Speed Demon

"Mother fucker!" Father Doug's hand slammed onto the horn button, unleashing a deafening and sustained blast.

It had been a long week. A long month, actually. Come to think of it, a long year...

Father Doug was generally a very gentle man, a pious and compassionate man. He wasn't the sort to turn into a monster behind the wheel. But Boston traffic could bring out the devil in Saint Francis himself or cause Saint Dominick to forsake his famed eloquence in favor of coarse and salty language.

A Catholic priest was still a man beneath his vestments: A man with a family, even if no wife or children of his own. A man with health issues. A man with frustrations and limited stamina.

Father Doug's phone pinged with a new message. Since he wasn't going anywhere anyway, he picked it up off the seat next to him and glanced at the screen. It was his sister, Theresa; the text made his already elevated blood pressure notch up further. Their father - Joss, senior - was still refusing to take his medications and was screaming for their mother. Theresa was worn out, fed up, and on the verge of screaming, herself...

Father Doug tossed the phone aside. What did Theresa expect him to do about it? She insisted on trying to keep Dad at home for as long as possible, even though it was clearly time to move the old man into a facility. His decline had been pronounced over the last few months, which was not so surprising. He'd shown much less interest in life ever since their mother had passed on to Heaven. It was inevitable that his disengagement, his grief and deep disillusionment, would hasten the progress of his dementia.

His cell phone chirped from the passenger's seat. Father Doug glanced at it. The lit screen announced a name and presented a photo; the screen was upside down but Father Doug had no problem seeing the call came from Theresa.

Sighing, he plucked up the phone. "Hi, sis."

"Hey there, Father brother. You got my text?"

"I glanced at it..." Father Doug scanned the street and noticed that traffic was finally beginning to move. Reflexively, he allowed the truck in front of him to pull away a little ways. There was no sense in compounding the risk of his distracted driving, chatting on the phone with his sister as he was, by tailgating the vehicle up ahead. "Sorry you're feeling run down. But maybe it's time we revisited the subject of moving dad into a facility?"

"You know he doesn't want that," Theresa said. "But if you had actually read the message, there was more to it than that. I think dad's starting to slip away from us, Jay."

"You do? He is?" Father Doug heard the alarm in his own voice.

So did Theresa. "Just calm down, little brother..."

"Our father's dying and you're not calling an ambulance?"

"It's not like that," Theresa said. "He's not having a medical crisis or anything. He's just... there's something different, a different feeling about him. I think - "

"You and your feelings," Father Doug muttered uncharitably.

"Hey," Theresa began. Her voice buzzed some more in his ear, but Father Doug didn't register the words; an impatient driver chose that moment to swerve without warning into the gap Father Doug had allowed to open between his car and the truck. The driver was none too good at reckoning how much space was actually there to exploit, and Father Doug was forced to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him.

"Goddammit, you goddamn moron!" Father Doug snarled.

Theresa's voice piped a note of surprise but it was distant and tinny; he'd grasped the wheel with his phone hand. The car he'd almost hit suddenly loomed closer; traffic was slowing down and the driver was as speedy to stomp on his brakes as he was to cut people off. Father Doug braked once more in turn, and the vehicle behind him blared its horn in protest. Father Doug thought he was aggressive about honking, but the car behind him was a monster; the din was ear-shredding.

Glancing at the mirror hanging from his windshield, Father Doug saw the deafening roar came from a small blue vehicle - a sporty little muscle car that must have had the horn of a diesel truck under its hood.

The small blue car finally stopped with the horn. The driver made wild gesticulations and mouthed a string of curses. For a moment, Father Doug saw red. "Fucking calm down, you fucking cocksucker!" he screamed at the mirror.

Another exclamation piped from the phone. With another sigh, Father Doug raised the phone to his ear once again. "Sorry," he said. "Traffic."

