Copyright (c) 1992 -- Marlowe C. Embree, Ph.D.

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.

Prologue

Israfil was known as a fair-minded judge. His was only a limited authority; he knew his place and stayed within it. But that didn’t mean he took his responsibilities lightly. His was a serious job. Others in his position had failed to retain the delicate balance between justice and mercy, between the letter of the law and its spirit, and in time they had been replaced. But Israfil had retained his post for what seemed like ages. It would have been an overstatement to say that he was proud of the fact, but he felt a quiet satisfaction at an important job well done.

He looked now with compassion at the young man standing, apprehensive and uncertain, before him. Thirty-nine, the judge corrected himself, wasn’t really young, though Israfil couldn’t help feeling that in comparison to him the defendant was almost a child.

"Be seated, " he said, in a voice trained to sound august but not severe. "The clerk has explained the rules of procedure to you. This is not a trial, only a preliminary hearing. We do not sentence or acquit."

"Naturally, given our caseload, we can’t review all the available evidence in detail. We use a sampling technique." Israfil glanced at the records. "You were a scientist, I see. You shouldn’t have any difficulty understanding. We’ve refined our sampling methods so the possibility of error is vanishingly remote, even though we look at only eight data points."

"I’ll ask you to remain silent during the deposition itself." The judge pointed to a complex apparatus that looked, to the scientist, like a huge video screen. "Afterwards, you’ll be allowed to speak in your own defense, or to have someone speak for you. Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"I didn’t expect anything like this."

"I know. Call the first witness."

One

"Michael Larson, age four," the clerk intoned.

Dr. Larson stared in surprise as an image of himself as a child filled the screen. It was fully three-dimensional, solid-looking; it was as if he were peering through an open window. He, or the image that had once been him, sat in the field of wildflowers that once had adjoined his father’s farm. His friends Bill and Amy sat playing beside him. He smiled, despite the evident gravity of his present situation, at the sight of Amy. How beautiful she had been, even as a small child. Had he really been in love with her even then? He couldn’t remember, but as their hands touched momentarily as she passed him a flower (the scientist in him was intrigued to note that he felt the touch, though in his present state he had no body) he thought he saw, or recalled, an incipient tenderness. A bumblebee flew past the three and towards the screen or window; when it reached the frame it simply vanished, as if it had never been. Yet the cloying scent of the wildflowers on the other side of the screen was everywhere, and Michael felt the kiss of the summer breeze on what had once been his cheek. He wondered at the technology -- if that was the right word, given that he seemed now to be in a world without any material component. Did materialistic conceptions of reality still hold sway here at all? However the hearing turned out, he supposed he’d have a long time to speculate about it.

"The other children are Bill Wakefield and Amy Curran," the clerk noted. "The cross-reference is to dockets #5640138 and #9128185, both cycle AZY-915."

"Yes, yes," said Israfil impatiently. The clerk was only doing his job, but the judge had never had much patience for mere technical minutiae. Couldn’t the clerk see the real thing of importance, the eternal human drama? Of course, he was new to the service.

Amy was making a headdress or circlet of flowers and, playfully, set it on Bill’s head. Michael remembered, or felt -- he wondered if the distinction existed in a realm beyond time -- the curious stab of white-hot jealousy. He wanted Amy to notice him. He longed to take the crown from Bill’s head, but of course he did not. Bill was bigger, and stronger. Instead, he jumped to his feet.

"Let’s play tag," he shouted. "Amy, you’re it." He started running clumsily across the field (the scientist-observer felt the tufts of grass beneath his now nonexistent feet). The others followed, Amy gleefully, Bill -- he thought -- a bit reluctantly.

The screen went dark. The scene vanished as rapidly as it had begun; the floral smell dissipated as instantly as a light when it is switched off. Michael wondered if the technology involved a replaying of old neural tapes or pathways. But, no, his neurons were quietly decomposing in Restlawn Cemetery. Clearly, all the biochemists and particle physicists he had ever known had just been playing with Reality. Did the others, the judge and the clerk, see what he saw, feel what he felt? Perhaps the distinction between the objective and the subjective no longer had any real meaning. Was this a private showing, or -- he shuddered -- were there untold ranks of celestial observers dissecting the meaning of his every act and whim?

"Is the record filed?" Israfil asked. The clerk nodded. "Next witness."

Two

"Michael Larson, age nine."

The playground where Michael had spent the afternoons and weekends of his third-grade year leapt into view. In the far distance, the majesty of the snow-capped Rockies ringed the horizon. Michael had forgotten how beautiful they were. He had spent a many long summer afternoon just sitting and staring at them -- imagining himself a mountain climber, or (the scientific bent had already been strong in him) wondering why the snow never melted on the lofty heights.

