[Our third excerpt from our first book-length message in a bottle And All Eternity Shook, available now. Read the recent AML review here.]

Chapter IV

I grieve that grief can teach me nothing.

-Emerson

We live, while we see the sun,

Where life and dreams are as one

-Calderón de la Barca

“Let’s try that again.”

The candles flickered again on the table as we mixed and reshuffled the dominoes.

“You sure those windows are secure?” asked Elder Wilson, as the sheet-metal rattled in the hurricane winds.

“Secure? Why this house is a mighty fortress!” said Anselmo.

“¿Qué?” said Elder Arbenz, trying not to be annoyed at our lack of Spanish, which only annoyed him further.

“You’ll see, Warner,” continued Cox, as though there had never been an hours-long break in our conversation, “Just you wait: you’ll get home, and this’ll all just feel like a dream, you’ll already start forgetting everything…”

“I’m pretty sure this ain’t a dream,” I said, loosening my tie further in the heavy humidity.

“I didn’t say it was,” he said, “Just how it’ll feel—”

–

I rub my face and resettle my knees into the grooves they’ve already carved into the carpet. I do not restart the prayer, but I do recenter myself, clear my head of all distracting thoughts, remind myself of why I’m here, what I’m doing. Yes, I am here, this is happening, this is now, my knees are nestled in the carpet and I am leaning over my bed from High School, I am in Washington and today I wrestle with God for the life of my Mother—

–

“No—No—No—cabrón we are not going to the pendejo campo!”

“Pendejo why not?” I shouted back, as we allowed ourselves to profane in Spanish the way we never would in English.

“The campo gente,” he began, “The country folk, they’re nice and all, they really are—I love ‘em, I spent months up there in my last area, I understand the attraction of the wilderness, I really do—but that doesn’t matter. When you’re out there, you’re just wasting the whole morning biking out into the middle of nowhere, getting sweaty and filthy, to talk to folks who are absolutely fried in the mente, they don’t listen to a word you say—”

“No one in the metro listens either, what difference does that make?”

“What’s the difference? The difference is that the metro is right here, and the campo is clear out there. Seriously, does it make any sense to bike clear into the campo, when there are houses right nearby?”

“Dude, no one’s home in the day,” I said, “They’re at work, they’re at school, we’re calling out a bunch of empty houses. Serious, we should go to the campo in the day, then save the urbs for the night—”

“Idiota, nights are when we have citas!”

“We don’t tract the urbs at night anyway—”

“So what are you complaining about?”

​

Dear God help me, but why do I remember every single line of this dialogue and why do I relive it all now—

​

“How do you know there isn’t someone clear out there ready to hear us right now?”

“How do you know there isn’t someone right here?”

“The urbs have been tracted to death.”

“The urbs are where all the people are.”

“Would you cut off the campo?”

“Would you the city?”

“You just don’t want to work.”

“No, you don’t want to work, you just want to ride your bike.”

This had become a longstanding bone of contention between him and I. His was an engineering mind, primed on efficiencies and maximization of production, and so quite naturally believed that staying in the city—where the critical mass of people are—was the obvious best use of our limited time on this earth. I was a Romantic, and so said repeatedly we should be riding over the mountains and valleys, seeking out those distant quarters of our area where no missionary had before been, into the unexplored campo where the fields were white and ready to harvest. We had almost come to blows over this repeatedly.

This was all a side-show of course: all that was really happening was we were finally, openly, sick of each other. We had already spent the traditional two full transfer cycles together—6 weeks each, an unconscionable 12 weeks total—and just learnt we were now about spend a third. That may seem small to an outsider, but on a mission you begin to realize that you are a part of eternity—and hence every 6 weeks feels like an eternity. Not-so-silently we wondered how God could let such a gross injustice happen to us.

