KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL
(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with JOAN. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it)
(Author's Note: This story is set shortly after the beginning of the series.)
TINKLETINKLETINKLE, went the bell on the door of the bookstore.
"May I help you?" Joan asked mechanically. "Oh, it's You." The mysterious old lady who claimed to be God had walked into the bookstore. That raised the number of customers from zero to one. It was getting late in the evening.
"Does being Me mean I don't get help?" asked the Old Lady with amusement.
"It means you shouldn't NEED help," said Joan, who at the moment was irritable enough to question the universe. "You're God."
"Perhaps I can help you, then."
"I'm all right." Joan knew that the words came out harsher than they should have, but she didn't care at the moment.
"Really, Joan?" She followed Joan back to her work table.
"Oh, OK, you win." Joan sat down and sighed. "I'm bored! Business here sucks. People don't buy books to read anymore; they surf the Internet. And when a really popular series of books does come out, like HARRY POTTER, Sammy is too snooty to stock them. And so I'm sitting here doing nothing when I could be hanging out with friends or going on dates."
"Going on dates with whom?"
"Well, that's part of the problem, isn't it? I'm new in this town and I haven't had a chance to meet any cool boys. And before you mention it, that new friend of Luke's, Friedmann, is definitely uncool. It's not just romance that's passing me by, it's any sort of excitement. I don't know why you bothered to recruit me. When you recruited Joan of Arc, she could get on a horse, wave a sword, and go charging at the enemy. Me, nothing. Yeah, I know this town is corrupt, but that's Dad's problem. I can't do anything about it."
Old Lady God sat through the tirade. When Joan had wound down, she spoke up. "Joan, why do you think I asked you to get a job in a bookstore?"
"To inspire Kevin and to catch the pervert who was wandering around the neighborhood. I don't know why I have to STAY in the job."
The lady waved a hand at the bookshelves. "Joan, there are thousands and thousands of pages of information and entertainment just at your fingertips. You don't have to surf the Internet to find things worth reading. You definitely don't have to stay bored."
"Is that a hint that you want me to read something in particular?" God was always giving her hints. It could get quite annoying sometimes.
The old lady went into the stacks and plucked a book off the shelves. It looked random, but Joan suspected that She foreknew where to find the book She wanted. She showed the title to Joan.
"'Uncle Tom's Cabin'?" That's so yesterday. I mean, slavery was abolished 150 years ago."
"It's the analysis of good and evil that matters. How does a good man resist evil? Was the victim who avoided using violence against his oppressors a saint, or simply a fool who let himself be exploited? Nonviolent resistance is still an issue today."
"OK." Joan dutifully took the book and opened it.
It was weird. One moment Joan was sitting in the bookstore reading the tome. Then suddenly she found herself standing in a muddy road in the countryside. It was nighttime in both cases, but this night was far darker than any she had experienced in a city, and also much warmer. Somehow her jeans were gone and she was wearing an ankle-length dress, a rather cheap one.
Suddenly an African-American girl rushed at her, not from down the road but from the high plants at the side of the path. She started at seeing Joan, and then said "Oh! You're a sister."
"Um, yeah," said Joan, confused.
"You need ta hide. The hunters are after me, and they won't care the difference between one sister and 'nother."
"Hunters?" repeated Joan, shocked.
"They called bonny hunters, after the price on me head. I gotta run, and so do you."
She meant bounty hunters, Joan realized. Her father had told her how, in more primitive societies, there was no dependable central police force dedicated to abstract justice. Instead you offered a reward, and people would try to catch a criminal for the sake of the money. If you didn't have money enough to offer a reward, you were out of luck.
And while Joan was mulling this historical point – she was too disoriented to consider herself in actual danger from hunters – she lost her chance to escape.
Four men on horseback charged down the road at her. "There she is! Cut her off."
One man rode past her, missing Joan by inches. He then tried to turn the horse around abruptly, causing the horse to rear up. Joan screamed and dodged the horses' hooves. To Joan, who had gone on pony rides a couple of times as a little girl but had never taken an interest in horseback riding, the animals had always seemed quaint, something out of a western movie or LORD OF THE RINGS. But these were frightening, ridden by men who knew the power the horses gave them, and how to use it to terrify a mere pedestrian.
"Wait," said one man. "This ain't her. The fug'tive girl was wearing a yellow dress."
Joan suddenly caught on to what was going on. She was appearing to them as an African-American girl – a slave.
Another man swore in annoyance at letting their true quarry get away ; a third said "I still want to know what she's doing here. You, who's your master?"
"I don't have any master but God," replied Joan.
"Hell, she's been listening to those damn ab'lishunists," said the man whose horse had passed her. "You been talking to Yankees, girl?"
"I speak to whomever I want, and I don't want to talk to you."
"Look like this one's worth bringing in, let the sheriff get the story out of her," said one man. "Come with us, girl."
"And on the way there—" one man ogled her. "Who'd complain if we-?"
"No!" Suddenly she remembered her mother's story, about how a man had attacked her during her freshman year of college.
One man yanked her arm upward from horseback, nearly dislocating it.
"No. My God! God help me!."
Suddenly Joan found herself back in the bookstore, gasping for breath, the book on the floor. The old lady tried to take her into her arms, but Joan wrested herself free.
"What the hell was that about?" shouted Joan. "Did You do that to punish me for mouthing off? Well, consider me punished, and next time pick on somebody Your own size! If they exist."
Old Lady God looked sad. "It was not a punishment, Joan, but a lesson to learn."
"I didn't get the lesson," Joan said in annoyance. Not a sensible thing to say, Joan. Suppose She decides you need another nightmare to learn the lesson properly?
"To you, Joan, the oppression of slaves is history. But I see things from the eternal point of view, and I am omniscient. The evil you saw just now, is something that I see all the time."
"But it's not something I can do anything about."
"Not that specific evil, but there are other evils in the world. Your own mother—"
"Don't go into that. I get your point."
"The reason you are bored, Joan, as that you have largely been protected from the evils of the world. People have worked to try to make the world better."
"People working as your errand-goers, like me?" Joan was losing her defensiveness as she realized that God was trying to get a valuable idea across to her.
"Some of them. Some are driven by religious sentiment in general, or by an abstract desire for justice, like your father. It's an ongoing thing, Joan. There is a lot of suffering still in the world…"
"I want to stop it!"
"THAT is why I have recruited you, Joan. To help make the world better. Some of it you won't understand at the time, but I do have a plan. But that's all in the future." The old lady got up. "Enjoy yourself now, Joan – when you can." She went to the door, with an odd wave of her hand.
Joan noticed that UNCLE TOM'S CABIN was still sitting on the floor. She picked it up gingerly, fearful that the touch might throw her into another nightmare. But it was just a book now, and its only influence on her now was in her memory, the awareness of evil. She put it back on the shelf and sat down at the table again thoughtfully.
It looked like she wasn't going to be bored again for a long time…
THE END