2040

"I would like to begin", says Kenny, stirring into his coffee the meticulously measured two teaspoons of sugar and huge dose of cream that I aways knew him to favour, and even on the cusp of sixty, he is stirring with musical tinkling vigour. Dad used to tease him that he was going to take a recording of him stirring his coffee then hand it over to the church organist so that he might use the tinkling melody for composing a new liturgical anthem, perhaps for the Feast of Pentecost. Of course he just might have said to Kenny that the relentless tinkle tinkle tinkle never failed to get on his nerves, but Dad was two kind for that as well as too timid and polite. But on occasion, we, father and son, would exchange in private our mildly amused and vaguely irritated glances, one or both of us would briefly chuckle or titter, nothing further said or done. "with telling everyone here about how you and I came to know each other. Are you okay with that, Ethan. I am not going to mention here your true history as an early church martyr, nor of your eternal identity and service to God, nor anything at all about the Refuge. The two dimensions have come together, things are beginning to get calm again, and we are stuck here now, right now, in the boring mundane here and now." "Proceed", is all he mutters, while testing an experimental sip of his black and bitter coffee. first of all", so that no one gets confused, Only in Ethan's eyes have Kim and Tim remained young. And Ethan himself was just a kid of thirteen when he came into foster care in their home. Would you like to continue from here, Ethan..."

2039

I am carrying the very full coffee pot in one hand and a porcelain jug full of cream in the other while Kenny handles the Japanese crane tray loaded with mugs, spoons and a bowl of sugar.  There is room for everything on the coffee table, and I am gratified to see that neither Francois nor Ethan have put their feet on the table, always forbidden while my father was alive and I am bound and determined to honour his memory by maintaining that tradition.  I am reminded of the one time I actually dared to rest my feet, wearing only socks, on that table.  I was twelve.  Dad came into the room with the deacon who was our dinner guest. He approached me calmly and silently, then stood over me with his arm raised in a karate chop that was about to punch down onto my ankles.  I never put my feet there again.  Not even while home alone, and never once since. "Ethan", says Kenny, sitting down next to him,  "It is time for us to talk, all of us present." "About...?" he asks numbly. "You." "And I am going to start.  Ready?" And now Ethan is nothing of Tron or Adrian, but a silent, nervous young man awaiting an anticipated and very unwelcome verdict.

2038

"Can I help?" says Kenny, appearing like a magic elf in the doorway. "Do you remember where we keep the mugs?" "Yes, right here over the sink."  Then, approaching me he says in a conspiratorial whisper, "We have to do something about Ethan" "What can we do about him?" "The thing is, he is totally bat shit." "bat shit how?" "Isn't it obvious?" "Just as I was going into the kitchen, he was Tron again, all gold and emerald resplendent." "He is also that, but there is a key difference between him and you and me." "Which is?" say I, adding to the coffee filtre generous scoops of dark Costa Rican. "He is the real goods.  Yes, he is more than seventeen hundred years old, a resurrected Christian martyr and for this reason he is unable to cope here.  He does not know the difference between the realities.  We have to do something about him before something really weird and dreadful happens." "Like running around naked?" "Or Worse.  Look", he says, placing the mugs on a tray with the lacquered design of a Japanese crane,  "If he gets caught again he could be put away on extended leave for a long long time, and then they'll totally destroy that beautiful person on medications.  We have to protect him from himself." "while we are having coffee we will talk about it." "But he will be present." "Nothing about him without him." "You really mean that." "I really mean that." "The years have turned you into a hardass." "in spades,baby, in spades." "Oh you do know how to set a girl's heart aflutter."  and now we are both laughing.

2037

"What is your new name", say I. "I thought it was Benjamin." "That was my Facebook handle for the bereavement group where you and I connected. For very complex legal reasons, it would have been disastrous to reveal to you my true identity at the time. But mom and Kim were incredible. Since she moved to Duncan after she divorced my father and after I was on my own, no one would be able to trace my true identity there, so I became her long lost nephew, Liam Hargreaves. But", he says wagging his finger with emphasis, "Here, and only here, will I be known as Kenny. So, anyway, Kim got me working and eventually let me in as co-owner of her florist shop, and, I think Ethan here can tell you the rest." "This is going to be rather complicated", says Ethan, thoughtfully rubbing his right knee with his left hand, "because while we are talking about this we are still straddling two distinct realms. Right now we are seated in the presence of Jesus in the reception room of the Refuge, while simultaneously finishing lunch and starting coffee here in the home of Christopher." "I will take that as a hint, " I reply, getting up from my chair. "I presume everyone here is having coffee?" And now I am entering the kitchen, absolutely refusing to dwell on the fact that just in the last minute or so, Ethan was transformed again before my very eyes as Tron or Adrian, resplendent in his emerald green and gold robes with a strange golden light beaming from his face, but now, as I check my shoulder again, he is just Ethan, this random bike dude dressed in shorts and T shirt.

2036

"So, what exactly did happen to you, Kenny?" asks Erik, young vulnerable ingenue that he is, even at the relatively ripe age of thirty-two. "My last memory was being followed by Sven Lindstrom onto the Lion's Gate Bridge late at night, and a heated argument about his presumed sovereignty over me, then he must have hit me in the face. I woke up in a hospital bed a couple of months later, but I had no id, I had already been declared dead, and that was when Kim came to my rescue. She said that she had, with her son, Tim, found me unconscious on the beach of the island of the refuge, and transported me to Victoria where I was hospitalized. All the doctors to this day are completely baffled that I could have survived, given that I had fallen into the water from the Lion's Gate Bridge forty-five miles away in December. After my head cleared enough to remember some details of my identity, she was able to reunite me with my mother, who was a close friend of hers. But I had to assume a new identity and a new name, and I know I still haven't revealed that to you, but there was a lot of work securing all the documentation necessary to get me started again. I still remember dreams of being in the Refuge with the young Jesus and the dreams just continued for years afterward, so I think it could be safely said that I was in both places at once."

2035

"How very catholic of you", quips Carl. "I think that is why we have ghosts", say I.  "They are souls in purgatory." "But I have always thought of Purgatory as being a whole tier of prison cells that no one can escape from till after they've done their time", says Carl rather snidely. "It isn't a place", Ethan paitiently enunciates, "It is a state of being.  and Christopher is right when he says this." "And how would you know, Chris", says Carl in that patronizing tone of his that just makes me sometimes want to punch his handsome Nordic face. "Quite simply because that's exactly where I was for a while", says Kenny, "when I was in a coma, straddling both worlds, and I appeared to him in a series of dreams." "Like when you revealed to me the location of your journal." "In spades, baby...in spades..."

2034

"You would be thinking of the Desert Fathers", says Carl. "I am indeed thinking of the  Desert Fathers", says Ethan. "Who were they?" asks Erik. "When Constantine the so-called Great made the Christian Faith the official religion of the Roman Empire", replies Ethan, "he also committed treason against Christ for which he is still in Purgatory.  "Christianity was no longer costly, it was both politically and socially correct and convenient.  The representatives and guardians of the Faith soon became arrogant, lazy and corrupt.  Declaring Jesus Christ as Lord was no longer a death sentence.  so that many saints fled from the corruption that was already festering in the church out into the wilderness where they lived alone or in small collectives seeking daily the face of the living God." "You believe in Purgatory", says Carl. "as do I ", says Kenny. "And I", echoes Francois.