–

—Sometimes we’d pass by someone on the street that I was almost certain I knew from home, to the point that I did a double-take, but then I realized that it couldn’t possibly be true, that what I saw wasn’t anyone from home because even though they were nearly a carbon copy right down to their facial expressions, wardrobe, walk and gait, nevertheless that person was clearly a Puerto Rican, and their doppelganger back home was Caucasian, and this ethnic discrepancy was irreconcilable and impossible yet present all the same and then the alarm went off—

–

Suddenly there is a creak in the wood—someone opens the door behind me. Someone is standing behind me. For a flash on an instant I’m tempted to rub my face, stand up, and walk away as though this were all nothing—

No, no, I will not yield, I’m not ashamed, I’m through being ashamed, I’m here till the end, I ignore it—

And then one morning: “Fine, fine, fine! We’ll have it your way, Warner,” he sneered, “we’ll go all the way out to the campo! Well do whatever you want.” It’s a hollow victory, his words are mocking and empty, but they’re all I got, so off we go.

Half-way out, it started raining—not a mere sprinkle, not even a cloudburst, but a bona fide tropical downpour. “Oh, great,” he exclaimed, “Of course it would start raining.” He started to turn back. My blood boiled.

“What’re ya turning round for?!” I shouted.

“Dude, maybe you didn’t notice, but it’s raining,” he shouted back, “What’s the sense of getting’ soakin’ wet and muddy goin’ out there?”

“We’re already getting’ soakin’ wet and muddy whether we stay or go,” I raved and ranted, “so we might as well go all the way.”

“Dude, you are in-sane!” And he turned back, thinking I’d follow.

And I went on, thinking he’d follow.

So naturally, we separated.

Soon, I’m riding alone in the pouring rain, wondering where my companion’s at, when I break to a halt and realize the sin I’ve committed. Mission companions do not separate you see. These are one of the cardinal rules: missionaries, for these two years, do not date, flirt or get phone numbers; they do not play in the ocean, they do not drink, smoke, party, go clubbing; they do not hire prostitutes, they do not stay up late or sleep in, they do not take naps, gamble, buy or sell stocks, go to movies, watch TV, speculate on property, start businesses, job-hunt, pick fights, canvas for local elections, play organized sports or even watch ‘em; missionaries do not vandalize, they do not protest, they do not shout blasphemies from street corners, and above all, missionaries do not separate. Ever. The times we shower and use the restroom are our only times apart. It is a sort of sexless marriage sans divorce that only feels like it lasts for time and all eternity.

And we have just separated.

Not that there wasn’t something poetic in that. We’d been separate for some time.

​

That was rock bottom. I was all alone, in the rain, soaked to the bone. Closest I’d been to a baptism in months. We hardly had investigators. We hardly looked for new ones. We hardly even knew anyone, including each other.

I was an utter waste of a missionary. Wouldn’t Mom be proud.

–

—But then one day one of these doppelgängers called me out and shouted “David!” and it had been so long since I’d heard my first name out loud that I turned around abruptly. Suddenly Mom appeared, but as a Puerto Rican herself—not blonde but with black raven hair, olive skin, green eyes, no sign of a wig or radiation or anything, in the full healthy flush of the Tropics, and she berated me in an español mixed strangely with German for ignoring her, for not thinking of her often enough, while I stared on in astonishment mixed with incomprehension—

—and then I woke up and the box fan was still blaring at the foot of my bed but the sun wasn’t up yet, so I knew that that one at least for sure was a dream.

–

—stands there a moment, shifts their weight on the floorboards, even their breath disturbs this still air. From the tone and depth of their breathing, I’m guessing its Dad…though it could be one of the larger ladies from the ward…there is a way to know for sure, but it’s the one thing I will not do right now, I won’t look, I’m not looking I’m not looking I’m not looking now I’m not looking, and I swear to God if he/she/whatever even thinks about coming over and placing his/her hand on my shoulder and murmuring some condolence of faith and comfort, I swear to God I swear—

–

Somehow we both got back to the apartment. We just stand and glare at each other, as has become our habit. There is no relief, no release, not even from the blank white walls. Finally he said, “So what’s the deal?”