A knot of children played in the foreground, the Michael-who-had-been among them. The observer wondered about the continuity of the self, about the relationship between past and present, temporal and eternal. It was strange to watch himself; his vantage point was clearly outside, yet he was as much inside the child-Michael as a detached observer of him. He could feel his feelings, think his thoughts -- a re-experiencing far more vivid than any earthly recall -- yet at the same time (the curious double perspective was unsettling, like looking through bifocals for the first time) he could reflect on them from the vantage point of all that had come after. The events were what they had been; yet all the while they were unfolding he had the curious impression that he was free, that the fixity was in himself and not in the circumstances of his past. 'This present moment contains all moments’ -- where had he read that, now? He couldn’t remember; the recollection stayed vague and would not come clear. Again, he supposed he’d have lots of time to ponder the puzzle.

The child-Michael was staring directly at the screen; had the device worked in both directions, the boy would have been looking at the courtroom and at his own eternal self. Or was he? No thoughts that he could put into words were passing through the mind of the child, but he had a fleeting sense of something profound and ineffable, of something so important (though, of course, one could not say what it was) that anyone with any sense would gladly give all that he had to attain it. The child did not put it so to himself; he felt, he knew, at a level beyond words and beyond reasoning. The next instant, it was gone, like a stone sinking into the murky depths of a deep lake. So, the disembodied Michael wondered, was Reality like a circle, in which the present prefigured the future and the future reached back to encompass the past? Could memories work in both directions? What was the nature of Time? But the child on the screen was turning now. Some kind of game was beginning. Again the curious double perspective: the observer felt the child’s anticipation of wondering what it might be, even as he knew the answer full well from his own memories.

Childhood has its hierarchies as rigid as any the adult world knows. Michael was not the leader of the ragtag band that played together every day. That lot had fallen to Bill Wakefield, and he seemed to relish the role. He was the captain of the stronger team whenever a ball game was played, and an umpire of last resort as well. He got to hand-pick all his teammates (he never chose Michael), got to decide what game would be played when, and got to settle all childhood disputes, usually by force. Michael remembered/felt (which was it?) the jealousy he had known before settling into a cold anger, almost hate. Freedom or determinism? The anger felt like a thing outside himself that had come upon him as one catches a cold; had anyone scolded him for it he would surely have pleaded that he was an innocent victim. At the same time, Michael the observer felt a profound, intense freedom that reached back from the celestial courtroom into his past. It was not a philosophic abstraction or speculation, but an immediate knowing. Out of the corner of his immaterial eye, he saw Israfil make a note in his ledger. Idly, he wondered what kind of notational system angels used, what language they spoke to one another (he assumed that the English was a concession to him).

"We’ve got to have a trial," Bill was saying. He pointed to a broken window in a second-story apartment across the street from the playground. "Somebody did that, all right. We’ve got to find out who -- and punish them."

Both Michaels turned as one to look at the window. "How are we going to find out?" he asked. He had a sick feeling in his stomach. Though the eternal Michael no longer had a stomach -- at the moment, it was nourishment for a brood of hatching phorids -- he felt the pang as if he did. He wanted to cry out that the game was stupid, unfair. But, of course, he didn’t. He couldn’t. Or could he have? Israfil made another cryptic notation in his ledger.

"By asking questions, stupid. Like, where were you last Saturday morning? That’s when it got broke." His eyes narrowed suspiciously and focused on Michael. The nine-year-old’s fear was palpable, immediate.

"I was in bed, sick. You can ask my mom."

Bill looked disappointed. Even he couldn’t reject a parent as an alibi. "How about you, Amy?"

Michael couldn’t read Bill’s thoughts and feelings as he could his own (and so individual selfhood is not an illusion, he thought). But he was sure now, as he had been then, that Bill had turned on Amy only to hurt him. He knew how Michael felt about her. Amy was trembling; her face was paper-white, her dark ringlets surrounding it like the frame of a picture. "I -- I was playing here, by myself..."

"Sure you were," Bill sneered. "Can you prove it? Okay, we’ve got our suspect. Tom, Joe, arrest her. Hold her in jail until the trial." The two took Amy, kicking and struggling, behind a bush alongside the building. Michael’s fists doubled into knots (he could feel the tension in his now nonexistent arms). But he dared not cross Bill. Another mark in the ledger.

"Now we need a jury. You, Michael; Judy; Larry; Sally. I’ll be the judge." He stood beside an old tree stump and pounded a rock for a gavel. Michael looked back and forth between Bill and Israfil. Another fragment came into his mind -- with the judgment with which you judge others, you yourself will be judged.’ Again he couldn’t place the quote; his memory for general information seemed fuzzy, impaired, as if his whole life (but for the events on the screen) had been only a distant dream, to be shattered upon waking into this, the real world. It nagged at the back of his mind that there was more to the saying than that, but the rest would not come to him. "All rise," Bill cried. "Court is in session."

Bill was both prosecutor and judge, as in a French court. He hammered mercilessly at Amy’s story; she was crying now. "What do you have to say for yourself?" he challenged. Amy’s only answer was a racking sob. The observer wanted to spring forward in her defense, but, of course, he was not there. The images on the screen were only shadows of things that had once been. His child-self stood by in silence.

