Luke Looks for Answers

Chapter 4

Cute Boy Heaven

(DISCLAIMER: In this story I put a lot of religious speculation into the mouth of Cute Boy God, treating it as revelation. Readers who disagree with the ideas expressed can take the point of view that this is just a dream of Luke's, or that it just applies to the Joaniverse and not our own. Few of the ideas are original with me)

I dreamt that I was standing on a flight of stairs with blank walls on either side. I had no idea what I was doing there, but there was really only two things you could do with a flight of stairs: go up or go down. And since I seemed to be facing upward, I mounted the staircase.

I emerged in a furnished attic. I knew it was an attic because the walls and ceiling were oddly shaped, to accommodate a sloping roof. There were no windows. The furnishings were fascinating enough. On one long wall were several charts: one of the solar system, another of the periodic table (both were longer than the official charts I knew, as if the designer knew of more planets and elements than everybody else did). Third was a chart I didn't recognize, but which proved to be a sketch of the human genome. Maybe that would be considered cool for a scientist to own in a few years.

On the opposite wall were sophisticated electronics devices: a VCR/DVD player with lots of options, plugged into a flat-screen TV, and a powerful computer. I looked at the list of DVD sets, and found the following:

AENEID

DIVINE COMEDY

EPIC OF GILGAMESH

FAUST

ILIAD AND ODYSSEY

KALEVALA

MAHA-BHARATA

MOHAMMED'S NIGHT JOURNEY

PARADISE LOST

RAMAYANA

"Hello, Luke," said a melodious voice behind me. "I hope you approve of my collection."

I spun around. It was the avatar that Joan called Cute Boy God, a name I disliked for obvious reasons. "I suppose you're rather disgusted with me at the moment."

"Why?" asked the Boy.

"You know why. You're omniscient. I fell lust for a married woman."

"But you rejected the temptation. That's enough for me." He pointed at the DVDs. "If you read PARADISE LOST, you'll find the passage "Evil into the mind of God or man may come and go, so unapproved, and leave no spot or blame behind".

"Thanks a lot. But I'd feel better if it had never gone through in the first place. Why do you let human brains work that way?"

The Boy seemed amused. "So now it's my fault? Sit down, Luke. I think we have a long discussion ahead."

I dropped into a chair. It was amazingly comfortable. After all, it had a perfect designer.

"Humans are the highest product of evolution, but millions of generations of animals came first, and each generation had to produce the next. Now the concept "I must mate and reproduce so that my genetic line will not die out" is too abstract for most animal brains. It's easier to give the animals a mating urge and leave it at that. But when unfocused mating urges survive into a human being, it can cause problems. It's not the only impulse, either. Cruelty and greed are other animal survivals into the human mind."

"Yeah. Can't you do anything about it?"

"But I have. I have given human beings reason, and free will. I have also given man a moral code. The combination of these were enough to help you overcome your sexual attraction to Glynis this evening. Different cultures have called the temptations by different names -- "original sin", or "bad karma", or "passions", or "the id", but they agree that they should be suppressed."

"Wow. You've never told Joan stuff like this."

"Joan's mind works differently from yours, Luke. Her point of view tends to be "what shall I do today?", so I hand her missions as they come up. I have, by the way, been encouraging Joan to think more deeply, as when she discovered the relation between mathematics and music while taking piano lessons two years ago. You, on the other hand, like searching for first principles and fundamental laws. I'm willing to help you -- even when it means withholding the actual answers, as I explained earlier tonight."

"Right."

"Now, don't blame Glynis too much for what happened tonight. She was swamped with a particularly powerful instinct -- seeking protection for her unborn child. But Glynis has a powerful brain of her own, and a high sense of ethics -- have you ever known her to hurt anybody in her life? Just give her time to work things out."

"Maybe I should avoid her for a few days."

"No, because you promised to help her, and it was a noble promise."

"Oh, crap," I said, realizing that I had painted myself into a corner. Then -- "Pardon my language."

"No need," he said, showing that irritating 'amused' air again. "As I explained to you and Grace last summer, excrement plays a crucial role in biological cycles. I'm just find it funny that humans treat it as such a negative symbol."

"Let's forget I said it, okay? Why couldn't you have helped us out by suppressing this animal stuff when humans evolved, instead of making us to deal with it?"

"Luke, think of the Garden of Eden story and what it symbolizes. There were two kinds of ways in which humans could have lived. One is in a state of perfection, symbolized by the garden -- but it required humans to play their own roles perfectly, subordinating their wishes to the needs of the perfect system. The other way is to give humans the freedom to do whatever they like, including the wrong things. The story called it the knowledge of good and evil, meaning knowing how to do both good and evil things. I keep my interventions to a minimum, working through people like your sister who choose to obey me of their own free will."

"Maybe you should have done it the first way."

"Luke, you asked me earlier about other universes. Actually, there IS another universe where I did it the first way."

"Cool! I'd like to see that."

"I may show it to you sometime. But I can predict in advance that you won't like it. Things that you consider great human achievements, science in particular, don't exist there. They require that a human being be willing to challenge the unknown instead of accepting rules. To you the people there would seem like robots, following an unseen program without any complaint. You love Grace in part because you admire her rebellious spirit; well, there is nobody in that universe like Grace."

"Then I don't want it. Heavenly or not."

"As I thought. Now, Luke, I hope your visit has helped you keep tonight's incident in perspective. Do you have anything else to ask?"

"I do. This attic -- it's the perfect place for my sort of guy. I suppose that it's a form of heaven, like the playground was."

"Yes. To paraphrase Milton, I carry my heaven around with me."

"But why do keep showing me illusions like this?" I said, waving around the attic. "Why don't you show me the real heaven?"

"I've tried that before. 700 years ago, I granted a special vision to Dante. It nearly fried his brains. By the time he wrote it down, he frankly admitted that he had forgotten most of it." The Boy pointed to the DIVINE COMEDY DVD. "I tried given a more controlled vision to your sister once -- she fainted, and couldn't retain it either."

"When did that I happen?" I asked in concern.

"Two years ago. One of her friends had just died; your parents blamed the fainting spell on grief and too many missed meals. And a few years earlier there was the sad case of a girl named Buffy -- but you get the picture."

"Yes, I do. But I have to go back to real life and tangle with Glynis and Friedmann now, right?"

"Yes. Just remember: you have knowledge of both evil and good. Use it."

I walked down the stairs, back to Earth.

TBC

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The note about Buffy refers to Season 6 of BUFFY, where the girl can't get used to real life after a stay in heaven. I couldn't resist the parallel with Joan in JUMP, but that's the only connection I ever intend to make between the two fantasy shows)