed in good spirits. She looked different than I expected based on her energy, not that I truly had expectations on how humans appeared. Her energy was large and dusky pink with layers of blue. She was a wise, smart child. She wasn't usually in good spirits, but today she was.

"Are you making enough for me?" she asked, climbing onto a bar stool to join Noah in the kitchen.

"I can," Noah answered as he added more batter.

"Do you remember what today is?" Jodi asked. "are you going to miss me?"

I felt like I knew the answer, but I truly did not. I could feel a pulling sadness in Noah. Yes, he was going to miss her-- wherever she was going. Noah's mind had a box of answers that I did not have all access to use.

"What?" Noah blurted out in the wave of confusion. I could feel that Noah felt the inner conflict. Part of him knew what she was referring to, part of him (me) did not. It just resulted him appearing muddled in front of others.

"Aunt Katherine is picking me up," she reminded him with some annoyance. "it is today." She looked away, as if hurt that he forgot.

"Well, yeah, I am going to miss you," said Noah genuinely. I could feel that he was truly pained. There was a sense of abandonment and loss. I still was unsure what they were referencing. I attempted to force Noah to ask without appearing too glib. "How long will you be gone?"

Jodi looked surprised. Noah set a plate of pancakes down in front of her.

"For forever, Noah," said Jodi solemnly. "I mean I am sure I'll be back to visit. You said you'd be fine," said Jodi as she locked eyes with Noah. I could feel that she seemed concerned that Noah didn't remember she was moving across states with the intention of never returning. She seemed to wonder if something was wrong with him. Then, she opened her mouth for too large of a bite.

"Yeah I am pretty sure I will-- I'll just miss you a whole lot. Are you happy about it?" Noah wondered, keeping the conversation afloat. Jodi nodded her head with exaggeration.

"Yeah! Happy that dad is gone! Sad I'll be missing you. I love aunt Katherine's house. I love the ocean. I just wish you could move with me. We will be taking Sapphire," Jodi said, referencing an old white cat owned by the both of them. "I hope you don't mind," she went on.

"I don't," said Noah. "Just glad you're taking care of her."

"Have you ever been to Maryland before? To aunt Katherine's?" asked Jodi.

"Yeah, once, when I was little," answered Noah. I could feel him pull the information from the trove in his mind. He recalled a memory of himself at Jodi's age, visiting a huge white house that hugged the ocean shoreline. It was a pleasant memory of a beautiful house and a kindly older relative. As Noah retrieved the memory, I could feel his mixed emotions about their father. I had the impression that law enforcement was involved. It happened during my two week absence. I could not glean the specifics of what occurred-- but that Noah's father was removed and as consequence, his younger sister must go live with a close relative.

"I bet you loved it," said Jodi, her face sticky with maple syrup.

"Yeah I really did," said Noah. "I remember collecting a lot of shells."

"I want to swim in the ocean," said Jodi. "but what about sharks?"

Noah shrugged. "They won't bother you. It is the jellyfish you have to worry about," Noah went on, half teasing. "You don't want a jellyfish to sting you."

"Uhg, and I'd have to find someone to pee on it!" Jodi exclaimed as she ate.

"That's actually a myth," I forced Noah to say. Noah himself was unsure if it was a myth or not. I wanted to test my controls. "you put vinegar on it," I said. Noah felt this needed to be fact checked-- but he said it anyway. It just slipped from his mouth, stemming from his 'intuition.'

It was not his intuition, it was me.

"Oh, I didn't know that," said Jodi as she ate.

Noah didn't, either. As Jodi finished her pancakes, Noah slid his cellphone from his pocket and fact-checked the tidbit about vinegar. Finding he was correct, Noah felt a little pleased with himself.

After breakfast, Noah decided to spend the rest of the day with Jodi. He wanted to wait around until their aunt came to pick her up. He knew it would be a long time before he saw her again, though they promised to talk to each other over the internet. Aunt Katherine was driving in from Maryland to Michigan, and was expected to arrive late that evening.

Noah hadn't really processed that it meant living alone. They owned their trailer outright, so as far as Noah was aware, that meant it was his house. He didn't want to move to Maryland. He didn't want to leave Michigan, where everything was familiar. But, he wanted someone to look after his little sister.

Noah felt a pang of guilt for wanting Jodi to live with aunt Katherine. He told her so, and Jodi assured him it was what she wanted, too. She always wanted to live on the beach. She wanted Noah to be happy, too, and thought that he would have a better chance without their father around.

