Sloth
Jay:
"Seriously, I know I've said it already, but last night was the best night of my life." Robin is gushing, as I recline into our first class seats on the flight to the Bahamas, having finally stopped being sick.
"I'm so hungover," I manage to say, fighting back a sicky hiccup.
"Wasn't it amazing though Jay?"
"Yes, for the thousandth time yes," I say before recoiling in horror as cocktails and two little tins of beer appear at our dual seats in the spacious.
"Oh look at that," Robin giggles, "my bad."
I've never been on such a spacious and luxurious aeroplane – and I've flown business before – but I still feel claustrophobic, sick, and like my blood (along with last night's booze) is trying to sweat out of my palms.
"It's such a shame we can't talk about it. This is going to happen a lot isn't it, this secret-keeping? I want to tell all our followers how wild last night was, in excruciating detail, but we promised. I can't believe we can't speak to them for three weeks. We've only known them for one!"
The urge to silence Robin grows with every word, and it seems the words may never stop coming, but at last they do, and just like that, Robin is beginning to snore next to me, allowing me to sip at the drinks and some water, cradle my face and think about how…transcendent, yesterday was.
We weren't rockstars before, but now we are. At one point Ferret live-streamed just a few seconds of us jamming, but it's sent our follower count soaring to nearly a combined billion. Robin still has a slight lead in numbers, that I definitely don't care about.
Robin is enamoured with the whole thing, but I can see the darker side to it: there are still haters, calling us fakes, calling this a PR stunt and more. The others appear immune to it, but I'm not, and I carry it around in my chest as it numbs the moments everyone else feels the most.
Given my veritable lack of faith and belief when compared to Badger and Robin, it's only natural I'd feel like I have something to prove. I can tell the love is real though, because sometimes it hurts like a deep ache. The kind that'd drive you to a doctor, begging for medicine that'd take it away.
Robin stirs and I fear will begin to stalk talking again, but nestles back, facing away from me and I breathe a guilty sigh of relief. We aren't allowed to work on anything except for our music during this three week period, and I worry the absolute sloth of it will drive me crazy. Which is of course the point of this evil-genius challenge.
My only hope is that, when Robin and I demonstrate the immaculate nature of our love – note that that means without sin, not "perfect" – by winning this challenge, life will get a little bit easier and people might see that love, sometimes is a choice and one that is far superior to hate.
***
Robin:
Trying to sleep is hard when Jay's whispersong is deafening, ringing in my ears, so I'll have to make do with just pretending. Badger is right; if we listen hard enough, we can hear each other even when we aren't talking, but sadly Jay's voice is one of conflict, whilst mine has found peace.
I wish we could play pass the parcel with this tranquillity, but it isn't that simple, and this late in the game we still might fail the challenge if belief in success – if not in destiny itself – can't be found for all us.
***
Jay:
I can hear it. The desperate desire for me to just get it on their minds.
Once I'm confident Robin is sleeping, I reach into my hand baggage and retrieve what I purchased earlier, when I excused myself to run to the bathroom and be sick. The little black book might contain some answers for me, and it feels heavy in my hands. The pages have a golden trim that remind me of those flashes Badger gets in his eyes.
Moments later I see that I continue to be misunderstanding of sin, and it is nice to learn for myself rather than have Robin tell me.
Sloth isn't just being lazy. It goes far beyond the physical and into the metaphysical: sloth, it seems, is a laziness of the mind and the heart and the soul as well as the body. A sort of weariness or lack of fulfilment that leads to an ennui. It's almost like a love-deficiency. If the other sins are the abundance of the wrong behaviour and characteristics, sloth is the absence of the right ones.
Furthermore, it rejects the virtues and grace and opportunity that humans were gifted, creating a sort of spiritually stunted person. Creating me, and perhaps billons of others around the world who have been slotherdosing, slowly emerging from lockdowns wounded and changed for the worse. If we could defeat the sloth demon and unlock a new progress, we could change the world…
The challenge of defining sloth is no doubt linked to the difficulty in understanding and overcoming it, and I'm sure I see the corners of Robin's mouth rise as I begin to understand.
***
Robin:
It's day one in paradise, but I've known since day one that something's been different about Jay. I don't think all the hate we get social media has been looked at even once since we got here, the phone's turned off after our first selfie to let everyone know we got here safe.
It feels like the power below is rejecting us, pushing us up to the one above so that we stand a little taller, our energy a little brighter and our lives and love a little less sinful. It's harder to live virtuously than to act virtuously in moments, but who knows, maybe once we've conquered country music we could start an academy or some shit.
"Ha, that's a crazy idea, Robin," Jay laughs, as we lie together on sun loungers on a beach golden with sand, sun and the promise of a growing future. I spit out most of the coconut water I've been drinking alongside my cocktails.
"Jay, I didn't say anything…"
***
Jay:
On this, day seven of our twenty one day challenge to rise above sloth, Robin introduces me to a new concept called "Having Sits" and, taking my hand, drags me to some massive bean bag chairs in a courtyard in the middle of our resort. There are beautiful trees all around and even the air smiles as the few other people we see, mainly staff, wish us wonderful days and bring little trays of refreshments, leaving them near us rather than disturbing our Sits.
"So it's like meditating?" I ask.
"No," Robin says, head shaking side to side. "It's way more simple than that, we just make the conscious choice to sit and be still and we don't have to move or do anything or talk or anything. Just kind of helps me find peace and…I've always wanted someone to do it with. Because life can be real long, and sharing it with someone you love helps to pass the time."
"Well, nobody could ever accuse you of being without wisdom, Robin."
"It's ok if you don't get it, Jay," Robin says, I think meaning it.
"I didn't at first, but I do now. And I'm willing to prove it."
"Oh! Are you ready to write?!"
"Yes, and I have one other idea."
"Name it."
"Reckon there's a tattooist here?"
***
"We don't need to share this with our billion followers, do we?"
"Nah, this can be just for us."
A few hours later, we're leaving the small resort clinic that also offers massages and more, with matching WSRJ tattoos, the letters surrounded by the greenest, most beautiful forest leaves. I won't say where we got them, to protect our modesty.
***
Robin:
It's day 9 and every time we get back to the room to claim the instruments, notepads and pens the bed captures our attention, interest and desire before we're able to do anything else and then afterwards, we're too tired and hungry to be able to write.
I don't want to force the issue because I know how hard it can be to write when you feel like you're forcing it, but we've been on such a high I want to capitalise on the momentum and make hay whilst the sun shines, as it were. It'd be a shame to squander this opportunity by shirking our responsibilities not to work but to ourselves and our happiness.
Together we've learned much more about being still, finding peace in the moment and appreciating each other without words, but now we need to take that love that is ephemeral and capture it in enduring art, to be immortalised by Whispersong and perhaps by God himself.
"No pressure Robin, jeez," Jay says as I nudge us towards the corner where our instruments lay neglected.
"Together or apart?"
"Both, please, I have no idea what I'm doing!"
"Neither do I!"
We decide the best course of action is to start with lyrics, which Jay feels gives me an unfair advantage but I quickly counter that this is a challenge not a competition and we are a team. We can show each other what we've been working on when we're ready.
"Anyway," I tell Jay, "what you've got is good. You don't need to worry."
"How do you know?!"
"Because I've heard it since we got off the plane."
***
Jay:
It's our last day, and I've been writing.