The Weapon - Resurrection - part 7
By Diana the Valkyrie
Wendy's agony
Update: 20/05/2003 to valkyrie05



I was non-plussed. I looked around, what to do? I turned off the PDA recorder,
it seemed that it was intruding on a private time, that this wasn't something
for publication. I imagined generations of academics dissecting this moment
and trying to use it to support whatever fashionable theory they were
promoting. I decided to erase the last few minutes of the interview. Then I
got down on the floor next to Wendy, and put my arm round her shoulder. She
turned towards me, put her head down and cried some more. "Why can't I have
what I want? Why do other people get what they want, and I can't?" she asked.
"What do you want?" I replied, thinking that her needs seemed to be almost
zero. She lifted her face toward me, and I saw the tears dripping down. "I
want him," she whispered.

Oh. Of course. But he's dead, I thought.

"Sometimes I hear a sound, maybe someone talking, or footsteps, and I think,
it's him, he's come back, he's here! But it's never, it's always, it's just my
brain is trying to give me what my mind wants."

We mourn our dead for a year. After that, there's still a sense of loss, but
the pain isn't sharp and bright. She was still in a state of mourning, 23
years after he died, in as much pain as if it had been yesterday. And from
what she'd said last night, she was also feeling very guilty that she hadn't
been able to protect him. And the fact that she'd participated in his death,
by stopping the life-support she'd been doing, would have made it even worse.

I stroked her soft hair, and I thought, maybe she's completely alien, and her
feelings aren't the same as ours, and her brain works differently, and I can't
understand how she feels. But I think I can recognise when someone is totally
fucked-up, and that is what she is, alien or not.

23 years later, she's still lighting a candle every day. 23 years later, she
still cries when she thinks about him. 23 years later, and time hasn't done
its usual trick of covering the pain with a blanket of forgetfulness. And,
thinking more about this, I could imagine that another 23 years wouldn't make
any difference, either. Or 23 thousand years. Or 23 million. Digital memories
don't fade. She's fucked-up in the head, for ever and ever.

I wondered how I could do this interview without her dissolving into tears
every few minutes. It would be like walking in a minefield - anything I said
could trigger another outburst. Maybe I should just drop this whole thing, let
her go back into anonymity, get another waitressing job, and I could pretend
that this had never happened. Maybe I could see her once in a while.

On the other hand.

If she went on the way she is now, she'd just be in misery until hell froze
over. Digital memories don't fade. Maybe I could help her come to terms with
her loss. Maybe folks like her just weren't used to death the way us humans
have to be. We learn about death at a very early age; hamsters, dogs,
relatives. It's part of how things are to us, and we have all sorts of
mechanisms for dealing with it. Maybe, since her kind hardly knew death, they
didn't have the same abilities for handling it that any human has.

Maybe I could help her.

How could I not? She helped people all the time, back when she was the
Guardian of Humanity. Now she needed help. But why me? Because I was the only
one who knew she was here, and needing help. And thinking more about it, I
couldn't see how I could make things worse. Yes, I decided that if there was
anything I could do to help her sort herself out, then I would do it.

Of course, being an academic, I couldn't leave it at that. I had to start
analysing my own motives for doing this. Was I really planning to do this for
her benefit, or was I hoping to get something out of it for myself? Huh. I'll
worry about that later. She needs help. Maybe I can help her. That's all I
need to know.

OK, let's ask the difficult questions. I kept the PDA recorder off. This
wasn't for public consumption. I didn't want academics picking over this for
the next thousand years.

"Wendy, tell me. What is it that hurts most?" There's no point in pussyfooting
around. Anything I did in this area was going to hurt, so I might as well get
the worst over with first. I was expecting some particular memory, or feeling.
I was surprised by the answer.

"I can't protect him. He's all alone, and I can't look after him. And maybe I
never will be able to."

Alien alien alien. He isn't alone, he's dead. What's she thinking here?
"Wendy, he doesn't need you to protect him any more, he's dead and buried."
She turned to me and almost snarled.

"He's in heaven, he's there without me, I can't look after him, I don't know
what he needs, I don't know where heaven is, no-one can answer me. I light the
candles, I pray the prayers, I do all the things they told me to do. I don't
know what's happening to him now, I can't see him anywhere, it's not somewhere
I can see. He needs me and I'm not there for him, and maybe I never will be."
"Never will be?" "Father says I don't have a soul, so I won't go to heaven."

"Your father?"

"Yes."

She has a father? "Who is your father?"

"Father McPherson," she replied, and suddenly everything came into focus. This
wasn't some alien thought-pattern from outer space, it was something I might
have guessed if I'd been more alert. She'd given me the clue; she was lighting
candles for Duncan, and giving all her money to the church. "Tell me all about
it, Wendy". Open-ended questions are better than trying to drag it out of her
one fact at a time.

She looked down at the floor for a long time. "Wendy?" She shook her head, so
I waited. Then she started to speak, very quietly, almost whispering. It all
came out in one long stream of unhappiness.

"He's dead, and he's gone to heaven, and no-one knows where that is, or what
happens to you there, and I don't know how to get there, or how to talk with
him, no-one knows the phone number, or even if they have phones, I don't think
they do, and there might be things he needs besides the candles, and he's
lonely, I know he is, because I am too. And sometimes they laugh at me when I
ask questions about it, how else do you find out about things? And he misses
me like I miss him. And there's nothing I can do about it. I light the
candles, but what does that do, really? How does a lit candle comfort his
soul, all it does it let him know how much I miss him, and that'll make him
more miserable. And I asked Father McPherson about this, I didn't tell him I'm
the Weapon, he said that it's just your soul goes to heaven, and all human
beings have souls, he said. So I asked him if it was only human beings that
had souls, and he said, yes, it's only human beings. So why haven't I got a
soul? He can't even explain to me what a soul is, except he keeps saying it's
part of god, and everyone has one, but not if you're an animal, they don't
have souls. Or machines. But I'm not an animal, and I'm not a machine, I'm one
of the People. Well, I don't think I'm a machine, but I know other people do.
What's the difference anyway, between an animal and a machine? But it's all
useless, because it'll be a long time before I die, and Duncan will spend all
that time alone. And then when I do die a few billion years from now, that's
when I find out whether I have a soul or not, and if I don't, then he'll still
be alone, all alone, without anyone to care for him or love him or look after
him or cuddle him or light candles for him or give him a hug or ... "

And then she curled up into a tight ball, her head between her knees, arms
locked round her shins, and I watched her shoulders shudder while she wept,
and I felt about as helpless as you can get.