"The jury will decide the verdict. Return the prisoner to her cell. Jury, over there." Bill pointed to a location off-screen. The observer’s view followed his child-self and the others as they moved to an isolated spot behind the swingsets.

"She’s guilty, all right," said Larry, a crony of Bill’s who took for granted that he would be the foreman. Again, Michael remembered/felt the sick knot of fear, tangible as his body had known it then, so different from the abstract, ethereal dread he felt about being in Israfil’s courtroom. He knew that a jury had to reach a unanimous verdict to convict. One holdout, and Amy would go free. But would he have the courage to cross Bill? Israfil’s pen (or whatever it was that angels write with) hung poised in midair.

"How do you know? She says she didn’t do it." Michael’s words sounded as thin now as they had then. But at least he had said something.

"Of course, stupid." Sally spoke mockingly. Michael remembered how much she hated Amy, whom Bill had always openly preferred to Sally -- until now. This was her change for revenge. "What do you think she’d say?"

"No," Michael squeaked.

Larry muscled him aside and whispered menacingly. "Listen, chowderhead. Bill says she’s guilty. You’ll go along and do this our way or we’ll beat you to a pulp and step on what’s left. Got it?" He poked Michael in the ribs. The observer felt the sharp stab of pain where his ribs would have been, if he’d still had any.

"Let’s go," Larry said, leading the group back to where the others were waiting. Was it truly just, the scientist wondered, for the manifest intention of a person’s whole life to be judged by such isolated incidents as these? But he could not deny that his choice had been real.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"

"We have."

"And what is it?"

"We find --" Larry glared at Michael. "-- the defendant guilty as charged."

"The court will now pass sentence."

"No!" Michael screamed. He ran, past the knot of children, before anyone could guess what was happening, to the apartment where Amy lived. He rushed up the stairs and pounded on the door. He felt his heart pounding from exertion and terror, though his heart was now but a cold lump in the ground. "Mrs. Curran! Mrs. Curran!"

A thirtyish woman, with a severe slash of white hair at the top of her head and worry-lines around her dark eyes, answered the door. "Why, it’s Michael, isn’t it? What’s the matter?"

"They’ve got Amy," Michael panted. His nonexistent lungs were aching. "They -- they’re going to do something to her."

The scene vanished. The pounding Michael had felt in his chest was gone in an instant. Israfil made a few notes.

"File the record," he said.

Three

"Michael Larson, age fourteen."

Michael and Amy were walking alongside the creek that wandered lazily past the outskirts of town. It was early summer, and the warm sun felt good on the back of what had once been Michael’s neck. It felt even better to be holding Amy’s hand. The observer looked down at his present self but, of course, saw nothing. There was nothing to see. In whatever sense he was there, it clearly involved neither hands nor fingers. He marveled now, as he had then, that he had found the courage to take Amy’s hand in his own. She hadn’t seemed to mind at all. Her lips bore only a shy smile, but her eyes were like stars. Their fingers intertwined.

"What are you going to do this summer?" Michael asked. Amy’s father was an important attorney in town. Every summer he took his family on an extended vacation. Last year Amy had actually gone to Europe. Michael’s father never took vacations. "Who’d milk the cows?" had been his only comment when Michael had raised the issue once. "Or should we take them with us?"

"Dad’ll probably just go up to the cottage this year. He’s got a lot of work to do -- he’ll sit inside while we spend the day by the lake." Amy’s laughter was like the tinkling of tiny bells. She had the tact not to ask about Michael’s summer plans.

"Sounds great. I wish I could come with you."

"Why not? I could ask Dad. Your folks could spare you for a weekend, couldn’t they? Come on, Mike, it’d be fun. I could teach you how to water ski." Michael had never (then) seen Amy in a swimsuit, but he could imagine what she could look like. Israfil looked at Michael quizzically, as if unable to understand, but made no notation.

"I wish I could, Amy. But you know I can’t. Your dad hates me." He turned to face her.

"He doesn’t hate you. He just -- well, Dad has big ideas. He doesn’t -- well, want me to marry a farmer." She blushed and lowered her eyes.

"It’s gonna be a long summer without you. I’ll miss you."

"Me too."

This was it, the big moment. Michael was actually going to kiss a girl. He wondered (the part of him yet in time and space) if he could really do it. This was going to take a lot more courage than crossing Bill had five years ago. Amy waited for the space of a heartbeat. Then (as Michael the observer had known it would) came the sound of his kid brother Roger shouting, "Michael! Michael! Come quick!"

Michael turned. He tried, for a moment, to freeze the moment in time, or even to alter it and kiss Amy after all. But he could not, or somehow unaccountably would not -- he still did not know whether his will was still operative. "What is it?" he heard himself saying.

