The New Sin

Robin:

I'm so proud of Jay. That eventual transformation was something akin to a miracle, and the person Jay was before has been shucked off like a barnacle, embracing life now as a fleshy, vulnerable, creative living thing, instead of a shell. 

Also, the lyrics, damn, they're better than mine.

Jay writes about who we could have been and the potential of the living, whilst the rest of us idiots talk about what's happening to us here and now, which is ironic given the ideology of the religious, who're always planning for a far-off apocalypse.

I see now that Jay was quietly more powerful than all of us whilst feeling the reverse. Funny how life happens like that. All the perspective we've gained and we still don't know as much as we would like. Even the people we look to for guidance – they must be just as clueless as us, and that brings with it a kind of power.

"You're happy?" Jay asks me, as if the answer isn't obvious whilst I beam at nobody and nothing in particular on our flight home.

"I am comfortable and content," I reply, truly meaning it. Jay looks down, spreading fingers across those little fold-out tables, before looking up again and saying "it feels like too much."

I agree, reaching out a hand. Every motion of ours is amplified by the fact we aren't who we were anymore. We've passed 1 billion followers between us, whilst Whispersong has breached 4. That's half the world watching them, and a quarter of that watching us.

Stab vests and bulletproof jackets aren't enough to protect your soul from that kind of scrutiny and we both know it. We learned already about how you don't have to be religious to be spiritual, and you don't have to have agreement or evidence to find belief.

The pressure has never been higher, especially as we can't communicate with Whispersong until tomorrow, even though we're on the way home now. We don't know if we've passed the test. We don't know if all this trial has been in vain, but as Jay and I look at each other and like plants growing towards the sun, our feelings reach out to grasp each other, I can't believe we've failed.

Jay on the other hand…

***

Jay: 

I didn't play until my fingers bled.

I didn't drum until my hands were bruised.

I didn't love until every person in the world that isn't Robin was invisible, and I certainly don't want to keep trying so hard at being without sin. So how on earth can I expect that we've passed the sloth challenge, and that we might have a positive outcome of this whole experience.

More likely, the second the spotlight switches off, so do our souls. We are nothing more than space dust piloted by living bacteria and disease, contaminating and corrupting everything we lay our hands to in a reverse Midas touch.

"Jay, no, that's horrid," Robin says, reaching for me, but the little hand is pushed away by my large one.

"You were so close, like on the edge of it, can't you just grasp it?" Robin is saying, as I shove my face into the window alcove of the plane and look out at landscapes and horizons I feel no connection to. I can't feel a connection to anything.

"Remember your words Jay, remember what you wrote. Tell me what your song is called. Please," Robin whispers quietly so that nobody else can hear, but with enough urgency I know I'll have to answer.

"Love deficiency," I reply, even quieter, ashamed of every breath I take and feeling that I never deserved to be more than an office drone.

"Right. And a deficiency is a lack of something that is needed, Jay. I'm right here, ready to supplement you if you'll let me." 

"I don't deserve it," I reply, and to my shock Robin agrees. But then explains in a way that shows me how wrong I am about everything.

***

Robin:

"Words like deserve and earn are so loaded, Jay, we can only do what we can. You've done as much as you were comfortable with and more because you have the capability, but if you want we can cool it and just disappear from all this. We don't want, need or deserve anything Whispersong has offered us. We can stop. We can rest. Forever, what do you say?"

"I say no"

"Why?"

"Because I know there are liars in the world, and I think I'm one of them. The only true thing I've said is that I love you," Jay crumbles, shrinking into the chairs and the booze and the shadows and excuses we've been surrounded by.

But I plunge in, ready to pull anyone out of the pit I know as the malebolge – the hell trench.

Nobody deserves, that, especially not Jay.

Once we're comfortable and no longer crying, I ask the real question.

"You're worried that this isn't the end aren't you? That there's some additional challenge?"

"Yes, that's exactly it. How did you know?"

"Oh come on, you know we're tuned in to each other – and the others – already. Don't act the fool. We'll get back to London and be presented with some additional, ridiculous and impossible challenge. But I'm up for it,"

"So am I!" Jay says, with a burst of heat,

"Why. Why are you up for it?" I challenge, ready to dish the hard love because it's too late in the game to fucking mince now. 

"Because… because I demand more from life. I demand love and happiness and fortune and grace!" Jay rages, exploding with heat and intensity that I catch, patting the jacket pocket that contains the little Bible, grabbing a wrist and examining myself in the reflection of Jay's irises. 

"Everything you wanted was right here. And now we're strong enough." 

***

Jay:

Badger knows.

Of course he fucking knows – about my weakness, my selfishness, my avarice and vainglory – and that's why he's come to pick us up on his own. To let me down gently, to tell us quietly that the dream is over because he is a nice guy like that.

Robin leads with a quicker step than mine and outstretched arms, but with a simple and commanding voice he says "No," and marches right to me.

