The Works of Nick Hayden

After the phone call, Elliott gathered his books and hefted his backpack over his shoulder. He walked across the seminary campus to the chapel, but he stopped before it and did not enter. Inside were the stained glass windows and the altar and the cross lifted high. He felt a sudden aversion to them. 

He did not want to walk back across campus to his dorm. His body felt heavy; within, crackles of maddening energy coursed. He looked around as if viewing his surroundings for the first time. The Eiler Music Hall stood nearby. He would sit inside somewhere, out of the cold, and wait and struggle. 

It was an old building, with old wooden floors. Along one hall, out of the way, were a row of small practice music rooms, each with a piano. He sat on the beach here, put his bag on the floor, and did not pray. 

Elliott slumped against the wall and closed his eyes. He heard footsteps from the other end, a door opening. The door did not quite latch. He could hear some notes as fingers moved upon the keys.

Slow, familiar notes came unsteadily down the old hallway. Pachelbel’s Canon. Elliott was not well-versed in classical music, but even he knew the piece was worn out. Loved by millions of brides, yes. Hummable and catchy, yes. But in the end, it was just a round, just an embellished loop. 

“All things are full of weariness,” he muttered, a sardonic smile lifting his lips. His morning Old Testament studies showed their usefulness. 

The tune cycled in its lazy undulations, and Elliott thought on the meaningless and solidity of words sent through empty space, from one device to the next, and how a voice might never be heard again.

Slowly, he realized that the fingers in the room down the hall were dancing. The melody was twirling out of its set steps. It sprang up and laughed and settled back into its expected guise, wearing a sly grin. Then again it leapt up, spun, and pranced playfully back and forth. It was the same canon, but the fingers gave it freedom, improvising, setting it loose upon white keys and black, up and down and around, cavorting and tumbling, the stately beauty overflowing into joy, the expectant grandeur of the procession now a childhood dash, with a splash and a fall and a giddy scrambling. The wedding was coming, it was coming, and no one could wait, because if this were the prelude, if this rampant, barely contained energy sparking over the keys, as orderly as a child’s coloring page and as honest as an infant’s laugh–if this was the space before, what must the entrance of the bride, the climax of the great song become! 

Elliott found himself weeping as the fingers somewhere found the old, worn melody. He thought of his mother, and of who she was and of the cross he had thought of with a sense of horrid emptiness after the call. He let himself cry, for he was sad and, he found, he was happy, too. The music could have continued forever, and he would not have noticed a minute pass. In a blink of an eye, a thing could be transformed. 

He knew now what he had studied. He stood to return to the chapel to pray.

Theo stumbled, caught himself, and continued to sprint down the incline, breathless, falling more than running, narrowly avoiding the dark trunks in the twilight, branches smacking him, leaves and logs tripping him, racing down like a boulder as the land became still steeper.

Crashes and breaking and hateful screams followed him. An innumerable horde of undead men, bones broken, eyes bloody, senses malevolent, trampled after him, sliding, rolling, climbing over one another in covetous bloodlust. 

Theo lost his footing and went headfirst, spinning painfully down to the foot of the hill. He splashed into a reeking fen of mud and reed. He stood, disoriented, sputtering. Bodies fell around him. They grabbed at him as they lay in grotesque positions. Their hands were flesh, bone, and gore. He kicked them off, the feel of his boots against their shoulders and arms a familiar one. This was not the first time he had struggled to escape from those hungry, insatiable hands. 

But he was tired now, more tired than he remembered being, and his hope of surviving, and even his desire to live, was dimmer than before. 

He found his feet and ran, trusting his instincts for the direction. He had to be almost there, if his information was correct. He sloshed through the muck, trying to make for the nearest island of reeds. The creatures did not get to their feet, but slithered and dragged themselves forward like reptilian predators. They were incredibly quick. Mindless, relentless, deathless, they held a blind cunning that frustrated all attempts to outwit them.

Theo, luckily, was faster – just. He had no weapons left. Bullets slowed them, blades dismembered them, fire burned them, but nothing stopped them. They reconstituted, melded, walked charred and maimed. With each partial defeat, they became more disfigured, more inhuman, more monstrous. Theo had heard that some places had tried nuclear weapons – the deathless just became walking Chernobyls.

A moment’s pause upon the little island showed him the way. A painful jolt inside his ribs stunned him. It was sharp as a knife. He didn’t move, didn’t run, almost didn’t breathe, and the deathless were swarming him. Then he dove into the water, toward the submerged cave he had seen – the sight of which had so injured him, because it gave him hope.

