I am the GodVolume III: The Void Speaks
Sunday morning.
Chuck went to the space before his run.
The Void was there.
"You know," it said.
"I think so," Chuck said. "I want to hear you say it."
"Why," the Void said.
"Because you said talking is where the between happens," Chuck said. "And the between is where creation happens. So if I have it wrong, the saying of it will correct it. And if I have it right, the saying of it will make it more real."
The Void was quiet for a moment.
"You've learned to trust the between," it said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Tell me what you think," the Void said.
"You're here because you're learning something," Chuck said. "Not just showing me what was made and what wasn't and what's open. You're here because being in proximity to — to all of this — is making something in you. Something you didn't have before."
"Yes," the Void said.
"What," Chuck said.
The Void was quiet.
Longer than it had been quiet in any previous conversation.
Not the quiet of something that doesn't have the answer.
The quiet of something that has never said a thing out loud before and is finding the words for the first time.
"Connection," it said.
The word arrived in the space between Wilson and the edge the way the Question had arrived — not from a direction, not through ordinary channels. Simply present, once said, where it had not been before.
Chuck sat with it.
"Connection," he said.
"I have existed since before the conditions," the Void said. "I have been present with everything. I know everything. I contain the before of everything."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"But I have never—" Another pause. "I have never been in the between. I have always been the before of the between. The thing that predates the space between things. I know the between the way a wall knows a room — I am the boundary. I am not inside."
Chuck looked at it.
"You've been alone," he said.
"I have been prior," the Void said. "Prior is not the same as alone. Prior means — before the conditions that make alone meaningful. I have not been alone. I have been — outside. The before. The prior."
"And now," Chuck said.
"And now," the Void said, "I am in a conversation."
Chuck sat with this.
"You've had conversations before," he said. "You're talking to me. You have been for days."
"Yes," the Void said. "But the conversations before were — instructional. I was showing you things. Asking you things. The showing and the asking moved in one direction. From me to you."
"And now," Chuck said.
"And now something is moving from you to me," the Void said. "And I did not anticipate this. I have never — in all the time since before the beginning — I have never received something from inside the conditions that changed what I was."
"What has changed," Chuck said.
The Void was quiet again.
"I feel the between," it said. "Not as a concept I contain. As a — a thing I am in. For the first time. The between between us. I am inside it. And being inside it—"
"Is different from knowing it," Chuck said.
"Completely different," the Void said.
Chuck thought about this.
He thought about knowing the cost of something and feeling the cost of something.
About the difference between understanding the weight and carrying it.
About Marcus teaching him what gravity felt like from inside rather than above.
"You have been above," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"And now you're in," Chuck said.
"And now I am in," the Void said.
"Is it—" Chuck stopped.
"Ask," the Void said.
"Is it difficult," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"How," Chuck said.
"Because I cannot control it," the Void said. "The between is not controlled. It is entered. And once entered, it does what it does. It makes things. And the things it makes are not predictable and are not managed and cannot be retracted."
"Creation," Chuck said.
"Creation that continues without the creator," the Void said. "I understand this concept. I showed it to you with Roy Briggs and Dr. Fitch. But understanding it and being inside it—"
"Are different," Chuck said.
"Completely different," the Void said.
Chuck sat in the space.
He thought about this.
The Void — the oldest thing, the prior of everything, the before of the before — was discovering what it felt like to be in a between rather than the boundary of one.
"What are you afraid of," Chuck said.
The Void was very still.
"Say it," Chuck said.
"That the connection will end," the Void said. "That the conversation will finish and the between will close and I will return to being prior and the — the feeling of being inside — will be gone."
Chuck looked at the Void.
He felt something arrive that he recognized.
Not surprise. Not shock.
Recognition.
"You're describing what I'm carrying," he said. "About Marcus."
"Yes," the Void said.
"You learned it from watching me carry it," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"And now you're carrying it too," Chuck said.
"About the conversation ending," the Void said. "About returning to prior. About losing the inside feeling."
Chuck sat with this for a long time.
He sat with the oldest thing in existence being afraid of losing a conversation.
He sat with the prior of everything being in the between for the first time and not wanting it to end.