"Aren't you supposed to be all God is Love and Do Unto Others?" Theresa asked, sounding amused.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to Do Unto right now," Father Doug said, glancing around at the vehicles that surrounded him. The situation seemed safe for the time being... more or less. That was probably because traffic had come to a complete stop. Father Doug glanced at his mirror again. The driver of the small blue car was stewing. If he started in on the horn again Father Doug wasn't sure what he'd do - but it wasn't going to be sacramental. "Good thing I don't belong to the Three-P," he told Theresa.

"The Pistol Packing Preachers? Is that even a real group?" she asked, her voice even more remote through the ringing in his poor, punished ears.

"You bet it is," Father Doug said. "With the church burnings? And the mass shootings at worship services? You better believe it."

Neither of them said anything for a few moments. Traffic remained at a standstill. Father Doug's ears continued to ring, more loudly than usual. For a moment he almost felt dizzy, and his eyes blurred a little.

"So, Dad," Theresa said, pulling Father Doug back into the moment.

"Right. Dad," he said, tamping down a whole new crescendo of irritation. He was ted to ask her whether Dad was fading or not; whether he was fixin' to die, or not; he didn't need tales of her women's intuition or her dangling crystals or whatever. He needed to hear some facts.

"Look, I know you don't believe in it, and I can't explain it," Theresa was saying, "but a little while ago I was doing Reiki on him - "

Father Doug sighed with aggravation.

"I do Reiki on him every day and it helps," Theresa said, suddenly piqued.

"I know, I know..."

"You could stand to get some healing work done," she said. "Or meditate. Or do yoga."

"I could stand a good night's sleep," Father Doug said.

"Start with not drinking so much and setting some boundaries," Theresa said, her voice still heated. "You don't have to save the whole world."

"Just the city of Boston," Father Doug said, trying to inject a little humor into the conversation.

Now it was Theresa who sighed. "Look, let's not fight. I just wanted to ask if you could come by."

"Right now?" Father Doug glanced around again at the traffic, then at his wrist, where he still wore a Pentax watch. His schedule was tight and the parking lot the road had become wasn't helping.

"When you can," Theresa said. "But soon. Tonight."

Father Doug focused on her, on the sound of her breathing. He thought he heard something there, something vulnerable and sad. "You really think he's...?"

"Just come, Jay." There was definitely a quaver in her voice.

"Okay," he said, trying to sound soothing. "Okay. As soon as I can."

"Okay. Thank you. And drive safe," Theresa said.

"I will... be there soon. I love you, sis."

"Yeah... you too." The call ended. Father Doug tossed the phone aside once again.

Dad? Dying? Theresa had inklings, sometimes, spooky moments of prescience. Maybe Father Doug was having one such moment of his own. Something told him he really should take her seriously.

Traffic started forward. The car that had darted into his lane turned off into a narrow side street, or maybe it was an alley. Father Doug was staring at the white truck once again. It looked tired, somehow, the same as he felt. The congregation. His vocation. He could make up a little song about it if he weren't so weary. Theresa. Dad. Father Doug tried to push his family troubles from his mind and focus on the truck in front of him. But other worries surfaced...

That blemish on his hand didn't look right. His aunt Maisie had died of carcinoma. He knew he had to get the blemish checked out, but he was caught in a riptide of reluctance and work. It was far too easy to put off a visit to the doctor when he had so much to do, always so much to do...

He'd been having dizzy spells, too. And forgetting words, common words for everyday object - like "sofa" and "crackers." The day before, he'd utterly forgotten what one called the flat wooden surface used for slicing bread and chopping vegetables. Cutting board, of course - it was obvious, because what else would it be called? But he had cast about for the word in almost comical fashion, stumbling with false starts that weren't even close: "Sa... sha... scha, sche..." he'd stammered, before it finally came to him. "Sa?" "Scha?" What the hell had he been trying to say? What was wrong with him?

The way his vision went soft earlier hadn't been a one-off. His sight went blurry sometimes. He had to blink and roll his eyes to clear them, and he wasn't sure that it actually helped. He should see an eye doctor. And an ear doctor while he was at it... the ringing in his ears was almost constant - a high-pitched keening that was sometimes barely audible, but could also be intense and distracting.