“I dunno, what?”

There was no other sound but the rain rattling the tin roof of the carport.

That night, my prayer was very simple.

Dear Heavenly Father,

I hate my companion.

Please help me not to.

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Then an overwhelming feeling. A feeling I am hunting for, haunting for, searching for, wrestling for even in this very moment. I had no other words, save only My God—

My God knows my name—

–

—Another time I dreamt that Christ had come at last and there was a great noise like rushing water and all the elements melted with a fervent heat, that it was no longer the Latter-day Saints but the Last Day Great and Terrible, and I beheld the Eifel Tower destroyed and felt pangs of regret that I never got to visit it in person, and Seattle was enveloped in the volcanic eruption of Mount Rainier and the Great Wall of China crumbled and New York City was thrust into the sea and San Juan was struck with fire when I suddenly realized that I am still in San Juan and join the panicking throngs of Puerto Ricans as the tsunamis tore through the city and I scrambled terrified before the wrath of a just God and would feign the mountains fall upon me and hide me from the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord—

—And then I awoke in a cold sweat despite the heat and humidity, and pondered a moment how strange it was for me to be a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints yet still fear the actual Second Coming of Jesus Christ before I dozed off back to sleep again—

–

They shift their weight again—

I have never wanted someone to leave more in my life. The floorboards once again creak under their awkwardly shifting weight but I ignore it, I ignore it, but ignoring it calls attention to it—

–

Then our bike tires blew.

Of course they did, we were in San Juan, a city of shattered glass. Suddenly, we could neither venture clear into the campo nor explore the city; we were now limited strictly to our immediate neighborhood.

It was on a weekday afternoon. Nobody was home. Overcast. Heat without light.

–

—And then I was back in High School in a white shirt and tie, walking awkwardly down those strangely familiar hallways while classmates who’d graduated same time as me were somehow still in class and looking at me funny because I was dressed like a missionary in fact I was still proselyting like a missionary and suddenly I was frozen in terror at how to approach these people when I suddenly remembered hey aren’t I supposed to be in Puerto Rico, and tell me why I awoke in a raw panic far more horrified at the thought of being back in High School than I was at the thought of the Second Coming, such that I never quite drifted back off to sleep before sunrise—

–

The prayer stalls, a pall envelops the room. A moment bridges an eternity and the being behind me won’t leave. Go away, go away, don’t you dare step forward and don’t you open your mouth—

—my hands begin to wring each other—

–

We dropped off our flattened bikes at the apartment and looked up the hill. Standard Puerto Rican urbanization: rows of small, flat roofed cement homes painted bright Easter colors, with small front yards surrounded by a low cement wall topped with firm iron-wrought fences at chest-height. This place has to have been tracted a thousand times by a thousand missionaries before us. They must all hate us by now, and who could blame them.

Besides, all the houses are obviously empty, as they obviously would be on a weekday afternoon.

No reason to go up now.

No reason at all.

So up the hill we went.

–

—I had broken another of the cardinal mission rules and gone for a swim in the Caribbean sea, the days were so hot and the water looked so clear, so inviting, so refreshing, the flesh was weak, I couldn’t help myself, but as recounted in section 61 of the Doctrine and Covenants the Destroyer was moving upon the waters for the Lord had decreed many destructions upon the seas, and I was soon swiftly swept away by rip tides and currents into the infinite vastness of the oean beyond all sight of land, yet though I panicked I didn’t drown, in fact it felt strangely prophetic like it was a baptism, like I’d always wanted it to be and always had been and always would be—

And then I awoke and had to pee—

–

Wait, wait, their weight is repositioning on the floor. Yes, yes, they’re stepping back, I can hear the floor creak. There’s a groan from the hinges and…the door’s closing. It shuts. I’m alone again, I’m ignoring it, I’m ignoring it, but the act of ignoring distracts me, I’m not here to ignore I’m here to pray

Focus focus—

–

Maria. Her name was Maria.

