Soul
Copyright © 2016, 2018-2020 by VeryWellAged
Author's note: This chapter is NOT a stand-alone...The story starts here.
International Harvester
What to do about the six vacant bishoprics needed resolution. I ‘think’ a question towards Aina. Can you query the statue bishops and find out what is needed to specifically happen, to initiate the action?
Yes. Wait a bit. … OK I know, do you want me to do it?
Yes. Then I just need to figure out what to do about the first bishop, - the one who is dead.
No, I am covering that now. His duties were covered by one of the other five.
Thank you… I am having a hard time knowing what to call you. Joana is gone. I will bury her. Aina is right there with you. Her memories are now included with Joana’s.
You are the Master and I am the Master’s wife. But it is best you not call me wife. Keep calling me Aina. That is the name of this vessel.
Yes, good.
Hun, once we take care of this church thing, do things go back to normal? I know why you are doing this to the church and it is not entirely for the reasons of having them follow your orders, at least not these orders.
How could you know? Oh! Of course, you are in my head. Yes, these damned fools took Joana from me. Sure I love Francine, but there were ways to keep both alive. Instead they were allowing Joana to die. They lied to me and I don’t read minds. If Joana hadn’t prayed to me at that very last moment, it would have been too late.
But you brought me back!
Not completely. Part of you is from Joana, but not all. Aina is really part of you. You have her memories, and Joana’s, as you are well aware. I was, briefly, in the vessel you inhabit in some ways. I needed to be in it to stitch the two of you together. Maybe that is why you can read my mind, and it is how you know how to do things that Joana did not know anything about. You speak like me now, and not the Filipino English that Joana spoke. You think you are Joana, but think back to the Joana who was.
Oh… Oh! Oh, Master! I never would have called you ‘Hun!’
Uh-huh.
I didn’t know you had a son! … So I think I am Joana, but I am not?
You have Joana’s personality, her love of me. But, no, you are not Joana. Joana is dead.
But I am not Aina. I have her memories but not her feelings. I think Joana loved you but she was frightened by you too. I do not have that fear. Joana stopped her schooling in 8th grade, right? Ha, yes, I can see that she did not know what I know! So whose feelings are these? Is it Joana’s feelings or yours inside me now?
Mostly Joana’s but they are informed by the awareness that, I guess, comes from me. You are not me, but you have a vast amount of knowledge that must come from me.
So we are not really married?
Legally in this world, no, as I am not married to Aina. Joana is dead and Aina lives. But, in your heart, we are, and so yes, we are married.
Good. You know it was strange to experience sex from your side of the mattress.
I imagine it was. I gather you enjoyed it.
Wow, yes. It is very different. Maybe if I was not in your mind I would be jealous of those three. But when you make love to them, I do too. They don’t feel like competitors.
Good. They are scared of you.
Yes I know. … Master?
Yes?
All dioceses are in motion now. I do not think there is anything more you need to do with them.
Good. Why did you call me Master and not Hun?
You asked me to think back to how it was with Joana. She called you Master. That is what I will call you. … Master, Francine is beautiful, just like Joana. Did you make that happen?
No, it is just how she is.
I have been listening to her. She is a good girl. You did a good job raising her.
Thank you.
Master, may I change the minds of those three souls so they are not frightened of me?
No. I want you to not alter anyone’s mind unless I ask you to do it. I won’t be asking often. I will join them. Where are you?
I am with them. We are watching a teleserye. There is food on the table. Please eat something. We will join you when the show ends.
What time is it?
A little after one in the afternoon. You slept a long time. The girls were worrying again. I told them that it was OK. You needed the rest. I am not sure they believed me.
I haven’t slept more than three hours at a stretch since I lost Joana.
I take it as a good sign that you can now! Come eat.
If I ever thought about putting in an intercom system, there is no need for it now! I approach the table to find a place set for me, with plate, utensils, a glass, and food in dishes surrounding the setting. I have to admit, it takes me back many years. This is Joana in action. My now dead Joana has set my place at this table.
I am halfway through and enjoying a bowl of lomi1 when Erlyn sits down cattycorner from me as I am sitting at one end of the table.
Master, I know she know what Aina know. But she not Aina. Who is she?
Erlyn, why do you say that?
How she know you like lomi? You like it, true? How she know where you keep that spoon you using? We not see it before. She goes for it, finds it in first place she looks, smiles and puts it out for you. I see it and I think, that is not a normal spoon. I will put a tablespoon out for you too. But you use the weird spoon she finds. I grab a glass for you, but she says, use this one, he will want beer with the lomi. I never see you drink beer, and I say this to her. She smiles and says, yes, but he will have it with his lomi. How that? That not from being somewhere else for millennia. She know this house! Who is she?