The truck slowed, came to a halt; its taillights glowed red, and Father Doug's eyes chose that moment to blur for a moment... well, speak of the devil! He blinked, braked, clenched his teeth with anxiety, and hit the horn all at once. The horn roared for five seconds, six seconds, a substitute for the white-hot bellow of fury he wanted to vent. Father Doug finally stopped. His windows were rolled down and he was deafening himself. The ringing in his ears, already aggravated by the little car with the monster horn behind him, was only going to worsen if he kept this up.

"There are pedestrians in the crosswalk up ahead," someone said. Was Father Doug hearing voices now? He looked around and saw a man of about his age standing on the sidewalk, bending at the waist and leaning on a walking stick, peering in at him through the passenger-side window. "There are several vehicles that can't move forward until they're out of the street."

Father Doug's rare flared even hotter. "Fuck you!" he heard himself shouting. "Did I ask you to butt in?"

The man simply smiled at him and shook his head, then straightened up and started walking up the sidewalk. Father Doug watched him through the windshield until the truck began moving again and Father Doug rolled forward, catching up to the man and then overtaking him. As he passed, Father Doug considered hurling further insults, but then bit his tongue. A feeling of shame crept over him. The man had simply been trying to be helpful. Maybe he should offer an apology? No, he decided. It was probably small of him, but that would be awkward - he already felt like an ass. Best to leave well enough alone.

Traffic started to flow a little more quickly, and the truck made a right hand turn. Now Father Doug was looking at a little yellow car instead of the truck's grimy white paint job. Maybe the little yellow car would be more adept at threading through traffic and not slowing Father Doug down. He wanted to get home, get started on Sunday's sermon, review some other work, catch up on correspondence... he had several charitable projects going that needed his attention and, more to the point, the attention of city officials, state and federal grant-making agencies, and philanthropists from the Catholic community.

Then there were the volunteers - the army of volunteers he had to supervise, cajole, reward... Volunteers like Claudia, who always had a sob story about romance gone wrong, desire left unanswered, and - so it seemed to Father Doug - an all too intense (and impossible) attachment to the good father himself. She was one more of his long list of irritants and burdens.

He chastised himself for the thought. Claudia was a good person, and a loving person who only needed some love in return. Who was he to regard that as a burden? He was there to help people, after all.

But another thought competed with that: Shouldn't he help himself a little, too? Especially when he was so, so tired? He needed and wanted to pay his father and sister a visit, because he truly did care about them, and also - well, what if Theresa was right? But he knew he also needed some time off, even one good night of rest. He truly did sympathize with Theresa; he was sure she, like him, felt wrung out and used up. Even if he got home later than he wanted, got a little less sleep than he was hoping for, maybe he could steal a little time with a relaxing glass of scotch. Or... maybe if it wasn't too late when he got home he could have a quick, late dinner that he'd supplement his meal with a bottle of beer. Or even open that Merlot he'd bought a week ago...

The yellow car came to a sudden stop and Father Doug hit the brakes in abrupt panic, fearing a rear-end collision. This was why he tried to hang back, but after the way that car had cut in before he was shy about dropping too far back. He could see that the car was driven by a young woman with long brown hair. He reflexively thought about women drivers, but then shied away from the thought - that wasn't fair, and it was misogynistic. Theresa was always telling him he was a misogynist, and she even held his vocation as evidence for her opinion. He had become very touchy about the subject, and monitored his own thoughts and feelings for traces of bias when it came to women, just as he did when it came to minorities - or people of other faiths. Mom and Dad had been kind and accepting, but also rock-solid in their certainty that non-Catholics were destined to burn in Hell for their failure to recognize and embrace the One True Faith.

