Desecration

Mr. Orlando cut a striking figure in his trim suit and his bowler hat. Especially against the bland background that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.

He had been clean shaven for as long as he could remember, until three days ago. That’s when he decided to grow a moustache and a beard.

The catalyst was something to do with a vague self-image he had encountered while browsing through his mind one day. And how he’d found it at all was nothing short of a miracle.

The image was tucked into the back of the bottom drawer in a small, unremarkable file cabinet.

The file cabinet was in the farthest, most insignificant corner of a minuscule, unobtrusive room. The room itself was located in the darkest recesses of his mind, not to conceal it, but because it was of so little importance. In fact, it didn’t even have a lock.

Who would bother to search a room that didn’t even have a lock? Even the most hardened, desperate criminal would pass that one up. So there was proof positive that whatever else might be said about Mr. Orlando, he most definitely was not a criminal, for he had managed, somehow, to find that room, that file cabinet, and that self-image.

The superlatives that should have kept him from ever seeing that image almost made his mind spin. But he had seen it. It had acted on his will, and so he had decided to attempt to mimic it.

And he had failed miserably.

The sparse growth on his upper lip and chin came nowhere near to matching the image in his mind of himself with a luxurious, thick, long white beard.

And white? Where’d that come from? What about him looked old enough that he should be sporting white hair?

Well, of course it didn’t matter. The point is, here he was.

A few days ago he had been settled comfortably, he was sure, in his life. Somewhere. Doing something. As someone or other.

But other than vague, momentary, flicker-quick reflections, he had no memory of where or what or whom.

In fact, what he had come to consider his older recollections were much longer lived and clearer than the flashes in the pan that occasionally visited him for a split second here, an instant there.

In those older recollections, none of which lasted longer than a few seconds either, he was dressed always in a robe and sandals. It was very comfortable, but the reasons were difficult to understand. And he seemed to spend his time answering telepathic and other correspondence in unusually mysterious ways. And making decisions. Oh my god, he made a boatload of decisions in the blink of a gnat’s eye.

But that was then, whenever then was. This was now. And now— well, here he was. 

No matter how far Mr. Orlando walked, no matter how quickly, he seemed always in the same place. He felt himself moving, felt the rhythm of his feet in his shoes and his shoes on the ground. He felt his legs bend at the knee, first the one, then the other, as he perambulated forward.

But nothing changed, or it changed so slowly that he was unable to be aware of it. It was as if the world were turning beneath his stride. But then that would mean what lay behind him and what lay ahead were hovering above the surface. For although he himself moved, the place behind him remained where it was and the place ahead of him did the same. Perhaps he was destined to walk forever and go nowhere.

But he had been somewhere. That was obvious.

Behind him lay the sooty, smoking ruins of the town he'd just destroyed.

He knew innately he had destroyed it, though he didn’t know how or why or even when.

And ahead of him loomed the opportunity to destroy another. More importantly, there lay the inability not to destroy another.

But should he even be able to experience inability? The concept didn’t seem right. It seemed foreign to him. As if someone had just walked up to him and said something completely nonsensical, like “Hello. Toe snails.” And then had gone on about his business. The notion that he might somehow be able to comprehend inability was as foreign to him as the idea that he might somehow make sense of a phrase like “toe snails.”

Still, this was his experience, at least as far as he knew. He had destroyed the town that lay behind him. That simply was a fact embedded within his knowledge.

But he didn’t know how or why or when. And based on his current situation, that of walking but of going nowhere, there was no way he could have destroyed it. Because he could never have been there.

Unless perhaps he had destroyed it from a distance. Perhaps with a simple act of will. By why would he do that? Why would anyone do that? 

Other places, these with actual names, faded into his older recollection memory. Admah drifted in. Then Zebolim. Seriously? Zebolim? Then Bela— No. Bela wasn’t destroyed apparently. He frowned. Apparently he changed his mind on Bela for some reason. But more importantly, why did he not change his mind on Admah and Zebolim? And a couple more. These drifted past in all caps. Sodom. Gomorrah.

Those names, those last two names, they rang a bell with him. But from when?

Anyway, he had destroyed the town behind him and he would destroy the town ahead of him. What’s more, he had destroyed many more behind him and would destroy many more ahead of him.

And he non-walked through a countryside that remained stationary away from a town that never receded and toward a town that he never neared.

And he had destroyed and would destroy because he was somehow unable to simply leave them alone.

Was he bent to someone else’s will?

Was this some sort of test? Perhaps an exercise? Was he hooked up to one of those virtual reality machines? Maybe that was it. Maybe he was sitting in a comfortable chair in a virtual reality salon and the machine had malfunctioned. Perhaps it had stranded him between cities.

He continued walking and even felt the pressure of his own stride, the rocks and other items beneath the soles of his shoes. But the world around him was suspended. Time continued for him but was suspended everywhere else. If there was no time, there could be no movement.

