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who promised success would deliver all. They need shinier myths that will never be soiled by becoming true. The handing over of one’s will is a small price to pay, for the believers. They aren’t going to need a will in their New Earth.”
    I couldn’t listen to this anymore. “Maybe you’re reading too much into it. Maybe they just did it because they loved him.” I downed my tea in one gulp. It burned my tongue and it was too bitter. “Could I have my key now, please?”
    The old woman idly passed me the key. “You must be exhausted after your long walk. My nephew’s wife saw you out by the lighthouse!”
    Secrets on islands are hidden from mainlanders, but never from the islanders.
    I lay on my bed, and wept.
    My brothers and sisters, committing self-slaughter! Which of my co-cleansers had fallen at this last hurdle, and why? We were heroes! Just a few months before the end of the unclean world! Paradise had been so near for them! I was further surprised at the minister of defense allowing himself to be captured. He has a high enough alpha quotient to displace molecules and walk through walls.
    The spider in the jar had died. Why? Why, why, why?
    After my evening cleansing I walked around this fishing village. Squealing children were playing some incomprehensible game. Teenagers hung around on street corners in their trendiest gear,doubtless imitating the Tokyo teenagers they see in their magazines. Mothers stood gossiping outside the supermarket. I wanted to shout at them,
The world is going to end soon, you are all going to fry in the White Nights!
Okinawan music blared out of a bar, all twinky-twanky and jangling.… And at the end of the street I reached the mountains, the sea, and the night.
    I walked along the pebbly beach. Plastic buoys. A sea coconut, shaped like a woman’s loins. Junk, washed up with the driftwood. Cans, bottles, rubber gloves, detergent containers. I heard grunts and squeals from under a peeling boat, never to float again. In the distance a shadow lit a fire.
    His Serendipity speaks to me in the crashing of the waves, and the sucking of the shingle. Why telephone when telepathy is possible? His Serendipity told me that his trusted cleanser Quasar had the greatest role to play. The Days of Persecution had begun, as prophesied in the 143rd Sacred Revelation. My Master told me I shall be a shepherd for the faithful during the White Nights. And after the comet ushers in the New Earth, I shall be at the right hand of His Serendipity, administering justice and wisdom in His name. I replied to His Serendipity that I was ready to die for Him. That I loved Him as a son does his father and would protect Him as a father does a son. His Serendipity, hundreds of miles away, smiled. The comet will be here by Christmas. The New Earth is not far away now. The Fellowship of Humanity will gather together on a purer island, and the survivors will call me “Father Quasar.” There will be no bullying. No victimizing. All the selfish, petty, unbelieving unclean, they will fry in the fat of their ignorance. We will eat papayas, cashew nuts, and mangos, and learn how to make traditional instruments and beautiful pottery. His Serendipity will select our mates according to our alpha quotients, and teach us advanced alpha techniques, and we will travel astrally, visiting other stars.
    I knelt, and thanked my Lord for His encouragement. The moon rose over the open bay, and those same stars came on, one by one.
    The baby in the woolly cap, strapped to her mother’s back, opened her eyes. They were my eyes. A disembodied voice wassinging a chorus over and over again. And reflected in my eyes was her face. She knew what I was going to do. And she asked me not to. But she was fated to die anyway, Quasar, when the comet comes! You shortened her suffering in the land of the unclean! The innocents, surely, will be reborn into the Fellowship of the New Earth! Cleanse yourself, and anchor your faith, deep and fast!
    The