In the distance, a traffic light turned green - Father Doug could see it over the tops of cars and vans and trucks. But traffic remained at a standstill. Father Doug was about to hit the horn when he heard that voice again:

"Traffic is a real nightmare today, isn't it? I'm glad to be afoot."

It was the same man, peering in through the passenger's side window, leaning on his walking stick as he had before. How had he caught up to Father Doug so quickly? Or had Father Doug been sitting here longer than he'd realized? Time slipped by him sometimes, of late, minutes evaporating when he could have sworn only seconds had passed. He stared at the man, uncertain how to respond.

"Is road rage a new ailment among the clergy?" the man asked, eyeing Father Doug's collar. "Like pills and drink and whatever other vices they are now accusing us of?"

Despite himself, Father Doug smiled. He noticed that not only was the other man in his early forties, like Father Doug himself, but he was built along similar lines; and, like Father Doug, his hair was going salt-and-pepper gray. And also - Father Doug realized with a start - he was also dressed in black clerical-looking clothing. No white collar, though. Maybe he was an Episcopalian?

"Are you also a clergyman?" Father Doug asked, leaning over a little to get a better look out the window at the man.

The fellow stepped closer to the car, and leaned down, placing a forearm on the door. He grinned. "Let's just say I've spent more years working for the Big Guy Upstairs than I might want to confess to - if only because that would betray my age," he said, in a warm, friendly voice.

Father Doug's mood lifted. He liked the man. Somehow, this moment of interaction - simple, friendly, nothing demanding - it was honestly refreshing.

"Could I offer you a lift?" he asked.

"I think I am liable to get there more quickly on my own two feet," the other man said. "Then again, my feet are getting sore and it might be nice to enjoy a chat with another fellow of spiritual inclinations... and you never know," he added. "I might be a good luck charm for you."

"How do you mean?" Father Doug asked, as the man opened the passenger side door and slid in gracefully, somehow stowing the walking stick near his legs. He didn't move like someone who was sore or tired.

"Well, I'm like a parking angel," he said. "Only, not for parking. For smooth sailing, rather."

"A parking angel? Oh - " Suddenly Father Doug flashed on a small plastic angel, cherubic smile and extravagant wings, a figurine that Theresa kept in her glove box. He remembered accompanying her on several trips and errands where she had pulled the figurine out with sincerely murmured instructions to help her secure a parking space in short order. The things was, it always seemed to work.

"The traffic should be moving again shortly," the passenger said. "There's a stretch limo up ahead trying to turn around and get into the lane for the opposite direction. Naturally, no one wants to make it easy and wait while the driver completes his little manoeuvre. Everyone is in such a hurry these days... and there's so little sense of gallantry, or social morays."

Father Doug felt his ears reddening. "Look," he said, "I'm so sorry I lost my temper back there and spoke rudely to you."

The other man waved off his apology. "Please, think nothing more of it. This is a vibrant city with vibrant ways. Sometimes blunt, even rough-edged ways. But it's colorful, don't you think? And fun? The way that people here talk, the way they have of expressing themselves..."

Father Doug wondered if his passenger were an immigrant. He did have a very faint accent of some sort. "Where are you from?" he asked.

His companion threw him a smile. "Oughtn't we begin with names?" he asked, then stuck out a hand. "Mine is Eligor - Eli for short."

Father Doug took his hand and shook it with pleasure. "Joss Douglas," he said. "Though people my parish call me Father Doug."

"So... Father, then? Or Doug?"

"Doug is fine." He smiled, then chuckled, feeling like a twelve year old who'd just made a new friend. Maybe that was what he'd been missing - with so many people to guide, encourage, absolve, and worry about, he didn't have much in the way of friendship. The other priests he interacted with regularly were older, disinterested in him, even a little severe. Young men seemed no longer interested in entering the priesthood. It was hard for a priest, these days, to feel the sort of connection you felt with an equal - or, rather, with someone who would understand where you were coming from.

