THE PAULINE LETTERS—WINGS PLACE—THE SCIENCE MUSEUM—A BABY

“A righteous man eats to his heart’s content, but the stomach of the wicked is empty.”
—Proverbs 13:25

I found this verse. The way it was written seemed to imply that a man who is righteous eats a lot. The wicked do not each much. I sat back on my chair and shared it the group chat. It was 4PM, so everyone was still busy. I had found myself bored enough to read the Bible. I supposed that as some kind of intellectual—or someone that purports to be one—I should be familiar with the Bible, so whenever I needed something to read but could not decide what to read, I read the Bible. Mostly the Pauline letters, which I admire for their philosophical rigorousness, for its dialectics that found a universal application for the teachings of Christ based on the concept of the paradox: Jesus the highest died in the lowest way, and in doing so created a contradiction at the very heart of Truth that totally vanquished it. And in so doing vanquished also the strictures of Justice that demanded mortal punishment. The crucifixion in Paul is a kind of cosmic event that completely upended the ontological order, in fact destroyed it, so that until Jesus’s return the entire universe was in a suspended state.

The most striking thing is how wrong he was regarding the Second Coming. And given that so much of his moral imperatives were predicated on it, then there is much in Paul that should be reconsidered in light of this particular error: For example, his assurances that poverty and suffering can easily be tolerated because the world was to end soon anyway.

In the spirit of this, Emily invited us to dinner, and we went to a wings place that was close to my house. Danny went with us, and so did my clone. I asked David to come with us, but it was too late, and he said that he wanted to rest early because he had classes in the morning. If it were up to me he wouldn’t need to take those classes. He would spend all his days tending to me, making me happy, and when that was done making himself happy. He did not need to exert himself any longer.

But David was a man’s man and thought that he was not complete until he had a career. A career and children.

We spoke about Iran at the wings place. At that point it was past midnight, but there were still a lot of people there. One of the reasons I liked that place, apart from the food, was how it was open all through the night.

We ate with our hands, wearing gloves.

“It’s too bad David couldn’t come,” Emily said. “I was excited to meet him.”

“He’s very busy.” I looked at the baskets for a nice leg. “He’s studying business.”

“Isn’t he our age?”

“Yeah. It’s some degree program. He wants to restart his career.”

“Restart? What was his career before?”

I thought about it. Then, I said, “He said he did odd jobs.”

“You know what that means.” He put a piece of chicken in her mouth. “Right?”

“I have a bad feeling you’re about to tell me.”

“He was a prostitute.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Danny was laughing, his head leaning against the wall.

Emily shrugged. “You don’t hide what you do unless it’s something nasty.”

“Well, there are nasty things beyond being a prostitute.”

“That’s true,” Danny said. “Maybe he was a drug dealer.”

“Alright…”

They were both dying laughing at their own jokes.

I made a face at them, but I knew they meant nothing by it. Still, by making the joke, I knew that there was some reality to what they were saying. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense. And it did.

“And what about you?” Danny was addressing my clone, who was seated beside me. “Are you also in a relationship with David? Or are you considered a totally different person?”

The clone looked up from his food and glared at him. “I am my own person. I’ve always been my own person.”

Emily said, “Before you became a person, what were you?”

“Oh my god, Emily,” I said. “You can’t just ask a clone that.”

“Why not?”

“That’s like asking someone why they’re white,” I said. “Or why they’re so fat or something.”

“I was an embryo,” the clone said. “Like anyone.”

Danny had his mouth open, a piece of chicken only barely touching his lips.

Emily was engrossed now, too. “Whose embryo? Did Elmer steal an embryo?”

“No.” The clone rolled his eyes. “He inseminated an egg, and he got the embryo from that.”

“Sounds unethical,” I said.

“Like a chicken egg?” Emily said.

“Oh god…”

“I mean,” Emily said. “What egg?”

“A human egg!” I said.

“I mean, I guessed so,” said Emily. “But where would he get something like that?”

“Medical waste, probably,” the clone said, shrugging. “I don’t really know.”

“That is very fucked up,” I said. “The very conditions of your life is an abomination.”

Emily swallowed a mouthful. “Supposing Elmer did use a chicken egg, what would you be?”

“Excuse me?” the clone said.

Danny and I were laughing.

“Closer to the original probably.” The clone side-eyed me. And Emily almost spat out her drink.

“I deserve that…” I said.

I saw David that Thursday. His weekends were always out of the question. He always said he was a big family guy, and that meant that every weekend is spent with his family. Which was fair enough. He said that if I wanted to spend time with them then that wouldn’t just be alright, that would be wonderful. But I didn’t like spending time with people in that way, in an environment where I have to bother being proper and polite. Making sure I don’t have to say certain things or do certain things. Moral laziness, maybe. Or ineptitude.

Whenever we met, I dressed up in girls’ clothes. I consider myself gender queer, and sometimes I want to be a woman. I know this bothers many people, especially those closest to me, including my friends who were supposed to be okay with these sorts of things. The unconscious mind is a hell of a thing; it persists despite your intentions, and many times in opposition to it. This is what might be called the superego, which exists not as a kind of higher moral agency, a la Freud, but in fact is the outcome of the fact that all things are hounded by their opposite and their non-existence, and so on, and so forth, and what have you…

I didn’t consider myself a particularly beautiful woman. Although the definition of what is beautiful changes all the time. But in my mind I wasn’t beautiful. Still, David saw something in me. The usual consolation is: He likes you for your personality. Which I despise. Because I didn’t care about my personality, or my mind. I wanted to be beautiful, the way David was.

