GC: Correspondence From the Goddess #9: Reality TV at its Finest

[mrnelson007 at gmail.com]

Hey, look at me. Two GC posts in a week. My personal goal met. Victory!  I'm going to go celebrate. Meanwhile, check out http://goddesscorrespondence.tumblr.com and all that. Yes.  Now then.






I think Lydia might be feeling a little better. I can’t say that for sure, she’s always been a hard person to read. Still, call it a hunch if you want, but I think it’s progress. Of course, all that means is that “progress” just causes her to return to where she was before it started. We’re not actually getting anywhere new. It’s enough to drive me up the wall sometimes, frankly. She needs to learn and improve herself if the universe is going to survive the rule of Lydia Devin.

- Elana

You know, I’ve been thinking again. I do that a lot lately. Honestly, it’s probably my most common hobby, if you can even call it that. Just… pondering myself. How I work. Why I work. But lately, I’ve been wondering if any of this is even real. Maybe I’m not a god. Maybe I’m not anything special. Maybe this is some kind of fucking Truman Show bullshit where they put me in some kind of VR machine, or something, and just watch what I do with the “power” I have. Or, maybe this is all a dream. Maybe that point when I passed out? Maybe that was me going into a coma, and this is all what’s going on inside my head until I finally keel over and die.

Maybe I did die, and this is Hell.

At the end of the day, I guess it doesn’t really matter. Whatever the truth is, I’m in control of this domain, whatever it is. Maybe you all are figments of my imagination.

But then, in a sense, isn’t that true regardless? I mean, whether I’m in a coma or this is really happening, you still are here entirely because I am allowing it. My whims control your fate. And believe me, if that sounds terrifying for you, it’s far more terrifying for me. Unless you just started reading this, you should know how much I regret, you know, killing you. And everyone else. (I’m sorry.)

Anyway. Back to work. (Wait is this my job now? I honestly don’t know. I guess I never really had a job before, so I guess nothing has changed. My main job lately seems to be ‘please try not to break anything’.)

“Look, El. I really, really think this is a stupid idea. Like, fucking moronic.” I crossed my arms, leaning back against the tree as I looked at her. “Seriously. It’s not happening.”

“Why not?” Elana frowned, tilting her head a little. “I mean, you could do it!”

“We’ve talked about this before. I am not going to be a superhero. God, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

“But, what are you going to do then?” Elana walked over, giving my stomach a gentle poke. “You have to do something. Otherwise you’re going to build up all that power again, remember? So there’s not much choice here.”

I shook my head and gave her a glare. “Nope. Not happening. I’ll just go run around here all day if I have to.”

“But you could do a lot of good! You could help people and make them-”

“I said NO!” I snapped, stamping my foot into the ground and shaking my head.

As I did so, the wind started to pick up, causing me to blink, the anger quickly forgotten. The trees rustled, and I shivered. “Brr… alright, can we talk about this later? Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The crack of thunder punctuated that sentence nicely, and we quickly started to tromp back through the woods. Elana was in front of me, holding the flashlight. I followed close behind, wishing I had brought a jacket as the wind howled. “Shit, this thing came out of nowhere.”

Thankfully, the thick covering of trees blocked the rain itself, so we were still dry when we got back to the edge. Of course, that went away soon enough as we rushed over to get inside.

We sat in the car, hair dripping wet, and then Elana started it up. I didn’t have much to say, until my phone started to ring. Grateful for the excuse to turn off that stupid music, I fished it out of my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number, but even a fake free cruise would be better than listening to that nonsense.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Lydia Devin.” The voice on the other end was a woman, probably in her mid-twenties, fresh from school.

Oh good, a telemarketer. Let’s ride this out. “Yep, that’s me. Although usually people ask first, you know. You must be new at this.” I sat back in the seat, settling in for a nice music-free trip back.

“Why would I ask? We know who you are, and what you are capable of. My employer would like to speak with you.” She was calm, although I immediately distrusted her. There were way too many spy movie cliches going on here to not be suspicious.

“What do you mean, your employer? Who is that?” I said, getting a bit angry now.

Elana glanced over at me, looking concerned. “Who is that?”

“Fuck if I know. Listen, mystery lady-”

“Please, Lydia, relax.” The voice sounded somewhat exasperated. “Just ask yourself this. Would you rather just sit around and do nothing all day like you were, or do you want to go out and make some money and do something fun? Do you really think that trust fund is going to last forever?”

That got under my skin. I growled a little, balling my free hand into a fist. “Listen bitch, I’m not going to do what you tell me, okay?”

“Lydia!” Elana was more insistent now. “Get off the phone.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I got it.” I waved my hand dismissively, focusing back on the matter at hand.

“Just hear us out. That’s all we ask. Tomorrow at noon at the coffee shop over on Third Street. We’ll be waiting.” And then she was gone.

I caught Elana up quickly, and she shook her head, frowning at me. “Why didn’t you listen? You should have hung up right away!”

“Look, someone knows something, and I need to find out who.” I looked out the window, watching the rain come down as we sat in the parking lot of the apartment complex.

“Or you should just ignore them, and not get mixed up over your head in something. You don’t know who these people are!” Elana glared at me, crossing her arms in a way that always reminded me of mom giving a lecture back when we were little.

“Listen, El. I at least need to find out who they are and what they know. And how they know it. Maybe they can even give me a clue to what happened here.” Deep down, I knew she was right. This was a completely terrible idea, but I couldn’t think of a better one to save my life. Someone knew something, and I meant to find out what.

Spoiler alert: I really should have just listened to Elana.

- Lydia