Gurgling, kicking, drowning, fighting, screaming, raging against the deathless, he entered the cave and dove deep into the water, looking for a room beyond. He emerged gasping into air and light. He struggled out, into the chamber. Nothing followed him.

It was silent except for the lap of water and the sound of his own labored breathing. As he recovered, thanking God for his survival, he began to have a better sense of his surroundings. The stone chamber was roughly the size of a large room, with a few weathered pieces of furniture – a chest, a table, a cot. The light seemed to come from nowhere.

There might be a figure on the cot.

The pool of water near him remained undisturbed, shining reflectively with soft light, so he walked cautiously forward. In the cot was a woman. He could not tell her age. In appearance, she seemed no more than thirty, except for her face, which was an old woman’s. Her gray eyes were open and looking at him with such unblinking intensity he thought she might be dead.

“Are you one of them?” she asked, stirring. Her voice was that of a young woman.

“Who?”

“You know who. You are not one of them. You have too much caution and curiosity.

“Is it… is it here?” Theo asked. His singular purpose for days and weeks of travel and travail had led him here; even the question caused that piercing pain of hope again in his chest.

“Tell me what you think it is?” The woman did not rise, but her limbs moved as if she were trying to raise herself. He bent to help her, but she shook her head. “Speak.”

“A weapon. A weapon to defeat the hordes, to destroy them. People whisper that one has been found.”

“Weapons can hurt friend as well as foe.”

“There is no hope if we cannot destroy the deathless!” Theo cried.

The woman nodded. “So you bring hope to me as well.” She succeeded in sitting. “In the chest is a box. Bring it to me.”

Theo opened the chest from which came the light, and within, beside supplies for daily living, was a box, from which the light streamed. It was nearly weightless in his hands, and warm. He gave it to the woman.

“I am not the first to keep this. It was begun long ago, even before the deathless, and it is still incomplete. It will always be incomplete, until we are like it. But it is enough.”

“What is it?”

“Call it a weapon, if you like. It is the melody that makes you stop and look up, the phrase that knocks you flat, the moment you realize the weight of raising a child. It is the silence and the song, the paint and the poem, the caress, the revelation, the dawning, the escape from damnation. It is all that is not from us, but makes us like it. It is goodness which is truth which is beauty which is life, real life.”

She began to cry, then, as if even speaking of it pained her, and her weeping grew to sobs. Theo wanted to comfort her but did not know how. He waited, wanting to understand why she wept.

When the tears stopped and she sighed and looked up at him again with fresh eyes, she said, “They cannot stand before it. They have nothing left that can be raised.”

“And us?” he asked.

“You see my face. We are far weaker before Beauty than we suppose.” She smiled now, ironically. “I came to sacrifice myself, out of love for humanity. There was some truth in it, I suppose, but much pride and vanity and foolishness. Still, you have come, and with you is hope. Will you take this burden?”

Theo said yes, and he believed he meant yes.

“I will open it one last time before I die.”

In a moment, Theo was consumed. He looked away, closed his eyes, from the fire, the pressure, the blast, the melting intensity and then it was gone, and he was weeping, trembling, aching deep, deep in his being, thin, insubstantial, like a ghost remembering his flesh. The world returned and it was bright to look at and heavy upon him. 

He took the box from the woman’s hands. He realized that he did not even know her name, and this seemed another tragedy, greater for the memory of the glimpse he had bowed beneath.

She was dead, an expectant look upon her lifeless face. He prayed for her; he prayed for himself and for the world. He took the box. It was light, deceptively light, and he feared it. He understood why the deathless did not enter this place. 

He stood and prepared himself to enter the world again.

The two men wore ties and slacks. Their youthful faces and confident strides marked them as college students or young professionals. With a quick, whispered discussion, they approached the older gentleman on the park bench. It was late afternoon. The light streamed heavily through the leaves. Two squirrels chased each other up the maple beside the bench. 

The older man was watching the squirrels when the two young men stopped in front of him. 

“Excuse me, are you Dr. Landis?” one asked. 

Dr. Landis looked at them with his watery blue eyes. “You two from the university?” 

“We wouldn’t bother you, sir, but we were doing some research and your name came up….” 

Dr. Landis laughed softly. He put the book down that he had been holding but not reading. “Yes?” 

“The Happiness Equation, did you really have it worked out?” 

Dr. Landis studied each of the men separately. “You have names?” 

“Sorry. I’m Jason. This is Randolph.” The other greeted him timidly. 

“The Happiness Equation was my career,” Dr. Landis said. “Thousands of test subjects, thousands of interviews. Work in psychology and social science and neurology. What does everyone in the world, in every culture, in every time period, want? To be happy. It is the great human aspiration. That was the goal of my research: how can a man best be happy? What situations, goals, circumstances would provide for the greatest possible happiness during our short lives? I wanted to give him a blueprint, a method for maximizing his happiness.”