Knowing now what had come after, it was strange to feel the disgust -- petty and wrong under the circumstances -- at his brother’s untimely interruption. But, then, he hadn’t known the circumstances then. Had he ever really seen his brother for who he was -- or as only an annoyance and an obstacle to what he really wanted to do? The observer looked up too late to see whether Israfil had marked anything in the ledger.

"Come home quick. Something’s wrong with Grandma."

No time, even, for a goodbye; he left Amy standing alone by the riverbank. Would he have done the same if he had known then that he wouldn’t see her again for five years, that her father would move the family to Denver that summer? Her image was burned indelibly on Michael’s mind, her hair blowing wildly in the wind, her eyes holding a promise, a doubt, and a question all at once. Michael would have frozen that moment forever and made that his eternity if he could, though whether he felt more joy or more grief he could not say. Perhaps, it struck him with sudden force, the two were not so opposite as he had once thought. A fragment from an old sermon -- he had stopped going to church a year or so after this -- sprang unbidden to his mind.  'Jesus, knowing the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame.'  The joy and the ineluctible pain -- were they opposites, or all one and the same? Michael didn’t know. He wondered if he had ever known anything, really. Israfil made a mark, smiling at the clerk; but the other was all business. You just can’t find good help these days, Israfil mused.

When Michael and Roger arrived at the house, their mother was concluding a phone conversation. "I see. Well, thank you. We’ll be there as soon as we can." Michael’s father sat, like a stone.

"Well?" he said.

"Mom’s gone. There’s nothing they could do. Her heart." She began crying softly.

"She was almost eighty, hon." Her husband put his arm around her. Then he turned to his sons. "Get in the car, boys. We’re driving to Seneca. I’ll call Herbert to take care of the cows."

What happened next Michael could not understand. The drive to Seneca had taken six hours. Yet only moments now seemed to pass. It was not as if anything had been cut from them, but rather as if that interminable ride had been compressed to a point, an instant. Einstein said that time was relative; Michael experienced that now, as a rubber band might be stretched or compressed while still retaining its essential shape. 'A thousand years in Thy sight are as yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.’ A millennium, a day, a second or two; could they all refer to, or actually be, the same thing? The hours of waiting were focused as by a lens into a single moment, one thought: what is Death, and why is it?

The car pulled into the little town of Seneca, came to a halt at the fading brick house where Michael’s grandparents had lived. The family got out of the car; Michael’s mother was hugging her father, comforting him. "It’s all right," she repeated, like a litany. But was it? How could it be? Obviously Michael’s materialistic conclusions (had he begun to form them then? and had he chosen them, or had them thrust upon him?) had been wrong. But what unimaginable hope or dread might take their place he had no idea. He looked to Israfil for a clue, but the judge’s eyes were impassive. He could not read them.

The family viewed the body in silence. Michael reached out to touch his grandmother’s hand -- she looked as if she were only sleeping -- but a warning glance from his father stopped him. He looked again. No, this wasn’t sleep.

The minister from the church across the street arrived. "It is God’s will," he intoned. Michael turned away in disgust. What kind of God would will this? the youth thought.

Forgive me, the scientist prayed. I didn’t know. How could I have known? I was angry. I loved her. Did You love her too? You must have. But I didn’t think so then. Better to disbelieve in You than to hate You. Can’t You see that?

Israfil turned a shining page. "Next," he said.

Four

"Michael Larson, age nineteen."

Michael was walking along the university quadrangle. He could feel the crisp autumn breeze on what would have been his face. The autumn colors were at their peak; the splashes of crimson and ochre seemed to burn into Michael’s soul. He had felt so then; he felt so now, and for a moment the dual aspects of his consciousness merged into a unity. Whoever God is, the observer thought, He must be a consummate Artist. And a Scientist too (Michael knew how complex the biochemistry was that lay behind the changing colors -- and the eyes and brain that could see them). He wondered again how he could see now, when his eyes and brain were dust. Clearly the reductionists had been wrong; but that said only what was not, and left no clue about what was.

Michael felt light of heart (though his ageless self did not, could not, forget the gravity of his present situation) as he walked through the campus. He passed by throngs of students without having even noticed them. (And had that been wrong? Here were souls as eternal -- presumably as important-- as his own; how had he paid them so little heed? Israfil made a note.) His mind had been on his studies, on Education itself. He had been, in a word, drunk -- but not with beer (though he’d indulged in some of that too), but with ideas. He’d never known, before coming to State, how vast the world of ideas really was. He’d just barely convinced his father to let him go to college at all. When he (the student) thought of him now, it was with condescension for his narrow provinciality, though he was admittedly footing the bill. Michael had not seen the injustice of that then. He did now: his father had been a man of integrity, a good husband and father, even though he’d never read anything but the Bible and the Farmer’s and Stockbreeder’s Quarterly. I was young, he pleaded; we despise the familiar. Another check mark appeared on Israfil’s golden page.

