Newirtheism

November 13, this year
Venice, Italy
10:21 am CEST

“So what we have here is what I’m going to coin as Newirtheism.” Astrid’s hangover is not as intense as she was expecting. She can still taste the wine in her mouth. Her head throbs a little. She feels about how she might feel during the start of any Monday morning lecture. But better. Probably because the bottle of wine was exquisite—no sulfites—no preservatives—and more than likely bottled by a family owned winery just walking distance away. She scans the kitchen to see if there is another bottle hiding somewhere.

“Newirtheism?” Marcel repeats.

“Yes,” Astrid says, rising, opening the small white cube of a refrigerator. Voila—wine. She seizes the bottle, sets it on the counter and jabs the corkscrew into the throat. “My only chance of not losing my mind is using what I know in order to process all that we are involved in. The Journal and Albion’s notes are beyond anything I or anyone involved can fully understand—including Dr. Newirth himself. But laying what I know of myth and history over what we have just learned, I think we can at least find a place to stand within it.”

“Gods exist… afterlife exists…” Marcel says seemingly to himself.

Astrid purses her lips and thinks. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? How can you say that? Maybe? After all we’ve seen already. After what you’ve seen?”

“That’s just it, Marcel,” she says. “Rearden…” A chill skitters down her neck. She shakes her head. “Rearden will take some thought—do you recall Rearden’s words in the Journal—it was a repeated motif throughout the work. He said, many times: there are always two.”

Marcel says, “Yes—Always two.”

“Correct. But perhaps Rearden’s, or rather, Loche Newirth’s words for Rearden were not entirely accurate—or complete. Loche kept referring to words and pictures. Always two. Two ways of perceiving.”

“Yes, and Loche wrote of William saying similar things, too.”

“Yes.” Astrid thinks a moment. “Instead of two, maybe the line should have been, there are always three…”

“Okay. What’s the third?”

“Well, stories can be shared with words and pictures—but what if they could be shared through experiences. In other words, I can tell you—I can show you—but what if I could attend you.”

“Attend?”

“Yes. Say for example you taste wine from an unlabeled bottle,” Astrid pours two glasses. She hands one to him. He sips. “And you tell me about its flavor, texture, its deep crimson color —almost blood-like. You describe how the spirit gets you slightly buzzed and giggle-drunk. You go on and on with your story. You even snap a picture of it for me to see. Or in this case, you raise the glass and show me. I’m quite inclined to believe everything you say. I got the words—I got the pictures. But to fully believe, or rather, to know, I must experience it for myself, yes? I must attend it.” She tips the glass up and drinks the contents in four deep pulls.

Marcel watches her. “Professor?”

She sets the glass on the counter. “And I agree. And I believe you. It is true. Good fucking wine.” She returns to the table and lifts up the Journal between them. “Now let’s say you see a ghost—or better yet, you experience one of your tribe’s elder spirits, like you’ve claimed so many times. You tell me that you swear on your Elders, and your Elder’s Elders that you experienced it—even after I suggest you may have had low blood sugar at the time, or you were stoned at the time, or maybe depressed, or tired, or some physical, organic biorhythm was squirting an overload of this or that kind of hormone or a random electrical synapse firing across your frontal lobe—you’re still telling me that you fucking saw one of your spirit guides. Okay. Fine. Then you show me a picture. And it’s a good one. Say, from your cell phone. I may be inclined to believe you—but I wouldn’t.”

“You would have to attend me,” Marcel says, nodding.

“I would have to attend you,” Astrid agrees. “Myths and belief systems are made from two things—words and pictures—very seldom from attendance in the grand scheme. We know that myths were created to establish moral values, to control masses and the like. But this…” she sets the Journal down on the table. “This is something entirely new. And with the lenses I’ve looked through all of my career, it is fucking terrifying.”

Marcel waits, his mouth slightly open.

“Let me put it to you this way,” she says, pressing her palms together. “We know now, in the twenty-first century that gods have never existed. We made them up. Humanism, history and time has taught us that.”

“Some attend such a notion,” Marcel says—a nervous smile on his lips, “But I believe gods have always existed.”

“Yes,” Astrid agrees. “I know.” She fills her glass to the rim. “And you’re not the only one, of course. But, you see, Newirtheism has just replaced belief with knowing. Belief with fact. If the twentieth century killed God and advertised it for all to see on its philosophical billboards: God Is Dead, then Newirtheism, in my mind, has just brought to life what was never really alive in the first place.”

Marcel shakes his head, “But Professor, God, or gods live within us—they—” His words fall away as he watches Astrid empty another full glass of wine into her mouth.

She slurs, “There is something missing. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Professor, after reading—I couldn’t help but wonder about my personal past. I mean—” Marcel shakes his head and he raises his hands as if he is trying to grab an imaginary idea from the air. “I mean, if I’m reading Loche’s writing correctly, and deciphering Albion’s notes—life, as we know it now, is only weeks old. I mean, everything was different before Loche fell into the Eye.” His face scrunches. “I mean, take Wyn Avuqua, for example. I’ve been fascinated with the folk tales and controversy of Wyn Avuqua since I was a kid. Since I was a kid! But if Albion’s notes are correct, it would mean that Wyn Avuqua has only truly existed for a couple of weeks—since Loche fell into the Eye and wrote it into existence. His writing changed the past? My past, too?”

Astrid feels a heavy stone drop into her stomach. “Yes,” she says. Her tone is dark. “I’ve been thinking that he created a past. And when I think hard about it, I feel this strange ache. It is difficult to describe. Like I’ve forgotten something.”

“I feel it, too. A worry, almost. A worry…”

Astrid nods. “Can you recall the first time you learned of Wyn Avuqua?”

Marcel looks out the window. His eyes shut. He takes a deep breath. “Well, yes. Of course. My grandmother told the tales of the ancient city. I must have been four or five, I guess. We lived on the Rez at the time. But—”

“But, what?” Astrid leans toward him.

“But the harder I think about it—search out details—the ache gets worse. That worry—that worry almost becomes, well, dread.” His face pales even more than his usual pale. After a moment he asks, “What does that mean, Prof?”

Astrid’s eyes stray to the wine bottle. The alcohol in her blood is now cushioning her own ache. It is impossible to work out, she thinks. Just like trying to make sense of a believer’s blind faith, or the insanity of placing an afterlife ahead of the life you’re living, or placing all of your hopes, dreams and identity upon a story—a myth.

“It seems to me that this will be a topic of discussion with Albion Ravistelle. I’m guessing he’s feeling the same kind of ache we are. But like the Journal says, it can all be true. Seams now exist in both our stories and in reality. This might cause our little arrogant self-important perspectives some distress, I think. I wonder what other godlike entity we’ll try to make up when our canonized characters of myth start doing things we would never expect. This may be the first time in human history that the entire race will attend the reality of myth and afterlife.” She considers another glass of wine. “They are real! Newirtheism. It is really happening.”

“What about Rearden, Professor?” Astrid sees the gun in Rearden’s hand. “What do you think his role in all of this is?” She hears Graham’s desperate gasp for breath.

“It is because of him, Marcel, this entire story began. He is a murderer. And he’s after something.”

“The Red Notebook?

“He got his hands on that already. But I think he’s got a score to settle with Loche.”

“What do you think is written in the Red Notebook, Professor?”

Astrid reaches for the bottle, “Life.”

“Life? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know yet.”