She was repainting her fence. She said she was busy just then but if we came back tomorrow at 3:30 she’d welcome us in, so we walked away, confident we’d never see her again. By then we’d lived in Puerto Rico long enough to understand that it is indeed a tropical island, one that reveals the arbitrariness of time—there are no real seasons, and being this near the equator, there isn’t even a discernible tide to live by. For someone to be somewhere at 3 is about as likely to be there at any other point in time, since all time is an illusion, an indefinable fraction of infinity. 3 was just a number and time was a construct and in process of time I soon learned to quit wearing a wristwatch and threw it into the sea and soon thereafter began to fill in the tan line around my wrist. It was an important rite of passage for every Anglo-American missionary, to finally learn to relinquish our imperial insistence upon punctuality and the tyranny of the schedule and the clock—

Which was why when we showed up at 3 the next day anyways, we were baffled to hear her strange words: “You’re early—”

–

—I dreamt that I got in bed fully clothed—shirt, tie, slacks, nametag, the whole nine yards—with a naked, beautiful woman, the kind I’d spent my whole adolescence desiring in a thousand fevered fantasies. I never got a clear look at her face and my imagination toggled between whether she was brunette or blond from moment to moment, but still I could sense how her body was warm, inviting, longing, desiring, waiting, for my hands to reach for her, enfold her, enrapture her, embrace her—yet strange to stay, after laying there under the covers a couple of uncomfortable moments without once reaching to touch her, I suddenly threw off the sheets and got back out of bed without undressing, feeling ashamed yet also vaguely relieved, and I promptly marched outside into the night, and there began street-contacting under the light of the full moon along the water-front, preaching with the tongue of angels the everlasting gospel of Christ—

Then I awoke with a start and stared at the ceiling. I sighed deeply, rubbed my eyes while rolling them, and muttered that I’d clearly been a missionary for far too long—

–

A second set of footsteps come down the hallway, lighter, more effeminate. Definitely not Dad this time. Or possibly the same steps but less self-conscious, who knows, I am not raising my head today to learn, Not Today, I’m not listening—

“Well, my dear friend, it’s almost all over now,” choked up the womanly voice next room over, “Soon it will all be over…” Oh dear God.

–

On our second visit she turned to my companion and asked in English, “Are you feeling ok?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” he said, “Why?”

“Because I had a dream about you last night…”

We arched our eyebrows.

“No, no! Not that kind of dream,” she said quickly, “I don’t even remember what the dream was about, actually.”

We looked at each other, then at her.

“In fact, I don’t normally remember my dreams,” she continued, “which means when I do, something significant is about to happen. It’s been that way my whole life. Like, I had this dream about my father once, and a few weeks later…he died.”

Silence.

“So, uh, yeah, that’s why I was just wondering if you felt alright…”

We left soon after, debating as to whether we should ever go back.

–

—I’d also had the recurring dream throughout my youth, even before my mission, of having to do battle with some elite paramilitary group of terrorists or rogue commandos, sometimes trained in the martial arts sometimes not, sometimes interstellar invaders sometimes not, and unfortunately for so fantastic a scenario, my imagination left me with only my actual real life fight skills, for I in fact know nothing about street fighting or even how to handle a firearm properly, let alone battle an imperious army of evil, so normally in such dreams I hid precariously from the rampaging forces in abject terror and frustration until I awoke with a start—

–

“And I just want you to know,” her sob broke through, like she’d practiced it, “That you’re stronger than me, and that you’ve been my example through all of…this…” Almost forgot your lines, didn’t you—

What an uncharitable thought—but still, come on—

–

At last came the merciful transfer. My companion left for parts west and was replaced with Elder Carry, a Canadian, recently arrived from coastal Aguadilla. We traded war stories as we walked up the hill to Maria’s house.

