I am the GodVolume II: The Question
The gods noticed the Question on Friday.
They had felt it arrive — all of them, simultaneously, the way entities of sufficient awareness feel things that disturb the upper registers — and they had convened their second meeting and they had discussed Chuck Norris and Marcus Webb and the plumber as mirror and the kitchen as the place where something was happening that none of them could accelerate or redirect.
They had dispersed.
They had watched.
What they watched, across the following week, was this:
A man who had stood at the edge of the inside of everything sitting in a small kitchen in Wilson, Texas, drinking coffee and talking about pipes.
The youngest entity, who had been the most perceptive in both meetings, watched the most carefully.
By Sunday evening it had seen enough to call a third meeting.
The third meeting was smaller than the first two.
Not all the entities came — the older unnamed ones, the ones who had existed since before language and operated at a distance from the specific currents of existence that produced things like kitchens and plumbers, sent their awareness but not their full presence. The entity with the theological literature came, and came with the specific energy of someone who has been watching something they do not understand and has developed opinions about it.
The youngest entity called the meeting to order, insofar as these meetings had order.
"He told him," it said.
The room absorbed this.
"Everything?" said the entity with the theological literature.
"Everything," the youngest confirmed. "Saturday morning. The kitchen. Two cups of coffee. He told him about gravity. Time. Korea. The Last Enemy. The edge."
"Why?" said one of the older entities.
"Because Marcus asked," the youngest said. "Directly."
"That's all?"
"That's all," the youngest said. "He asked directly and Chuck answered directly because the conversation had a name on it and the name required honesty."
The room was quiet.
"He used that phrase," said the entity with the theological literature. "A name on it."
"Yes," the youngest said. "He got it from the plumber."
"The plumber gave him the language," said one of the older unnamed entities. "For something Chuck already understood but couldn't articulate."
"Yes," the youngest said. "That's exactly what happened."
The entity with the theological literature had something to say.
It had been building toward saying it since the second meeting and had been holding it in the way that entities of its nature hold things — not suppressing, not avoiding, simply waiting for the correct moment, the way you wait for the right point in a conversation to say the thing that will land correctly rather than early.
The moment had arrived.
"I want to raise something," it said.
The room attended to it.
"We have been discussing the plumber as a mirror," it said. "The plumber as the thing that shows Chuck what he looks like. The plumber as the source of vocabulary, of direction, of the specific weight of a name on a job."
"Yes," said the youngest.
"We have been discussing the plumber as a function," the entity said. "As the thing Chuck needed in order to find the answer."
"Yes," said the youngest, carefully.
"And I want to ask," the entity said, "whether we have been making the same mistake Chuck was making."
The room was quiet.
"The same mistake," the youngest said.
"Looking at the work," the entity said. "And not at the name."
The youngest entity sat with this.
It sat with it the way Chuck sat with things — without rushing, without the urge to resolve it before it was ready. The entity with the theological literature had, in its long existence, occasionally surprised it. This was one of those occasions.
"Say more," it said.
"Chuck was looking at the work and missing the names," the entity said. "The faces. The specific weight of the people the work was for. He had to be shown — by a plumber, in a kitchen, over a week of coffee — that the names were the point."
"Yes," the youngest said.
"We have been doing the same thing," the entity said. "We have been looking at Chuck Norris as a function. As the thing the Question needed. As the mechanism by which the answer will be produced."
"And?" said one of the older entities.
"And Marcus Webb looked at Chuck Norris across a kitchen table," the entity said, "and asked him who he was and then made him breakfast. The breakfast was imperfect. Chuck ate all of it and said it was the best he had eaten in a long time."
The room absorbed this.
"We have never," the entity said, "made him breakfast."
This statement landed in the meeting with the specific weight of something that is obviously true and has been obviously true for a long time and has not been said until now.
The youngest entity looked at the entity with the theological literature.
"You're saying we've been treating him the way he was treating the list," it said. "As an inventory of functions rather than—"
"As a person," the entity said. "Or whatever the equivalent is for something like Chuck Norris. As something that has a name. As something whose name should be on what we do in relation to him."
"We don't do anything in relation to him," said one of the older entities. "We watch."
"That's the problem," the entity with the theological literature said.
The meeting that followed was long.
The narrator will compress it, as it compressed the others, but will note that the compression is more significant here because what was discussed in this meeting was more significant than what was discussed in the previous two.
The previous meetings had discussed Chuck Norris as a phenomenon — as something to be observed, assessed, categorized, waited for. The third meeting, for the first time, discussed him as something else.
Not a phenomenon.
A situation.
The distinction matters because a phenomenon is observed and a situation is engaged with.
The entity with the theological literature had made the case for engagement.
The older unnamed entities were resistant — not because they disagreed with the argument, but because their relationship with time was long enough that they had learned to be cautious about engagement. Everything they had ever engaged with had changed as a result. Some of the changes had been good. Some had not. The caution was earned.
The youngest entity listened to both sides.
Then it said: "Marcus Webb has been in his kitchen for nine days."
The room attended.
"He found out on Saturday who he's been having coffee with," the youngest said. "He slept badly Saturday night. He got up Sunday morning and said alright. He made eggs. He asked what Chuck needed."
