The Hollow Men - Episode 42
Drew completes his mission but the results aren't what he expected, no, not at all what he expected.
Last week in Episode 41 of The Hollow Men Drew hears voices, solves a puzzle that has been bothering him for years and goes on a mission to bring back one of his closest friends.
The Hollow Men is the second (but not the last) collection of not quite true tales of Texas. If you have recently subscribed and like to read things from the very beginning feel free to start with The Cold Days of Summer, the first collection of not quite true tales of Texas. Each episode of The Cold Days of Summer and The Hollow Men contains a link to the previous and next episode so you can easily move through the story line.
A wake up call, but for who?
Author’s note: a quick reminder of where things ended up last episode: Drew finally figured out Rick’s cryptic “dogmy” chant and decides to take action. He is at the Anders’ home on a Sunday morning, Rick’s parents have just left for church.
I watched the Ander’s family car shrink in the distance down the road. Mr. and Mrs. Anders were going to church and left me in charge of things. I closed their front door, turned around, and walked back to Rick’s room. I knocked lightly on the door, opened it, walked in with a smile on my face and said “Hey, Rick, how you doing, man?”
Déjà vu. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, lightly rocking back and forth, and quietly chanting “dogmy” over and over again. I sat down in Rick’s office chair from the days of VP Tanks. I let him rock and chant for a couple of minutes. And then I said “I am God.”
Rick stopped rocking, stopped chanting, looked me straight in the eye and said “Took you long enough.” He stood up, walked towards me, and said “Of course, you got it wrong, you’re not God. I am.” With that he slapped me hard on the shoulder and laughed.
“No, I didn’t get it wrong. I figured it out.”
“Oh, Drew, I know you got it right. After all I am God. You know, the omniscient, all seeing one.”
Hearing such words being spoken by one of your best friends brings a conversation to a halt and so it did to this one. What can you say when your friend says he’s God, when that is the first sensible thing he has said in three years? Not much, let me tell you, not much.
So instead of saying anything, I just sat there and looked at him. And, to make it even more fun, he just stared at me in return, looking down at me. Finally he spoke.
“It has been so long since I talked and anyone listened to me, I don’t really know what to say. Man, it sure got boring waiting on you to figure out what I was saying.”
“It was the voice that finally caused me to see things differently, that and Jason’s werd belt.”
Rick laughed, shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Man, you remember how embarrassed you were when Jason saw you in the hallways at Permian and called out ‘werd?’ I didn’t get it at first, just thought it was some new kind of slang, but you knew almost immediately what was going on, didn’t you?”
“Not really, I guess when I first heard ‘werd’ it just took me back in time to that first day of first grade, but I really didn’t know what was going on, not until Jason introduced himself.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Drew. You knew, deep inside you knew. That time, the feeling that ‘werd’ brought onto you was so uncomfortable that you withdrew. I don’t know if you ever understood you see things differently because you were made to see things differently. There is a reason for how you see the world, but instead of figuring out the reasons you spent so much of your time adjusting your vision to see the world as you thought others did that you often forget you do see things differently. Jason was in that hallway for a reason. Jason remembers things, little details, faces, voices, moments that no one else can. He remembers those things for a reason. Remember how it took you a few minutes to realize who Jason was, that you knew him from Ross Elementary and that, in truth, he was one of your oldest friends, even though you didn’t know it until that day? Everything happens for a reason, everything. Just don’t expect to know the reason why for everything.”
Again, all I could do was stare at him. He hadn’t made sense in years and now he’s saying things that are going right over my head.
“Rick, you’re going to have to slow down, or something. You’ve said more in the last minute that most people say in their entire lives, at least as far as saying something of any real value. You’re serious about this, aren’t you? You really think you are God.”
“No, I don’t think I am God. I am God. Or, as I said to Moses ‘I am that I am.’ That’s all you need to know. I am that I am. Don’t worry, I know it’s confusing, and maybe even a little frightening, but give it time, it will make sense if you let it.”
“Rick, I don’t know, I just don’t know. God? I don’t even know if I believe in God, much less, that my friend has become God?”