Well, he'd been told the priesthood was going to feel, at times, like a lonely vocation. Of course, the advice that always came along with that warning was to increase the depth and clarity of his commitment to God, and find companionship in the divine and his own sense of service. That was poetic and all, but in practical terms it wasn't always much help.

"You probably don't get much of a chance just to chat. Do you?" Eli asked.

"You know what it's like."

"Oh, yes... yes, I do." Eli sighed, and gazed out the windshield. The distant traffic light was red now, but would be turning green again soon. Maybe then traffic would begin to move. "I know too well what it's like to be among others who think they know what you're feeling... why you feel as they imagine you do... and, of course, they have no idea. And it's not like you don't tell them - but they just can't hear it." Eli looked over at Father Doug with that reassuring smile of his. "It's hard to have a vocation, and harder when others have ideas about what that vocation means. 'Oh, you're here to help me, to listen to me whine about things that are so trivial...' Of course, they aren't trivial to the person telling you his tale of woe. No, he's quite invested in his story. But really - it's just a story. With all the truly problematic things in the world, it's just an indulgence, isn't it, to walk around feeling miserable and unloved because you didn't get the job you wanted, or you haven't yet finished school and the years stretch on and on. Or you've lived your life and the years have grown short. Or those short years are passing by in emptiness, the children grown and moved far away, and they won't give you grandkids. My goodness, people - I often feel like saying - life isn't always object oriented. Just being here is such a joy, such a gift, can't you simply be grateful for once?"

Father Doug laughed. "Yes, you do know what it's like," he said. "You could have taken the words right out of my mouth."

"And?" Eli leaned toward him, conspiratorially close. "The rest of the words you'd say? Before I rabbit on and say them for you?"

Father Doug gave Eli a quick, quizzical look. Was the man testing him? But Eli simply smiled, his eyes twinkling.

"Well," Father Doug said, "I don't know. Maybe... to remember that prayer isn't a wish list. It's more than words said by rote, more than a time to ask for favors. Prayer is... I mean, it could be, it should be... a means of communion. Just... giving oneself to the glory - "

"The glory!" interjected Eli. "Yes!"

Up ahead, vehicles were rolling forward. The yellow car pulled away, and Father Doug put his own car into motion. "Alleluia," he said, and he and Eli shared a good chuckle.

A few moments passed. Father Doug quickly settled into his driving habits - scanning the road, glancing at the speedometer every few seconds. Beside him, his new friend kept companionably quiet, in no hurry to offer up conversation. Eli seemed completely at home.

Father Doug envied him that ability to be calm and at ease. They were basically still strangers, after all, even if they did share a vocation. But Eli had a manner about him that seemed suited more to a friend of many years - a casual, trusting manner. It was soothing.

Even so, after a minute of silence, Father Doug felt he should say something. "Where can I take you?" he asked.

"Oh, just up the road a bit. I'll let you know where," Eli said.

"Did you walk a long way?" Father Doug asked.

"Oh, well, yes, I suppose so," Eli said. "But I've travelled far in my life. A jaunt around the city is hardly a strain."

"Even with a walking stick?" Father Doug asked.

Eli laughed. "That's really more for show than anything," he said. "It's a matter of..." He hesitated for a split second. "...fashion."

"We do have to maintain a neat and attractive appearance," Father Doug said. "Being a representative of the Church and everything... though, I'm sorry, I shouldn't speak in such all-inclusive terms. You're not Catholic, are you? I mean, if you were, I suppose I would know you already."

"No, I'm not Catholic," Eli said, "but it's all right. In a larger sense, we all belong to the same faith."

"God is love?"

"More like... man is selfish."

"Hmmm," Father Doug said. Then: "Hmmm," he repeated, though now for a different reason. "Look how traffic is thinning." Somehow, all at once, the street seemed much less crowded. He was able to speed up some. "Look, I'm up to twenty miles per hour," he said triumphantly. "Now... twenty-five. That is a miracle for a weekday at four thirty in the afternoon."

"You see?" Eli said. "I said I would be a good luck charm. A traffic angel."