"Yes," said the entity with the theological literature.
"A forty-one-year-old plumber in Wilson, Texas," the youngest said, "found out he has been in proximity to something that negotiated with gravity and stood at the edge of the universe — and his response was to make eggs and ask what was needed."
"Yes," said the entity with the theological literature.
"And we," the youngest said, "who have existed since before the conditions that make existence possible, have been watching from a distance for — how long now?"
The room was quiet.
"Since 1991," said the entity with the theological literature.
"Thirty-two years," the youngest said. "A plumber managed it in nine days."
The room was quiet.
The oldest entity, which had said little in this meeting, spoke.
"What are you proposing?" it said.
The youngest entity looked at it.
"I'm proposing," it said, "that we consider what Marcus Webb would do."
What Marcus Webb would do, they concluded after further discussion, was ask directly.
This was the insight that the entity with the theological literature had been building toward and which the youngest had helped it arrive at. The plumber's method. You find the system, you assess it, you identify the symptom, you work back to the source. When you don't understand something you ask a direct question. When you receive a direct question you answer it honestly because the conversation has a name on it and the name requires honesty.
"We ask him," the youngest said.
"Ask him what?" said one of the older entities.
"What he needs," the youngest said. "From us. If anything."
"And if he says nothing?"
"Then we know," the youngest said. "And knowing is better than not knowing. That's what the plumber taught us."
The oldest entity was quiet for a long time.
Then it said: "Who asks."
The youngest entity said: "I will."
The youngest entity found Chuck Norris on Monday morning.
Not in Wilson, Texas — Chuck was running his fourteen miles, which took him out of town on the south road, past the flat land and the particular quality of early morning air that Texas produces in March when the ground is still cold and the sun has not yet committed to warmth.
The youngest entity found him the way entities of its nature find things — not through location but through attention, the comprehensive awareness that monitors everything finding the specific frequency of Chuck Norris running on a road in Texas at four thirty in the morning.
It did not announce itself.
It was simply present.
Chuck noticed it at mile seven.
He did not stop running.
"I've been wondering when," he said, to the road and the dark and the cold air and the entity that was present in all of them.
The youngest entity was quiet for a moment.
"You knew we were watching," it said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Since when?"
"Since 1991," Chuck said. "You had a meeting."
"You heard it."
"I felt it," Chuck said. "The way you feel a change in weather. The specific quality of attention from the upper registers has a texture. I know what it feels like."
The youngest entity absorbed this.
"You weren't going to—"
"I was waiting," Chuck said. "The same way you were waiting. To see who would get there first."
"Marcus got there first," the youngest said.
"Yes," Chuck said. "He usually does. He doesn't hesitate as long."
The youngest entity was quiet.
"That's a specific thing to say," it said. "He usually does."
"He's been himself for forty-one years," Chuck said. "I've been whatever I've been for fifty-three. He has more practice at direct."
They ran together — which is to say Chuck ran and the youngest entity was present in the running, in the road and the dark and the cold air, the way a companion is present when they are keeping pace without speaking.
Four miles.
The sky beginning to change at the edges.
Then the youngest entity said: "The meeting on Sunday."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"You heard that too."
"Felt it," Chuck said. "Same texture. Smaller meeting."
"We discussed—"
"I know what you discussed," Chuck said. "You discussed whether you'd been making the same mistake I was making."
The youngest entity was very still within its movement.
"Yes," it said.
"You had," Chuck said.
"Yes," the youngest said.
"But you figured it out," Chuck said. "That counts."
The youngest entity ran with this for a moment.
"Marcus figured it out in nine days," it said. "We took thirty-two years."
"He had better information," Chuck said. "He was in the kitchen."
"You could have—" The youngest paused. "You could have looked back at us. Any time. You knew we were watching."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Why didn't you?"
Chuck ran.
The sky was going from grey to something warmer, the specific slow warming of a Texas morning that does not hurry.
"Because you weren't ready," he said. "You were watching me the way I was watching the list. Looking at the work and not at the name. Looking back at you before you were ready would have produced information but not understanding."
"So you waited," the youngest said.
"I waited," Chuck said.
"Until we were ready."
"Until someone got tired of waiting and did what Marcus would do," Chuck said.
The youngest entity was quiet.
"That was me," it said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
A pause.
"How long have you known I would be the one?"
Chuck considered.
"Since the second meeting," he said. "You were the one who said we don't have a mirror. You were looking for the thing you were missing. That's the first step."
They reached the end of the south road — the point where it met the county road and the running route turned back toward Wilson.
Chuck stopped.
Not to rest. He did not need to rest. He stopped because the turning point was the right place for what came next and he was precise about these things.
He stood on the road in the early morning light.
The youngest entity was present.
"You had a question," Chuck said. "When you came to find me."
"Yes," the youngest said.
"Ask it," Chuck said.
The youngest entity took the same moment Chuck took before saying something that required precision.
"What do you need," it said. "From us. If anything."
Chuck looked at the sky.
The warming was happening. The grey giving way to the early color that preceded the full color, the tentative announcement of a day that was going to be clear.
He thought about the question.
