Welcome

A Requiem for Broken Things

For all purposes, it should have been the most magnificent door I had ever seen in my life. Because, - and I have to be honest here - I’m normally not a big fan of splendour, but I had come to expect something. I mean, something big. So I’ll admit that upon reaching the top of all those flights of stairs, it all seemed a bit anticlimactic.

You know, I could just picture it on my way up.. the door, I mean. The whole deal: Nine feet tall, dark Mahogany wood, all done up with creepy Baroque designs (you know, vines and swirls and whatever) with a gold inlay. Right in the center would be this enormous knocker, you know, one of those heavy, knobby Victorian ones, that look as if they’re going to bite you in the hand if you come to close. Made of brass, or titanium, or whatever.. probably really tarnished, but not to the point of rusting. (Tetanus being, in the grand scheme of things, not something you’d want your houseguests contracting on the way in). It was the door knocker I had pictured clearest of all.. and as I climbed those stairs, it was the knocker I had begun to worry about.

That’s really a decent question, isn’t it? I mean, if you think about it.. how do you knock on God’s door? I mean, even if it were important? What if he was, you know, out at the time?

So when I got there, you can imagine my shock - and yes, disappointment - to find nothing of the sort. Standing in front of what now revealed to be no “Door of Imposing Stature and Resonance”, as I had imagined during my upward climb, I began to hesitate. For a brief moment, I thought I had come to the wrong place.. impossible as that was. I mean, it wasn’t like I could have taken a wrong turn, or got the house number wrong.. but still, this was nothing like I had pictured.

It was in all ways plain: painted white, normal height, with not a trace of anything even remotely Baroque to speak of. It wasn’t imposing in the least, and didn’t seem to resonate anything, much less, you know, those intimidating vibes you’d expect would be part and parcel with the whole deal. To top it all off, there was no knocker to speak of.. just a small yellow doorbell of to the side.

Carefully, I rung the doorbell.. only it didn’t even ring. I expected some reverberating Celestial Tintinnabulation, or a profound Orchestratic note sung by some invisible Chorus of Angels, but I got nothing of the sort. It buzzed. God’s doorbell buzzed, like some two-penny apartment ringer. I waited a few minutes. Nothing happened. At this point, I think it’s safe to admit this whole ordeal was getting a bit irksome.

I took a few steps back to assess the situation, and noticed there was a small sign hanging beside the door. This being God’s door and all, you’d expect it would say something, I don’t know, fancy.. like “Rejoice, Ye Who Stands to Receive the Multitudes of Heaven”, or even something simple like “God is IN”. (which would have answered my earlier question quite nicely). But all it said was “PUSH”.

Push. Just ‘Push’. I mean, really.. Push? What was I supposed to do? I took a deep breath, took the door handle, and pushed. The door didn’t budge. I pushed harder. The door still didn’t budge. I pressed my shoulder up against the door, dug into the ground with my feet, and pushed as hard as my muscles could strain. The door hadn’t moved an inch. I stopped for a moment to assess the situation.. in a final lunge of frustration, I pulled on the door. It opened effortlessly.

Does anyone have any idea how embarrassing that is? You know, to find out that you had been pushing on a pull door? I mean, even if nobody’s around, you feel so stupid. So there I was, pushing on God’s Pull-door like a fool.. even when I got it open, I was this close to just turning around and walking straight home. At that point, I didn’t even care that there was, you know, several thousand stairs between me and the ground. But despite my embarrassment, I had come an extremely long way and wasn’t about to go galloping back to Earth just because some schmuck mislabelled a door. . so I tried my best to swallow my frustration, and I walked in.

For one thing, the place was smaller that I had imagined. The door opened up to a room the size of a mid-sized office, with drab wallpaper and a lazily-rotating overhead fan. I was immediately surprised to note how messy the place looked: piles of junk littered the floor in knee-high piles, and there was hardly enough room for me to walk in. Amidst it all, a man sat at a lone desk, absorbed in his work. As I walked in he looked up at me, with a peculiar expression of surprise on his face.

“Oh, hello there. Why don’t you come over here and take a seat. I’ll finish this up quickly” the man said, gesturing vaguely to a chair by his desk. I walked as carefully as I could through the junk-strewn room, sitting down in front of the man at the desk. As I placed my weight on it, the chair squeaked from under me, and teetered a bit.. I looked down and realized one of its legs was shorter than the others by a few inches.

