genessia | So you want to be a sleuth (ACTION)

"Not quite."

He looked around at the ruined architecture with a frown. Nothing about this was a farce. For just a moment, he started to doubt what he'd come to know as true.

"That's what brought me. I've been here for a service before and didn't hear anything about all of this..." Spirit gestures vaguely to the destroyed room.

"I needed to see for myself. Were you here when all this happened?"

Edited 2014-10-25 05:28 (UTC)

She laughed, gently.

"No young man, I wasn't there. I was being an old sinner and fell asleep that Sunday, spending time with my grandkids. But I heard that that terrible woman, Teapot or somethin', tried to make everybody bow. I would'nta done that, no sir. I know who god is, and she ain't it."

She let out a relaxed sigh.

"So, now I'm here, makin' up for lost time. Hopefully god will forgive me for stayin' at home, instead a' bein' a martyr. But my grandkids do love hearing stories. Do you like hearing stories, Mr...Oh, I'm sorry! Here I am, blabbing your ear off and I don't even rightly know your name. I'm Margaret."

He smiles politely. Margaret was every ounce the elderly churchgoer he knew as a kid, and her genuine nature was comfortable.

"I don't mind listening. I'm Spirit. It's a pleasure to meet you."

If he didn't keep wondering about Tepet actually doing all of this or how it'd beend orchestrated, he'd be enjoying the conversation that much more.

"It's hard to imagine someone who swore to protect the city deciding to deliberately cause harm. A lot of people seem to trust her." Myself included. "I hope some of the more precious items could be salvaged and brought to wherever the congregation goes next."

"Spirit! Now that's a funny name. I'll bet your folks would be proud, seeing you go to a church that ain't all there."

She laughed a bit.

"And keeping an old lady company, too. You're a polite young man; don't let nobody tell you different. Little soft in the head though." She laughed a bit more. "I told ya the building ain't what's important. So long as we're okay, that's what's precious. "When two or more are gathered in my name, there I am." Think that's in the good book somewhere; never was very good at memorizing the passages though. Speakin' of good books..."

She reached down into her handbag, and pulled one out.

"My grandbaby's just dyin' to hear this one. But I wanna make sure I get it just right. Would you like to hear it? I'd hate to impose on a young man's time. There's probably all kinds of girls chasin' a well-dressed, handsome boy like you."

"Don't go starting that now, I'm not that young. My daughter's in her teens and I dread the day she thinks of following around some 'young well dressed man'. Heaven help him."

He laughs, but it's nervous. Don't offend the nice church lady, Spirit. Your instinct might be to threaten anyone who touches your daughter with bodily harm, but Margaret probably won't be amused.

"I read to her all the time when she was little. I'd love to hear the story."

Spirit isn't a huge believer in fate, but something nags at him--saying he has to hear Margaret out.

She put a hand to her chest, in mock surprise. "Is that right? You, a daddy? Well I'll be. I wouldn't go worryin' that red head of yours, though. They say girls always marry men like their daddies. If that daughter of yours does that, she'll be just fine. Cross my heart, hope to die."

"Why, thank you for helping an old woman pass the time." She cleared her throat, opened the rather thin book to its first page, and began.

"Once upon a time, there was a village named "Plenty". They called it that because it had everything a village could ever want. Food, games, music. Even when things went bad or got broke, the very next morning, things would be right as rain.

Now, you might think that these people were as happy as clams. And they were, for a while. But eventually, they got bored with singin' and dancin', and got up to some mischief. Little things, at first. Pranks, white lies. But over time, things got downright nasty. People would fight all the time. Sometimes with words, sometimes with their hands. There were a lot of hurt feelings. Hurt people.

Well, one day, a man named John took a good look, and decided he wasn't gonna take it any more. So, he tried to make things right. He went around talking to people, trying to stop all the fights, and get things the way they used to be.

If you ever tried to get in between two people set to arguin', you can guess how that turned out. They hated him more than the guy they were yellin' at! No matter what John did, people wouldn't have any of it. "Why are you always getting in the way, John?" they said, or "How come you gotta ruin our fun, John?". "That John, he just needs do things the way we do. Livin' in the past ain't no way to get through life."

So John was very sad. He was tryin' to be good, and for all his trouble, he just got treated bad. He cried and cried for a long time. Finally, when he had no more tears left, he got up and said, "If ya can't beat 'em, join em!"

So John got into all kinds of trouble. When someone told a lie, he'd tell two. If someone gave someone else's head a lump, he do double. This went on and on, until nobody in the village could think of a person they hated more than John.

And then, a funny thing happened. The people started working together! John was so naughty, that there wasn't room for anyone else in Plenty to be bad either. So, they all decided to do what they could so John wouldn't bother them no more. They lit fires so John couldn't do nothin' in the dark. They put people in armor, and set them outside Plenty so that John would never surprise them.

All the people of Plenty had one thing in common: they hated John. And from that came another thing: they liked dancing, too. And music! Why, soon enough, they realized that, in the end, they all liked the same things. So, they went back. Back to being nice, back to Christmas and sending each other valentines. Plenty had never had such happy people.

As for John, well, he was happy too. All he had ever wanted was for the people of Plenty to get along, and now they did. He loved Plenty so much, why, if Plenty didn't love him, then that was all right with John!