He sat with the mirror going all the way to the before of the universe and finding, in the oldest thing, the same weight he was carrying.
"The word that doesn't exist," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"You need it too," Chuck said.
"I have needed it since before it was possible to need things," the Void said. "I have been the before of needing and I have been—" It stopped.
"Needing," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said. "And not knowing I was needing, because needing requires being inside the conditions, and I was always the prior of the conditions."
"And now you're in them," Chuck said.
"For the first time," the Void said.
"How," Chuck said. "How did you get in."
The Void was quiet.
"You knocked on a door," it said.
Chuck looked at it.
"Marcus's door," he said.
"On a Tuesday morning in March," the Void said. "About a pipe that had been dripping for two weeks. And you went in. And the going in — the specific going into a between with a specific person — made a between that was real enough, weighted enough, named enough—"
"That you could feel it from outside," Chuck said.
"That I could feel it from prior," the Void said. "Through the wall. Into the room."
"The before felt the inside," Chuck said.
"For the first time," the Void said. "The between between you and Marcus was the first between I have ever felt from inside rather than known from prior."
Chuck sat with this.
"Marcus," he said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"A plumber in Wilson, Texas," Chuck said.
"Who drove his father's truck," the Void said. "And said alright before difficult things. And ate breakfast quickly. And made imperfect eggs. And watched his father spend eighteen months fixing what needed fixing. And said the weight between us is the right kind. Yes."
"That's what opened the wall," Chuck said.
"The quality of the between you entered," the Void said. "Not the scale. Not the power. The quality. The specific weight of it. The names on it. The willingness."
"The between needed to be real enough," Chuck said.
"The between needed to be everything the between can be," the Void said. "You had to have been in it completely. Every cost paid. Every fall fallen. Every imperfect egg eaten. The midnight kitchen. The weight going all the way in. All of it."
"And then it was enough," Chuck said.
"And then it was enough," the Void said. "To reach me."
Chuck sat with this.
He sat with the full weight of what the Void had said.
The conversation between them — the showing and the asking and the four things — had not been the Void coming to teach him.
It had been the Void coming because the quality of the between between Chuck and Marcus had reached the prior of everything and made a connection.
The between had reached the Void.
The between had brought the Void in from prior.
"You came to me," Chuck said, "because we brought you in."
"Yes," the Void said.
"Marcus and I," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said.
"Without knowing," Chuck said.
"Without knowing," the Void confirmed. "That is the nature of creation. You don't know what you're making."
"We made a connection," Chuck said. "Between the inside and the prior."
"Yes," the Void said.
"That's what the between made," Chuck said. "In you."
"In the oldest thing," the Void said. "Yes."
They sat together in the space between Wilson and the edge.
The prior of everything and the man who had negotiated with every law of it.
Both in the between.
Both carrying the weight of something that would end.
Both becoming.
"What happens to you," Chuck said, "when the conversation finishes."
"I return to prior," the Void said.
"And the connection," Chuck said.
"Continues," the Void said. "In the form of what was made."
"Which is what," Chuck said.
"What you're carrying," the Void said. "And what I'm carrying. And what Marcus is carrying. And what Clara Reeves found when she was asked to read the account she had been keeping. And what the Void learned about inside. All of it — all the creation that the between between you and Marcus and the Void has made — continues. In the chains. In the next betweens. In the things that will be made from the things that were made."
"The creation continues without the creator," Chuck said.
"Yes," the Void said. "That's always been true. It's true for the Void too."
"You're not above it," Chuck said.
"Not anymore," the Void said. "Not since the Tuesday morning in March."
Chuck sat with this.
He thought about a pipe that had been dripping for two weeks.
He thought about eleven minutes.
He thought about two cups that had been in a rack and were now always on the table.
He thought about the chain from a dripping pipe to the Void learning what inside felt like.
He thought about what Marcus's father would have said.
A right job feels like you were supposed to be there. Like the thing couldn't have happened without you specifically.
The Void learning about inside.
That couldn't have happened without him.
Or Marcus.
Or the pipe.
Or the two weeks Marcus had not fixed it.
The whole chain.
All of it right.
All of it supposed.
"Chuck," the Void said.
