{"id":512,"date":"2024-11-30T02:02:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/?page_id=512"},"modified":"2024-11-30T03:27:21","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T03:27:21","slug":"this-too-shall-pass","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/this-too-shall-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"This Too Shall Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Corrina Angel<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the last summer \u2013 long after everything went wrong, I was Zeri and she was Blessing. I taught probate law, and she had her therapy practice. We lived quietly in the suburbs, kept few friends, and never made the mistake of letting anyone find out what we were. I was fifty-five then, but people told me that I didn\u2019t look like it. Blessing \u2013 forty-two \u2013 had wider streaks of gray in her hair than I did and many more smile lines around her mouth.<\/span><\/p>\n

I thought what made me feel older that time around was my students, or the fashion trends and slang I didn\u2019t understand, or the perma-frost white creeping into my best friend\u2019s hair. But it wasn\u2019t. It was the restaurants I liked shuttering, it was the neighborhoods I knew falling victim to gentrification or highway projects. I used to be able to see the Pleiades constellation from my house \u2013 if only just barely \u2013 but without my noticing or consent, the light pollution had thickened to the point that I had a hard time making out Sirius now. <\/span><\/p>\n

By the last summer, I had lost touch with the only people who might have understood what Blessing and I were going through. I caught snatches of their stories sometimes through the gossip vine; there were children, and nightclubs, and one of them had recently become popular on whatever this generation\u2019s version of Twitter was. I wondered often when they would get it through their heads that nothing ever changes. The children would grow up, the club would burn down, the app would become defunct. I didn\u2019t want to wish it on them, but I\u2019d already been where they were \u2013 a hundred thousand times, again and again and again. <\/span><\/p>\n

Blessing and I no longer talked about those weighty truths. We\u2019d had every fight you could imagine, lost and found and chose one another so many times that we no longer had to talk about these things. Our house was so often silent, and our friends made fun of the fact that we could have entire debates through the raising and lowering of eyebrows.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wondered sometimes how I always knew her, and I never found an answer. It was something in the eyes, though they changed colors and shape across the spans of time, they were always somehow eyes I\u2019d known throughout all of my many lives. All of the names I called her were just as right as the first one. If I were more poetic, I would say something about how the melody changes but the rhythm behind it is always the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

At another point \u2013 though still long after everything had gone wrong \u2013 I was Penny and she was Nadia. We\u2019d gone to an ever-quiet city in the north of what used to be Europe to be brooding and alone, and accidentally attached ourselves to a couple of unlikely lovers desperately in need of both personal and professional help. We were the godparents to their five children, and the irony in the title was not lost on any of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were all trapped in our own ways \u2013 the two of them in their respective religions and the two of us in our romantic ideas that this might be the last sunrise we would ever see. We helped them and they wanted to help us. Maybe we would have even let them if I hadn\u2019t had so much of a savior complex, hadn\u2019t been so committed to the idea that this time we would get things right. Maybe this could be our happily ever after.<\/span><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t matter. The sun went down. Something new was born in its place. I was its apocalyptic midwife. Nadia held me through the whole ordeal, I remember. I\u2019d cried in her arms, \u201cThis is it! This is it!\u201d I felt the rage, and grief, and joy, and fear of the end swell inside of me. The world was changing, maybe for the worse, but it hardly mattered because I thought \u2013 I really thought \u2013 that things were finally over.<\/span><\/p>\n

But behind it all, I wished that the others had been there to share it with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

One time \u2013 when things were even more wrong than usual \u2013 I was Uriel and she was Gavin. That was one of the quiet times \u2013 for us, at least. Something about those days was especially terrible, something on the air or in the water. I knew that something new was growing \u2013 metastasizing \u2013 out of our collective pains. That was when I thought I understood the Powers That Be. In my mind, they were without mercy but not without logic.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was something of a librarian in that time, an expert in dread and practically in possession of a doctorate in pain. My theory was \u2013 and still is \u2013 that if you prayed hard enough, if you cried for attention loud enough, eventually something would listen.<\/span><\/p>\n

In those days, Gavin didn\u2019t talk much to me. She had her own dark corners to investigate, her own demons to hunt. She looked at the world and got it in her mind to fix it. It was always a quality I\u2019d always admired in her. I also knew that it was the thing that had dragged her down this road we shared in the first place. But it did mean that my house was quieter, and that time slipped through my fingers even faster without someone to savor it with.<\/span><\/p>\n

I raised a daughter once, in a world that had gone to hell long ago, but one that we made work for us. Neither one of us gave birth to her, but we knew that she was ours in that way that all divine revelations are thrust upon followers: part oblique dreams, part creeping dread I could feel in my spinal column, part her literally showing up on our doorstep. My wife \u2013 Devon in that time \u2013 loved her on sight, of course, as she loves the whole world. That\u2019s another thing I admire about her.<\/span><\/p>\n