Cause ya see, everyone has bad things and good things inside 'em, and they all have to come out some time. You can't have good things all the time; the world just doesn't work that way. So, John took all the bad things for himself, and kept them there. That way, even though Plenty hated John, at least they'd love each other. And everyone lived happily ever after."

She closed the book, then smiled warmly at Spirit. She was eager to hear his opinion on her reading.

Edited 2014-10-25 06:31 (UTC)

He laughs, nervous. "Here's to hoping she marries someone very different from her old man."

But he's not given a long time to dwell on this. Instead, he listens to her story intently. It was...interesting. Was this supposed to be a children's story? Spirit couldn't judge, of course--the children in Death City grew up with the Grim Reaper as their leader, after all--but that didn't stop him from questioning the logic of the peoples in Plenty just the same.

"That is quite the story there," Spirit says quietly. "An interesting take on a town coming together. The moral is always about bringing people together against a common evil, but you wouldn't take the John in this story to be evil. Not with his intentions, after all."

His gaze turns to the pulpit and he crosses his arms, sinking slightly in the pew. "That John in your story sure got the short end of the stick. Meaning well, but getting himself isolated."

Spirit closes his eyes, the gears turning. Something is processing. There's more to the story here, after all. A man stirring the pot for the benefit of the town he loved...

"Funny that the antagonist in there is named John. We've got a reporter around town recently, goes by the same name. He's how I found out about the church, actually. I hadn't even heard about it."

She laughs. "Oh, hush. You seem like a good man, and good men don't put themselves down. Got enough people in the world to do it for you."

"I guess it is kinda sad for a children's story, huh? Maybe I'll have to read him a different one. I just don't know what to think of John, really. Is he a bad kid? I suppose so. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Don't matter none what you wanted to do; just matters what ya did."

She listened to Spirit's report about coincidence. "Is that right? Well, tell him I said 'thanks'. If he hadn't told you about this place, you'da never have come talk to little ol' me."

She closed the book, putting it back in her handbag. "Tell me Spirit: What do you think about John?"

Edited 2014-10-25 23:26 (UTC)

"If you say so, Miss Margaret."

He chuckles, but it's without cheer. If only she knew how true her words rang: what one wants to do is something entirely different from what one actually does.

"I'll be sure to relay the message. It's been a pleasure to meet you."

For a moment, he is quiet, pondering her question and his requested response. His eyes follow a speck of dust as it floats in a shaft of sunlight.

"What I think about John? I think I'm not sure." He sighs. "His intentions may be one thing, but his actions are another. I just can't figure him out."

"I do say so!" She chuckles, more energetically than usual.

"Goodness, if a smart man like yourself can't figure it out, what chance does my grandbaby have? Think I'll just go back to the classics. Goldilocks or somethin'." Margaret looked at her watch. "Well, if this were a regular sermon, this would be the part where we say 'amen' and walk out that door."

She stood up, and shook Spirit's hand. "Pleasure meetin' you too. You tell your daughter I said 'hello'."

She stood up to leave, but before she hit the exit, she stood paused. "Ya know, maybe we shouldn't be so hard on John. The good lord said not to judge, after all. Somethin' about motes n' beams. There's somethin' respectable about doin' what you think's best, even when it's wrong. I just hope we get it right."

"We like our morals served up nice and neat, especially kids. Reality is a lot more ambiguous, after all."

He smiles, shaking her hand. "The pleasure was mine."

When she pauses, he turns, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "If it was easy to get right, I don't think we'd spend so much time working at it."

After a moment, he pauses. "Miss Margaret? Before you go." His eyes trail across the shell of the room again. "Does anything seem out of place here? Aside from the obvious, of course."

His voice is quiet as he adds: "I had to come see for myself. A person I'm supposed to be trusting is supposedly responsible for this. I had to come and try and know for myself."

Margaret had adopted a severity of her own to match Spirit's gravity.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Musta' broke your heart, seein' someone you trust do somethin' like that." She paused.

"You know, sometimes I like to think it ain't as hard as we make it out to be. Hard to do, sure. But at least we know what to do.

So honey, if you really do trust that someone, then one day that'll be tested. Maybe you'll hear a nasty rumor, maybe they'll disappear and you won't know where they gone to. Well Spirit, then it all comes down to faith. When you don't know what's what, all you can do is keep on believin'. So if you know that someone you trust's a good person, why, then they're probably still the same way. I been on this Earth a long time, and I ain't never seen nobody change that fast."

"So honey, ya just got to have faith. We're in a church, aren't we? Heck, we're probably the most out of place things here. Two people standing around without a roof over our heads."

Edited 2014-10-26 01:11 (UTC)

He laughs, weakly. "Yeah, I guess so. Have faith the size of a mustard seed, right?"

He wouldn't keep her, though there was something about her familiarity he'd rather have than give up. Regardless,Spirit sinks back onto the pew with a frown. He wondered if he was able to be trusting, truly--in the past it's proven to be something he wasn't particularly good at. Had he just made a mistake again?

"Maybe we'll run into each other again."

"That's just right, Spirit. Just right. You do that, you can do anything." She smiled.

"Well, we met once, didn't we? Don't see why we can't do it again." She noticed the sunken posture he took.

"Aww, Spirit. Don't keep yourself in that funk too long. I get the feelin' things will turn out right. Just give it time." She looked down for a moment, then stepped out of the rubble, disappearing into the morning.

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