I am the GodVolume III: The Void Speaks
The Void's second question arrived on Friday.
Not on Thursday — on Thursday the Void had been present but quiet, the specific quiet of something that is giving the previous conversation room to settle before adding to it. Chuck had gone to the space between Wilson and the edge after his run and the Void had been there and they had sat together without speaking and the not-speaking had been its own kind of conversation, the between between the first question and the second.
He had gone home.
He had made his eggs.
He had gone to Marcus's.
He had not told Marcus what the Void had not yet said.
They had talked about Robert's ranch — the cattle, the Hendersons, what needed to happen long-term. They had talked about a job Marcus had that afternoon. They had talked about nothing important for a while in the way that people who have been in the between together talk about nothing important — not filling silence, not performing ease, simply being present in the ordinary texture of a Thursday.
Friday morning Chuck went back.
The Void was there.
"You waited," Chuck said.
"I gave you Thursday," the Void said.
"Why."
"Because what I'm going to show you today is harder than yesterday," the Void said. "And yesterday needed a day to sit before the harder thing."
"You were preparing me," Chuck said.
"I was respecting the pace," the Void said. "There's a difference."
Chuck sat in the space between Wilson and the edge.
"Show me," he said.
The Void showed him the first one.
A woman named Clara Reeves.
Wilson, Texas. 1945. She had been six years old. She had lived on the road that Chuck had run past every morning in his childhood, the road that he had covered in the early mornings of his fifth and sixth and seventh years before the family moved from Wilson.
She had been a quiet child.
The Void showed him this — not with judgment, not with the specific editorial quality of something trying to produce a feeling. Simply the showing.
A quiet child who had been, in the specific way of quiet children in small towns in the middle of the last century, slightly invisible. Not neglected — fed and clothed and sent to school and returned from school and in every practical measure attended to. But invisible in the way of the quiet and the small: the ones whose quietness is mistaken for contentment, whose smallness is mistaken for fineness, whose lack of obvious need is mistaken for the absence of need.
Clara Reeves had needed something.
Not anything dramatic. The Void showed him what she had needed with the honesty it brought to everything — the specific, modest, entirely achievable thing she had needed, which was: to be seen by something that saw clearly. To have something look at her the way it looked at the things it found worth paying attention to.
She had lived three houses from the Norris family property.
Chuck had run past her house every morning for three years.
He had never noticed her.
Not because she was invisible to him. He had noticed everything — he had always noticed everything, the comprehensive monitoring of something that monitored everything. He had noted her presence the way he had noted every other presence on the road: registered, assessed, filed under not requiring attention, continued.
She had not required his attention.
He had not given it.
The Void showed him what had happened without it.
Not catastrophe. Not tragedy. The specific quiet diminishment of someone who did not receive the thing that would have helped and continued without it, as people do, as people must, becoming the person they became in the conditions they had rather than the person they might have become in better conditions.
Clara Reeves had become a careful woman. Competent. Reliable. Good at a specific kind of work — the kind that did not require visibility, that could be done without acknowledgment, that suited someone who had learned early that the world did not reliably see her and had organized herself around that fact rather than against it.
She had been fine.
The Void was clear about this: she had been fine.
Not diminished beyond repair. Not suffering. Fine in the way that most people are fine — carrying what they carry, living within the architecture of the people they became in the conditions they had.
The Void showed him what she might have been.
Not a different profession. Not a different city. Not the specific dramatic alternative that the word potential usually implies. The same woman, in the same town, doing the same work.
More herself.
More fully Clara Reeves.
The specific quality of someone who had been seen clearly, early, by something that saw clearly. Who had learned from that seeing that she was worth seeing. Who had carried that knowledge forward into a life that was not larger but was deeper, more fully inhabited, more genuinely her own.
Chuck looked at this.
He looked at it for a long time.
"She was fine," he said. "Without it."
"Yes," the Void said.
"She lived a full life," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"You're not showing me a tragedy," Chuck said.
"No," the Void said. "I'm showing you a between that didn't happen."
Chuck sat with this.
"A between that didn't happen," he said.
"Yes," the Void said. "Not a disaster. Not a failure in the catastrophic sense. A between that was available and was not entered. A weight that could have been shared and was not. A creation that could have happened and did not happen because the creator was — above."
"Above," Chuck said.
"Monitoring," the Void said. "Assessing. Filing under 'not requiring attention' and continuing. The comprehensive monitoring of something that monitors everything and responds to what requires response and moves on."
"I was doing my job," Chuck said.
