Orson Card - Maps in a Mirror - The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

But I did not kill. Please, God, I did not kill.

I was killed. Mabey says so and I remember a mad face and a meatcleaver, coming from nowhere in the depths of a crowd of smiling, laughing, loving faces. I remember a moment of pain, and then

No. This I cannot

I can think of no reason to believe that this journal is a fraud.

I have looked in the mirror. I am the man I remembered myself to be.

I have met with Hyman, Ron, Moral, Chaste, and Egan. The answers are clear. Such a great sin has never been committed, and yet the hearts of those who sinned were pure.

Surely the humble fishermen whose hearts’ love had been torn from them did not sin in wishing him alive again. And in the wishing, neither did these disciples of God’s Deliverance sin. But ours is a different age, and it was the genius of Egan and Chaste, the deft hands of Hyman, the force of will of Ron and Moral that have brought me back, not from the grave, for I never was there, but from where I was, and that is sin enough.

The chemicals are destroyed, boiled away or burned or both. The papers are all ash, which has been raked to dust and scattered through the fields and woods of this countryside. And they have knelt before me and given solemn oath before God and before me (it is a mark of all our weakness that they and I hold it necessary to vow before someone else than God) that their secrets will die with them.

We all have blood on our hands. They have the blood of eleven murdered men, women, and children. I have the blood of Frank Mabey whose body I stole. I have done what cannibals only mocked: I have eaten his flesh and taken his virtue and I live because he is dead.

This sin is on our heads, and though we will proceed as we had planned before the manservant of sin cut the thread of my thin and nebulous life, nevertheless we, like Moses and Aaron, will not see the promised land.

I will lock this away until my death, because for the sake of the movement we must go on. Penance for these sins will come later, in God’s time. Now we must work in God’s Deliverance. After my death this will be Frank Mabey’s testament and my confession.

It is no jest that religion forbids all good things, and the stronger the forbidding, the better the thing forbidden. But the forbidding is only for a time. To own is forbidden, until the thing owned has been earned. To copulate is forbidden, until that copulation is locked within a family. And to die and to kill are forbidden, until God himself reaches down his hand and releases us from life. This I have taught them now. I see that it must be the cornerstone.

They ask me, again and again, what is death like? What did I feel? What did I see?

I show them, but they see not. I tell them, but they hear not. If death were not desirable, it would not have been forbidden us. We are taught to fear it, and we are forbidden to seek those who have died, because if we knew, if we understood what lies within our reach, at the cost of a pill, a bullet, a blade, a breath, then in the moment we understood, this world would be unpopulated. We would leap into our graves like a lecher into his lady’s bed.

But we do not know, and the fear is on us, and God in his mercy will deliver us from ourselves if we can school our passions.

Perhaps God will let me stand on a high hill and look out into the promised land before he lets me return to him. Then my people will mourn me. But I will go singing.

Reuben Ives decided on his twelfth birthday that this would be his lucky year. His dog and his doctor disagreed, but he ignored them. Maynard could hide under the bed with his paws over his eyes, but it wouldn’t stop Reuben. And the doctor—well, he was one of them, and Reuben had nothing but contempt for him. He showed his contempt by always arriving exactly fifteen minutes late for his appointments, which he knew threw off the doctor’s schedule for the rest of the day. And every time the doctor got used to it and scheduled someone else into Reuben’s half hour, Reuben would arrive on time. It was just Reuben’s way of letting them know that he didn’t care, the doctor whispered to the nurse. Ho hum,

Reuben said to himself. And Maynard looked embarrassed and curled up under the chair looking more like a sheep than a sheepdog.

In fact, Reuben thought, he looks kind of sheepish.

“What are you laughing at?” the doctor asked.

Reuben sneered at him. “You. You look terrible with bifocals.”

“Thank you, Reuben,” said the doctor.

“I turned twelve this morning at 9:37,” Reuben announced.

“Happy birthday,” the doctor answered.

“Suck rocks,” Reuben responded. “How do you manage it?”

“Manage what?” asked the doctor, with imperturbable patience.

“Being sincere, whether you mean it or not. I mean can’t you—”

“But I mean it,” said the doctor. Reuben laughed.

“How do you feel,” the doctor asked, “about being twelve?”

“I’ve lived through a dozen years of being dumped on,” said Reuben.

“Really?” asked the doctor. He looked a little more interested than usual.

“Oh, doctor, yes!” cried Reuben frantically. “They’re all against me, they follow me everywhere! They’re out to get me, all of them. Protect me!”

The doctor sighed and shuffled papers on his desk.

Reuben fell to his knees on the floor. “You won’t help, then? You’re one of them. I can see it now. Maynard, protect me from them!” Reuben screamed, grabbing at the dog under his chair. Irritated, Maynard bit his hand.

Reuben looked at the scratch marks on his skin. “Et tu, Maynard,” he murmured. “Doctor, look. Even Maynard.”

“Paranoia isn’t a joke, Reuben,” the doctor said.

“A joke he says,” Reuben said to Maynard, laughing bitterly.

With the enemy ships circling our planet and everybody we meet a possible traitor, the doctor said to himself, paranoia is normal. The sky is our enemy. The world is our enemy. The only escape from fear is to be buried. But Reuben was not paranoid.

Reuben was chewing the leaves of the rubber plant.

“Isn’t it bad enough that you’re crazy,” the doctor said to him, “without you acting crazier than you are?”

“Uh uh uh,” Reuben said, getting back on the chair. “You must not express any negative emotions toward a disturbed person. Code Seven, paragraph three.”

“I’m a doctor,” the doctor reminded him. “I can tell you to go to hell if I want to.”

“Do you want to?” asked Reuben.

“Go to hell,” answered the doctor.

“I been there,” said Reuben in his backcountry voice, “and I ain’t goin’ back.”

“How do you feel,” asked the doctor, “about being twelve?”

“This,” said Reuben, “is my lucky year.”

The doctor looked at him blankly. “What do you mean, lucky?”

“Having luck,” Reuben answered. “Meeting with success; having good fortune. In other words, things is gonna go mah way.”

“And how,” asked the doctor, “is this marvelous thing going to occur?”

But Reuben sat quietly and did not answer. He just stroked Maynard for the rest of the half hour, until the doctor got up and opened the door and said, “Time’s up. Get lost, see you next week. Three-thirty. If you’re late, I’ll revoke your pass.”

“If I’m late,” Reuben said, “you’ll see me when I come.”

The doctor sighed as he watched Reuben go out the door. Reuben smiled. He never counted a visit as a success unless the doctor sighed as he went out the door.

Reuben got on the overhead, getting his ticket punched at the machine. When he got off at the downtown station, he flashed his purple pass at the man who took money and credit cards. The man smiled cheerfully and waved Reuben through, but Reuben noticed that he stepped back and that his eyes were full of fear as he looked at the boy. Reuben was not surprised—most people reacted to him that way. He didn’t like it. But at least he got through free—fringe benefits of being a Disturbed Person.