Michael ascended the marble steps leading to the main library. He had a lot of work ahead of him: his philosophy professor was tough and exacting, and his term paper was due in only two weeks. Michael was majoring in chemistry; he steered clear of the humanities in general, but this class was different. Dr. Cochrane had required all students to defend or refute the idea of a personal God and to justify their choice rationally in the context of Western history and philosophy. Michael, naturally, had chosen the negative. He was knee-deep in Feuerbach, Sartre, Nietzsche. It was spellbinding, intoxicating, liberating, the gateway to a new world.

So, he thought as he watched Israfil glumly, I was wrong. But were my motives wrong? Or only my conclusions? Was I honest with myself? I suppose that’s what counts now. Most of my professors didn’t believe. And the people I met who did believe -- I wouldn’t have wanted to be like them! Well, maybe not all. There was my father. And Amy.

He entered the main reading room of the library and suddenly -- the surprise and delight of it was as intense as it had first been - he saw her. 'Across a crowded room’ -- as a joke, when they were married, they made Sinatra's theme song their own, because in a way it had really been like that. Again Michael wished he could freeze the moment in time, as in some kind of mental or spiritual amber; and this time (because he wanted it badly enough? or because Israfil -- or the One for whom he worked -- had an agenda of his own?) it actually happened. It was like looking at a still photo, or a statue, except that it was so obviously alive and real. Amy was framed in the center of the scene (could he ever have forgotten how beautiful she really was?), and Michael saw to his amazement that she literally stood out in his awareness -- her image was clear and sharp, while everything and everyone else around her seemed fuzzy and indistinct. Well, not exactly that; not out of focus (if he wanted to attend to it, he could, but who would want to when there was Amy to look at?), not dim, not ghostlike, but somehow (he couldn't find the words -- perhaps he was observing a perceptual quality that didn't exist on earth?) not quite there in the way that Amy was. As he looked at her now, it was as if all that had come before and (more to the point) all that had come after didn't exist. He could remember it all, but his rememberings meant nothing, as an essay on oceanography might seem to a man alone on a life raft in the middle of the Pacific. All that had been stripped away: there was only the essential Amy, the real Amy, as she had always been, or as she was one day going to be (were they different? Michael no longer knew).

Then the thread snapped, whether by his will or Another's. He dropped his books and ran, as in some grade-B movie (how stupid it would have all seemed, if it hadn't been so real), across the room, to her; and they were embracing, kissing, as if no one else were there, oblivious to the catcalls and the applause and the snide remarks. Afterwards, Michael had been horribly embarrassed; but he could feel none of that now. This had been the zenith of his life, his apotheosis, his (as Tolkein said) eucatastrophe. Why couldn't it have lasted, have worked?

The scene faded. Michael cried out for it to return; but Israfil held up a warning hand.

"Continue," he said to the clerk.

Five

"Michael Larson, age twenty-four."

Michael saw himself in the living room of the apartment where he and Amy had made their first home. Books were heaped all around him. He wore a worried look, and Michael felt again the stress and tension associated with being a graduate student. Competition was fierce, and only one of every four students made it past the qualifying exams. Michael's exam was only two weeks away, and he was petrified.

"Dinner's ready, honey," called Amy, emerging from the kitchen. She was obviously pregnant, and Michael looked up with what he hoped would pass for a smile. "In a minute," he replied. "Just let me finish this chapter."

Amy went back into the kitchen and returned in a minute with two mugs of steaming coffee. She set one beside her husband and took a sip from the other. Michael reached out distractedly and took a swig; his observer-self winced at the strong, bitter taste. The simple joys of eating and drinking came flooding back in a rush of memory. Whatever the secret behind the multimedia system used in the courtroom, Michael thought, it would have netted its designer a fortune back on earth.

"You're worried about your exams, aren't you, honey?" Amy took her husband's hand, and for a third time Michael felt her touch on fingers he no longer possessed. He drank in the sight of his lost love even as his alter ego's distracted thoughts showed him to be entirely oblivious to her presence. "I guess," the student-self replied. Actually, he had been scared stiff, and it was stranger for the observer, knowing that he had actually passed with flying colors, to feel that raw fear, unmitigated by his abstract knowledge of how the course of his life had turned out. While the screen was activated the two sides of himself merged uneasily into one conscious experience, but it was like oil and water; the commingling was never total.

"You think you could knock off early for just one night? I thought maybe you'd come to church with me." The compassion the celestial observer felt was jarring next to the disdain of his other self, who looked up petulantly. "We've been through this before. No church."

"It's all right when it's just us. You know that. But when the baby is born?"

"Our child is going to make his own decisions." At the time, Michael had expected and wanted a boy. It was strange -- Beth had been fourteen when Michael died -- to hear the masculine pronoun used now. Michael couldn't imagine ever having wanted any child but Beth; simultaneously, he experienced his ancient longing for a son. Oil and water.

"And how can he choose if he doesn't know the alternative? Do you want him to turn out like -- like --"

"Like me?"