Aina has not been making this easy with that type of strutting. Is this because I told her not to change any minds? Well, Aina is it? Are you trying to teach me a lesson?
No, Master, I think I am just too happy. I am not being good. I am being silly and foolish and, Master, I am very, very happy. It is just something I am not really able to hide.
OK, well, come out here and sit with Erlyn and me.
Erlyn, Aina is really Aina in many ways. Her memories are still intact. Her brain is still her brain and her body is still her body. At this point as I go on talking Aina has joined us and sits down next to Erlyn. Aina as you knew her was unable to accept that Jesus was not real. When I showed her what I had to show her, her personality, that which made her Aina as you knew her, collapsed and disappeared. If I didn’t do something she would have died. I didn’t want to kill her.
So what you do?
You know that photo above my bed?
Yes, the one who died? Francine’s mother? Yes. Her name I not know, but yes. Bakit?2
Her name was Joana. She was pregnant with Francine. There were complications.
She die giving birth?
Yes, … and no.
Hala! What happen?
The doctors were letting her die, Joana knew she was slipping away and she prayed. I heard it. Her pleas pierced my mind and I panicked. With all the power I have, I sent her to another place, out of your world. She was frozen in time, not dead and not alive.
Oh! That why there is no burial record? You broke the rules! You not supposed to do that. True?
Yes, that is why there is no burial record and yes I broke the rules. But she was mine and I am allowed to save her. I am just not supposed to do it in that way. But the Church is supposed to stay away from those souls who are mine. That’s part of the rules. But those doctors did that to her, because they stop being doctors when their catholic beliefs get in the way. The church teaches that women are dispensable. They are there to make babies, souls. Once they have made one, it’s perfectly ok to let them die, the church will harvest that soul and will have the baby’s soul to harvest later. They don’t want the babies to die because if they die before they are baptized, they come to me. Catholic doctors who follow the church are no better than mercenaries. I know that now, and I knew that then. It is why I wanted to keep her safe, but she said don’t interfere!
Why you tell me about… Oh! This Joana. Her body no good, di ba? Aina’s mind no good but her body is good! Ganun3?
Yes.
Erlyn turns to Aina with eyes that are opened in amazement. You are Joana!
Partly, Erlyn, only partly. Aina’s personality is gone, but her life’s memories are not. They are part of me. Also, I was not as frozen as Master says. I learned much. And when Master, put what he could inside Aina, some things were left behind, and somethings about Master were added. But this is Aina’s body. I am Aina. Joana is dead now. Truly dead. Master needs to bury her.
Oh! What? You to see yourself buried? That is very weird. I not like that. Master, that really to happen?
At some point, yes. Erlyn, Aina is your friend. You do not need to be frightened of her. She was to me then, in the past, as you are to me now. She knows the love and the fear you have inside of you. No one in this world will be more kind and honest to you than Aina.
Master, I not think you can tell this to the others. They not understand. But I need to tell them something. They all know she not the Aina they knew.
Ok, I agree. But, Aina, you are going to have to curb your enthusiasm.
Yes, Master. But at least Erlyn and I can be closer. And with that Aina reaches out and takes one of Erlyn’s hands in her. Erlyn squeezes Aina’s hand but addresses me. You saved my life and you did all you could to save Joana’s. You say you do not love. I say, all you do is about love. Yes you get angry if some rule is not followed. I not understand this, but we are here because you need love. It OK if you call it caring. I not care. I know it is love.
Erlyn, Master thinks he failed to protect Joana. He blames his love of her, for not being careful. Joana told him to trust the doctors and allow nature to be nature. If he had not listened to Joana, if he did not allow love to cloud his judgment, Joana would have lived. That is what he believes. Maybe that is why he tells you he doesn’t love you.
Oo.
Master does not lie. So I understand this. I agree, he loved Joana. I think he must be afraid to love you.
Yes, maybe he think it hurt too much to love if you lose that person, like he lose Joana. If Joana not die, they still be together. Di ba?
Yes.
Oh my gee. OK, yes, I see why he not love. I think he still love Joana. But maybe that change now?