She passed that love of life \u2013 life in spite of death, life because of death \u2013 onto our daughter, who was holding funerals for roadkill by fifth grade. Those were good years, fast years. She was grown and running a little bookshop and caf\u00e9 before we even knew it, and was an urban legend soon after. I don\u2019t remember all of the stories anymore, just that one could never find her shop unless they were meant to.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo one dies \u2018before their time\u2019,\u201d my daughter liked to say, \u201cthat\u2019s what \u2018their time\u2019 means.\u201d I\u2019m pretty sure she stole that quote from someone else, but I don\u2019t think anyone else in any world that\u2019s ever existed could have said it with her smile.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a hundred thousand lifetimes, I have never known grief like when I stopped being able to find her shop, and I hope I never will again. I have long pondered why our Patron \u2013 God \u2013 Angel \u2013 gave us such a gift just to take her away with another setting sun. My wife said it was because we had forgotten what our Angel really is: a hole ripped in reality through terror, trauma, and sacrifice. She told me that we could never be so careless again. I said that that couldn\u2019t be all, that It \u2013 She \u2013 had spared us after all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Devon had laughed then, with tears spilling from her eyes. \u201cDid It? Did It really spare us, Gideon? Or did It just want to create two eternal corpses to feed on?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know how to answer her then. I still don\u2019t, really.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before all of that though, before it all went wrong, I was a college professor in Vermont \u2013 this was all the way back when America was still around. I\u2019d been living as a woman named Daiyu for the past couple of decades and teaching religious studies \u2013 eschatology, to be precise (and the irony in that wasn\u2019t lost on me). My wife, at the time, was Jackson and had been Jackson for even longer than I had been Daiyu. That was one of the times where she found me, online of course because that was the sort of world we lived in. Those were happy days, even as we knew the world was changing for the worse with every year that passed. There seemed to be a new disaster \u2013 a new tragedy \u2013 every week, and more than that, it didn\u2019t seem like there was a thing anyone without a certain measure of political pull could do about it. But I was too old to care about that sort of thing, even back then. I\u2019d learned already to relish the small stuff, like dinners with my wife in our ivy-covered house, like our friends \u2013 four other professors at the college; and like the seven bright lights \u2013 students in my friend, L\u2014 \u2019s, class \u2013 we would come to know.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a part of me that wants to give you the names of the people who changed it all in that first autumn. I want to tell you everything I can about the ones who changed our world for the worse, who changed me forever, who I\u2019ll never forgive and who I love with my whole heart. I want to carve their images into your mind so deeply that you might begin to feel what I felt \u2013 what I do feel. I want to tell you how it all went wrong; I really do. I want to lead you down that steep and thorny path. But what if I don\u2019t have the words for it? What if I don\u2019t have the time? There\u2019s never enough time and nothing ever changes. Sunrise to sunset; ashes to ashes; dust to dust.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you how myself and the other teachers used to burn the candle writing lesson plans and cracking jokes while halfway to drunk every other Friday? Do you want me to dig up the words L\u2014 used to describe the hidden brilliance in those other seven? If you want to know what the class was, L\u2014 taught was Culture and Catastrophe, if I\u2019m remembering correctly. In retrospect, it\u2019s another in a frankly exhausting string of ironies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you want the facts of our relationships to one another? L\u2014 and F\u2014\u2019s marriage, V\u2014 and T\u2014 growing up together, et cetera, ad nauseum? Do you want the truth \u2013 that I would just as soon forget them as I would take them all in my arms and never let go again? I wasn\u2019t there when most of them met, so I wouldn\u2019t know how it all got started, I wouldn\u2019t know what dominos were the first to fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we all know how it ends. One way or another, it always ends. It\u2019s too late, and it was too late from the moment I met them all \u2013 before that too actually.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me tell you this \u2013 the one thing we all had in common and the only thing you really need to know \u2013 none of us were going to be missed. Not then, and certainly not now. We all had friends and family at the start, but that\u2019s how it goes, right? Everyone leaves eventually and \u2013 in a way \u2013 that means they\u2019re already gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sunup; sundown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike them though, my wife and I were around before it all went wrong. So, I guess, that\u2019s kind of why what happened was our fault.<\/span><\/p>\n