“We know,” Jason said, not impatient, just wanting to show that they had not come uninformed. “We read all about it. But where is the Equation? Did you finish it?”

“We can help,” Randolph said, “if you are still working on it.”

“Sit down. It’s much more comfortable than staring down at me.” 

Jason sat beside Dr. Landis on the bench, leaving Randolph to sit in the grass on the other side.

Dr. Landis waited thoughtfully after that, looking sometimes at the two young men, sometimes at the trees and grass that surrounded him. The young men remained silent, out of respect, though Jason fidgeted with his phone and Randolph started picking at the grass.

“Forget the Equation,” Dr. Landis said. “Go study something else. Find something you love and work on that.”

“But what’s greater than helping others enjoy life?” Jason asked. “That’s what we want to do. That’s why we hunted you down. It wasn’t easy to find you.”

Dr. Landis smiled knowingly. Then, glancing again at them, he spoke: “The Equation is finished.”

“Does it work?” Randolph was on his feet again. “Have you tested it?”

“We thought that’s what you’d been doing these last years,” Jason said. “What are the results?”

“Misery,” Dr. Landis said defiantly. “Absolute misery.”

“Then the Equation isn’t right,” Jason declared. “I mean, I’m sure you know that, sir.”

“It’s right,” Dr. Landis said. “It’s perfect. Everything a person can dream of for self-fulfillment, matched to their personality and psychic profile. It works. That’s why they’re miserable.

“Think – remember a time you waited for something, expected something, desired something more than you’ve desired anything – an accolade, a vacation in Europe, a road trip with friends. When it was over, after you graduated or finally got married or published that book, were you happy? Satisfied?”

“I remember sitting in my car, wanting to cry, two days after I won the Science Decathlon,” Randolph said.

“Why?” Dr. Landis asked.

“I don’t know. It was…there was nothing after it was over.”

“Nerd,” Jason said. 

“So we keep moving to the next thing,” Dr. Landis continued. “To the next big movie, the new car, the new girl. We keep moving. But suppose I promise you perfect happiness, and a scientifically verified method of obtaining it. Item after item, a 70-year checklist you keep chasing until you die. What do you think that would feel like?”

“Emptiness,” Randolph said.

Dr. Landis nodded. “Disappointment. Time and time again. Depression and desperation.”

“Can we still see the data?” Jason asked after a silence. “I–I’d still like to look at it. I’ve sort of dreamed of helping – you know, save the world, that kind of thing.”

“No,” Dr. Landis said, “I’m afraid not.” 

Randolph stood looking down at the scientist. “Then what’s the point? Don’t people just want to be happy? What if we can’t give them that?”

“I think we don’t give it. I don’t think we can – that’s the real error in the Equation. Time. Time and eternity.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” Jason said.

“It’s not a closed system. When are you really happiest? Happiness sneaks in on a rainy day, or five minutes before the alarm rings in the morning. It ambushes you with a phone call or a memory. It snuggles against you in the evening on the couch with a friend. Some people who should hate life seem to have happiness stored up somewhere secret. I assumed it came from experiences and possession we could arrange just right. I was wrong. It comes from somewhere outside.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “I found this in an old book: ‘Everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil – that is God’s gift to man.’” Dr. Landis’s eyes shoe. “That’s a beginning to an answer, I think.”

Jason stood now. He and Randolph communicated through a glance. “We are sorry we bothered you.”

“Think on it,” Dr. Landis said. “Maybe take a walk and talk about it.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Jason said. 

“Visit again, if you want.” Dr. Landis stared after the young men who wanted to change the world then returned to the book he had set down some time before.

You wake and stare at the window where the early morning light filters through the blinds and you try not to think of the knife on the nightstand. 

You could rise and eat breakfast and brush your teeth and ignore the presence of the knife. You could snooze for another half hour. You could, in fact, dispose of the knife and never use it again. 

That is what you should do. 

It is, in fact, what you might do. 

But it is not what, deep down, at the foundation of your being, you want to do. 

And so you lay there, comfortable in your bed, wanting to start the day like a normal person, like you used to start and end each day before you were given the knife, before you could see the knife. 

For it is not a blade of metal. It cuts deeper than steel. It kills things that an ordinary knife could not touch. But you have felt its edge. You bear the marks of it. 

You sit up. You can leave the room. Yes, leave. It has no hold on you. You are your own person. You can do whatever you want. You are free – free to avoid the pain, free to avoid this daily struggle, free to walk out the door and join the rest of the happy, thoughtless world.