They lightly danced around the subject of their father. Noah and Jodi weren't there for the incident, just heard about it from the police officers and court representatives. It all occurred so sudden and so fast that Noah's mind had trouble grasping that it was even real. There was some kind of physical fight at their father's place of work. He was intoxicated. Now, their father was taken away for good and neither one of them would have see him again. Some state agency took their father's dogs away, too. They were both free. It felt like the end of a long chapter he didn't think would ever end until Jodi was an adult.

Noah was almost thirty years old and he got to choose his future for the first time. He didn't want to raise his sister, but he would if he had to. Now, he definitely wasn't under the weight of that responsibility. Jodi got to choose her own life. Maryland was going to be a good start for her. He couldn't help but see this as an amazing opportunity, even though their father's arrest seemed bad. Noah wanted this to be the beginning of only good things.

As Noah and Jodi sat down in their living-room to bond over old movies until their aunt arrived, I decided to take my leave. Noah didn't need me as a passenger to watch films from the 1980's. I ejected myself from the driver's seat in his mind and sent myself to the other side. I followed the threads through the currents of reality. I knew exactly where I was going. I followed the vibrations of red and white until I found exactly the pattern I was looking for. I slid down the pathways through space and time until I located my target: Wendy.

She wasn't wearing the vibrant aura of color I was expecting. Her aura was dimmed as if it had been muffled or stymied. I knew it was depression. I could see sadness had eaten away at her in the same way locust eat away at crops. It was hardly the same mortal I had encountered before. All the interesting colors, patterns, and decorations that were unique to her energy were gone. She was just a ghost of what she once was.

Love is strong, but also fleeting. I knew I had to rekindle the energy if I were to follow my directive. I had no reason to not follow the clue. I felt that with the collapse of the Veil and of Earth's climate, I had nothing else except destruction and possible annihilation to look forward to. The fact that the Creator himself gave me a message made me feel that there was at least a sliver of a chance of something else-- I didn't know what, but it was the possibility of a different future. Something that wasn't total destruction. For some reason, it all hinged on bringing these two humans together. As the saying goes, "the Lord works in mysterious ways." And it certainly wasn't on me, the Devil, to understand his agendas.

I reached out an appendage to attempt to gather more information. I found her, Wendy, in her car driving. All of her attention was on the road and what was around her. However, I could still gather information from her aura. Beneath the layers that was paying attention to the current task at hand, I found that she was thinking about her relationship with Noah. It depressed her but also gave her a little hope. She didn't seem to have any interest in anyone else. More than anything, she felt quite lonely.

This gave me the impression that I would be able to salvage things. I followed Wendy as she and her son entered the grocery store. Without the use of Noah's head, I could not see what she looked like today. I could not see if she brushed her hair or if she washed her face. I could not see what must have been her sad expression. I could only gather that she seemed to find a little gram of happiness from having a conversation with her older son, Charlie. I could see that her aura had a thin film of gold from being near his presence.

I wanted to see more bright colors, like white and gold. It was as if I found a reason to live. I wanted to follow the clue that the Creator gave me, to 'choose love.' The only time I had ever seen love so bright and pure in my personal experience was with Noah and Wendy. Yet, due to Noah's total idiocy, I felt that I had lost it. Creating love was like mixing the most volatile substances in the universe and hoping they worked together to make gold. It was a weird form of alchemy. I wasn't sure if I could recreate it.

I watched as Wendy and Charlie stood in the checkout counter. Wendy made jokes regarding the ridiculous headlines on the newspaper periodicals. President Leonard Stamps was in the hospital again.

Bigfoot was seen in a nearby area. Elvis was supposedly alive and working as a night-clerk in a Super Motel off the highway. Aliens had landed in a park. I noticed Wendy seemed visibly disturbed by the alien article. She stopped talking to Charlie and moved on to obtain her groceries.

I decided to leave Wendy and her son after I observed her mood and her aura. I also gathered that she would be home for the rest of the evening. I decided that now could be my time to return to Noah and attempt some control. I was going to try to bring them together.