"I didn't say that."

"But it's what you meant, isn't it?"

"Oh, forget it. Let's not fight." The eternal Michael plead silently with his mortal self to agree. "I'm tired, you're tired -- you think it's easy working at the bank all day? Some women quit their jobs at the first hint of a baby. Just forget I said anything. Come to supper."

The scene vanished. This time, Israfil said nothing. Why? Michael pondered the strange silence. Was he supposed to reflect on what he had seen? Was there something he had missed? The angel gave no sign. Michael wasn't at all sure he could correctly interpret a seraphic countenance at that.

Just when had things started to go wrong with Amy? The church thing wasn't the only issue, maybe not even the real issue at all, though they'd fought about it more and more over time -- much more after Michael had refused to let Beth go to church with Amy. No, there was more, much more. Amy was lonely, neglected; slowly Michael had built a wall between them. It was only that he was so busy, he had thought. Things would change once he was settled. The day never seemed to arrive. Knowing what he knew now, would he have lived his life differently? Sacrificed his career for the sake of his marriage? But he couldn't have known in advance, could he?

'Time is the lens through which you see, small and clear, something that would otherwise be too big for you to see at all. That thing is Freedom -- the thing by which you most resemble your Maker and are yourself part of Eternal Reality.’ Michael had no idea where he'd read that, probably in one of his long-ago philosophy classes. The memory of the quote sprang unbidden from his unconscious, leaving no trace of its original context. Could people be held accountable for choices whose consequences they couldn't possibly have anticipated? Or should he have anticipated them? Did he really know all along, and was his supposed ignorance merely another layer of self-delusion? Michael had read Freud; how well could he claim to know himself, even now?

"Next witness," said Israfil.

Six

"Michael Larson, age twenty-nine."

Dr. Larson was sitting in his faculty office. In a flood all the memories associated with the place where had had spent his entire professional life came back. He was sitting, his head in his hands, oblivious to his surroundings. A fly landed briefly on his left hand; the observer tried to shake it off but, of course, could not until his other self finally noticed and responded. Michael felt himself pulled into a maelstrom of conflicting feelings, half-formed thoughts, desperate urges.

So, Amy was having an affair. He was sure of it. He’d gone home unexpectedly to retrieve the galley proofs of his latest book -- at Compton he already had the reputation of a boy wonder, with over twenty publications under his belt in only two years -- and had, naturally enough, picked up the phone when it rang. The party on the other end hadn’t waited for a reply.

"Amy? It’s me, Bill. Listen, I’ll have to beg off lunch today. The hospital paged and I’m on call -- Carsten’s sick. I’ll call you next week." Michael heard an insistent buzzing or beeping in the background. "Gotta go. Bye." There was a click, followed by silence and then a dial tone.

Tuesday was Amy’s day off from work. Sure, she would normally have been home. She was probably out with Beth -- maybe taking her to some unknown babysitter so she could keep her assignation with Bill. Michael had no doubts about who Bill was. Bill Wakefield. Twenty-odd years of envy, animosity, and bitterness settled into a lump of icy hate. The observer could feel it settling in his nonexistent chest like a rock. Bill was an intern now at County General. Everybody who knew him said he was going places. Well, he was going places, all right. With Amy.

How could a man’s life be going so wonderfully and so terribly at the same time? The observer felt his counterpart’s anguish even though, from his current vantage point, it all seemed so trivial, a mere parenthesis in eternity. Outwardly everything was right on track -- his tenure assured, his reputation in the scientific community growing, a perfect little family, a nice house. But underneath -- well, while the call had startled him, it really hadn’t been a complete surprise. He and Amy hardly talked now. She tried, probably, to break the ice more than he did. If it wasn’t for Beth, would she have left him already? No, probably not -- Amy wasn’t like that. But then -- she was seeing Bill -- that wasn’t like her, either.

I never really knew her, Michael the professor thought with rancor. No, replied the observer, you didn’t, I didn’t, but not in the way I thought then. It was all Amy’s fault, I thought -- I could do no wrong -- it didn’t matter that she was so alone and afraid. And she swore Bill was just a friend -- I thought that a stupid lie at the time, but now --

The office vanished. Michael was alone with his thoughts. Israfil was writing rapidly.

"Next," he directed the clerk.

Seven

"Michael Larson, age thirty-four."

Michael and Amy were alone in her attorney’s office. Amy was sobbing. Michael the observer longed to put his arms around her (but he had none), ached to tell her it was all a mistake (but he had no voice). His sorrow and pity clashed with the coldness and wrath his counterpart on the screen was feeling. It was as if the two sides of himself were wrestling for control of the situation. But they’re both me, thought Michael. How can a man fight himself? Israfil wrote a terse comment in his ledger.

"I didn’t want this, Michael. You know that. I still don’t. If there’s any way --" Yes, yes, the observer cried out, silently. But his earthly self, the only one Amy could hear or know, replied harshly.