Your hand reaches for the slender hilt. You grasp it. You mutter some words in prayer, almost against your will. Every morning, against your will, or against your better judgment or against common sense, or against….

Against yourself. The blade, shimmering faintly in the morning light, is against yourself. You are your own enemy. Every day, every morning, every hour, this contest of wills – your will against yourself, with the knife between you.

Put it down!

You lay it on the nightstand, upon the Bible that sits there, but you do not release it.

Let it go! You don’t need it. Don’t hurt yourself. You are enough.

Your fingers grasp the hilt more tightly.

What are you doing? This is ridiculous. You’re going to maim yourself one of these days. You will scar yourself beyond recognition. Love yourself. Put the knife down.

You sit, undecided, the words in your head telling you to leave the knife, to destroy it, telling you that you are mutilating yourself, that you are killing yourself.

Don’t you want to live, to really live?

You lift the blade. The words in your head, they mean two things. You are two people. You are what you were and what you are. You are asleep and awake, alive and dead.

You flip the handle and direct the point at your heart. If you could just end it now….

In the end, a decision only takes a moment.. Arguments build until you either say yes or you say no. You can either turn to the left or to the right. You can either thrust the knife into your breast or you throw it down in relief.

You plunge it into your chest.

The blade sinks to the hilt between your ribs, and for a moment you feel nothing except satisfaction and bewilderment at your own action. Then, pain, pain traveling outward from the pumping heart, as if the veins themselves were vines wrapped chokingly, inextricably around your bones and organs and you are tearing at them, prying them out. You are slicing soul from spirit like a child peeling layers of paint from a wall with deep, insistent fingernails. You suffer, and you think it will continue for eternity, and yet you know it is only a moment, then another moment, and another…

It is finished.

You withdraw the blade. There is no blood. There is no visible wound. A great sense of peace and health pervades your being. You set the knife back on the Bible, thanking God for this new day, for all that will happen. Then, with a rush of strength, you stand.

Upon the bed, a part of you remains, the shadow of a corpse. It is fading, the face that is like yours, the limbs that do the things you do not want to do, the flesh that clings to you.

You have left corpses there day after day. It is easier, now, sometimes. The knife waits for you, but it has done its daily work.

It is morning, and you are a new man.

You can see it from miles away, sunlight gleaming off its silver exterior. It resembles a rocket from a black-and-white movie, sleek and upright and poised to launch effortlessly into regions unknown. It is not the tallest structure in the world, but it is close. 

Some call it one of the seven modern wonders. When you stand in its shadow, craning your neck to follow its metallic curve, you feel that man can touch the stars, that mankind’s destiny is to transform planets and to transverse nebulae and to fill the universe with his glory. 

But despite its appearance, the structure is not a rocket. Its lower levels display exhibits of man’s achievements, of the planting of flags at the South Pole and upon the moon, of the circumnavigation of Magellan, of the exploration of the depths and the proliferation of the Internet. 

What next? the exhibits ask. Where does mankind go next? To other worlds? To other galaxies? 

Perhaps, someday. 

But a greater triumph has been realized. Imagine, like Keats did upon seeing an old pot, that you could live in a single moment forever. Maybe it’s the embrace of a loved one, or the triumph of a boxer, or the revelation of a philosopher. Maybe it’s simply the effusive headiness of spring fever or the insatiable angst of wanderlust. Strip the danger from space travel and keep the dream of adventure; excise old age and time from new-found love; eliminate the ever after from happily. 

The Rocket still sends people to space. It still encompasses the ambition of mankind. It is the final frontier of humanity’s immortality.

Above the exhibit, the Rocket holds its secret.

There are rooms, constructed by great minds, where lovers might stand, or an athlete after winning the gold, or a mother upon seeing her children graduate. In a flash of power and science and self-awareness, they are shot across the universe in a beam of light.

There is no destination except the far edge of the ever-expanding universe. In pure light they speed through the cold void, timeless, just as Einstein predicted.

Their relatives and friends will grow old and die. The Earth will age and suffer. But they live on in one endless moment–as happy as the moment the technicians flipped the switch to convert them from matter to energy.

It is heaven, perfected by man himself–eternity in a moment, a moment for eternity.

No one knows what it is like to live frozen in a moment, whether doubt and fear and corruption exist forever beneath whatever emotion sent them into the sky, whether a moment stretched to infinity is like death after all.

The Rocket gleams in the sun, and at night flood lights illuminate its sheen. If you watch, you can see the beams shooting forth, one after the other, from its pinnacle into the unknown, where they are lost in the emptiness.