Rick looked at me for a long time, sighed, looked to the ceiling, turned around and walked back to his bed. He sat on the edge of the bed and for a moment I worried he was about to start chanting his dyslexic mantra again.
Well, he didn’t. Apparently he wasn’t turning back that day, he had more to say to me.
“Drew, you say you don’t believe in God. What do you believe in? Do you believe in anything, anything that’s bigger than you? Don’t you realize without faith, faith in something, anything, you might as well be dead? In fact, if you don’t have faith you are dead, dead in the soul, in the heart, in what really matters. You might be walking this earth, but you are dead.”
Rick/God wasn’t through talking.
“This, this is where people get all messed up. They think things are far more complicated when it is really very simple, complex, yes, but very simple. Let’s start with a fundamental truth. There are only two kinds of people, the ones who are dead and the ones who are living. Yet people get wrapped up in their petty differences, the color of their skin, the language they speak, the name of their god. Absolutely none of that shit matters, none of it. All that matters is are you alive or are you dead? That’s it.”
Was I dead or alive? Physically alive, yes, but I was lost, as lost as Rick had been. He was back, and I was walking this earth but walking without any real purpose or destination in mind. Sometimes it felt that the fast few years I was a pinball in a pinball machine just bouncing around at the whim of whoever was in control of the game. It sure didn’t seem to be me. I was still in the game but I wasn’t sure if I was alive in Rick/God’s metaphorical sense.
“Drew, you need to look deep inside yourself, and, damn it, quit thinking, quit trying to be logical, and, instead, listen to the voices inside you.”
Rick was getting wound up, I could feel the emotion in his voice churning up.
“In every religious text every prophet, even the Messiah himself, was thought to be crazy by people of this world because they dared to speak of things, of worlds, of truths that others could not see. That’s not what you do. You are no prophet. You see those things, those worlds, those truths but you tell no one because you are so desperate to fit in. You’ve done this so well and for so long you’ve have damn near convinced yourself that so much of what you hear and dream isn’t true, simply because others aren’t hearing it or seeing it. You are becoming like them: If you can’t see it, if you can’t believe it, if you can’t understand it, then it has to be crazy, it can’t be real. For just once I wish you people would open your eyes and ears and see, hear what’s right in front of you.”
“Jesus, would you quit doing that!”
That seemed to break the churn. Rick looked at me for a moment then said calmly “Yes, that is one of my names, but you can call me Rick, that’s how you’ve always known me and I always liked that name.” Rick laughed at that, and I’ll admit it was a pretty good line, but I was having a hard time dealing with this. He was Rick, he was God, and now he’s a comedian. What next?
Author’s note: In waking Rick up Drew has gotten more than he expected.
This week's episode was a short one, but it seemed like the natural breaking point before we head into the final two episodes of The Hollow Men.
Okay, if you've been along for the ride of these "not quite true tales of Texas" what happened in this episode shouldn't have been too big of a surprise.
Early on I knew the story of Drew and his friends would take some strange, real strange turns. I've been dropping hints throughout The Cold Days of Summer and The Hollow Men. It started with the voices and sounds that only Drew seems to hear. It continued with Drew's dyslexia and how it caused him to see a reflected world. It continued with Drew's dreams of the field world. And now it has come full circle with Rick waking up and being more than Drew expected.
I think the term déjà vu is magical. It can mean
an experience that somehow feels old even when it is experienced for the first time.
a strange sense of uncomfortable familiarity or sameness.
realizing you've been in a situation, place, experience or environment before.
Or it can be a damn fine album…
I've experienced all those types of déjà vu over and over and over again through the years. So has Drew and so have you by reading these "not quite true tales of Texas."
There is a genre of literature called magical realism - where the story or tale seems grounded in reality, but something else is going on, something that can't be explained easily, logically or rationally. If that topics intrigues you, the Magical Realism article on Wikipedia is a good starting point.
Though I didn't intentionally try to fit these tales in magical realism, that's where they wound up.
Next week, in the 43rd episode of The Hollow Men Drew quits listening to Rick but sees one way the pieces in a strange puzzle might fit together.
Strange yet so real, or at least a reality