I immediately returned to Noah. I zipped through the darkness of space and time to return to the portal in his closet. It felt like pushing through thin, cool cloth as I swam through shadows to find him. As I had done so thousands of times, I honed in on his vibration and energy. I found Noah in his room, sad since his sister had left for Maryland. He wasn't accustomed to the empty trailer, without his father and the dogs. He wasn't used to the absolute loneliness. The silence was new. This was perfect since it wouldn't be difficult to convince him to see Wendy. It was praying on his weakness, but only for good reasons.

"Text Wendy," I said loudly in his mind. I knew that speaking to mortals was difficult, and most things were lost in translation. However, this message was direct. He couldn't misunderstand it. Just text her. Or even call her and tell her your sorry. I tried to impress upon him the importance of communication. Any communication, even if it was for selfish reasons. There was no reason to be alone.

"Just text her," I whispered again. I watched as Noah laid restlessly in his bed, watching videos on his cellular phone. He was holding the device I wanted him to use. "text her," I said quietly but firmly again. I repeated it as if it were a mantra.

Then I watched, dispassionately, as he did as he was told. He asked to meet her at the park, on the bleachers. I couldn't read what he wrote but I could see the picture in his mind. Noah envisioned a romantic evening at sunset, sitting side-by-side with Wendy. They sat together holding hands while sitting on the steel bleachers at the sports field. A distant train howled and clacked along the tracks near the park. Wendy rested her head on his shoulder. The sunset behind them was a mix of orange sherbet, lemonade, and violets. The energy of the scene tasted just as sweet.

The idea of Noah's was so perfect that it had to come into reality. Wendy responded immediately in the affirmative. She would meet him in the sports field at the bleachers in a half hour, just in time for sunset.

It wasn't hard to convince Noah to shower, change his clothes, brush his teeth, and put on a decent face. I even managed to get him to take his needed medications. A boost of testosterone added to a good mood and confidence. Afterward, he rushed to the park with little time to spare. I finally felt that I had everything back on track. I felt it wouldn't be hard to keep things in control. I felt that I was closing the wound that my absence had brought.

We both saw her black silhouette against the candy colored sky as Noah approached. She was there quickly. Noah hoped that she hadn't been waiting long. I could feel his guilt and sadness claw at the bottom of his stomach.

I knew to cloak myself being out and around naked reality. I did not want to get caught observing and meddling with my personal projects after being ambushed by Raziel. For all I knew, Azazel could be stalking. I watched as Noah climbed to the top of the bleachers and immediately apologized. In the background, several humans walked their dogs across the baseball field. Then, a slow moving train approached the city in the far distance. It hooted lazily as it crawled across the train tracks.

All I could see was the wild spin of energy. Immediately, I saw the blast of white light around Wendy. She easily forgave him and all of the murky colors were gone. They were kissing. Their energies combusted. The colors and vibrations far exceeded that of even the sunset behind them. Noah returned the affections and the sadness was annihilated.

Since I already had the permissions to possess his body, I at once found myself in a conundrum. If I wanted to experience a kiss of the mortal kind, I could now do so. I was alone. Not even Raziel was around to chastise me. I felt like a child with the opportunity to steal a sweet. In a moment of weakness, I allowed myself Noah's perspective.

The pressing of lips was not what I expected. It was more. I could feel her, taste her, and smell her shampoo. Even with my eyes closed, I could see more than I ever had without a body. I knew it was fleeting. I knew it was only for a moment. I pressed myself into her chest. She was soft and hot in ways that could not be expressed except with physical form. It felt like love compressed.

Noah opened his eyes. Over Wendy's shoulder, we both saw a shadow. Noah's mind could not puzzle out what it saw. It was like seeing a glitch in reality. A shadow figure, over nine feet tall, stood lurking under the bleachers, just out of view. It seemed to be spying on them.

It was too tall to be a human, too human to be an animal. It moved just out of sight as Noah's eyes landed upon it. His mind could not make sense of it. Nothing that Noah knew of looked human and yet was over nine feet. Maybe the darkness and setting sun played tricks on him. He could guess at the height based on the objects around it. Yet it was so swift and fleeting, he said nothing and did not bring attention to it. Wendy had her back turned and saw nothing.

I had only a glimpse of the energy signature. It was an incorporeal entity trying to cloak itself. If I weren't such an expert on the subject of trying to obfuscate, I wouldn't be able to identify who or what it was. However, the simplest explanation is the most likely. I knew it was my brother. I knew it was none other than Azazel, who had been stalking me and my projects for sometime. He saw me seeing him. We met eyes. Azazel saw me kissing Wendy.