“I did…” I tell him. My jaw trembles as I fumble out the words. It’s like spilling a bunch of marbles out of a bag that’s too small for all of them. “I nailed Him to the cross.”

  “I know enough to tell you that you’re on your way to understanding.”

  “Understanding what?”

  “When I know, I’ll tell you,” he says with a wry, unfathomable grin like a man who’s just climbed a mountain to the moon and is now looking down on the majestic world below, a marble to sit in the palm of his hand. “I don’t even know this Christ. Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  The stars twinkle on the black curtain of space behind the marble man, behind the grassy field and the towering trees. A city skyline imitates nature like a loose dame imitates a mother to a sad drunk she’s looking to dupe.

  I can’t tell if the nubile man is actually marble or just marble-like. I get the impression that marble might be a sad imitation of him, like he’s something more than anything I’ve ever seen before.

  He’s no man. He just looks like one. Now’d be a good time for a smoke. I’m tired of all this weird stuff.

  The cool breeze of the crashing falls blows past me. I watch the grass bow up and down in the misty gusts like monks in prayer to their invisible God. The nubile man, the tentacle monster, and the tin can are just strange interruptions to their unending devotions.

  And He answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. Luke … What’s the chapter? Eh, like that’s something I’d ever remember. I’m surprised I even remembered the verse at all. Whatever. Better get this dog and pony show on the road.

  “Can you at least tell me what’s going on here?” I ask.

  “I can try.”

  “Well?”

  “Let’s see … You’re a man. You were a man.”

  “I’m still a man.”

  “No. You’re a Yog now. You have a man’s spirit, but it’s mingled with a new essence, a new purpose. Perhaps you’re man and monster now. Maybe that’s the best way to put it.”

  “Hard to say if anything’s really changed then.”

  “You were on some world … I think it was called Terra.”

  “Earth.”

  “Well, you called it Earth, but we called it Terra.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “I don’t remember. Space people, I suppose. That’s what you might call us. Or was it … Gods? Angels? Demons?”

  “Spirits? Aliens? We can sit and name weird stuff all day, or you can start telling me what’s going on here. I got nothing better to do.”

  “Like I said, I don’t remember. Your people make up so many words for so many things you all don’t understand. It’s like you’re grasping at dust and flies sailing on the wind. I can’t recall enough about myself or your world to give you a straight answer.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that longer than your race has existed, Jack. I think. I’m pretty sure that’s the timeline.”

  “You still don’t have any answers?”

  “I figured out a long time ago that I was me. That’s about it.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got the basics.”

  “Speaking of the basics, I believe I have a job to do.”

  He walks toward me. He thumps something like my forehead with his finger. I jolt and quiver as a surge of energy flows through me.

  “Yes. We need to do something with all that,” he says with that look a man gets in his eyes at a funeral.

  “All what? Give it to me straight, doc. Will I ever walk again?” I ask with more salt than the Dead Sea could muster.

  “You’re a thousand ropes tangled together in tens of thousands of knots. We need those knots untied and the ropes braided so you can be the single strong and useful cord you were made to be.”

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  “That’s all well and good, but to what end? Making my mind healthy so I can live out my days in peace shlooping through space? Just tell me how to get my body back. I can get by with the rest as it is. That’s why they make rye and cigarettes, marble-man. You think anyone else is sane where I come from? We all get by. That’s the best we can do.”

  “All I can tell you right now, Jack, is that there’s a war of a million suns going on, and you have a part to play in it. You’re going to have to do more than get by.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Not sure. Good question.”

  “Intuition, then. Maybe yours is as good as mine. Maybe better.” I reach for a cigarette case that isn’t there, patting myself down like I’ll find a nicotine surprise. “What if I don’t want to fight in this war?”

  “I suppose you’ll face that fate when the time comes. I can’t force your hand. Something tells me you’ll go where you’re needed, though.”

  “I’m needed in my office. At my desk. As a man.” I finally realize I’m looking for the cigarettes and stop. I point my eyes right at the marble-man’s face. “I’ve had my fill of wars. I’ve seen my share of death and dealt more than I care to have. And to what end? Roosevelt’s? Churchill’s? Stalin’s? Even the Jerries were just slaves to dear Führer, the Japs to Hirohito. Which end do I follow to make Jack Wolfgang a free man?”