“Yeah, so I wasn’t going to ask,” he continued his tale, “But this guy starts explaining to us why his hand is missing. No joke, I’m expecting some story about Vietnam or, like, a work accident or whatever, when out of nowhere, he starts telling about how since the Bible clearly teaches that ‘if your right hand offend thee, then cut it off,’ you see…”

“No, shut up.”

“Yeah, yeah, he cut it off, Warner, he cut off his own hand, because it offended him.”

“Had he been staring at the sun too long?”

“I mean, not only did it not make any sense how your own hand can offend you, but to actually, sincerely believe the Bible so literally that he actually takes a hacksaw, and begins to chop it off, like, without anesthetic? I mean, in a perverse sort of way, I almost, almost, admire that utter and absolute faith…”

“Man, I’m not sure that’s faith—”

“ —wait a sec, I’ve been here before,” he said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“Dude, I’m having real déjà vu right now, I’ve totally been here before.”

“Wait, like, you’ve been to San Juan before?”

“No, I’d never even heard of Puerto Rico before my mission—“

“Wait a sec, you’d never heard of Puerto Rico? How could you not have heard of—”

“Warner, I’m Canadian, we don’t keep track of all your guys’s territories.”

“But, like, it’s in West Side Story—”

“Warner. Serious, I’ve been here before. Like, I saw this in a dream once. I walked down this very street in a dream that I can’t even remember anymore, but I have seen this very street before…”

“Dude, you’re kinda freaking me out—”

–

—But one time I really did hold a gun in my dream, and not only held it but fired it and shot a man dead in the street for no discernible motive, and then I was wracked with the pains of the damned, stumbling wretchedly through the streets and not a soul, not a solitary soul Puerto Rican or otherwise would even touch me, nor should they have, for I was cursed with the Mark of Cain, and I knew I could find forgiveness neither in this life nor in the life to come for the awful sin of taking an innocent life which was the unpardonable sin—

When I awoke in a cold sweat I actually gave a prayer of thanks that it really was just a dream, for it took a couple of minutes even after I awoke to convince myself that I wasn’t damned but that it was just a dream, just a dream—

–

“It’s been so wonderful, such a…a blessing,” she said with practiced care, “to get to know you through this period of your life, to see how proudly and with such faith you’ve grown and gone on with—” her voice began to crack again—If this is such a private moment then why’d she leave the door open? Who does she think will hear?

–

We did everything we’d been told was right: taught her all the lessons, answered all her questions, introduced her to local members, read with her, prayed with her, but still one evening she said, “I would like to thank you guys for coming over…” and my heart sank.

“…I’ve felt like I’ve developed a closer relationship with God thanks to you two, but I don’t think I feel like I need to go to your Church to feel it—” It was the beginning of the end.

–

—but then once early on the mission, I had the army of evil dream again, but instead of finding the nerve to do combat with them or condemn my soul with firearms, I spake the Word and the earth trembled and like Enoch who walked with God the mountains fled, and rivers turned their course, and the roar of lions was heard in the wilderness, and I quenched the violence of fires, my enemies fell to the earth and All Eternity Shook—

–

“I feel as though we’ve grown together as sisters during this time, like we’ve developed a special bond,” Special bond, what the—how long’s she gonna be here for? “and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way…” You know? How do you know? How can you know anything, how can you feel for someone else—

–

Then one day in spite of us, she has what she calls a Religious Experience: reproducible but incommunicable, foreign to all but her.

There appears to be some misperception about this Book of Mormon—to its a priori skeptics it is at best a sort of King James pastiche, at worst the worse sort of fraud. Yet even among believers, it is generally regarded like some anthology of devotionals, a divine self-help book, a sort of sacral coffee-table collection. But even a cursory reading will reveal that it is an astonishingly melancholy book.