So he continued walking, moving, but the ground, the cities, the clouds and trees and birds were unaffected.

So how was he breathing? That’s where the connection had to exist between himself and his environment. If his feet and legs were moving as he walked but everything around him was static, then the air itself too would be static, despite his lungs expanding and contracting. It would not be fluid and moveable like normal air. It would be static, like a painting of the sky.

He snapped his fingers, although the sound of the snap, if it ever existed, never came to him. But no mind. He had it. He was breathing the air around his chair in the virtual reality salon. That must be it. In the real world, in the salon, he, the elements, the machine itself, they were all within the same time function. Time had stopped only within the program being displayed by the machine.

Unless he didn’t require air.

Perhaps he was in a form that made use of a respiratory system but he didn’t actually need it. Or depend on it. Or even use it. Perhaps his chest rose and fell only so he would fit in.

That almost brought a laugh. He had never needed to fit in. Had he?

No, of course not. Because he was— He frowned. He was Mr. Orlando. That was all.

Was that enough? Well, for what?

So which was it? Was he walking through— No, not through. Can’t really say “through” since progress is not apparent. Was he walking in a desolate land, one he himself had rendered desolate?

Was he strapped to a chair in a virtual reality— Wait. Strapped? Why strapped? Where did strapped come from? So there was a third possibility, and a fourth. Was he mad? That was the third, and the fourth was related, in a way. Was he dreaming?

But if he was dreaming, and if he was dreaming this particular dream, why? Bad fish? An older recollection wandered past and he grinned. Bad fishes and loaves?

If he was mad, well, he wanted to know the why to that too, but he wouldn’t be able to find the answer in his own mind. If he could, he wouldn’t be mad. A conundrum, that.

But somehow he didn’t think he was dreaming, so he dismissed that theory out of hand. That left being mad, being trapped in a virtual unreality that was currently busted, or actually being where he appeared to be: stuck in a world he hated enough to bring all his power, whatever it was, to bear in its desecration.

He couldn’t bring himself to imagine that he was mad. Of course, not being able to admit to being mad was one sign of madness, or something like that. But it wasn’t that. If he could even imagine he were mad, that would mean he was limited to the degree that he would be susceptible to going mad, and something about that didn’t seem quite right. Something, something vague, something intense but featureless from his older recollections gave him a kind of proof that he was not susceptible to such a malady.

That left either virtual reality or actuality. “Although with me, all things are possible.” He laughed.

The virtual reality theorem would explain everything.

Except that it was too easy to prove or disprove.

If this were a virtual reality scenario, then right now, right this instant, even if he wanted to remain in this situation, he could interrupt it by simply removing the headgear. That’s all he had to do. Reach up and remove it.

But on his head was only his hat.

Unless his virtual reality headgear became a hat in the scenario. Perhaps to explain in an unobtrusive way the pressure on his head. So he would reach up and take off his hat. That’s all he had to do.

Simple.

But what if he had left instructions? What if when he tried to interrupt the VR scenario, the operators were to make him believe he had interrupted it when he actually hadn’t? Then he would have proved nothing.

In the end, there was nothing to do but keep walking. Or non-walking, as he’d come to think of it.

He’d been walking all along, and nothing had changed. A desecrated, destroyed town behind him, another one ahead. All of his thoughts had brought him no closer to understanding why he was here or what he was doing or why. Or how long he had been doing it.

He still couldn’t remember why he had desecrated and destroyed the town that lay behind him or why he would soon desecrate and destroy the town that lay ahead. He knew only that he had done the former and that he would do the latter. That was the only certainty in this entire thing.

He wasn’t even sure how he had come to be in this particular frame or—

Wait. Frame? Frame.

And this particular frame. Indicating that there were others.

And what was within a frame was what was within a frame. That’s all.

“It simply is what it is,” he mumbled. “It simply is what it is.”

And Odin leaned back in his chair. He crossed his left ankle over his right knee, causing his short garment to migrate over halfway up his thighs. He shook his left sandal with glee as he laughed, and he clapped his great hands together, causing his tunic to leap where it crossed over his right shoulder. “There, you see? I told you it would take him awhile. I’m telling you, anyone with that big an inferiority complex has to be uncertain of himself. All that blather about omnipotence.” He shook his head. “But it was a good game.”

Zeus too sat back, but more quietly. He straightened in his chair and sighed, his robe sagging just a bit before his shoulders. “I suppose you were right. I certainly expected him to realize long before now we had put him in a painting.” He gestured toward the frame. “How else could he keep moving but get nowhere?”

Odin shrugged. “He simply never learned. First you have to be who you are. Later you exert more influence, but never before the situation requires it. And later still you are awarded omnipotence and all that. But at every stage, belief is the key.”

Zeus nodded. “And it is what it is.”

Odin clapped him on the shoulder. “Wanna get that beer now?”

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