  “Another good question. We need to untangle some things before we can answer it.” He crosses his arms, then puts his hand on his chin again and gives me that same wry, unfathomable grin. “What is it to be free, Jack?”

  I proverbially cross my own arms with a hand on my chin.

  What kind of question is that? A good one. That’s how an investigation goes, though: you trade one good question for another until you get to the bottom of the lowball. So, what is it? When is a man truly free? Am I just a slave away from home out here? When the Israelites entered the wilderness, were they truly free yet? What happened there? They went back to their old ways. They were up to no good. Even without a state, a man isn’t set free until he conquers the evil within, until he nails himself to a cross right up there alongside Christ. Maybe. That’s the best I’ve got. Go ahead and shoot, Jack. God sorts’em out when you’re wrong.

  “Freedom … is the unfettered will to do that which is good and true.”

  He smiles like an old friend now.

  “One of those knots just came untied.”

  “Yeah, I feel my sanity loosening up. Maybe we tie it back and just send me home. I’m not trading legs for braids.”

  “Jack, let me help you. Let me teach you to be free as much as I can while I can. I have the feeling we don’t have much time but that this is incredibly important, the most important thing I’ve done since…”

  “Since what?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Funny story: you can’t remember, and I’m getting deja vu. Maybe I just shloop on out of here and forget the whole thing.”

  He looks down like a chess master contemplating his next move.

  “My first memory is waking up on one of these rocks with a terrible headache.”

  One of these rocks? What does he mean by that?

  “I’ve been trying to sort things out ever since. Contemplation and psychic wandering have availed much, but my mountain of mysteries still towers beyond space and time.”

  You’re giving me more questions than answers, marble-man. That’s how it goes, though. Every mystery is the same: just problems. I’m tired of solving other people’s problems. It’s about time I solve some of my own.

  “You’re not merely a man anymore, though, Jack Wolfgang. You’re less bound by that nature. You have a different kind of potential now to which you’re legally entitled.”

  “What?” My eyes go wide dinner plates as he snatches the attention of my wandering mind like a viper snatches his next meal. “Legally entitled? Who’s writing the laws here? Let me speak to him.”

  “No one speaks to the Law-Maker. Except one. I know that much. Anyway, I’m going to teach you to cultivate that power to which you’re entitled, Jack. That freedom. We’re going to undo the knots that are binding you and bring you to your real potential.”

  “What if I use my potential for evil? Say I pick the wrong side in this war.” How do you even know which side is right in a war? I’m not saying you can’t know or that there’s never a right side, but I am saying that things are never as simple as they seem.

  “That’s against your interests; you wouldn’t be free then.”

  Put Jack Wolfgang in the obituary: the man’s got me dead to rights. What option do I really have here? What option do any of us really have? We either pursue the good or die as slaves to our evils.

  Roger whizzes and whirs. “I think you ought to take him up on his offer, Mr. Wolfgang. By your own definition, he offers you freedom. Besides, what else were you planning on doing now that you have seen your guy about the belly of a whale?”

  “I don’t like a tin can telling me what to do, especially when he makes so much sense. Doesn’t sit well with my preconceptions.” I pat Roger on the back. “Alright, Roger. Alright, marble-man. You’ve both convinced me. I’m at least curious. I’ll hang around and let you show me a thing or two until I have something better to do. By the way, what should I call you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just call me whatever that statue was named, the one you think I look like.”

  “Alright, Dave. Teach me this gardening—”

  “Cultivating, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “—Cultivating thing you’re talking about.”

  “Excellent. We’ll start now. Follow me.”

  Before I can blink, he jabs a swift hand straight into my brain. I rattle like a man sparking up in the electric chair. There is no pain, only a numb vibration. It’s as if he’s actually reached not into my brain, with its blood and tissue, but into my mind with its … knots, I guess.

  Red, blue, purple, and perhaps other stranger colors flood my vision like paint starting to mingle but refusing to mix.

  Lights out. Fade to … Red, blue, and purple or something. Why does this keep happening to me?