William Carlos Williams assumed Joseph Smith wrote it after he found some mushrooms in the forest, but there is none of the fanciful free-wheeling of the hallucinogenic drug-trip here. It opens with the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the exodus of Israeli refugees into the desert, and that morose tone doesn’t let up for a thousand years. Their most common self-descriptors are “lonesome”, “wandering”, “forlorn.” They never quite make themselves at home, not even in The Promised Land. The narrative is littered with wars, famines, oppressions, murders, death and destruction, and finally a suicidal genocide—it is depressingly familiar.

Nevertheless, Mormon’s tone is not uniformly bleak, for his book also describes incomprehensible joy, even to exceed one’s strength, and of gazing into Heaven itself and seeing unspeakable things. Yet it is a joy only possible after the profoundest sorrow. Yes, it is exceedingly strange, in retrospect, to proselyte so cheerfully and happily with such a melancholy book—especially when all that counts towards conversion is the strange, subjective feeling of the Spirit that accompanies the words, not the words themselves. Indeed, all we had were words to communicate something that cannot be communicated with words, and at a certain point it didn’t matter how much Spanish we learned, the words were wholly inadequate in that language too—they were inadequate in all languages.

But if there is a God he himself would know that we have nothing else but words, I suppose. In any case, Maria read those words one night, and both because of and in spite of them, had her Religious Experience.

–

—once I dreamed I was whisked away home to Washington in the twinkling of an eye, still sweating from the Puerto Rican heat, and I flew through the sky with arms outstretched and loosened my tie as I touched down on the carpet of my parent’s bedroom to find my Mom lying sick on her bed, dying. This I found offensive. So, I jumped into the air once more, cleared the limits of the stratosphere, the solar system, the galaxy itself, passed by the stars at frightening and impossible velocities until I arrived at the star closest to the throne of God in order to have a word with the Almighty. I somehow carried a lamb in my arms to offer as sacrifice at the altar before we spoke, and blood was getting on my white-shirt and slacks (I made a mental note that I’d have to swing by Walmart for a new pair on my way back to San Juan) before I awoke and remembered we hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet—

–

“Although I know you can’t hear me,” (for which I thought Mom should be grateful), “I just want you to know you’ve inspired us all by your example, that you have strengthened us by your faith…” Faith? You idiot, she’s dying—

No, no, she is not dying—

–

The day of Maria’s baptism came; another small family was also getting baptized by the other set of missionaries in our ward. We all dressed in ceremonial white for the occasion: when we posed for pictures in the late afternoon sun, we were a sea of white.

My previous companion was granted special dispensation from the mission president to attend—a rarity, for the latter always preached that the convert belongs not to us but to God. My companion ran late but arrived just in time for the actual baptism.

In the font, she looked up and caught sight of him in the congregation and smiled. Then I lowered her into the water…

–

—Another time I dreamed I flew off my bicycle and onto the hood of a gray sedan, caving in the windshield, and the whole experience looked and felt so familiar, like déjà vu, until I realized that I wasn’t dreaming but remembering—

–

“And I hope I’m as good, and that I do as good as you, when the Lord tries me—”

God, no more! I plug my ears, I block out her voice, I block out this entire wicked world entire—

–

Next morning at Church she came running to me. “Elder Warner, I remember the rest of my dream.”

“Dream?”

“Yes, remember the one I had right when you all first came?”

“The dream?… Oh, the one where, uh…”

“…was going to die? Yes, that.”

“So, wait, you remember the rest?”

“Yes. In the dream, we were all in white.”

–

Useless unprofitable servant that I am, lower than the dust I confess, I acknowledge, we were merely there, we had nothing to do with Maria’s baptism, we only watched while it all unfolded and came to pass in spite of us not because of us—but you owe us you owe me dear Lord God Almighty because I have served with all my heart, might, mind, and soul, and my Mom is dying and everyone has given up but I won’t because my Mom is real and this is no dream—