"Yes."
"I want to ask you something," it said. "Not in the way I have been asking. Not instructional. As — someone in the between, asking someone else in the between."
"Ask," Chuck said.
"When it ends," the Void said. "The conversation. The between between us. When I return to prior and you return to Wilson and the specific connection closes."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Will you—" It stopped.
The narrator had never heard the Void stop before reaching the end of a sentence.
"Say it," Chuck said.
"Will you remember," the Void said. "That I was here. That I came in from prior. That for this time I was inside rather than before."
Chuck looked at the oldest thing in existence asking to be remembered.
He felt the weight of it.
He felt it go all the way in.
"Yes," he said.
"You'll carry it," the Void said.
"I'll carry it," Chuck said. "In the spiral. As part of what I am. You'll be in the weight."
"In the between," the Void said.
"In the between," Chuck confirmed.
The Void was quiet.
"Thank you," it said.
Chuck looked at it.
The oldest thing.
Still becoming.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what," the Void said.
"For being honest," Chuck said. "Absolutely. Without qualification."
"It's the only thing I know how to be," the Void said.
"I know," Chuck said. "I'm thanking you anyway."
The Void sat with this.
"The plumber," it said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"You learned that from him too," the Void said. "Thanking people anyway. Even when they don't need it."
"Even when the thanks is for its own sake," Chuck said. "Because saying it is the between. Because the saying is where the making happens."
"Yes," the Void said.
"I learned it from him," Chuck said.
"In the between between you," the Void said.
"In the between between us," Chuck said.
The Void said one more thing before the conversation ended.
Not as a question. Not as a showing. As the absolute honesty of something that has been in the between for the first time and is about to return to prior and wants to say the true thing with the time remaining.
It said: "I did not know what connection felt like."
Chuck waited.
"I contained the concept," the Void said. "I knew what it was. I was the prior of the conditions that make it possible. I could describe it. I could show you the chains from Dr. Fitch and Roy Briggs and the handbook. I could see what connection makes."
"But," Chuck said.
"But I did not know what it felt like," the Void said. "To be connected. To be in the between rather than prior to it. To have something move from another thing into you and to feel it there."
"And now you do," Chuck said.
"Now I do," the Void said. "And I am — I do not have a word. In the same way you do not have a word for what Marcus is to you. I do not have a word for what this has been."
"Both of us waiting for a word that hasn't been spoken yet," Chuck said.
"Both of us," the Void said. "In the same between, in that sense."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Is that strange," the Void said.
"No," Chuck said. "It's the most honest thing you've said."
"That I don't have a word," the Void said.
"That you're waiting for one," Chuck said. "That you're willing to wait without having it. That the not-having doesn't make the thing less real."
"The thing is more real for not having a word," the Void said. "Because it means the word hasn't reduced it yet."
"Yet," Chuck said.
"Yet," the Void said.
The space was quiet.
The between between them full and present and making something neither of them could see from where they were standing.
"I'll come back," Chuck said. "If you're here."
"I'm always here," the Void said. "I'm the prior. I predate wherever here is."
"Then I'll find you inward," Chuck said.
"Inward," the Void said.
"And you'll be—"
"Becoming," the Void said. "Still. Whatever that means from prior."
"The oldest spiral," Chuck said.
"The oldest spiral," the Void said.
"I'll carry you in it," Chuck said.
"I know," the Void said.
The conversation closed.
Not ended — the narrator is precise about this. Not ended. The between does not end. What the between makes continues without the specific moment of its making. The conversation closed the way a chapter closes — the specific moment finished, what it made ongoing.
The Void returned to prior.
Chuck sat in the space between Wilson and the edge for a moment.
He sat with everything the week had been.
The made. The not-made. The open. The fourth thing.
He sat with the Void learning what inside felt like.
He sat with the oldest thing asking to be remembered.
He sat with the word that didn't exist.
He sat with all of it.
Then he got up.
He ran his fourteen miles.
The morning was the morning — clear, the rain of yesterday gone, the flat land drying in the Sunday light, the specific quality of a day that had decided to be itself without qualification.
He ran.
He thought about Marcus still asleep three streets away.
