Unfinished Short Story

Charles Willoughby’s vision had grown blurry. The fluorescent lights from above ruthlessly distorted his perception of the callous, cold ceiling. He was always a productive man, never letting go of a driving impulse toward the infinite human expression of cognitive exploration. Even now, half-dead in his hospital bed, he had many things to be proud of.
            Through careful deduction he arrived at the highly significant figure of 12,347. It took him almost four days to reach that conclusion, and he spent the following three weeks rationalizing why— and how— it could be an odd number. In the beginning, the burden of counting each tiny hole in the ceiling was a welcomed challenge to Mr. Willoughby. In fact, he used the experience as a pleasant departure from more heavy ideas.
            When he first arrived at the hospital, he relied on his eyes for almost all realistic expressions of trivial endeavors. He painstakingly counted, day after day; a perfectionist both by nature and by trade, he had spent his whole life undertaking meticulous journey’s into the unknown and far-reaching corners of the mind. To say he had a thirst for knowledge would have been a gross insult to the man.
            As he reached the final destination of this particular project—12,347—his eyesight had begun to fail. He came to the number before dosing off, and in waking he saw the dots no longer is separate and distinct patterns, as he had before, but rather in blurred representations. There were general trends among them—a dense collection here, more spread out there—but all ability to differentiate one from another had eluded him. Unable to understand how a composition of panels with equal dots could lead to an overall odd sum, he remained in bed for the last weeks of his life attempting to reconcile this problem. Did he perhaps err in his calculations?—he knew he double and triple-checked several times—or was there a single panel that, for whatever reason (perhaps manufacturing error) had one more or one less mark in it: if so, he’d surely have recalled such an anomaly earlier. Unable to write in his weak state, he had no records to refer to and therefore found himself growing unsure of his previous observations.
            The only reasonable course of action was a total recount, where simple counting would need to be the primary method of evaluation and multiplication used only as a verifying factor. With such a methodology there could be virtually no room for error. The solution was a welcomed epiphany for Willoughby; if only he had a way to carry it out. The initial trivial pursuit that had grown to be his obsession was now ignored vehemently: with his eyes prohibiting him from a precise recount, he abandoned the idea forcibly and concentrated on the more profound concepts he had devoted his life to.

            Willoughby was born in Savannah, Georgia to a fanatically religious mother. In her several attempts to bear children, only Charles survived past the age of two. He had been the shining light for his mother, who paraded him about town with unremitting vigor. She, in her old-fashioned wisdom, enjoyed exploiting Charles as her one answered prayer from the good Lord himself: seven children, all of them passing on early, and then Charles— the miraculous eighth that reaffirmed in her a strong ideal of religious order. In the wake of Charles’ birth, the previous seven were merely a test of faith, and she welcomed the idea of comparing herself to Job.
            She spoiled Charles throughout every waking moment of his life, letting up only when it came to school and church. At those moments, her sweet nature turned strict and rigid; Charles was going to pass on the family name, after all, and she had to ensure her legacy. Willoughby, a descendant from Scots that came only three generations before, was the mothers surname; the father, a charmer of a caliber that only a Southern state could produce, had left soon after Charles’ birth. She saw it, quite rationally, as another ‘test’ from the Lord.
            Hence, Charles was the angel of his mother—and she, in her calculating modesty, made no small affair of introducing him as such. Whether in public, at home or at church (Despite the cringes of the religious order), she loved introducing Charles as “My one sweet angel: the only true angel in all the earthly world.”
           
            Charles was the model student, finding himself in Yale at sixteen. His mother, despite several attempts to sabotage his admission to the school, finally submitted her stubborn will for her son’s future. The months leading up to departure were difficult for her. When Yale came up in conversation, one saw a mixed smile cross her lips; like a broken mirror, her expressions would fracture into fragments as she attempted to make the best of her eighth son. She took him to the train, packing him a lunch for the trip and reciting her favorite verses along the way.
           
            He had decided that his major would be theology, and in no short time he graduated Yale with top honors. President of the debate team and editor of the school newspaper, finding work was no difficult task for Charles. He quickly settled into a religious organization, finding himself as a lecturer on his favorite topics. He enjoyed debates with secularists.
 
            “You mean to tell me, Mr. Willoughby, that I have an obligation to put my children in private religious schooling as opposed to state run public schools?”
            “What I mean to tell you, Mrs. Hackfeuer, is that you have an obligation to your own legacy, and the legacy of your family name; you may put your child where you see fit, but should it be public schooling, I’ll warn you that your genealogy will take on more than a few primates. Lest you’re satisfied with that, Mrs. Hackfeuer, I suggest you take heed of my advice. A gentleman in Tennessee has already started the blasphemous practice.”
            A man in the back of the auditorium who had remained quiet at several meetings finally decided to speak.
            “And what’s so wrong with that?”
            “Well nothing, save for the lacking evidence, political huckstering and downright irrationality. Save for all those things, this so-called ‘evolution of man’ is simply a terrific idea.”
            That man never spoke up again.