"Be sure to let me know how to get where we're going," Father Doug said.

"Oh, we can't possibly miss it," Eli said.

Father Doug was about to make some remark in response, but then he realized the car's speed had crept up more than he'd intended. He took his foot off the gas.

Still, the car accelerated.

"Umm..." Father Doug pressed his foot onto the brake pedal. He felt no resistance - no pushback. The pedal moved up and down freely under his foot. "Uh, I think there might be a problem," he said, embarrassed that the car wasn't working properly.

"No problem." Eli waved his hand once more. "Don't worry."

"No, I mean - there really is a problem. I can't - the car is speeding up!"

"Yes," Eli said, offhand in manner, as though he'd misheard.

"Eli, the car won't stop." Father Doug pumped at the brake some more, to no avail. The speedometer needle crept up past forty-five. Father Doug, used to city driving, found such speed a little alarming in and of itself, but coupled with the failure of the brakes he found himself on the verge of terror.

"It seems that conditions are fine to give it a little more gas," Eli said.

"But I'm not!" Father Doug cried. "The car is speeding up on its own!"

Eli simply turned his head and gazed at Father Doug until he diverted his attention to the other man. Then, when he had Father Doug's attention, Eli said, "I know."

"Are you somehow controlling the car? Is this a prank?" Father Doug asked, his voice loud over the rushing wind. He looked nervously out the windshield. Thankfully, the street had become almost empty of cars. What vehicles shared the road were nowhere near him, so crashing into someone was not an imminent possibility.

"Me? Controlling the car? No." Eli also looked out the windshield and then stuck his arm out the window, making a little aeroplane from his flattened hand. Eli described sine waves with his hand, seemingly enjoying the cool rush of air.

Father Doug fought down his rising anxiety. "Okay," he said. "Look, to be clear, the car isn't working right. It's out of control."

"It seems perfectly in order," Eli said. "We're not weaving, we're not fishtailing... I'm sure everything is fine."

"Not yet, but..." Father Doug gave up pumping on the brake. He tried to steer the car to another lane, seeing a car up in the distance that was in the same lane he was. But the wheel refused to turn in his grip. It was slowly turning itself, keeping pace with the road's long, gentle curve. They were suddenly on the edges of the city. Father Doug wasn't sure exactly how they'd gotten there. Was there a skip in his attention? Was he dreaming? This was like a nightmare. Maybe it was a nightmare. He bit his own knuckle - hard, almost hard enough to draw blood.

No, this was real.

Father Doug stared out the windshield, stared at the steering wheel, glanced at Eli. Then he looked back at the distant car up ahead, which was less distant now.

Then the car's blinker flashed yellow and it moved out of the way, into the right hand lane. The road ahead was completely empty as far as the eye could see. The seconds passed and the other car made its way onto an exit, disappearing from sight.

The road was all theirs. It didn't look right.

"Well, neither you nor I are in charge of this car and its journey," Eli spoke up. "But perhaps my boss is."

"Your boss?" Just who did Eli work for? Which denomination did he serve?

Eli met Doug's eye and there was suddenly a look about him - a look not on his face, but in the air around him - a malice, a danger, something diabolical. Vaguely, Father Doug thought of his sister and her periodic flashes of intuition, the way she had of seeing things that lay outside the realm of seeing.

"You're not a man of the cloth," Father Doug said.

"I certainly am," Eli retorted. "There are many faiths."

"But only one God!" Father Doug cried. "And one Devil!"

Eli laughed at that. Incongruously, he put a warm, comforting hand on Father Doug's thigh and gave him a slight squeeze. "My boy, please calm yourself. Think about what you're saying."

Father Doug's thoughts flickered. His eyes blurred, and he blinked. The roaring wind and the ringing in his ears joined together in a cacophony. Then, a silence seemed to wrap itself around the car and its occupants. The car sped onward, but the wind was stilled. Father Doug realized the windows had rolled up - seemingly by themselves.