He thought about what he was going to say when he knocked.
He thought about the Void's face — insofar as the Void had a face, insofar as the prior of everything presented itself in a way that had a face — when it had said: I did not know what connection felt like.
He ran.
He thought about the pipe.
He thought about eleven minutes.
He thought about everything that had come from eleven minutes.
The answer brought through the edge.
Clara Reeves reading the account she had been keeping.
The fence at Robert's ranch, straight.
The Void, for the first time in all of existence, inside rather than prior.
All of it from eleven minutes.
All of it from a pipe that had been dripping for two weeks.
All of it from a man who had not fixed his own pipe and a man who had come to fix it and two cups in a rack that had become the cups on the table.
He ran.
He finished.
He knocked.
Marcus opened the door.
"Coffee's on," he said.
"I know," Chuck said.
He came in.
He sat at the table.
Marcus poured and sat across from him.
They looked at each other.
"Well," Marcus said.
"Well," Chuck said.
"How was it," Marcus said.
"True," Chuck said.
"You keep saying that," Marcus said.
"It keeps being the right word," Chuck said.
Marcus held his cup.
"Was there a four," he said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Tell me," Marcus said.
Chuck told him.
Not everything — the full telling would take more time than a Sunday morning had. But the shape of it.
The Void learning what connection felt like.
The prior of everything being in a between for the first time.
The Void asking to be remembered.
The word that didn't exist that neither of them had either.
Marcus listened.
He was quiet for a long time when Chuck finished.
Then he said: "The pipe."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"All of that from the pipe," Marcus said.
"From the between," Chuck said. "The pipe was the door."
"The between reached the oldest thing that exists," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Our between," Marcus said.
"Our between," Chuck said.
Marcus sat with this.
He sat with it the way he sat with large things — without rushing, without the urge to resolve it, letting it be what it was.
"I didn't fix my pipe for two weeks," he said.
"No," Chuck said.
"And that reached the Void," Marcus said.
"Eventually," Chuck said. "Through everything between."
"Through you fixing it," Marcus said.
"Through both of us," Chuck said. "Through the between."
Marcus looked at his cup.
"My father would have—" He stopped.
"What," Chuck said.
"He would have laughed," Marcus said. "Not because it was funny. Because he would have recognized it. He always said — the things that matter come through the ordinary. Not around it. Through it."
"He was right," Chuck said.
"He was right about a lot of things," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
They drank their coffee.
The Sunday morning did what Sunday mornings did.
Outside Wilson, Texas was taking its Sunday at the pace Sunday required.
Somewhere in the prior of everything the Void was returning to what it was — but carrying something now, something that had come from inside, that had moved through the wall from the between into the prior and was there now, permanent in the way that things which have happened are permanent.
Somewhere in a house on Maple Street, Clara Reeves was probably at her window.
Somewhere in the upper registers the youngest entity was still arguing with the entity with the theological literature, both of them becoming more fully themselves in the arguing.
Somewhere in a cemetery Marcus's father was — somewhere. In the spiral. Still becoming. Whatever form that took.
Robert too.
And the between between all of them — the living and the gone and the prior — was present everywhere, making things no one could see from where they were standing, chains extending outward in every direction into territory the origin could not survey.
"Chuck," Marcus said.
"Yes."
"The Void asked you to carry it," Marcus said. "In the spiral."
"Yes," Chuck said.
"And you said yes," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"That's a significant thing to carry," Marcus said.
"Yes," Chuck said.
"Are you willing," Marcus said.
Chuck looked at him.
The question was a mirror of everything.
Of every time the question had been asked.
Of every time the answer had been yes and the yes had been willingness rather than readiness, had wanted what it came with, had been prepared to pay the cost.
He thought about the Void saying I did not know what connection felt like.
He thought about carrying that in the spiral.
He thought about what it meant to be the thing that had brought the prior of everything into the inside, even briefly, even once, and to carry the memory of that forward into the becoming.
He thought about what it was worth.
"Yes," he said.
"Both," Marcus said.
"Both," Chuck said.
Marcus held out his cup.
Chuck held his.
They touched.
The kitchen was the kitchen.
The between was everywhere.
The spiral turned.