X, FINALE PART 1: Alex

Alex found himself petting a gray cat with increasing devotion and talking about being down in that blue-painted dungeon that reeked of feces and bleach, about how the other citizens of lock up seemed like they might crack open his skull at any provocation, how the guards would nudge his shoulder, and how he was in so much pain he thought he was going to pass out. He kept talking and his lips felt weird. Huge and tingly. As he talked, he tried to look down at them, which made him talk a little funny.

            “Where's Min?”  He saw the tips of his lips ask. Mo bent down to him and told him she should be in New York by now.

            “That's okay. I wish I could have said goodbye. It was bad how I said goodbye. I hope she is okay,” he said, and then something orange/red was in front of him.

            “Spaghetti?  But I want to keep petting the cat. Okay.  I need food…holy shit…you're right…the pills…my shoulder feels great,” Alex tried to move it. “Owww.”

            Mo called out of work. He put on 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Alex melted back into the couch, muttering swears of awe every ten minutes or so. When the movie got really strange, he asked for a bourbon. Mo looked it up on-line and said it was okay.  

            As the movie flashed and wobbled and exploded to an end, Alex was woozy, a head filled with helium:  “My dad said the universe was God trying to kill himself….” he said. It was the first time he had ever told anyone. He explained how He blew up, created time, the weird purple-violet magic, and looking at TV snow for messages from God.  

            It was stupid. Dad was drunk on vodka.

            But Mo was intrigued. He started talking about “Microwave background radiation” and the “big bang....”

            “Part of that snowy crap on TV. That is leftover radiation from the big bang…I swear,” Mo said.

            He's really in the TV snow? God really blew himself up?

            Mo got a map from one of his science mags—an oval map of the microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang. It covered the whole universe that we can see.  He said it's all cooling; it's like a billionth of a degree above zero temperature. The map was a purple-violet patchwork.

            …it looks like…what Dad said.

            “Is there magic in the purple bits?”

            “Absolutely,” Mo said, tittering, and explained when they caught this image one scientist said it was “like looking at the face of God.”

            Alex could see a face. His invisible friend. Visible. His eyes got wet.

            “He looks so tired and happy,” he said, his head sinking deeper in the couch.

            I hope I surprised Him, I hope He knows I kept looking for Him, I hope He doesn't give up on me…

            Alex could feel his eyelids fluttering shut, each flutter closer to total darkness. “I am so glad…I'm so happy he is finally going to get to some rest.”  

            Alex's head felt like stone, but for a moment he felt very happy. God wanted to go, he had his time and would not pull himself back together even though he could if he decided to. But, maybe…maybe Alex could: pull himself back together again, restore himself, heal.    

            “Thank you, Mo,” was the last thing he said before nodding off.