Charles was never more at ease or more alive than when he was ‘enlightening’ the minds of others. Though his actions turned free thinkers into myopic fanatics, he of course saw it a different way—and his peers, impressed with his riveting nature at meetings and lectures, quickly flocked to him and assumed subordinate positions. They wanted to hear everything he could possibly tell them. Though Charles was quite eloquent, there was one subject that he sharply disagreed with his peers on—a subject he would never even allow to be raised: a venture into the metaphysics of heaven. If the subject arose, he easily shifted back to more comfortable issues.
There was only one heaven, and it was reserved for him alone. The one true angel, he found no joy in even considering the other people that might end there. Surely his peers, religiously sound and good men by all standards, would land somewhere up there; but with similar certainty he knew that they’d be nowhere near him. The trinity had taken on an extra man, and he had absolutely no interest in considering the teleological fate of his lesser peers.
When the debates weren’t raging on, he devoted himself exclusively to the pursuit of heaven. He never took a wife, instead settling on constant revisions and interpretations of the bible. Toward his middle-age he had gained increasing popularity, and was by most considered the top theologian of the country; in so doing, he gave himself license to alter God’s word, which for him was a blessing rather than a sin.
            He would die, and the trinity would synthesize before him, remaining incomplete until he stepped without its divine bounds. He was sure of it.
 
            Decades later, the man now confined to a narrow hospital bed found infinite travel within his own memories. He never regretted spending four of his last five weeks counting the dots on the ceiling. Instead, he enjoyed his last week alive recalling fond moments of youth, school and a successful career.
            He celebrated his diagnosis of cancer with a fine dinner and a large, sweet cake. God had finally called him up to heaven, and his moment was nearing. It was not until the day of his death that he began reminiscing of all the fiery discussions he had with various secularists over the years. One in particular stuck out; it was a rare exception to his usual repertoire of subjects. A certain philosophy professor who Willoughby attended school with happened across his way one afternoon; his only interest was a discussion on the description of heaven. Despite Charles’ attempts to shift focus, the man continued to press the subject—perhaps sensing that something about it made Willoughby uneasy.
            “Now now, Charles, what is all this about Heaven? It seems like it would be quite an eclectic collection of do-good angels with harps on clouds. Sounds like it would make a wonderful painting, but an eternal existence? That’s really quite boring, is it not?”
            “My colleagues reiterate constantly the following words: it is sin to attempt to know the intentions of the Lord. Similarly, they say, one cannot presume the perceptions of divinity. That is only for the Lord to decide.”
            “If I didn’t know better, I could swear I was having a conversation with Charles Willoughby—and not with his colleagues. I am, after all, asking about your opinion on this subject, so I would naturally enjoy your answer to it.”
            “My opinion? My opinion might be blasphemous—“
            “It is already blasphemous if you believe it.”
            “Heaven…”
            A short pause came over Charles.
            “Heaven is divinity, and to speak any more of the subject would only serve to corrode its status as divine.”
            “You know, I was never able to accept the idea of a Heaven. For some reason, I expect that death will bring with it nothing more than total and utter nothingness; a abrupt and total silence that caps the end of life equally for all people, allowing for no extraordinary cases—a great equalizer, if you will. My!—Look at the time; we’ll continue this next time. Good day!”
            Willoughby remembered the man’s words for the rest of his life; they nestled in the back of his head and remained, stubbornly, almost tauntingly. He was enticed by his old schoolmate, and after the short encounter was looking forward to seeing the man again. Unfortunately for Willoughby, next time never came.
           
            His strength was draining and he could hardly open his eyes. The fluorescent lights now flooded his vision until only a white haze blinded him. As nurses collected around his half-dead body, he saw only shadows interrupt the great light above. His thoughts focused on his discussion with the philosophy professor. For an isolated moment, the man had instilled in him a sense of doubt that remained suppressed until only moments before death.
            Minutes passed as the shadows slowly disappeared from sight. The flood of bright light had reaffirmed full control, but his hearing and sense of touch had failed him. He felt an odd sense of apprehension— there was a great anticipation in him: something that he hadn’t felt since he was just a child. He saw his vision grow darker.
            His mind was racing as it recalled the philosopher’s words. He had no choice but to pray in an attempt to block out any such thinking. His faith, though dwindling, was nevertheless strong. As the blackness came completely over him, he found only a mind in an abysmal nothing.
            The white light returned; at first just a minute point in the distance, it slowly grew larger. He soon realized that it wasn’t expanding at all; on the contrary, he was moving toward it. Slowly sight came back to him. He was able to see where he wanted to, though all around him was total blackness save for the bright light he consequently focused in on, traveling ever closer. For a brief moment he feared that it was only the after-effect— the last charge of activity— of his optic nerves.
            But the light did not go away; it began to surround him, irradiating out from an approaching figure. He recognized in a matter of seconds the divinely beautiful figure. He had a body again; as he floated slightly beneath the figure, he recognized it intuitively as Jesus Christ.
            Elated, he felt a final charge of confidence come over him—the philosopher had been wrong all along.
            As Willoughby drifted ever closer, he looked down toward his non-secular body for just a moment. A bit bewildered, he fumbled out the only words he knew to ask:
            “Why do I have two penises?”
            “Because I have two assholes.”