“I imagine..” the man said as I sat down, “that you had a bit of trouble with the door?”.

I admitted that, yes, I did have a bit of trouble with the door.

“Ah..” he said, nodding. “I’d been meaning to fix that, but there’s always so much else that needs attention around here..” he gestured around the room, indicating the piles of accumulated junk scattered around him, and I noticed that everything lying around this office was broken somehow: Lamps with broken cords and burnt-out bulbs, bent utensils, rusted bicycles with snarled chains, old antenna-less Television Sets with twisted off knobs, stacks of books with cracked bindings, broken vases, shoes with snapped laces, headless dolls and legless tables, cassettes that had disintegrated to spools of unwound tape, flat, punctured tires, and other assorted bits of rubbish lay piled atop each other in desperate need of repair. Off in one corner sat a grand piano, its keys cracked and discoloured, with a mass of severed wires hanging limply from the front.

In surveying the room, I had become distracted from what the man at the desk was saying to me. Noticing this, he politely cleared his throat to regain my attention. “So, what is it exactly that you need?” he asked.

I nearly froze. Where to begin? After everything I’d gone through, here I was, sitting in front of God, and I found I could hardly find the words.. because, I mean, how do you tell your creator, to his face even, that you had a problem with the way he had made things? I screwed up my courage, and stammered:

“Well.. it’s just that.. well.. all my life I’ve been feeling.. I don’t know, I wouldn’t say cold, or alone, because I’ve always had people, and my family have been supportive and all, but that isn’t what I mean.. just.. I don’t know, detached? I think that’s it, detached.. I mean, I want to be able to just kind of ‘click’, I guess, just click into place, because it seems that everything would just kind of fit.. but it just.. I don’t know, I wake up everyday and I just feel like no matter what I do, I’m never going to get a handle on things, and I mean, I felt that when I was a kid, too, but that was different, because I had the hope that maybe, in, say, ten years I’d be on top of things.. but, I guess I’m just realizing that, well, no one’s ever on top of things, and that really, I don’t know, bothers me for some reason, because I used to think that.. well, I used to think that things made sense, at least, you know, after awhile.. so I just thought, that, maybe.. well, of course, because you’re God, that, maybe you could help..

“I’m not God” the man said.

I paused.. “Beg pardon?”

“I said I’m not God” the man repeated, calmly.

“Oh.. I was under the impression that I’d be.. um.. meeting God”.

The man shrugged. “He’s pretty busy with everything” he said. “He usually doesn’t take visitors”.

“Oh.. kay. Then... who are you, then?” I asked him slowly, trying to remain calm.

“Well, I’m a god. But not God”.

“A god?”

“Yes”

“But not.. God?”

“No”.

“Oh”...

I paused for a few minutes, not knowing what to say. Noticing this, the man returned his attention to the junk he had piled upon his desk. Picking up a spool of duct tape, he began to wind it around what appeared to be the broken stick of an old moth-eaten Hobby Horse.

After gathering myself from the initial shock, I ventured another question.

“So..” I asked tentatively, “What are you the god of?”.

“Oh, things” he said, looking up and once again gesturing nonchalantly about the room.

“What kind of things?” I asked.

“Er, well.. broken things” he said.

“The god of broken things? Why would broken things even need a god in the first place?” I demanded out of frustration.

“Well.. to fix them?” the man suggested, humbly.

“This is insane!” I said, standing to leave. “Why would they possibly send me up with the rest of this rubbish? What were they thinking?”. I turned to walk out.

“Well..” the man said as I was leaving, “it seems to me that you might want to consider the suggestion that you may be in need of repair” he called after me, mildly.

I stopped dead. Turning back to face him, I placed my hands on his desk and leaned towards him. “Do you really think I’m broken?” I asked, hesitantly..

“Honestly?” the man asked.

“Honestly”.

“Yes”.

“Oh..” I said. I sat down again, dejected. “Then.. um.. what do I do?” I asked him.

“Well for a start, you can let me take a look at you” the man said matter-of-factly, getting up from his desk to have a look at me. He spent the next few minutes walking around where I sat, occasionally asking me to lift an arm, or open my mouth so he could look into it, or tapping my kneecaps to watch the reaction. After enduing this examination in silence for a while, I grew edgy.