Erlyn, that was true. But he told me, when Amelae put Joana’s picture up on the wall, he knew he needed to let go. If that did not happen, I am not sure he would have risked what he risked with Aina. Maybe he would have allowed Aina to die and leave Joana outside the world. He said, he thought Joana would be gone completely if he tried to do what he did with Aina, once the girl’s brain collapsed. Until I spoke to him, he thought he had failed completely.
But he didn’t. You are really Joana!
No Erlyn, I am not. I know how Joana thought and felt. I am not her. I have her personality, but I am not her. Joana has died. Aina lives because of what Master did, grafting Joana’s personality on Aina’s mind. Master needed to accept that Joana needed to die. He has.
Master, maybe you will love now?
Erlyn, is your teleserye over?
Sige, sige, I go.
Both of them get up, still holding hands as they leave the room. My lomi has been consumed.
I have kept it buried for all these years. I didn’t want Francine to be burdened by this anger, anger I feel now rising up. Just as Joana was frozen in time and out of reach, so I put my feelings of anger and rage. I swallowed it and kept it deep within me. Never letting it out. Never acknowledging its presence. But it abided, unreleased and unresolved.
The church solicitors were not part of that, at least not consciously. But as the doctors were mercenaries for the catholic church, those kids were unwitting but compliant mercenaries for their church. Stealing money, rather than souls from the unsuspecting. Is it a lesser crime? Surely. But it must have been why it bothered me so deeply. It was being fueled by that which I had kept buried for so long.
Those kids will, within days, be liberated, against their own wishes, from that duty. But what am I to do with the anger I feel rising up? I will soon bury my Joana. The interregnum is about to end. I have been cruel to a few in the church, but it is not enough. No, it is not nearly enough.
MASTER!
Aina?
What are you going to do?! Enough!
Just because you are in my head, does not give you the right to play the role of conscience. I am my conscience, or did you not get that message when you learned about me?
Yes, Master, you are right, but I am with you. Yes, you will bury Joana, but not all is lost!
And I am pleased you are here. But there must be a reckoning.
Please, before anything else happens, spend time with Francine. Allow us to all be together without your reckoning of others hanging in front of our eyes.
You are a dangerous woman!
Master? Why do you say that to me?
Because now I must wait. With what you have said, there is no other option. I did not appoint you to the role of censor, but you have taken it and done it effectively. You have your wish, Aina. I will wait.
Thank you, husband.
You are welcome, wife.
I am sending Mirafe to you when this show is over.
I see. I gather you think she needs some attention. Anything else?
Please allow Amelae to visit her mother.
OK. Next?
I will take Erlyn with me and we will arrange for a casket and burial plot for Joana. I want to see Joana buried while Francine is here.
Does that complete the list, Aina?
Yes, husband, that completes the list.
Very well.
My meal over, I wander back to my work area. There is nothing in particular I am looking for. I am just reviewing all that has been before me. Amelae’s mother is being treated properly. There is not a single bit of chatter related to Erlyn. Mirafe’s father has caused a ruckus and her mother let him back into the house. His brothers have gotten wind of it and there is about to be some ugliness. But Mirafe is not part of it. She did all she can do and, what is about to play out, is just not anything she can control. From our discussions, she has expected this to happen. There is no need to burden her with the news.
The church-on-church conflict I have stirred up is beginning to become big news across the country. There have been some physical altercations. Restaurants have started kicking the kids out, if they show up. The restaurants can’t afford to tick off the church. Members of the church have been standing as observers at many restaurants, waiting and watching.
News crews are now doing the same thing. One kid approached a patron at a Jollibee, claiming to be mute. He got chased out into the street and started calling for the police to protect him. What the kid didn’t know was that he was on a hidden camera the entire time he was making his silent pitch, and still later again, as he was calling for the cops.
When a cop arrived on the scene, the video, conveniently was made available to the cop. The kid, being threatened with arrest by the cop, gave a detailed confession, also on video. It made for great TV and even better social media posts via Youtube.
There are now calls to arrest church leaders, with others saying the government should not get involved in this religious dispute.
I lit the match and am watching all this unfurling as a voyeur. I am enjoying it.
Master? Aina said you wanted to spend time with me?
Yes, Mirafe, I do. And I get up and walk back to my bedroom with her, hand in hand. Things must be a little unsettling to you, now.
Maybe a little. Erlyn say that Aina really part Aina, and part Francine’s mother. Aina say that only partially true. We are confused, but both Erlyn and Aina say it is a good thing and you are happy. Is that true?
Yes.
Erlyn say we all stay here. That true?
Yes.
Aina say you love us. That true?
AINA!