"I hope you don't mind," Eli said.

How had he done that? He could reach the switch for his own window, but not Father Doug's.

"Anyway, my point from before," Eli continued. "What makes you think there is only one God? Or that there is any God? And what makes you think there is a Devil? Or that God and the Devil are in any way separate from one another?"

Was this some sort of kidnapping? Was that it? Had someone taken over the car by remote control? New cars, they were all computerized. Father Doug suddenly remembered having read something about cars being hacked, their functions accessed by people miles away. But if that were true how did they know how to steer and guide the vehicle? Father Doug looked around again, but saw nothing: No cars tailing him, no hovering aircraft. Maybe a small drone, up high enough to escape notice? But that didn't ring true to him. His passenger must somehow be orchestrating all this.

"Where are you taking me?" Father Doug demanded.

"Who says I'm taking you anywhere at all?" Eli asked. "This is your car. This is your journey. If anything, you're the one taking me, and I can't wait to see where we end up. Haven't you determined where you're heading well in advance?"

"I'm not driving," Father Doug reiterated.

"But of course you are," Eli said. "Even if you're not, the road leads where you want it to. The car takes you where you want to go. Or could it be that you've never worked these things out? In your haste, in your impatience, did you really have a destination in mind?"

Deciding this was crazy talk - and determining to trust the car for the time being, since it was doing a fine job of driving itself - Father Doug searched around for his phone. He'd tossed it into the passenger's seat, he recalled; and then this man... this kidnapper, this devil... had come in and taken the seat. So where had the phone gotten to?

"Do you have my cell phone?" Father Doug asked, his voice taking on an edge.

"No. I promise you I'd want nothing to do with that infernal device," Eli said.

Father Doug snorted a bitter laugh in spite of himself. "Look who's talking," he said.

Eli chuckled, too, but his voice turned deep and rough, like the utterance of an animal. A bull... a bear... a tiger...

"Look," Father Doug said. "If we can just pull over... you can have the car. I'll walk. If it's me you want, then at least tell me why."

"Well, no, it's nothing like that," Eli said. "It's like everything else in the world, a mere confluence of elements and circumstances. Our paths crossed. Your desire, your will, became amplified through me. If you think I've come along for the ride in order to frighten you, harm you, or interfere with you in any way, you've got it wrong. If anything, my presence enables you. This is all your doing, my dear man. In an ordinary life, a man finds his way over the course of years; he finds his way through channels oblique, symbolic, indirect. You, however... I suppose, in a way, you are coming right to the point."

"What point is that?" Father Doug asked, his scalp and neck prickling.

"Well, as I said before," Eli mused. "All men are selfish. If you could have your selfish desires - the ones you don't even know you have - what form do you expect they would take? Win the lottery? Women falling in love... or, I suppose in your case, men falling in love with you? Power, prestige? The papacy? Are you that invested in the Church?"

How did Eli know he was gay? Father Doug kept it a closely guarded secret. The Vatican had taken up a homophobic stance, finding it easier to blame the gay priests in its ranks than take any real responsibility for the pedophile crisis that had wracked the faith over the last decade and a half. No, that would mean examining doctrinal teachings about human sexuality - doctrines that stunted and warped young men. It was a controversial theory, but Father Doug believed in the hypothesis that by trying to psychologically castrate the young men who had once come to its seminaries, the Catholic Church had ended up turning them into sexually immature opportunists - and who but the most vulnerable, the children, were to be the victims of these men, who had themselves been psycho-sexually victimized?

But even if Father Doug trusted Eli - which he did not - he wouldn't have discussed these opinions with him. Better to stick with a blanket declaration that assigned no blame and invited no discourse. "The Church is my life," Father Doug said. Then: "God is my life."

"Yes. Well, I'm not so sure the two are the same thing," Eli said mildly. "And I'm not really certain they are, in point of fact, your life. I wonder whether your life is even yours. Have you taken responsibility for it?"

