I looked at my mom satisfied. She had made me think. I felt somehow refreshed. "Thanks mom. You've given me something to ponder." I gave her a warm hug to show her I meant what I said.
"Then you know you have a soul now?"
"Well, I didn't say that. I don't want to decide right now. I evidently made that mistake before--I wouldn't want to do that again."
"Then we're still talking!"
"Aw mom! I got what you said and I think I even believe it. Let me go and have some time to myself, ok? I'm not trying to patronize you or anything. I'm just being honest. Don't make me have to lie to you just so I can get out of this bathroom." I said with a trace of a smile on my face.
"If you were just some kid I'd worry about that, Cookie, but you are grown up. You know how important this is. I don't think you'll just tell me what I want to hear. I know you don't like this. I also know that you probably have a 'need to know' attitude right now. Let's go ahead and finish this. Put it behind you. Have done with it."
I looked at her. "I guess I am procrastinating. Now may be the time to make up my mind. I think I already have. I just feel afraid to accept it. It's what I always wanted. I have wanted to have a soul ever since I had been told I couldn't have one. Now that it is upon me I am frightened to accept it."
"What do you mean Cookie?"
"You know. When I want something really bad it seems like it is always taken from me."
"I think I know what you're talking about, Cookie. Everybody feels what you're talking about. This keeps going back to when we are just little kids. I guess a lot of what we think is formed back then.
"Here we are a kid going along our merry little way. We are always playing and wetting our diaper and just having a hell of a good time. Everything is me, me, me, because we aren't even aware that there are other people out there yet. All we see is a world with things in it that are all interesting. Somewhere we learn those things can be nice. Later we learn some things aren't nice. We learn that later because our parents keep the things that aren't good for us away from us. Eventually we are exposed to the not nice things.
"Wanting is almost everything. We have short attention spans so even when we have something that is nice it isn't long before we tire of it and want something else.
"We want this. We want that. We want it all. We expect it all.
"Our parents give us what is good for us and don't let us play with guns or drive the family car. We can't differentiate between the reasons why we get the good things and the reasons why the bad things are held back. We get more upset with our parents when they hold things back from us than we are grateful for the things they give to us.
"Of what value is a bottle to a baby? It has very little value because we can get one at the first whimper. Now the car is another matter. We've got to wait fifteen years for that one so it just has to be worth a lot more.
"It makes it seem like there are more things that we are denied than we are given. The things that we want the most are the things we can't have. That's because we can't have 'em. You learn that if you want something, don't act like it! That will surely mean someone will step in and see that you don't get it.
"That's what you are feeling now, Cookie."
I got up. Now I was the one who wanted to do some pacing. I had said the same thing many times before. I was surprised that the thoughts I had assumed were my mine alone were being thought by maybe everyone.
What she had said was presumably why I was feeling the way I felt. It was good to hear it from someone else. I crossed my arms for a moment then I put my finger in my mouth and began to nibble on my nail absentmindedly. I was my mother's daughter, that's for sure!
I was ready to take the plunge. I was ready to admit that I was as good as anyone 'in the eyes of God'. Mom was egging me on, helping me.
"Y'know mom, you're right!"
"Good. Finally. This has been more of an ordeal than it should have been."
"Yeah, I guess I've been acting pretty flaky."
"There you are putting yourself down again!" mom told me bewildered. "You are really something special--even if you look like you've been on a three week crying jag. Let's get you cleaned up some. I hope I don't look as bad as you!"
I laughed. Mom was trying to lighten the mood but I figured that I probably did look pretty sorry. Mom's eyes were puffy from crying so much. I peeked in the mirror and found I looked a lot worse than she did.
Mom came up behind me. She looked at herself in the mirror and laughed hopelessly, sarcastically. She rested her elbows on my shoulders and made a face in the mirror. "Gad! Let's get cleaned up!"
"Yeah, you look alright but I could get arrested or something." I joked.
"Ow! Don't say that! I think you're a very pretty girl slash young woman. That's one of the things I've missed. I really wish I had been there when you were growing up. I think we would have liked doing lots of things together. You know, girl stuff."
