Story: 'Triangles', XII

(Part XI)

Delores was alarmed to begin with at the shear naivete of Ernest the Universe Minder. A whole eternal lifetime alone had left him unable to cope in any practical manner with things a human being adapted to in childhood. It was exasperating! His concentration seemed to drift in and out at random as if being distracted by falling motes of dust or passing photon packets. Finally, not being able to explain tactics or the nature of opposition she realised it was no use.

"You can't give up, Delores, the destiny of all the worlds is at stake. Please go on."

"I don't think I can. You don't seem to understand anything of the concepts but all of the words. It's as if you can recognise a bucket but not the usefulness of the water within." A long silence. "What is it you want, Ernest?" she asked again, quietly.

The man, for it easiest to refer to him as that, looked deeply inward and replied from some deep well of being, "I wish to understand. To comprehend why anything would try to do what is being done. And to know how to fight."

"It doesn't make sense really. How can there be something as vast as you, but so much more capable of deceit to make you look like an innocent barely born?"

Ernest sat with troubled expression for many long minutes, before finally releasing words with most reluctance and confusion. "I was not always like this, I think. Long ago, there was an incident before which I can not recall. The memories I possess are for the most part reconstructed artefacts, all except for my role in the grander scheme of things; That alone I recalled those three or four cycles ago." The bearded man sat with eyes closed and then opened. "If you cannot help me here then you must help me here. Please, take my hand."

"What? Why?" Suspicion flared in the mind of Miss Grey.

"I'm going to take you to my realm and there you will instruct me as you will temporarily see all that I see and feel all I feel. Physically you will of course remain here, but I shall secure a mental link. Perhaps with that connection and a new sympathy between us, we could examine what to do."

Of course it was total nonsense, or so Delores thought. How could a human being possibly comprehend what it could be like to be a vast and intangible entity that lived outside of time. It would be comparable to understanding a God or Destiny or Writer of all that stands in each of our fictional worlds. "I don't think that can really work, can it?"

"Take my hand, and let us see. You need not fear."

Delores, daunted but not broken, took the hand of the Shepherd of the Planes of Reality.


And so ends Phase One of 'Triangles'. Phase Two may take a while to appear.