"You were doing the job you thought you had," the Void said. "The job of correcting what required correction. The job of addressing what required address."
"Clara didn't require address," Chuck said.
"No," the Void said. "She required presence. The specific kind of presence that is not responsive to a need but generative of a between. The kind that makes something, not the kind that fixes something."
Chuck looked at the quiet child on the road three houses from his family property.
He looked at her for a long time.
"How many," he said.
The Void was quiet.
"Show me," Chuck said.
The Void showed him the others.
The narrator will not list all of them because the list would take more pages than the account has and because the point is not the accumulation but the pattern, and the pattern is visible from a few.
A boy in Korea, 1959, who had been on the edge of a decision that would have changed the direction of his life in ways the boy could not yet see. Who had needed — not intervention, not correction, not the specific rescue that Chuck could have provided if the situation had been dramatic enough to require it. The boy had needed someone to ask him a question. One question, phrased correctly, at the right moment.
Chuck had been two streets away when the moment was available.
He had been doing something else.
The something else had been, by any assessment, more important than a question asked to a boy on a street in Korea.
The boy had made the decision without the question.
The decision had been the decision he made without it.
Fine.
The Void showed him the specific quality of fine.
A man in Los Angeles in 1971 who had been in proximity to Chuck during the filming of a movie — a grip, low in the hierarchy of the production, invisible in the way of the people who are necessary and unnamed. Who had been, the Void showed him, at the specific moment in a life where the between between who you are and who you are becoming is most available — most permeable, most responsive to what enters it.
Chuck had been on set for three weeks.
He had not spoken to the grip.
Not because he had been unkind. He had been professional. He had been — the word arrived — efficient. The grip's job and his job had not overlapped in ways that required interaction and he had not generated interaction beyond what was required.
The grip had gone home after the production. Had continued his life. Had been fine.
Had not been, the Void showed him, the version of himself he was closest to being in those three weeks.
The pattern continued.
The narrator will note that in every case the Void showed, the person had been fine. The Void was precise about this. It was not showing him disasters. It was not showing him suffering that he had failed to prevent.
It was showing him betweens that had been available and had not been entered.
Creations that had been possible and had not been made.
The between between Chuck Norris and a quiet child in Wilson, Texas, 1945.
The between between Chuck Norris and a boy on a street in Korea, 1959.
The between between Chuck Norris and a grip on a film set in Los Angeles, 1971.
On and on.
Each one: fine.
Each one: less than what they could have been.
The Void showed him as many as it judged necessary.
Then it stopped.
Chuck sat in the space between Wilson and the edge.
He was quiet for a long time.
The Void sat with him.
The sitting was different from yesterday's sitting — yesterday had been the weight of what had been made, the full and generous weight of creation extended outward in chains. This was the weight of what had not been made, which was a different kind of weight.
Not heavier.
Different.
The weight of a door that could have opened and did not open.
Not because of malice. Not because of negligence in the ordinary sense. Because of something that the Void had named and that Chuck was now sitting with in full.
Because he had been above.
"I thought monitoring was care," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"I thought noticing was enough," he said.
"It is not," the Void said.
"No," Chuck said. "I understand that now."
"You understood it before I showed you this," the Void said. "You learned it from Marcus. You just didn't know how far back the lesson applied."
"How far back," Chuck said.
"Since 1940," the Void said. "Since the first morning. There was a nurse in the hallway who sat on the floor and felt something she couldn't name. She carried it. But she sat on the floor alone."
Chuck looked at the Void.
"I was four minutes old," he said.
"Yes," the Void said. "I'm not assigning blame. I'm showing you the pattern. The pattern begins at the beginning."
"The pattern of being above," Chuck said.
"The pattern of the comprehensive monitoring that registers and files and moves on," the Void said. "Which served many purposes and was not nothing. But which was not the between."
"For fifty-three years," Chuck said.
"And then you found a pipe," the Void said.
"And then I found a pipe," Chuck said.
The Void was quiet.
"How do you feel," it said.
Chuck thought about this.
He thought about the honest answer.
The honest answer was not comfortable and did not make itself comfortable in his turning of it.
"Accountable," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"Not guilty," he said. "I don't think guilty is the right word."
"Why not," the Void said.
"Because guilt implies I knew what I was missing and chose not to do it," Chuck said. "I didn't know. I was doing what I knew how to do."
"Yes," the Void said. "And accountability?"
"Accountability is knowing now," Chuck said. "And deciding what that means going forward."
"What does it mean," the Void said.
Chuck sat with this.
He thought about Clara Reeves.
He thought about the boy in Korea.
