The Universe Will Forgive You

 

                                             The Universe Will Forgive You

                                                                  by M.N.Curry

A Custodian Story

War is hell.

Anyone with firsthand knowledge can attest to that.

It isn't only the fighting. It's the waiting. The endless uncertainty. The realization that somewhere beyond the next hour, the next day, or the next exchange of fire, your future remains unwritten.

You try not to think about it.

But you do.

Thoughts of home visited me often in those days, usually when I was trying to sleep. I'd think about the places I'd been. People I'd known. Things I'd done.

And a few things I wished I hadn't.

Funny what your mind chooses to remember when you're surrounded by people each trying to stay alive.

One evening, just before dusk, I was sitting alone outside my tent. The day had been long, and nobody felt much like talking. There are times during a war when silence says more than conversation ever could.

A soldier came over and sat beside me.

I hadn't seen him before.

At first, neither of us spoke.

Then, completely out of nowhere, he said:

"The universe will forgive you if you just ask."

I turned and stared at him.

"What?"

"The universe. It'll forgive you."

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

"Who said I needed forgiveness?"

He shrugged.

"Everybody needs forgiveness for something."

That irritated me.

I'd been tired for weeks. Scared longer than that. The last thing I needed was some stranger wandering over to tell me about the condition of my soul.

But there was something about him.

He wasn't preaching.

He wasn't judging me.

If anything, he seemed tired too.

"What's your name?" he asked.

I told him.

"Where are you from?"

I told him that too.

He asked about my family. My hometown. What I did before the war. What I wanted to do when I got back.

When I got back.

I noticed that.

Not if.

When.

We talked for a long time.

I can't remember everything we talked about, but I remember the conversation becoming strangely comfortable. For a few minutes, I almost forgot where I was.

Then he asked another question.

"Do you ever think about those guys on the other side?"

I looked at him.

"What about them?"

"They're probably thinking the same things you are."

I didn't answer.

"Some of them probably have wives," he continued. "Children. Mothers waiting for letters. Somebody somewhere hoping they'll make it back."

I stared into the fading light.

He let the silence sit for a while.

Then he asked:

"Do you know why you're here?"

That one was easy.

"I'm fighting for freedom."

"Whose freedom?"

I looked at him.

The answer had been ready.

I'd heard it a hundred times. Maybe I'd even said it a hundred times.

But suddenly, sitting beside this stranger, the words wouldn't come.

"Who the hell are you?"

He smiled.

"Nobody important."

"That's not an answer."

"No," he said. "I suppose it isn't."

He looked toward the horizon.

"I'm just someone who shows up when the atmosphere gets heavy."

"The atmosphere?"

"Things people carry. Fear. Anger. Regret. Sometimes they pile up."

He glanced at me.

"Somebody has to take care of things that need attention."

"What are you, some kind of chaplain?"

He laughed softly.

"No."

"Then what?"

He thought about it for a moment.

"Think of me as a custodian."

"A custodian."

"I clean up little things before they become bigger things."

I shook my head.

"You are one strange dude."

"So I've been told."

That made me laugh.

I don't know why.

Maybe because I hadn't laughed in a long time.

The light was disappearing quickly now.

He stood and brushed the dust from his pants.

"You'll be fine," he said.

"How do you know?"

He studied me for a moment.

There was something in his expression I've never been able to describe. Not sadness exactly.

Maybe understanding.

"The universe considers every life important," he said.

Then he turned toward the tent.

I looked away for no more than a second.

Maybe two.

When I looked back, he was gone.

Not walking away.

Not disappearing into the darkness.

Gone.

I stood and looked inside the tent.

Nobody.

I walked around the other side.

Nothing.

I even asked a couple of other guys if they'd seen the guy who was talking to me.

Nobody had.

For years afterward, I tried to make sense of that evening.

Maybe exhaustion got the better of me.

Maybe I'd fallen asleep.

Maybe someone really had been sitting there and I'd simply lost track of him.

There are a hundred reasonable explanations.

I've tried most of them.

None ever felt right.

But I never forgot what he asked me.

Whose freedom?

Nor did I forget what he said when he first sat down.

The universe will forgive you if you just ask.

It took me many years to understand why those words bothered me so much.

I thought forgiveness was something you asked for after doing something wrong.

Now I'm not so sure.

Maybe sometimes we need forgiveness simply for surviving things that other people didn't.

Maybe we need forgiveness for our anger.

Our fear.

Our hatred.

Maybe even for believing the person standing on the other side of some imaginary line is somehow less human than we are.

I'm an old man now.

The war is a long way behind me.

But every once in a while, usually around dusk, I think about that soldier.

I never learned his name.

Never discovered where he came from.

And I still can't explain how he vanished.

But after all these years, I think I finally understand why he came.

He didn't come to save my life.

He came to make sure I didn't lose it while I was still alive.

And somewhere along the way, I finally did what he suggested.

I asked the universe to forgive me.

Then I began the much harder work.

I forgave myself.

                       Mike 'Chee' Curry

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