I stretch to my full height – something I rarely do – ready for the inevitable confrontation, but as he nears and raises his arms, they aren't to fight me, but to drape around my neck. 

"I'm so sorry," he's whispering in my ear, in a moment that surely will make Robin jealous. "Forget that," he hisses, "I'm so sorry about how hard this has been. It wasn't up to me, or up to Robin, and we couldn't have done it without you. We needed you, your logic, your brain, your strength. You've been incredible, but you're absolutely right. There's one challenge left to go." He says the last part loud enough for Robin to hear, as if it wouldn't have been heard even if he thought it.

"A new sin," I say.

"Yes," he admits. "We've been in touch with the Holy Vatican itself, and been given instructions to investigate a new sin that humans have only recently invented. I have my own ideas on what it could be, but the Pope was explicit that you two figure out not only what it is, but how to defeat it.

I'm afraid that we can't progress with our plans for your winner's ceremony until this final threat is defeated… I wish there was more I can do, more we can do," he says as the rest of the band approach, no longer willing to wait in the car.

They greet us all with hugs and kisses and tears and I see that even though the others believed less in this – like I did – there's a weight to it now. A seriousness. 

We're fucking with something cosmic when we offer the possibility of perfect love.

Everyone's watching. 

Frowners and Little Leaves alike make R and J signs with their hands as they walk past, and whilst a few shout "Whooooop Whispersong!" once they see the looks on our faces, they leave us to it. There's a respect, and a gratitude. Children even blow us kisses. I guess they're more tuned in to the emotion of it than I am, and I wonder how long I've been shutting myself off for.

Before I can whisper thank you to Badger, he whispers a "you're welcome" in my ear.

"What are the caveats, what are the conditions to finding this new sin, Badger? Are you going to drop us in the desert for forty days and nights like Jesus?" I demand, squeezing him close but incensed in both directions. He looks hurt and takes a moment before he replies.

"No, you'll have everything you had before the Sloth challenge. Us, the money, even more. Our sponsors want to throw the kitchen sink at this so we can beat it before it hurts a lot of people." 

"Sponsors?" 

"You know,"

"Do I?"

"I think you do,"

As he says this, his eyes flash with a power, but it isn't golden, it's red. As he grabs my wrist I turn to robin as quickly as I can.

***

Robin:

It's so great to see Jay and Badger getting on, I always love to see it, and his eyes flash a bright gold as he smiles at Jay, who seems panicked.

"Robin!" Jay shouts, tearing away from Badger and towards me. "We have to leave, there's a new sin!"

As Jay shouts this at me, a heavy understanding crushes me down towards the earth with a weight I find hard to shake off; there are some forces at work here.

As I crumple, Jay grabs my hand and pulls me towards the exit for people that want to get public transport instead of a car. Multiple Little Leaves and Frowners are watching us as we flee from one of the most famous men on the planet.

"We have to get out of here," Jay says, panting heavily as we run through dozens of other travellers, some of whom extend their arms to us with gestures and words of recognition.

Jay is looking back as if we're being followed by a serial killer.

"It's him, Robin, it's them!" Jay says as we collapse on a train platform, with hundreds of bodies between us and our former friends. 

"They're the new sin."

***

Jay:

I get it.

I finally get it.

How pleased they should all be, but instead we're running. I'm glad Fox wasn't there to see my fear as I turned tail and sprinted from Badger's red eyes. I was never a non-believer, I was an agnostic, just looking for some evidence. Now I've seen the evidence I do not like it one bit and would sooner believe in an existential nihilistic hell than the reality that we've been conned, deceived by the great betrayer.

Robin must be devastated at this revelation, and we'll comfort each other, but for now I want to be speeding towards somewhere else. 

Finally a train arrives and we board, panting and frantic. Afraid, the flames of our love dampened by terror. 

Robin grasps at me. "What's happening," with giant irises imploring me for wisdom I don't have.

"Let's get back to your flat Robin, we can turn the lights out, unplug the router and figure out how we were so goddamn stupid."

***

Robin:

We always knew Jay was the smart one right? It was never gunna be me; I'm the good looking one.

But hearing about how humans have moved beyond teachings less than 3000 years old, and created a new sin, that's a bit much for me. It makes me feel short of breath in a bad way.

We couldn't be that evil, could we?

"Yes, we could, and are," Jay says, smashing the drum set and reading my mind at the same time, flicking on the small television in the corner of my stupid studio.

The headlines talk about how the biggest social media platforms have decided to delete representation for the smallest groups because by nature the more fringe something is the more extreme it becomes.

"Yeah, extreme peace sounds terrible…how can they do that?" I ask rhetorically, wanting an answer nonetheless.

"They have dominion, Robin, power."

"That's it isn't it, the new sin. It's power, dominion over others. A controlling influence?"

"I believe so."

I take the little Bible and its torn pages out of the pouch of my hoody, not caring that Jay is watching, and I tear out the rest of the pages. 

"We know what we need to do, then," I say.

Jay simply nods.