“Well?” I asked. “What’s wrong with me?”

“It’s as I suspected..” the man said, returning to his desk. “You’re most definitely broken. Bent out of shape. Coming apart at the seams”. While speaking, he continued his work on the Hobby Horse, pulling out a needle and thread from a desk drawer and sewing the ripped parts together.

“Oh..” I said. “Well.. could you.. um.. fix me, then?” I asked. “Please?” I added hopefully.

The man looked up at me with a dour expression on his face, and didn’t answer me immediately. Picking up the Hobby Horse, he began to inspect it for further damage.

“Can you think” he asked me, after some time, “of a period in your life when you felt completely fine? One hundred percent A-OK? Tip-top brand-new out-of-the-package shape?”.

I thought about it for a while. “No” I answered honestly.

“Well then.. do you think you’re the only person who feels this way?” he continued, still inspecting the Hobby Horse as he talked.

“Well.. I mean, no.. I guess not. That was something I was hoping I’d get answered while I was up here, actually..” I admitted.

The man looked at me for another moment, then set the Hobby Horse down.

“All right.” he said, stepping around the desk again. “Hold on. I’m going to show you something”. Rummaging through a lower drawer, he produced an enormous stack of paper. Struggling to lift it all, with sheets falling left and right, he managed to place it on his desk with some difficulty. He began to leaf through them, tossing them left and right as he did so.

“There are lots of gods out there,” the man said, as he skimmed through the great stack of paper, “with a lot of different functions. Some create. Some destroy. Me, I just fix”.

I said nothing, watching the man rifle through sheet after sheet of paper with growing interest.

“The gods that create, well, they have the run of the mill” the man continued, without looking up. “Anything that suits their fancy, *poof*, its there. No limits. And, the gods that destroy, well, they have quite a bit of range too. They can decide to destroy any element of existence that has been willed into creation thus far.. which is still particularly vast, if you think about it..” he suddenly pulled out a sheet from the near-bottom of the stack, and squinted to read its faded print. “Hmm.. is this it?” he asked himself. “No, not far back enough” he muttered, tossing it to the floor.

“Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Me, I just fix.. so I don’t exactly have the luxury of decision. I do commission-work.. they pipe it in, I patch it up, package it up, sent it back”. The man looked up at me, the pile of paper now strewn across his desk and onto the floor. “It’s a living” he said, shrugging. I nodded.

“Now, usually I get things like this tired old girl here”.. he turned to pat the Hobby Horse before setting on the floor. “and that I can handle. But a couple thousand years ago, they tossed me a doozy”. he fished out a piece of paper from the near-bottom of great stack. “Look here” he said, handing it to me.

I read it, then paused. I blinked. I read it again. I was holding in my hands an official commission for the immediate repair of humanity.

“Humanity.. is broken?” I asked, confused.

The man nodded bitterly, sweeping most of the papers from his desk. “According to that, yup. One day they decided to up and pipe that in, and ever since then I’ve been struggling to meet quota. Fix humanity with a roll of duct tape and a screwdriver? Not bloody likely. So, yes, you’re broken. So is every other human on the planet. Join the club”.

I paused, taken aback. “So.. you can’t help me then?” I asked, with growing concern.

The man sighed. “You were born broken, kid. You and everyone else on the planet has been broken since the day they walked into that beat-up world of yours. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you never really were whole.. complete I mean. I can’t help you”. He shrugged, returning to the Hobby Horse. “Sorry about this”.

I sat back in the uneven chair, feeling utterly hopeless. I mean, I had come all this way, only to be told I was an irreparable defective smudge. How do you deal with something like that?

“So what am I supposed to do now?” I asked him in exasperation. “Just go back home and try to forget about it?”

“Well, that’s what I would suggest” the man said helpfully.

“How could I possibly?” I yelled at him.

He shrugged. “So you’re broken. So what?”

“So what?!” I exclaimed.