She and I watched elections and coups, rebellions with genuine cause and pointless wars. We watched humanity unfurl itself again and again, standing up against tragedy just to kneecap itself later. We met people who thought they were making history and ones that genuinely did. I wanted to die old and gray, clean and pretty, next to her no matter how many tries it took. I wanted to live for her too, as long as I could. I wanted to do everything with her, relish the beauty of life and embrace a kindly death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, once, in the city of Jerusalem, following the city\u2019s restoration by Jonathan Apphus of the Maccabees, there was a man who held no greater terror in his heart than that that he would one day die. This terror was not new, nor was it rare. The grievous truth that Mordecai, son of Shimei of the tribe of Benjamin, would whittle much of his fleeting days away in fear would not be a new story either. The fear alone though, could do nothing, would do nothing, meant nothing. All of mankind is afraid and it does nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, Mordecai had a gift \u2013 of a sort. He turned the fear within his heart into opportunity. He labored tirelessly to see the march of time brought to his heel so that he might live forever. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mordecai had been educated in the way of the lord of his age but knew as surely as he knew day turned to night that this lord would not hear his pleas. Mordecai had watched quietly as he grew the way that the temples of Jerusalem became full and prosperous with worshipers but stayed bare of miracles or providence. He abandoned his temple and, soon enough, family and tribe to wander the deserts of Israel as a bringer of revelations. Not a prophet, for to have a prophet, there must be a god and Mordecai believed in no such thing. Every word that tumbled from his lips was promise of a painfully futile oblivion for all of life. Now, the faithful of Israel and otherwise shunned him wherever he went. They had their gods; they had their promises of justice and hope and love. But Mordecai was not the only one to be shunned by these faithful, and those shunned were the first to heed his call.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was Salome and she was Haddasah, cast out and alone in the world save for each other. Our fathers were dead, and we had refused to fall into marriages with men we did not love, for I only ever loved her and she me. Mordecai came to us on the street, and we knew already the coldness that he spoke of. We became his flock, others joining us or departing along the way. We were never large in number, nor did we have aspirations of grandeur \u2013 that was not our way.<\/span><\/p>\n

We would walk for days and nights, listening to Mordecai\u2019s preaching of the silent void, scouring the sands of Israel and beyond for answers. <\/span><\/p>\n

Do you remember what I said about prayer and screaming?<\/span><\/p>\n

The years dragged on. We grew poorer and hungrier; we grew tired. Few children were born and fewer survived to have children of their own. We all felt ourselves being dragged toward that oblivion Mordecai promised. As I saw new lines appear on my face in clouded glass, I begged a god I had not followed in decades to offer me salvation despite my erring ways. I begged Mordecai to save us \u2013 to save me. After all this time, he had to know something, he had to do something. I wanted to make a messiah of him yet. Even when Hadassah pleaded for me to give up and die beside her, all I could think of was my own decaying flesh and the ultimate destruction of my soul. As each member of our flock passed, they had been terrified \u2013 how could they not be? \u2013 it was a life\u2019s worth of terror coming to fruition at once. I felt the rot creeping up my own bones, patient and confident in its victory. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mordecai became scarce and skeletal. He spoke to me only in fits, alluding uselessly to a great truth he was on the verge of cracking. Like the fool I was, I never gave up on him. There had to be something that we missed. I prayed; I made the others pray. I begged for a better world and a kinder fate. And Hadassah, because she loved me and the world so much, followed the two of us down. We dragged the others back to faith kicking and screaming. I believe nowadays you would call us a cult, and maybe we were. We learned to pray again, even though nothing was listening, and we exhumed the bodies of the departed to search them for answers as well. I pushed down all of my reservations about rot and worked to preserve instead. When an old man \u2013 I don\u2019t remember his name anymore \u2013 passed, I did everything in my power to keep his body intact. He was given no funeral rites because we all genuinely believed that he would be back.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last day of my life was quiet, spent in study and observation of our ever-growing tent of bodies in various stages of decay. Hadassah was writing beside me, hoping that her talent for the written craft would entreat something to finally answer us. Mordecai entered. He had deep shadows under his eyes, but looked more awake than ever. He never graced this tent, so afraid was he of the stages of decay spread out here despite all of my best efforts. I knew immediately then that something had changed. Before I could speak, he held up his hand. He told me that he\u2019d finally found our answer. He told me he\u2019d seen the fullness of the soul. Something had spoken to him. He told me he would save me, save all of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then he plunged the dagger into my heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have decided not to tell you what I saw after that. Not because I can\u2019t, but because I\u2019ve already given you so much. What right do you have to ask me for more? No, all you need to know is that what I saw \u2013 maybe a god or maybe not \u2013 made me a promise. It offered me a choice and I chose. And maybe I damned us \u2013 all of humanity that is \u2013 thousands of years before the others \u2013 gods and men alike \u2013 would even be born. <\/span><\/p>\n

I know I damned Mordecai and the rest of our flock. I know that I came back in the body of a young man of the tribe of Benjamin whose grandfather had gone mad with the fear of death and fled his home. I know that no gift comes without sacrifice.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I know that I saved myself and Hadassah, and that\u2019s all I\u2019ve ever really cared about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes I think about the tale of Eve and the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden. I think about Original Sin. Is that what I did, created an Original Sin?<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe. Only if Original Sin is knowing that we all deserved better.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Corrina Angel In the last summer \u2013 long after everything went wrong, I was Zeri and she was Blessing. I taught probate law, and she had her therapy practice. We lived quietly in the suburbs, kept few friends, and never made the mistake of letting anyone find out what we were. I was fifty-five Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":28,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-left-sidebar.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-512","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/512\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}