"Well I'm still your little girl."
"Nope, you are really your own woman now, Cookie. I guess that was why it was so important to your father and me that you be made to see that you have an afterlife waiting for you. (I can't believe the government stood behind something so stupid.)"
"I know I'm grown now, mom, but there is still a part of me that wants to be your daughter/little girl/something."
"Good. I want it too. I think I'm like you though. I can't decide what our roles together are. In one way I look at you as a friend yet there is a part of me that wants to have long mother-to-daughter talks with you."
"That's ok with me. I feel I will be a much better person sharing what I have already learned with you and you sharing with me."
"That's a lot of it for me too, daughter. A sharing sort of relationship."
"I like it when you call me that."
"What?"
"Daughter. It fills something."
"It does for me too. Hey! You know what I've always wanted to do with my daughter?"
"What mom?"
"Braid her hair...could I?"
I looked at her surprised. She wanted to do it. I'd only seen a few people wearing their hair in braids. Some of the hairdos like that didn't look too bad. Mom would probably want to do mine like I was real young. It might be fun and she had said it was something she had always wanted to do. What harm could there be? I was willing to find out, after all she had given me life. "Sure. I think it'll be fun. Do you want to do it right now?" I asked still unsure of what she was up to.
"Yep, now. You're sure you don't mind, Cookie? I mean , all we're doing is just talking, so why not? If you don't like them you can always just take them out."
"Now you are putting yourself down, mom. I think it would be a nice mother-daughter thing to do and we're doing more than 'just talking'."
"Great! I knew this girl back on earth, Patty, we were good friends. She used to have braids down here, here, here, and here." Mom pointed as she talked. She was more or less talking about putting braids on both sides of my head, maybe quite a few. "She looked real good like that. Wanna try it?"
"Ok."
"First wash your face, Sue. Your eyes are a mess! You don't mind if I call you Sue do you?"
"No. I like my name. Cookie is just my CB name. I like it too. I guess I want my friends to call me Cookie, but I'd really like for you and dad to call me Sue."
I rinsed off my face and was trying to do something with my eyes using Shela's make up (I guess) from a shelf above the sink while mom started working on my hair.
Mom was explaining something to me. "Sue was the name of the doctor who made it possible for me to have you. If it hadn't been for her I doubt if there would have been enough people here to keep the species going. She was a worker. I liked her."
"I'll have to see if I can find her in the records, mom. Maybe she wrote something too."
Mom had combed out my hair straight. I guess it was really on the short side to be trying to braid. She was enjoying herself though. It made me smile to watch her as she began separating my hair.
"Here hold this." She instructed me. "We all wrote things, although I don't think you'll be able to generate much interest for what your father wrote. He was the liaison between most of the colonies. I think all he did was submit his notes from the meetings he had had with the various leaders. Hey. This is going to look good. See how this part will be?"
I looked but I still had no idea what she was doing. "Yeah, that looks fine."
"Smile for me. You look so worried Sue. You make me think you are afraid of what I'll do with your hair." she sort of giggled.
"No, that's not it, mom. I'm still thinking about my soul. Deciding that I had a soul had to be about the last thing on my mind today. I feel drained."
"Tell me about it. I didn't think you would ever come around. You really had your mind made up. You are very strong-willed."
"Oh yuk! Don't say that mom. It makes me sound like some hard old biddy."
"There's nothing wrong with having a sense of purpose, Sue. I like that in you. You are your own person."
"After the way I acted today? I'm surprised you still want to talk to me after I cried all over the place."
"You had been hurting quite a bit and for a long time. It's still not over. It'll take a lot more than a day before you get things settled out in your mind. You're young. You've got time. We have both got time."
"I'll need it. I feel...saved, yet at the same time there is a feeling of dread or something. I don't know what it is. It's like I've forgotten something important. I can't remember exactly what and it feels like it's eating at me."
"Let's see if we can get it out in the open." mom tried to encourage me to keep talking.
"I'd love to but I don't know what it is."
"It's probably that mindset thing again."
