Chapter Nineteen: Dark Fantasy
Bowser said yes (of course). The drink was something fancy looking in a green kettle, but Bowser didn't really pay attention. He was more interested in the boo's talking, as the boo continued speaking as he floated around and poured drinks.
"Miracles can start as very small things. Very strange, but… subtle enough, unknown enough, that they are not passed around as great news, but only passed around with low voices. In places like bars, when people have had two or three drinks, and that fearful Thing, that confusing, not easily understandable, and so perhaps somewhat forgotten Happening… has a better chance of spilling out, so-to-speak."
The boo poured for himself and Bowser.
"Cheers," The boo suggested, raising his glass out to Bowser.
Bowser tapped his own short glass to the boo's. "Cheers," He said distantly. He brought the drink back to his mouth, but paused to watch the boo drink, the liquid pouring into the large mouth, and…
Well, it was gone somewhere.
Bowser drank.
"Boos can drink, yes. Even though we are dead, we are still tangible, feeling, to the world. Material. We have lost proper spiritual passage in favor of an odd, continued existence in this world."
"Did you choose it?" Bowser asked, already forgetting his decision to just let the boo speak.
"Choose what? To be a boo?" The boo looked into the fire. "I suppose I must have. But I don't remember it. That's part of the curse. I remember most of my living life, but not the moment, or the method, by which I chose to become a boo after death. Even more disturbingly, I cannot remember the reasons why I chose this."
"Is it lonely?" Bowser leaned forward. Maybe the green drink was spurring him on. "What's so bad about being a boo?"
"Loneliness is one thing." The boo took a poker and began poking it in the fireplace, breaking wood into coals. "Maybe worse is uncertainty, and the sense of being outside the proper stream of existence. A ghost, a boo, is not quite natural. I had to perform some arcane ritual, I am sure, to ensure I would become like this after death. Once I woke up after my death, I had forgotten my purpose, and so I became stuck. Stuck not knowing what I hoped to accomplish as a ghost, and without knowing how to escape it."
Bowser stared into the fire.
"Have you heard the story about the boy who met God and asked for the world?"
Bowser shivered. "What? Story about… the boy who met God?" He considered. "No… I guess there's more than a few though. I've never heard one about a boy asking for the world, though."
The boo was staring deep into the fire.
"A long time ago, many many years ago… thousands… there was a time when God walked the earth. The sentient creatures knew of God. They could even meet God. There were places at the edge of the world, on the tops of mountains and stretches of harsh desert, when one would be more likely to meet Him. Because God was finishing his work on the world. He was finishing the farthest edges of the map, and when He was done, He would leave this world.
There was a young man, a boy, hungry for adventure. He was hungry for the world. He knew very little, as he hailed from a small village, and spent his childhood working on his family's farm. His family was very poor.
But the boy had seen other people passing through from the cities outside and from other far away places, and he learned from them about the wonders of the wider world. And he heard stories of God, God the creator and all-powerful, wandering the edges of the world. And so the boy decided to set out, and find God, and ask a wish of Him."
Yes, because it was said that if you met God, you could ask for anything you desired."
Bowser shivered.
"So the boy set out. He crossed rivers, and forests, and managed to stow aboard a ship crossing the ocean, and finally, he reached a great desert. And it was here he thought to find God.
By some luck, good or ill, he wandered into the desert, and had not gone far, not more than a half day, before he found God.
The boy was astounded to meet God, but satisfied that his journey would be rewarded.
'God', the boy entreated, 'I heard you will grant any prayers that are asked of you. I have a great prayer.'
And the boy was about to ask to become king of the world— but his tongue faltered.
Only now he wondered about all the others who had met God, who surely had asked to become kings themselves. He remembered the kings and queens he had heard stories of, people who had ruled for some years, short or long, but had often been executed in bloody rebellions, or who had died in old age, and had had their kingdoms split apart by their heirs in bloody wars.
To ask to be a king was a trick, the boy decided.
So he asked for what he thought was better:
'God, I want to experience all the greatest things of this life! I want to experience the greatest pleasures, the most noble victories, the most astounding secrets! I want all that is greatest in this life!'
Here was a much better wish, the boy imagined.
God considered this. God was willing to grant the wishes and prayers of his children who managed to find him. But he exacted a law in exchange, a law necessary to his perfectly balanced world: that every wish had an equal cost in price. In order to ensure the balance of this existence, every action had to be balanced by an opposite action.
'I can grant your prayer,' God replied, 'But there is a cost in exchange. If you would experience all of the greatest pleasures of this world, you will also have to experience all of the worst pains. Physical agonies. The most wretched sights of horror. The deepest sadnesses. All that is most horrible, that can happen to a man. The very worst hells, before the greatest heavens.'
The boy was frightened. But he had come so far, and the idea of the greatest happiness lured him on.
And he thought, and asked: Could the pain come first, and then the happiness? For life, continued along from great pain into increasingly great happiness, would surely be better than the alternative.
'That can be granted,' God assented, 'From the greatest pains, you will ascend increasingly into the greatest good and happiness. From your position it will always appear impossibly steep, vertical. But the ascent is certain.'
The boy agreed to this. God asked a final time if the deal be struck.
'After this deal is struck, it cannot be undone. No matter how you may scream and cry, I will not save you. No matter how you pray and beg, scratching in the darkness, I will do nothing. In time, you will not even remember making this deal.'
The boy, who could not imagine the greatest good, and certainly not the greatest bad, agreed. The worst pain he imagined as the emaciating of the body by a farm tool. In the greatest good, he imagined diverse sexual pleasures.
He made the agreement with God. He made the agreement quickly— he made the leap, before his fears could stop him.
The boo stopped talking.
The fire crackled. Bowser was gripped not just with tension, but a state bordering on terror.
"And then—?!"
"That is how the story ends."
Bowser wanted to scream.
"If it's true," The boo pondered, "I wonder if the boy is still alive. Would the greatest good include living in unending bliss? But in that case, thinking about time, would the worst pain include unending pain? If the boy made his prayer thousands of years ago, has he finished his suffering yet? Is he living as a rich king now? Or has he only attained the status of a worm? How many different pains and pleasures exist in the universe?"
"I hate that story," Bowser declared. "I hate that. Why did you tell me that?"
"It's only a legend. I thought you might find it interesting." The boo floated up from his seat. "Have another drink?"
"Yes." Bowser replied flatly.
The boo poured from the same green kettle as from before, one cup for himself, one for Bowser.
"Cheers."
"Huh, cheers."
Clink.
"Actually," The boo said, after finishing the drink, "There's another story I wanted to tell you."
Bowser sighed. "Is it a happier story?"
The boo wore a real smile for the first time since Bowser had entered the room. "Yes. I think so. And it's definitely true. It is a story of the Koopa Kingdom, a long time ago. I think this is the story you came here for, actually. The story of who I am, and what my relation is to the Koopa Kingdom."
Bowser sighed again, now in relief. "Okay. Yes. I'm very interested."
The boo nodded. "Yes, I thought so. Listen."