Malcolm in the Consciousness

Marla fights with me about everything. World news, national news, local news. She’s the most entitled woman on Earth. It’s almost spring, so Marla is in full-on Easter mode and it bothers me.

Marla and I have differing views on Easter.

I’m not even sure why Marla is so into Easter. She doesn’t go to church or do anything religious, really. I’m not even sure she believes in the resurrection. Or Jesus. Or anything. Marla’s religion is her kitchen. Her freezer. Her flower beds. Interior paint.

Dad and I believe in the Consciousness—a huge ball of energy formed by the energy of people who’ve died. It’s like a giant resurrection, really. Picture it as big as the Pacific Ocean. As big as Jupiter. As big as the galaxy. How big does the pool have to be if it has to fit the ideas of everyone who ever died into it?

I’d be lying if I didn’t say this is a seriously white belief system. New Age bullshit, probably. But it means my mom is here in every moment, and it means Dad will be, too.

When I talk to Marla about it, she seems to think the only people in the Consciousness are either people she knew or famous people. She says she can’t wait to see her mother again and meet Elvis Presley.

I say things like, “All the people from India will be there, too.”

And she rolls her eyes at me. “They’re Hindus. They’ll go somewhere else.”

Marla’s grasp on the afterlife and Hinduism is tenuous. “The Consciousness is all-inclusive,” I explain.

She really thinks about it. “So murderers and rapists and dogfighters’ll be there? I’ll take a pass, thank you. It’s scary enough to live with those people. I don’t want to die with them!”

“Maybe that’s the challenge,” I say.

“No one wants a challenge after they die, Malcolm. This is a depressing theory. No way I could go there.”

“So Heaven and Hell work better for you?”

“Absolutely!”

“And what makes you think you’ll end up in the right place?” I say. “I mean, away from the murderers and stuff?”

“I’m a good person.”

Marla is resolute in this idea. Marla Hemmings is a good person. She looks after me while my father dies. She gives money to the animals. That’s her convenient ticket to Heaven. It’s Marla’s flush toilet. The septic tank is underground, just like Hell. She never has to think about it once she presses the handle.

She has no idea how her shit affects what she’s planted above it. No idea that her grown children, my dad and his siblings, resent her for good reason—that each flush douses them in the knowledge that they’re failing at mere survival while she marinates top-cut lamb chops.