He thought about the grip in Los Angeles.
He thought about the specific quality of fine — not tragedy, not catastrophe, just the slight lesser version of what might have been.
He thought about what it meant to know this.
"It means I can't do for the ones who are gone what I didn't do," he said. "Clara Reeves is — old now, if she's alive. The boy in Korea would be in his seventies. The grip. All of them — I can't go back."
"No," the Void said.
"The betweens that didn't happen didn't happen," Chuck said. "They don't become available again."
"No," the Void said.
"So," Chuck said.
"So," the Void said.
"So the accounting is—" He stopped.
"Say it," the Void said.
"The accounting is not about fixing what was missed," Chuck said. "It's about knowing the pattern. So the pattern changes."
"Yes," the Void said.
"Going forward," Chuck said.
"Going forward," the Void said. "Not retroactively. The becoming is forward. The spiral moves toward, not back."
"But I carry the knowing," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said. "That's what accountability is. Carrying the knowing forward. Not punishing yourself with it. Not resolving it. Carrying it."
Chuck sat with this.
It was not comfortable.
It was honest.
"This is what you mean by difficult," he said.
"This is what I mean by difficult," the Void said.
"The Question was easier than this," Chuck said.
"The Question asked what things are for," the Void said. "This asks what you have not been."
"What I have not been is part of what I am," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said. "The not-being shapes the being. The betweens that didn't happen are part of the pattern of the betweens that did. You cannot understand what you have made without understanding what you did not make."
"Why," Chuck said.
"Because creation without accountability is—" The Void paused, which was unusual. "Partial. Incomplete in the wrong sense. Not the incomplete of the spiral that is still becoming. The incomplete of something that doesn't know what it is because it doesn't know what it isn't."
Chuck looked at it.
"You said everything is still becoming," he said. "The incomplete of the spiral is the right kind."
"Yes," the Void said.
"But this is different," Chuck said.
"The incomplete of the spiral moves toward the center," the Void said. "The incomplete of not knowing what you're not is — stationary. It circles. It does not spiral."
"The difference between a spiral and a circle," Chuck said.
"The spiral knows where it's been," the Void said. "The circle keeps arriving at the same place without recognizing it."
Chuck thought about fifty-three years.
He thought about the specific places he had been that were not Wilson, Texas.
He thought about returning to Wilson.
He thought about whether the return had been a spiral or a circle.
"I returned to Wilson," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"Was that the spiral beginning," Chuck said.
"The spiral had been turning since the intergalactic medium," the Void said. "Wilson was where you recognized that it was a spiral rather than a circle."
"The pipe," Chuck said.
"The pipe," the Void said.
"And now," Chuck said. "Knowing about Clara Reeves and the boy in Korea and the grip. Where does that go in the spiral."
"It goes in," the Void said. "That's all. It becomes part of what you know about what you are. And what you are continues to turn toward the center. More accurately now. More honestly."
"Because I know the pattern," Chuck said.
"Because you know the pattern," the Void said.
Chuck sat with it.
The pattern.
The comprehensive monitoring that registered and filed and moved on.
The betweens that had been available and not entered.
The creations that had been possible and had not been made.
Fine. Fine. Fine.
The word settled in him like a stone dropped in still water — not landing hard, not crashing, just going in and continuing to go in, finding its level.
Fine was the saddest word the Void had said.
Not sad in the dramatic sense. Sad in the way of a truth that is small and large at the same time. The truth that people are fine without the things they might have had. That the world continues without the betweens that didn't happen. That nothing collapses, nothing fails, nothing produces the specific visible consequence that would make the missing of it legible.
People are just slightly less themselves.
And they are fine.
And they don't know what they didn't have.
"I'm going to see them differently," Chuck said. "The people. The ones I'm around. Going forward."
"Yes," the Void said.
"Not with the monitoring," Chuck said. "With the — with the between available."
"Yes," the Void said. "The between as the default. Not the exception."
"The monitoring was the default," Chuck said.
"For fifty-three years," the Void said.
"Not anymore," Chuck said.
The Void was quiet.
"Chuck," it said.
"Yes."
"I want to tell you something," the Void said. "Not a question. A statement."
"Tell me," Chuck said.
"The betweens you did enter," the Void said. "Roy Briggs. Dr. Fitch in the hallway. Gerald Marsh. Marcus. Robert in the hospital room. The nurse in the hallway in 1940. The man at the gas station in New Mexico. The young man who trained at Roy Briggs's gym. The chains that extend outward from each of them."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"They are not diminished by the betweens you did not enter," the Void said. "They are not canceled out. They are not partial credit."