“Exactly. So what? Both your parents were born broken, and somehow they managed to live decent lives and produce you.. without the added melodramatics, I might add. If humankind was without hope, it would have had the decency to swallow itself up and disappear by now. And, if you’ll notice, it hasn’t”. He took a few moments to finish sewing the final patch on the Hobby Horse, then continued. “Now what does that suggest to you? It suggests to me that life, while in its best hours is still incomplete, is still worth something. Everything breaks.. you just happened to be given a head start on the matter. If you want to leave here whole, you’re going to be disappointed, but no less that any number of you down there who turn towards other, less metaphysical methods of appeasing that gaping hole in their gut that, deep down, they know is there. People with fixations on accumulating, material wealth, people who are only interested in furthering their physical pleasure, Workaholics, Alcoholics, Cat Ladies.. all of them, broken, and not a whit closer to doing anything about it”. He shrugged again. “For all your effort, you’re on par with them.. you want the quick fix, you miss out”.

“So.. what are you saying?” I asked, my voice hoarse. “That it’s hopeless?”

“No, that’s exactly what I’m not saying. People by themselves may be missing bits and pieces, but its important to remember that everyone you meet is going to be like that. What makes you think that stands as any hindrance to getting along with all those other flawed people down there?”

“Well..” I answered, giving his question some thought “I’ve never been very good at it up ‘till now..”

He nodded. “Chalk that up to the general ornery nature of life. Keep it in mind: People patch people up. Alone, you’re a wreck. Everyone is. But then, people together aren’t so bad. Humankind has developed the trick of filling in each others’ holes as best they can. So you’ll never be whole.. not in the sense that you had in mind, anyway. But meet a few good people, and before you know it, you’ll be patching each other up in no time flat.. you’ll be intact, at the very least. Dog-eared, frayed around the edges, but intact. Does that make any sense to you?”.

“Yeah..” I admitted, nodding weakly, “I guess it does”.

“Well, there we go. So then, does life seem worth living, despite everything?” he asked.

“Well.. I guess so” I said, grudgingly.

“That’s the spirit. So are you ready to go out there and face that big ugly world head on?”

“Well.. not really”.

He shrugged. “I suppose that’s the best that can be done under these circumstances”. He looked down at the nearly-finished Hobby Horse, then back at me. “I was wondering, though, if you’d be willing to part with out of those buttons on your jacket?.. It’s for a good cause” he added.

A bit surprised, I agreed. He leaned across his desk towards, me, and with a deft motion with a pair of scissors, snipped off the button that was sewn within the inside hem. With a quick stitch, the Hobby Horse was granted a makeshift eye and was fully repaired.

As he began to fill out the paperwork for the restored horse, he glanced again at my well-travelled jacket. “You know, I’m sure if you gave me ten minutes I could fix that up for you, good as new”. He lifted the needle and thread invitingly.

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand. “Thanks, but I kinda like it beat up like this. Adds character, I guess”.

The man nodded. “Couldn’t agree more” he said, putting his needle and thread away. I looked towards the door,, then back at him. “Well, I think I’ll be going now..” I started..

“Wait, wait just one second” he said, rummaging through another of the desk’s drawers again. “I know there’s some blank ones in here.. all right, here”. He produced another slip of paper. He scribbled on it, then handed it across the desk to me.

“And this is?” I asked.

The man smiled. “It’s a document declaring you officially repaired”.

“Oh.. and.. does this mean anything?” I asked, confused.

“Well, not really, but since you took all that time to drop by, I thought it would be the least I could do. Oh, and hold on”. Walking over to me, he reached into his pocket to produce two large Band-Aids, and began to stick them to my forehead, forming a large X.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I asked, annoyed. “You’re mussing my hair”.

“It was mussed to begin with” he replied. He was probably right, actually.

“And, the point of this.. is.. what?”.

The man grinned. “Protocol. Who would believe that I had fixed you, without a few of those? Anyways, despite all that you’ve been through, I hope you have a nice day”.

“Yeah..” I replied, not knowing what to say. “Um.. you too”. I stood up from the imbalanced chair, and made my way once again through the piles of junk towards the door. As I walked out, I turned back to look at the man at the desk. He had placed the Hobby Horse behind him, and had started to tinker with what looked to be a battered car-radio.

I closed the door behind me, and, several thousand fleets of stairs later, returned to my life.

Latest Messages

Conversations

Subscriptions

Friends

PresidentSkroob has no Friends

See all Friends

Followers

PresidentSkroob has no Followers

See all Followers

Bookmarks

This user has no Bookmarks

See all Bookmarks