"Joshua."
The voice glowed when it called his name. How can a voice glow? It sounds strange to say so, but it was as if the voice itself was a flair of light spreading across his mind… rich, warm, golden light, with an undertone of green. And it was definitely his name that it was calling.
"Joshua, when are you coming?"
The voice had changed. It was a girl's—at least as old as his big sister, but so frightened, so… dependant. He could never have imagined a girl his sister's age needing him so badly.
"Joshua, a Son of Adam. His name is Salvation."
A deep, throaty male voice. Authority.
"Joshua, Joshua, Joshua…"
Voices multiplied, rang across his naked, defenseless mind. Pleading voices. Bitter or angry voices. Eager voices. Dull, sad, hopeless voices. And still the power of the first Voice's glow seared and sliced him, warmed and caressed him. And it seemed as if in the chaos of the legion of voices calling his name, there was something else that they were looking for. Something beside him and behind him. Something within the glow that was branding itself on him since the moment it had called his name.
The Voice took the burden of the voices' pleading from his shoulders, but it gave him another burden. A burden to itself. And that frightened him most of all.
"Hey, Joshie." It was a normal voice, a friendly, playful, everyday-voice. His mother's. They were sitting over a picture-book—a book of Bible stories. A man stood and carried a pole with clusters of the most massive grapes he had ever seen. He wore strange, hanging clothes with stripes on them, which reminded him of Daddy's dressing-robe. He was smiling so big. It was a smile meant for something bigger than Humongous Grapes.
"Do you know who this man is?" his mother asked. "His name is Joshua, just like yours…"
". BEEP. Beep, beep, beep…"
His mother and the picture-book and the voices were all gone. Almost.
The alarm-clock on top of his chest of drawers kept muttering at him obnoxiously. He wiped a hand across his bleary eyes and staggered over to it to bop its button, and then began to change out of his pajamas into his school clothes. He shook his head, trying to get his dark forelock out of his eyes.
That was some dream. That would be one of his holding-dreams—not something he'd talk about to people, but something he'd keep tight inside and try to remember, and wonder about when his mind wandered in classes. Like a jewel in a pirate's buried hoard.
But as he scurried out of his bedroom, carrying his shoes by their laces, he knew that the dream was not quite gone yet.
"Are you here?" He whispered.
"I am here, Joshua, my son." The glow inside answered.
The Great and Generous Supervisor grinned at the lines of Citizens passing him. He waved them along through a haze of joy. Dogs, Birds, Cats, fauns—yes, business as usual, business as beautiful usual.
He couldn't remember when he'd been so happy. When he'd begun to be so happy, rather. She had told him there was a time when he wasn't this way, when he was a dull, bored old thing with a name that sounded grey and wet and weathery. Who would ever want a life like that, he wondered? Then his grin changed to a superior smirk. Perhaps they would. All of the Ordinary Rabble, the Citizens, the worker class of this fair realm. They were all so dour and humorless. Why, the Great and Generous Supervisor guessed they wouldn't even have the brains to laugh at one of His Noble Majesty's brilliant jokes!
Her Ladyship, She Who Knows All, had promised that when the most urgent work of the realm was done she would Uplift all but the bare few of them needed for maintenance to the same happy level as himself. He knew Her timing was perfect, but all the same, the Great and Generous Supervisor could scarcely wait. He felt as if he hardly had anyone to talk to except in the few minutes before and after he was Processed each weekend, and that was sad, since such a joyous thing happened as bookends on the one depressing thing left in his life. It was so good of Them to be there to talk to him when it happened, however. Her Ladyship, His Noble Majesty, or the Second Lord and Lady—one of them would always be there for him to lead him in to the Processing Chamber, and to bring him a cup of good wine and reassure him when it was over. He would be going in at the end of the Southern District Shift, when all these Citizens he was Supervising now were resting from their turns.
Life was good. The Supervisor nodded to himself, swished away a fly, and trotted into line behind the last Southern District Species Platoon on its way to Her castle.
"What is it now?" a girl's voice shrieked. She threw an antique dinner-platter at the head of the Stoat who had opened her drawing-room door, and the Stoat executed a well-practiced dodge, still grinning fixedly.
"My Goodman the Great and Generous Supervisor of the Southern District is here for Processing and either your Second-Ladyship or his Second-Lordship shall have to be there to see to him as She and He are busy with affairs of state, Madame," the Stoat blurted in a single breath.
"Oh. Oh." Her Second Ladyship grimaced, then sighed. "I guess you'll have to do it, m'lord."
"What, me? Why me?" His Second Lordship whined. "You know how I hate dealing with these mundanes, even though it is all for the good of Queen & Country and all that. I don't know why she has to keep the driveling, grinning little rotters around. Couldn't she have just Uplifted a few guards and given them personalities or something?"
Her Second Ladyship glared at him in consternation.
"Oh, right. Not to question Her judgment in any way, of course. She's magnificent, She's the only thing worth having in this whole rotten world. But sometimes I guess ordinary, hard-working politicians like me just can't understand Her. Why She'd make me go off as an ambassador of Her goodness to a rotten old country full of sand for a whole stinking month, for example—that's a Divine decision that's beyond mere human logic."
"My dear, dear lord," Her Second Ladyship purred to him, "of course I would never even think of accusing you of sedition. It's not your sort of crime." She smiled brightly. "I just wanted to give you an opportunity to make me and Her Ladyship happy, being as she's so busy and all, and I need to study up on etiquette before I accompany Her train for a visit back North this autumn…"
His face went very stiff and flat, and there was a glitter in his eyes.
"Of course, Pole," he said, and patted the Stoat on the head as he left the room. She sat down heavily to her desk, and she knew by the heat in her face that it must be going all red and splotchy. She'd only half-won this battle. Him, her own ranking partner, using the old name just to one-up her… that was indecent.