"We’ve been through all that. The settlement is more than adequate -- I’m not a rich man. Besides, Bill’s loaded. I’m sure you’ll be very happy with him."

"I’ve told you the truth about that! I’ve told you a thousand times! There was nothing! He’s a friend, nothing more." Amy’s eyes flashed fire. Be angry again, my love, the observer cried in his spirit. Hate me if you must, but don’t abandon me. Don’t leave me alone, forever.

"You say that now," he said. "But even supposing it’s true -- you think that way now, but Bill doesn’t. I know him. You’ll see. You’ll go to him in the end." Michael had no tear ducts now, so he could not weep at his own injustice and pride. He was doing his best to hurt Amy now. He’d always thought of himself and Bill Wakefield as opposites, but looking at himself on the screen he could almost see the image of Bill staring back at him. A man becomes what consumes him, he thought ruefully, whether by love or hate.

"And there’s another thing." Remembering now, Michael cried out for the image to vanish, but it did not. He felt sickened by his own hate -- but had he not chosen it? If a man found his very self abhorrent in the end, what was left to him? "Beth. I want her."

"No!" Amy screamed. Michael again willed the tape to end, but he could not stop it. "Not Bethie! I love her! She’s mine!"

"The courts usually give custody to the mother, true. But are you a fit mother? A woman who runs around on her husband, who lies to him -- and to her child too -- who neglects her --"

"I didn’t! I didn’t!"

"The judge won’t believe you. But none of this has to come out at all -- you can keep your little secrets. Just give Beth to me." The terrible irony struck Michael forcefully now, though it had not before. Amy was probably innocent -- Michael was sure now that, in his innermost heart, he had known it at the time. Whereas he himself -- oh, sure, Tiffany had meant nothing to him, she was just a consolation, a sop for his pride and a way of striking back. Still, because he had been discreet, no one would question his integrity, of which there was perhaps little left. Whereas Amy, who was really in the right --

All went dark. Michael was sure he could have stood no more. Some memories lengthened to an eternity would be a sort of heaven, but others -- What if a man were left, for endless ages, with what he truly was at the end of his days? Was hell lined with mirrors? What if the only punishment God meted out was to require a person to endure, unchanged and forever, the horror of taking off the mask and facing himself truly? Better the rack, the torture chamber, the thumbscrew. For these were merely external. But to find one’s worst fears and hates personified in one’s own self? A self of one’s own choosing and making? God provided only the bricks; a man could build a castle, but who was to be blamed if instead he chose to construct a prison?

"Next witness."

Eight

"Michael Larson, age thirty-nine."

The incessant beeping of the heart monitor and the steady drip-drip of the IV made a staccato counterpoint to Michael’s jumbled thoughts. He glanced at the calendar on the wall. September third: his last day on earth. Of course he hadn’t known that then. If he had, the terror that he did feel would have been smothering, overwhelming.

Dr. Adams had made the diagnosis not six months before. Pancreatic cancer: silent, swift, inoperable, invariably fatal. He had offered the usual meaningless condolences -- that, and enough painkillers to make the physical side of Michael’s last days tolerable. Michael felt again, now, the weakness, the lassitude, the unrelenting backdrop of discomfort and unease. He’d forgotten what having a body had really been like; standing now in the courtroom, he felt denuded, incomplete, without one, even though it had been mostly a burden to him at the end.

The door opened, and Beth entered. Michael smiled at the sight of her: so like Amy had been at that age. He felt the bittersweet pang of a love that was not, could never be, returned. How could Beth love him? When she had been forced against her will to stay with him, not her mother? Her visit was just a duty; she looked bored, detached, her mind at the mall or on some scruffy boyfriend. Yet he loved her, not for what she could give him (that, now, was nothing), but for herself alone. Michael had always thought that love had to be returned to be real, thought (he could admit it now) of taking, not giving. He saw now that it was not so. His love for Beth, he knew as he watched the screen, would last forever even if she never opened her eyes to see or believe it. Is that what God’s love is like? he wondered. Israfil smiled.

"Daddy," Beth said. "Are you all right?"

Foolish Beth. I’m dying. How can I be 'all right’? "I’m fine, honey."

Beth left after only five minutes. Of course, thought Michael, she didn’t know that she was saying goodbye. If she had, would it have made a difference? He didn’t know.

Amy came in only a few minutes later. That was like her, Michael thought; even after all he had done, she had come to console, not to gloat. Had the shoe been on the other foot, would he have done the same? Wordlessly, she took his hand. Neither said anything for the space of five minutes.

"I’m sorry, Amy," Michael whispered. At least, the observer thought, I said that much.

"I’m sorry too."

The hospital chaplain, a blustery man who seemed as if he would be more at home selling shoes than proclaiming eternal verities, stopped in next. "Is there anything I can do for you, Dr. Larson?"