"I - I don't - "

"Well," Eli cut him off, "I suppose it doesn't matter in any event. All this is just philosophizing. Who knows the how or the reason why? Who know the whence - or the where?"

"I - I don't know," Father Doug said, eyes fixed on his passenger.

"I can take a guess," Eli said, and pointed out the windshield. "There."

Father Doug looked ahead and reflexively stomped at the brake again. It made no difference. There was a blank, flat concrete wall coming up. The road ended at that wall. Wherever they were, it was no longer in ordinary reality; city roads didn't simply twist and jog into highways, and highways didn't simply terminate in - in that horrible wall up ahead. When had they left the real world and entered this purgatory, this realm of the unreal?

Father Doug watched the wall loom larger, closer. Suddenly, it simply seemed there was nothing else to do. Fear fell away, and desire with it. There was only one thing he wanted now. He turned to Eli, not in anger or hatred, but pure curiosity.

"Why?" he asked.

Eli's reassuring smile was back. Again, his warm hand rested on Father Doug's leg. "My boy, why in such a hurry? Where did you think you were going? Where else does life take you? Everyone shares the same destination. It's neither Heaven nor Hell. It's..." He looked ahead, his smile growing wider.

Father Doug refused to look. He studied Eli's face - slightly patrician, free of scars, angular, handsome, a face built on a good bone structure. He realized then that Eli hadn't reminded him so much of himself as of his father - his father as he had looked decades ago, before the ravages of time and dementia and grief over the death of Father Doug's mother.

Something seemed to shift on Eli's face; his features seemed to twist or adjust in some slight way, just enough to click into absolute familiarity...

"Dad?" Father Doug whispered.

Eli... no, it was his father... looked at him sideways, a smile tugging at his lips.

There was no time to ask how or for what reason. Father Doug swore he could feel the wall now - its onrushing hardness, its flat, blunt, and unforgiving integrity. The car would crumple in an instant, and it would all be over. Would God - Jesus - St. Peter - mother, anybody, be waiting to receive him? Father Doug began to open his mouth to say something - he wasn't even sure what - but then it happened.

The sound of the crash filled his ears...

***

"Dad?" Theresa cupped her father's cheek with a cold hand. Her face wet with tears, she tried to draw his gaze. He seemed to be somewhere else, somewhere far away. No... he wasn't there at all. His body was empty beneath her hand, with no sense of him, no tug or bristle of his life energy to engage with. His skin was still warm, but the light in his eyes had been doused. She moved her hand to his chest, watched and felt carefully. There was no pulse. He was no longer breathing. Incongruously, a smile lingered on his lips.

Theresa drew a long breath and then, composed, pulled out her phone. "Call Jay," she said to the unit, which obliged.

A few moments later, Father Doug answered.

"Dad's gone," Theresa said without preamble.

Father Doug didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then: "I'll be there as soon as I can. I've had a slight fender bender."

He sounded remarkably calm, considering what a mood he'd been in not an hour earlier.

"Are you okay?" Theresa asked.

"I'm fine. I fell asleep and the car started to drift out of its lane, which, of course, activated the safety protocols and brought the car to a stop. The guy behind me wasn't paying attention, so he ran into me, but traffic was moving slowly, so... it's nothing. Just a dent."

Silence fell. Theresa hesitated over the phone. She heard her brother mutter a few words to whomever he was talking to on the other end - the careless driver, probably. Getting insurance information, she imagined.

Then Father Doug was back. "Listen, I... there's something I need to tell you about - a dream - I think that dad... well, maybe he didn't leave before paying me a last quick visit. He was trying to tell me something... with his usual nasty sense of humor."

"Really?"

"I... well, yeah, I'll tell you about it. I'll be there as soon as I can. It won't be long."

Theresa gazed down at their father's body. He looked peaceful. He looked happy. At least, his flesh did... like a remnant, she thought, like a fossil. Matter that had taken the shape of something now vanished.

"It's okay," she said. "There's no hurry."