Are we killing the wrong god?

She laughs. She shouldn't, it's not funny no matter how you take it, but her insides hurt, and she'd be OK with the hurting if she didn't think it meant maybe she just couldn't do this at all, and she's so disappointed and angry and hurt that she can't grow a little person inside herself and then slaughter them in some dark pagan ritual, because maybe if she could then all the orcs who grow up too fast and their little orc babies wouldn't have to be sacrificed, wouldn't have to suffer or have their lives snatched away for the sake of some stupid quest to cover the world in torture factories.

I had a teacher once? Before I was Catholic, when I was really small and going to this little non-denominational parochial school where nobody got to talk during lunch, and they gave you detention every time you turned in an assignment late, and if they really didn't know how to make you follow the rules they'd take you to the principal's office and spank you with a yardstick - anyway. I had this teacher there, for Bible class. And she said that she always kind of thought that everyone who accepted Jesus into their heart would go to heaven, and that also she thought anyone who died to save another person would go to heaven, because that was loving someone else with your whole self, as much as Jesus loved us. And I don't really know where she got this idea, really, it's not in scripture and I think it's probably not how anything works at all, but - if good is loving people with your whole self, and God is love, and God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, and - if we're supposed to be like Christ, and the thing that Christ is is a thing that loves the world with his whole self, then - then I don't see how I can not, no matter what the price of that is.

And - I know I have it broken somewhere, the way you sanity check a math problem and realize that it's super super wrong and you must be making a mistake somewhere, and maybe you can even find it but you can't make it come out right - I know this isn't the right answer. I know, God told us, gave us answers at the back of the book, said that this thing is one of the things you never do. But I turn it and turn it and I can't make it come out right, because I - want people to be OK, I love them, I want them to get the chance to be the best versions of themselves. And I can't give up that part, I can't, it's the most important thing I have in me, it's the thing that reflects God the most, even if it doesn't reflect him right all the time. And I think - I think on some level, this thing I'm trying to do, whether I succeed or not, giving up my whole self and then giving up someone who I think I'll probably care more about than I care about myself - I think I can only do it because I've heard it, I have a story, I have this same thing that was done for me once, I have someone who was willing to come down from heaven and to be tortured to death to give me a path up. If I'd take it. My child will take it, if I have one, and that's more important anyway, I can be grateful to him for that.

And so I think - I want to love the way God loves. To come as near as anyone can come to it.

So - even when I'm feeling about as blasphemous as I ever get, which is I guess where I'm at now, I don't wanna kill God. I don't wanna get rid of this person who made me and loved me with his whole self. I want - I want to do him one better, to love so much and care so much that if a thing is really terrible, really unacceptable, and you have a stupid way to fix it but you'll have to die to do it - not just die physically, not just be obedient even unto death on a cross, but to die spiritually, to die forever, to stick to your guns even unto death on infinity crosses, even unto the destruction of everything you have in you -

I wanna be the kind of person who loves enough to do that. And when I'm feeling very blasphemous, I want God to see it and be awed.

Can I send someone in who can sing you healing?

Yes please.

I'm proud of you. 

An Elf arrives a bit later and sits at the door, singing.

Eventually Karen pokes her head out of her blankets and tests her range of motion and sighs in relief at the lack of pain. She gets up and goes to the door.

"OK. I'm fine now. Thank you."

The Elf leaves.

And bumps into Ryan bringing a meal. "Hey. Everything okay?"

" - oh! Yeah. I mean - it's a lot. But yeah."

Not that I'm planning to systematically hide things from Ryan or anything but, uh, did you tell Ryan anything -

Of course not. Do you want me to shoo him?

No no no it's fine. I just. Have not revised my plan yet and I don't know how much suffering I wanna fess up to before I have.

She accepts the meal. 

"How're you doing?"

"Uh, I was sore for a bit, but they have healing songs and stuff, so I'm good now. And now I think I'm entering the - emotional processing stage of stuff. Or something."

"Okay." Hug?

Hug.

"Do you think you want to try again tonight?"

Aaaaaa.

"I think - I think I might wanna wait a month? It's - like, later we can do it more, increase our chances, but - I just need to think about stuff. I think."

"Okay." Hug. 

Hug. "Thanks for being really good about stuff."

"Of course. You know where to find me, I just wanted to check that everything's okay."

"Yeah. Thanks so much. I'll see you around."

He goes.

Karen shuts her door and sinks back against the wall.

Well. Not terrified of Ryan. Small mercies. Pretty terrified of the concept of having sex again.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Did he say no to you being unconscious?

Oh yeah, that was a plan.