"No," the patient said, contradicting his other self’s silent assent. He could not bring himself, even in his extremity, to discuss his feelings, needs, spiritual longings with someone obviously his intellectual inferior. Besides, if there was a God, why had He abandoned him? Why had his life turned out as it had? This struck Michael as unfair now, but he seemed unable to reach back into the past to alter his reply. "I’m fine."

The patient dozed. It was strange for Michael, from his present vantage point of eternal wakefulness, to experience his counterpart’s lapse into somnolence. He had read, long ago in an introductory psychology class, about the hypnagogic state that precedes true sleep. Strange, inchoate feelings filled his mind, bizarre images the screen. Then, the screen dimmed, fell silent. Somehow -- was it because he was dimly aware of his breathing and of the beating of his own heart? or was it something deeper and more profound? -- Michael knew that the scene was not done. He waited, expectantly, while his past self slept, for he knew not what.

The screen came to life. For the first time, Michael could not see himself in the picture, or recognize the surroundings; he realized that this must be a dream. He had no way of knowing what time it was, but he discerned that he must have died in his sleep that day. This must have been his last dream before passing out into eternity. He saw a kind of outdoor amphitheater, in some grassy meadow. It was a spring morning, and wildflowers were everywhere. He thought of the field of flowers outside his father’s farm where he and Amy had played as children. This was not that, but it was similar in appearance. Although Michael could not see himself in the dream-picture, he felt the warmth of the sun making him drowsy. He smiled at the idea of a sleeping man dreaming of himself falling asleep -- and (perhaps) on and on after that in an infinite regress. With so many layers, could one ever awaken from such a dream?

Suddenly the field was lit up by a blaze of glory, a light not of this world. In the center of it stood a Man. Michael recognized Him at once, though He looked nothing like the insipid Sunday school pictures he had seen as a child. He had power, majesty, authority: it would have been the most natural thing imaginable for all created things to bow before Him. The dreamer remembered a story he had heard once (he had thought it stupid then) of how the risen Christ had appeared in a dream to the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich, holding in His hand a little thing like a hazelnut. "This is all that is created," He had said to her; and it had seemed so tiny and fragile that she wondered how it could hold together at all. Michael understood that feeling now. Life, and all it contained, had seemed so real, so solid, so important at the time. But what was it really, in comparison to Ultimate Reality?

The Man was speaking now. His voice was puissant, echoing across the vast spaces as if (Michael could not find the words for it) He were both very near and very far away at the same time.

"Child," He was saying, "will you receive Me?"

The screen went black.

Epilogue

Michael rose. He did not know how he knew to do so, but he did. The idea of rising would seem to have implied a body, but though he had none, Michael had a sensation of coming to attention.

"Do you have anything to say in your defense?" Israfil asked. He waited -- for a second or an eon, Michael could never remember later.

"It’s too late," Michael said at last.

"It is not so," the angel replied.

Michael would never have imagined himself engaged in a theological dispute with one of the Shining Host. He was now. He remembered his Sunday-school upbringing. "But I’m dead. It’s over. Doesn’t the tree lie where it falls? Is there such a thing as a second chance?"

"Not in the sense you mean. But time and choice are more fluid than you know. Have you never heard it said, 'Before they call, I will answer’? We haven’t really seen the outcome of your first chance, your earthly choice."

"I don’t remember that dream," Michael said.

"You died seconds after," Israfil answered. "You had no chance to remember. But what was the answer you gave?"

Michael thought. "My whole life was a 'no.’ No to God, no to Amy, no to Beth, no to my truest and highest self. I’ve seen the record. What can I do now?"

"What would you answer now?" the angel inquired. Again, there was a pause -- of microseconds, or millions upon millions of centuries, or both.

"I’d say yes," Michael said softly.

"Look," replied Israfil.

The screen came back to life. This time, Michael saw, not his dream, but himself, lying in his hospital bed. Outside the window, night was falling. A steady rain was beating against the panes of glass. Michael lay still, as if already dead, but the heart monitor was still beeping. As across infinite spaces, in what seemed like the faintest of whispers -- not even that, a mere thought, or the suggestion of a thought -- Michael heard the Man’s question again. He was waiting for a reply. It was the most patient, endless waiting Michael had ever known; yet active, alive, involved, not resigned or disinterested.

Michael’s lips moved. From his vantage point in the angelic courtroom, Michael willed a reply. He could not remember what his actual response had been. His existence narrowed as to a pinpoint.

"Yes," the lips murmured. The heart monitor stopped. An alarm bell rang. A nurse rushed into the room. The scene vanished.

"Will you speak on your own behalf? Or do you wish to be represented?" Israfil asked.

"I’d like to be represented."

"Will anyone speak for this man?" Israfil called.

A voice rang out. Michael knew that voice. It resounded like a torrent of mighty waters, or as if all the thunders of heaven had sounded at once. Israfil the judge turned and bowed low, with his face to the ground. Michael had a fleeting awareness of untold ranks of angelic beings doing the same.

I will," the Man said.

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