They say that a person cannot change, but this is simply not true. He proceeds through life, and if he’s successful, goes through transformations that make him more of what he was before, closer to the child; and that is what happened to the President, Matthew Madison Adams, who woke one morning to see an angel at the foot of his bed, and began, against his will, his hero’s journey. His revelation came as no powerful fireworks display, bombs bursting in air, enlightenment. Rather, it took a long and gradual opening of the heart, but it was no less heroic because interior and uncoordinated and chronologically unclear. It was his own wilderness he traveled through, slaying the dragons of doubt and insecurity, blindness, egotism, control, and arrogance, staying the numbness that masked his feelings and fear. What he learned was simply to let go. Trust.
It was a descent into Hell. But Hell is also only an attitude of mind, for Heaven is in Hell, as Jakob Böhme wrote, and Hell in Heaven, yet separated by the most immeasurable distance of our point of view.
Matt awoke from his dream (the last one he would ever have of the beggar and the angels). He took command. He held the reins of power firmly in his hands, confident once more, decisive, with a twinkle in his eye, and with a sense of timing that left both his admiring supporters and opposition in awe. His change in attitude alone was enough to abort the coup: Forget Scotty’s story, which, scrabbling to catch up to the swiftly changing events, was written and revised a dozen hurried times before it appeared and won the Pulitzer for him. By then the vice-president had dropped into line, as had the two military officers. The President was the alpha dog again, with the rest of his staff at his shoulder, looking to him for leadership, and he to his angels. He felt a promise had been made to him.
He ordered the armed forces on maneuvers, building to Operation Shark, and you could see Time holding its breath as the world moved breathlessly toward this last encounter with death. The little planet would be a Black Hole itself if Matt guessed wrong. But the President pressed on, fearful at times and often caught by doubt, but mostly feeling more excitement than anxiety, after what he’d seen. Some people were scared by his very confidence they had once found wanting.
“Do you think we get out of school so fast?” He laughed. “Not likely. Not yet.”
Some people weren’t sure the planet was in school, but who could resist the President? His spirit was infectious. He rode high in the polls again, unconquerable, and when he campaigned for reelection, when he addressed the roaring crowds, he was unbeatable; even Anne took to the hustings, as in the old days—Battling Annie at his side. But I‘m ahead of myself again, for the landslide election did not come until years later; long after Susan’s divorce from Jim, long after the armies crossed the border to challenge the Barbarians, after the Ring of Fire was ignited, then extinguished, and after the famous summit meeting that dismantled the Ring forever.
The summit took place on an ancient estate outside Stockholm, during summer days without an end to light. The President walked out with the elderly Eastern Premier, down the path through the pine forest. Only the two walked together, for the Premier spoke the President’s language fluently, though Matt knew only a few words of that ancient tongue. The Premier leaned on the cane he had used since his illness the year before.
It would be a lie to say the two had forgotten enmity. They paced slowly up the path, side by side, the scent of pine in their nostrils and the soft green light splashing at their feet. The breeze rocked the branches above and gently nuzzled at their cheeks and the skin at their open shirts.
Ahead of them moved the two angels. The President blinked against the tremendous light.
“You have one too,” the President said.
“It came before the war.”
“Mine too.” The President nodded absently. “Yours has a sword.” But no sooner had he spoken than the sword of light turned into a column as large as the two haloed, mist-like figures.
“The sword of combat,” growled the Premier, trying to hold on to his failing sense of animosity, and watching as the sword hilt shifted, as before, into that luminous cross.
Observers following fifty yards behind saw the two heads of state, the Emperors, who between them governed half the world, pause and stop. The Premier leaned on his cane. Both men seemed absorbed in gazing at something ahead—a squirrel perhaps? A bird?
“The sword of conflict,” repeated the Premier hoarsely. But as he spoke they saw it once more change into a round and shining globe, held as tenderly as the orb in the other angel’s hands. “Yours has one too.” And the two spheres merged into one huge ball, held up by both these beautiful creatures.
The Premier could not stop his flowing tears, and standing in the center of the path, he found he could not move. Then he felt the President’s hand on his shoulder, and, looking over, saw that he was weeping too. For angels filled the sky. Their light extended everywhere.