He had been thinking about it since he felt the meeting on Sunday — since he had felt the texture of the upper registers reconvening and had known what they were discussing and had waited to see what they would do with what they had discussed.
He had thought about what he would say if they asked.
He had an answer.
"Nothing yet," he said.
The youngest entity was quiet.
"Not no," Chuck said. "Not never. Yet."
"When?"
"When I have the answer," Chuck said. "To the Question. I think — I think when I have it, I'll need someone to bring it back."
"Back where?"
"To where the Question came from," Chuck said. "Outside. I can go to the edge. I've been to the edge. But going through—"
"You'd need—"
"Something that knows the outside," Chuck said. "Something that has been there."
The youngest entity was quiet for a long time.
"We haven't been there either," it said. "We're inside too. We've always been inside."
"I know," Chuck said. "But you're closer to the edge than anything else inside. You've been here since before the conditions. You know what the conditions feel like from the inside of having always been in them."
"That might not be enough," the youngest said.
"It might not," Chuck agreed. "But it's what there is."
The youngest entity absorbed this.
"You're asking us to help you return an answer to a question from outside the universe," it said.
"When I have one," Chuck said.
"Which you don't yet."
"Which I don't yet," Chuck said.
"And in the meantime."
Chuck looked at the road back to Wilson.
"In the meantime," he said, "I'm going to go have breakfast with a plumber."
The youngest entity was quiet.
"The eggs aren't perfect," it said.
"No," Chuck said. "They're the right thing."
He ran back.
The youngest entity kept pace for a while — present in the road and the warming air, in the specific quality of a Monday morning in March announcing itself — and then, gradually, was not present, the way a companion gradually stops keeping pace when they have reached the point where their path diverges.
Chuck ran alone.
He ran the last three miles thinking about what he had said.
When I have the answer I'll need someone to bring it back.
He had not known he was going to say that until he said it.
But it was true.
He had gone to the edge and felt the outside and felt small and turned back because the answer was here.
But the answer, when he had it, would need to go back.
The Question had come from out there.
The answer would need to go out there.
He ran.
He thought about what the answer might be.
He thought about names and weight and right jobs and imperfect eggs and a man who drove his father's truck and said alright before difficult things.
He thought about migration and exact places and routes encoded before the journey.
He thought about the route back.
He did not have the answer yet.
But he had what Marcus would call a direction.
And a direction, in Wilson, Texas, on a Monday morning in March with the sun coming up and the day announcing itself clear —
was enough to begin.
Marcus was in his driveway when Chuck got back.
He was loading tools into the truck for his Monday job — the specific organized loading of someone who has done this enough times that the organization is automatic, each thing in its place, the truck knowing what was coming.
He looked up when Chuck came down the street.
"Good run?" he said.
"Good run," Chuck said.
"Coffee's on," Marcus said.
"I know," Chuck said.
He went inside.
The cups were on the table.
He sat down.
Marcus finished loading and came in and poured and sat across from him and they had the first coffee of Monday morning in the kitchen that had become, over ten days, the specific kind of place that becomes specific through use — through the accumulation of mornings and conversations and things said and things understood and two cups that had been in a rack and were now always on the table.
"You look like you went somewhere," Marcus said.
"On the run," Chuck said. "I had a conversation."
"On the run."
"Yes."
Marcus looked at him.
"Do I want to know," he said.
"One of them found me," Chuck said. "The upper registers. The youngest one."
"The gods," Marcus said, in the tone of someone who has been incorporating large information for two days and has arrived at a place where the gods is a category he can work with.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"What did they want?"
"They asked what I needed," Chuck said.
"What did you say?"
"Not yet," Chuck said. "But later — when I have the answer — I'll need them to help me return it."
Marcus held his cup.
"Return it where," he said.
"Outside," Chuck said. "Where the Question came from."
Marcus was quiet.
"So you have to answer a question from outside the universe," he said, "and then send the answer back outside the universe."
"Yes," Chuck said.
Marcus drank his coffee.
"How," he said.
"I don't know yet," Chuck said. "That's the part that comes after I have the answer."
"And you don't have the answer."
"I have a direction," Chuck said.
Marcus looked at him.
"This direction," he said carefully. "Is it in this kitchen?"
"Part of it," Chuck said.
Marcus nodded slowly.
He looked at his cup.
He looked at the morning light.
He looked at Chuck Norris, who had talked to a god on a run before breakfast, sitting across his kitchen table with his coffee, waiting for Marcus to say something practical and accurate and sideways-true.
Marcus said: "You're going to need more than one cup this morning."
"Probably," Chuck said.
Marcus got up and got the pot.
He refilled both cups.
He sat back down.
Outside, Wilson, Texas began its Monday.
The Question was present.
The youngest entity was returning to the upper registers to report.
The answer was forming.
In a kitchen.
With two cups on a table.
On a Monday morning in March.
The narrator wrote it all down.
The narrator found, as it wrote, that the writing felt different than it had in Volume I.
In Volume I the narrator had been documenting what Chuck Norris could do.
In Volume II the narrator was documenting what Chuck Norris was becoming.
The narrator noted the difference.
The difference mattered.