Ada had walked up the seven thousand steps unaccompanied and now she stood before the wall. It towered above her, white marble glittering in the morning light. She stood in awe of the structure, the fear that had hovered about her during her dark ascent settling upon her, soaking into her. 

She had prepared for this day. She had prayed and studied and trained her soul. She had abstained and beat her body into submission. 

She stood now before the gate of the God-King. 

Men and women, young and old, had been offered to the God-King in his mountain-top palace. They returned terrified. They spoke of his wrath, of his great anger. Someday, he would descend the 7000 steps and tear apart civilization. He must be appeased. 

Ada had come. 

She had been chosen. Many had. But only she remained. The rigors of purifying oneself, of preparing oneself to be consumed by an angry god, was too much for others. For Ada, it was breath and life. She longed to look upon the God-King’s face. Her sacrifices were of her own volition. Her desires were also her duties. 

She stood before the gate. She lay her hand upon it. Effortlessly, the massive panel opened.

Inside, trees lined the paved walkway. Beds of flowers lay just beyond. Through the canopy, she could see still higher peaks scrapping the blue sky. The presence of great structures, shadowing other paths and avenues, caused her to turn in a slow circle to get a sense of the scale of the residence. Birds of many colors flew among the branches. Other, larger creatures move lazily through the flowers and along the shores of lakes in the distance.

Ada stood almost frightened by the beauty.

 She must not stumble at the outset. She had come to show herself to the God-King. She started forward along the path.

She emerged from the trees. The palace spread before her, loomed above her, enclosed her, drew her forward by its weight. Block by block it ascended, block by block it sent out its tendrils as if to encircle the earth or cut it off and strangle it. Before her, a river ran swift and smooth and deep. A narrow walkway crossed it and led to the towering entryway that seemed like a maw opened to inhale the world.

This was her purpose, to cross the threshold between man and God and reconcile the two.

Beneath the entrance, beneath the pillars, within the hall dark and cool as shade, as blind and cold as night, as warm and still as summer’s midnight, she walked. Behind her, the portal of light grew smaller and dimmer. Before her, a pale glow, like sunlight through thick curtains, grew.

She stopped. She stood before steps. At the top of the seven steps sat a throne. Upon the throne was a man in deep darkness.

He stood. He was tall, taller than a man, and even in the gloom she knew he was strong and that upon his head was a heavy crown. The blaze of stars touched his eyes and flashed upon her from a face veiled in darkness.

Ada knelt. “My Lord, I have come.”

“Will you look upon me?” The voice was firm, but not unkind.

“If you wish it, My Lord.”

“If you look upon me, you shall see yourself, for I am Truth, and here there can be no lie.”

“I understand, My Lord. I have prepared.” 

He was silent. When Ada raised her eyes, he was watching her. She met his gaze to show she was not afraid, to show she was ready and willing–compliant, obedient, but resolute.

The God-King returned to his throne. He reached for something Ada could not see, but that she saw later–a cord. He pulled it and light shattered the throne room. Ada gasped at the weight of it and she saw the God-King and she closed her eyes and turned away and she lay as if dead. She wept and could not stop weeping.

She heard his voice, eventually. She hated it; she hated herself. His hand, strong and burning, touched her. She scrambled away. How could he touch her, speak to her, exist near her? Her preparation, her purity, her poise, her devotion, her destiny– it was rebellion, blasphemy, pettiness, and wickedness.

“You must look at me again. Or you must leave.”

“I will die.”

“You will not.”

“Let me leave.” In the gardens, she could worship him. Outside the wall, back in her village, even, maybe, in the darkness here, she could worship him, if he would go from her. But she could not stay.

“I will put you on my throne,” he said. 

“No.”

“I will open the veil.” 

“No!”

She had backed against a pillar. She would stand and run. 

“Did you not come to see the God-King?” 

That–that alone–kept her. Every pretension, every preparation, had withered, but the seed remained. Her whole life was rooted in the God-King. She could abandon everything, or she could follow through to the horrific end.

He lifted her in his arms. She trembled uncontrollably, thrashed against him, moaned. He placed her in his throne and she sat, terrified, as before her executioner.

“Look upon me as I look upon you. See as I see.”

His hand again pulled the cord. Light suffocated her, rushed into her nose and mouth and ears, drowned her lungs. Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away.

He stood at the bottom of the steps like a tower of stone in an ocean, like a fountain of water in a desert, like the sun in the black void.

Ada looked upon him, and he looked upon her, and what she was did not matter any longer, for she saw that he saw her and that he knew her and that he stood where she had stood and that she was in his throne and in his light and in his eyes.