As a woman, I called myself Arya.

We went to a science museum because that seemed like a fun thing to do. It was mostly empty because we met at around 4PM. It was near Bonifacio High Street, and we were going to have something expensive. We didn’t know yet what.

David was extraordinarily handsome, with a masculine face, and a beard like a Western sheriff. He had a mustache and a soul patch. His hair was naturally wavy, and his eyes had a squint, as if he were doing Blue Steel from Zoolander. He could have been a model. But he was short, around my height. This never bothered him, or never seemingly did, but this limited his appeal to many people. Not to me, though.

There was an exhibit on dinosaurs. We were holding hands in front of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and blinked at it a few times.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“I think these are its bones.”

We were still looking and holding hands and we stayed like that. The place was mostly empty, and it was so cold.

“And?” I said.

“This creature lived a very long time ago. And that’s impressive. I guess.”

“Ahuh.”

We passed by other bones. There were some that reminded me of lizards if they were magnified like ten times. Some were more interesting, with crests and hoods and all sorts of things.

“This is why I hate natural science museums,” I said. “It’s all just dirt and old stuff.”

“We’re learning about the past.”

I sighed.

We finally got out and then we were learning about the human body. That was a lot more interesting.

There was a slice of a man with all his nerves in the proper place. The brain looked like a mushroom that had grown roots. The slice included the eyes, and they were so round, like he was completely surprised to have been sliced into even pieces.

We came across a giant mouth that you could go into. We went inside, and we sat on the molars and looked around. The floor was supposed to be the tongue, and it was all bumpy.

I thought about David’s mouth. I had never really looked into his mouth, but I had felt around in there with my tongue. That was a strange thing to know. In that respect, his dentist was more intimate with him than me, and I hated that.

“Can I see your mouth?” I asked him.

“My mouth?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never seen the inside of your mouth.”

“Yes, you have.”

“When?”

He thought about it. I knew this because he paused, but his face was always so tense that had he not paused I would never know what he was actually doing.

“Okay,” he said. “Maybe you never have. But does that matter?”

“To me it does.”

“I would love to know why?”

“You would love to know why it’s important to me to know every inch of my boyfriend’s body? We swore ourselves to each other. I would want to know every detail of what I swore myself to. Is that so ridiculous?”

“Yes. It is.”

We went through the mouth and it led to an esophagus that led to a stomach and the intestines and finally the bowels. There was a small exhibit there about stool. The history of it, and what is inside it, and fossilized Neanderthal poop.

“Do you think we can safely lick that, if we wanted?” I asked.

“No. And why would you want to?”

“To test the limits of my humanity.”

At the gift shop, David bought me a little enamel pin shaped like a flower that was actually a stylized human anus. He was thoroughly revolted by it, but he knew that I would like it, and I did. I wore the pin immediately.

After strolling around Bonifacio High Street, we ended up eating somewhere familiar. We found ourselves at Village Tavern. I loved the food there. I often tried something new, and it was always good.

One of my greatest pleasures was sitting across from a handsome man and admiring them. Mostly, now, I admired David. And he was a little bit jealous, which I liked. It meant that he liked me, and all the things that might entail, good and bad.

There was an annoying boy, around five or six years old, who was running around the restaurant, going from table to table, chased by his nanny while his family had dinner. The most the mom did was occasionally call out to the boy in an annoyed voice, although she never stood up or anything.

David saw me glaring at the kid. He said, “Hey, let him run around if he wants. He’s not bothering us.”

“My ears are bleeding.”

“They’re not.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I can see them.” He was smiling at me. David grew up in Canada and tried to apply being nice to everything. “How’s your pig face?”

He was referring to the sisig I got. “It’s good. You’re referring to my food, right?”

He laughed. “You know, I’d like to have kids of my own someday.”

I gave a fake, exaggerated smile, like he was making a poor joke, tilting my head and rolling my eyes. “How do you intend to do that with me?”

“There are options,” he said. “We don’t need to think about that now.”

“Oh, okay. And when do we think about it?”

He had the roasted chicken. He was trying to avoid carbs so he had the steamed vegetables instead of the rice. He was slicing a bit of it, and he was watching it, like he had to be very careful.

“We could adopt,” he said. “Although personally I think getting a surrogate is better.”

“Okay. And who’s seed do we use?”

“Well…” He shrugged and laughed. “I mean…”

“What if I want to pass my genes on, David? Have you ever thought of that?”

“We can have two children.”

The child passed us again, screaming some hideous song. The nanny passed soon after, muttering, “Jax…! Jax…!”

We followed them with our gaze for a moment.

Then, I said, “Do you think our children will ever be that annoying?”

“That’s how kids are.”

“Annoying?”

“They want to have fun. That’s how they learn, you know. Exploring the world. Playing.”

“Pain is a wonderful teacher. Did you know that? Zenyatta from Overwatch says that.”

“Hm.” He nodded sarcastically and raised his eyebrows while he returned to his meal.

“What do you think will happen to us in the next few years?” I said. “Do we have a future together?”

He seemed taken aback by this question. “Of course. I mean, I love you, Arya.”

“Okay.”

We ate in silence for a while. Jax finally settled down because his spaghetti arrived. It was pleasant, everything considered.

And then, he said: “What do you think? About our future?”

I thought about it. “Jesus is coming. Did you know?”

He laughed. But I meant it.