"But—"
"There is no but," the Void said. "The accounting is the accounting. What was made was made. What was not made was not made. These are not in competition. They are both part of what you are."
"The spiral includes both," Chuck said.
"The spiral includes everything," the Void said. "The made and the not-made. The entered betweens and the available ones. The fall on Elm and Third and the fifty years of not falling. The imperfect eggs and the perfect ones."
Chuck looked at the space around him.
The between everywhere.
In everything.
In the made and the not-made alike.
"You're telling me not to punish myself," he said.
"I'm telling you to carry it accurately," the Void said. "Punishment is inaccurate. It assigns more weight to the not-made than it warrants. Dismissal is inaccurate. It assigns less. Carrying it accurately means knowing it is there and knowing its weight and moving with it in the spiral."
"What does that feel like," Chuck said.
"Like being fully yourself," the Void said. "Which is heavier than being partial. And more honest. And the only kind of fully that is worth being."
Chuck sat with this.
He sat with Clara Reeves and the boy in Korea and the grip.
He sat with Roy Briggs and Dr. Fitch and Gerald Marsh.
He sat with all of it — the made and the not-made, in the same sitting, at the same weight.
The weight was significant.
The weight was correct.
"I can carry this," he said.
"Yes," the Void said. "You can."
"Because I've been learning to carry weight," Chuck said.
"Because a plumber in Wilson, Texas taught you what weight was for," the Void said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"The between between you and Marcus," the Void said. "Made this possible."
"Everything comes back to the kitchen," Chuck said.
"The kitchen is the between," the Void said. "The between is what everything comes back to."
"Yes," Chuck said.
He stood.
He looked at the Void.
"Tomorrow," he said.
"Tomorrow," the Void said.
"Is it harder still," he said.
"Different," the Void said. "Not harder. More — complete."
"What does complete mean for a conversation with something that predates time," Chuck said.
"It means," the Void said, "that tomorrow we stop looking at what has been and what has not been. Tomorrow we look at what is still."
"What is still," Chuck said.
"What is unresolved," the Void said. "Not in the sense of broken. In the sense of — still open. Still available. The betweens that have not yet been entered. Not the ones that are gone. The ones that are waiting."
"The valve that's still getting old," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said. "The valve. What you feel approaching but have not yet addressed."
Chuck looked at the Void.
He thought about the weight he had felt building since the answer went through the edge.
The incompleteness.
The specific incompleteness of something still coming that had not yet arrived.
"You know what it is," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"Will you tell me now," he said.
"No," the Void said.
"Why not."
"Because today was about carrying the past accurately," the Void said. "Tomorrow is about seeing the present clearly. The two things require different days."
Chuck nodded.
The Void was precise.
He had been learning that.
"Tomorrow," he said.
"Tomorrow," the Void said.
He went to Marcus's.
He knocked.
Marcus opened the door.
"Coffee's on," he said.
"I need to tell you something," Chuck said.
"Come in," Marcus said.
They sat.
Chuck told him about Clara Reeves.
About the boy in Korea.
About the grip.
About fine.
About the pattern.
About the spiral and the circle.
About carrying it accurately.
Marcus listened.
He was quiet for a long time.
Then he said: "Clara Reeves."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"She's eighty-five now," Marcus said. "If she's alive."
"I don't know if she is," Chuck said.
"She might be," Marcus said.
Chuck looked at him.
"The Void said the betweens that didn't happen don't become available again," Chuck said.
"The between you had with her as a child didn't happen," Marcus said carefully. "You're not a child anymore."
Chuck was very still.
Marcus held his cup.
"I'm not saying you should—" Marcus started.
"No," Chuck said. "You're right."
"I might be overstepping," Marcus said.
"You're not," Chuck said. "The between available now is different from the one that was available then. It's not the same thing. But—"
"It's still a between," Marcus said.
"If she's alive," Chuck said.
"If she's alive," Marcus said.
They sat.
The morning light was doing what it did.
Chuck thought about a quiet child in Wilson, Texas in 1945.
He thought about the woman she had become.
He thought about what the Void had shown him — the careful woman, competent, reliable, organized around the fact that the world did not reliably see her.
He thought about what a between might make now.
Not the same between.
A different one.
A between between what he was now and what she was now.
The between of someone who had learned to see clearly, meeting someone who had learned to be fine without being seen.
He thought about what that might make.
He didn't know.
That was the right answer.
"Will you help me find out if she's still in Wilson," he said.
Marcus put down his cup.
"Give me twenty minutes," he said.