She had one side of my head nearly done. I liked what she was doing with my hair. There was also a sense of touching, something more than just words. A communication of the bodies. Her hands were gentile with me. She was mom.
"Sue, I'm going to go out to the hover car to get my purse. I've got some make-up that'll knock you out. Will you be alright? I'll only be a moment."
"Sure I'll be fine. I like what this is starting to look like."
"There's nothing to cheer the spirits better than a session in front of the mirror trying new things. I'll only be a moment."
"Ok."
Mom darted out of the bathroom. I could hear the others in the front room asking her questions. She cut them off and went outside to the car. In a minute she was back. I had hardly had time to try to figure out how she was doing the braiding. She put her purse on the counter next to the sink. I was set to see what kind of goodies she had to show me. She had also gotten my purse. Not the one I had been using when Shela and I had gone shopping earlier. It was the one I had tossed my gun in the night I had seen Ralph for the first time since I had left Old Tower.
I winced when mom tossed it on the counter next to the sink. I wondered what I would tell her was in that purse. I wondered how I would explain that I carried a gun or how I had killed with it. Suddenly my life was back in the dumpster again.
That's when that old mindset stepped in. It reminded me of the people I had killed. The two men I had shot to death and the many many people who had died on account of the rains that I had caused to happen. I had gone from dying and that was it, to dying and going to hell!
***
I was shaking all over and I had the cold sweats.
"Oh mom, help me..." I called helplessly. I already knew that what I was asking was impossible. I was asking her to protect me from the wrath of God.
I was scrounged up beside her on the commode in my father's house. She was holding me tightly and trying her best to comfort me, but there was no comfort for me. I had sinned in the worst of ways--I had killed another human being--many times over. The worst part was I didn't care about those people I had killed. I was more worried about taking my brand new out-of-the-box soul and just going to hell.
"Take it easy, will ya'?"
"Oh mom, I feel so bad. My stomach hurts."
"You're not going to be sick, are you?"
"No....no...Oh what am I going to do?"
"You could quit acting like it's all your fault."
I looked at her. I tried to calm down but I couldn't stop shaking. "Mom, I've got to tell you something. I've killed people before. I shot two men with that gun and I was one of the ones that started the rain makers."
"I know. Toni told me about the men you had to shoot. You tried your best not to hurt them so that's not your fault. As for the people that were killed in the rains and the floods that's not your fault either. There must still be something inside of you that wants you to be punished. I'm not surprised. I had heard you had never let it out before."
I didn't want to think about it anymore. I had opened up and it had hurt. It had hurt worse than anything I could imagine. I wanted to die so bad that I wondered why I didn't.
It was another mindset. The body was still concentrating on living. That's what keeps us alive like when we are in an accident and we are in such pain that we just will ourselves to give up. The mindset says something like, "yea, yea, we're gonna die, but first let me pump this blood, let me draw one last breath...oh, gotta pump some more...need another breath of air... just wait. Let me keep this going..." and so on until you come back to your senses.
What were my senses?
"Mom, I hadn't wanted to kill anyone. If I hadn't killed those guards they would have killed me and Jet and Toni and even Killer. I wasn't like that man who killed for a living that the colony manager had with him."
"Cookie, God would have forgiven even that man. God will forgive you too."
"I feel bad for myself that I have killed, mom. Sure I feel some remorse for the people who have died , but the overwhelming feeling I have is for me."
"It should be that way, Cookie. You had not done those things knowing ahead of time that you would kill. You didn't want to kill. It had been thrust upon you. I'm not making excuses for you. I'm talking about the truth.
"Cookie, you would have been tickled if those guards had surrendered to you so that you didn't have to shoot them. I know you had to do what you did. As far as the people who died because of the rains you hadn't known ahead of time that they would die. It had been accidental deaths. It hadn't been your idea. I'm not trying to let you worm out of it completely. What I'm saying is blame yourself just for what you did, not for everything that happened after that.
"People died and, yes, you were, in some ways, responsible, but you were not so much to blame that your soul should spend eternity in hell. When you were one of the ones who stopped the rains against Killer's wishes, I think, you reclaimed your own salvation."
The whole book in zip file format.
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