Meant To Be

by JD DeHart

What we are is what we are meant to be, the relic always tells us. But then, the relic is always spurting out useless and incongruous information. I am told relics often do. Lucky lotto numbers, quaint musical verse from decades ago, a commercial jingle, that sort of thing. The most mindless of us gather around him and dance like birds in the bath.

Step away from the relic, there is the wall. I enter my name into the doorway pod five times each day for good measure, hoping for entry each time. … Nutt, E.M.

The door sounds like it is clicking, but ultimately, this is a ruse. Again and again. I hear the relic laughing over my shoulder. Try again, sweetheart, it says, then spits out a ribbon of horoscope symbols, which are supposed to mean something. They never do.

As Jonah said, Oh, whale.

We are out here, on the outside, and the doorway will never open. Yet we still try. The relic is the last piece of what life used to be, a stone statue of a man with a beard and top hat with an honest look about him. Someone put a speaker in his mouth so he could recite code to us and taunt us with his nothings.

Jay-Jay Albus Nutt, my stepfather, is always busy scratching runes in the dirt and chanting. He says he saw this done in a movie once and it worked, opening up new portals, so why not? I am not one to disagree. I do not even know what movies are.

My real mother, I am told, is somewhere on the inside, which may mean that she has departed to the pearly gates and no one has the decency to tell me. Her name was Irene or Inez, depending on who tells the story and how drunk they are. My step-brother Daniel is a tale better left untold. He had an unfortunate run-in with a roaming beast and the rest is a bit of decapitated history.

As Jonah said, Oh, whale.

I walk among the outcast people, wondering how I became an outcast. There are stories, but we never trust history. I do not even trust my memory of yesterday. It is said that our race goes back and back to a time when there were slaves. We held chains firmly on all creatures and so this is our punishment. It is said that we have always been outcasts and that the fat happy little campers inside the walls of the city are the true heroes. If we submit to them, we may gain entry.

I do not know anyone who has gained a passport from them, but you can almost always hear the wild party going on inside.

Still, another story holds that there is one who will rise among us and overthrow the rulers of that great city, allowing us to stampede inside like so many elephants. That story is too trite and overdone to believe. It is also a nuisance story, giving some of us messiah complexes when we begin to lose our minds.

What we are is what we are meant to be, the relic says again. My thoughts become abstract and urgent. I picture my step-father becoming older and older, still scratching in the dirt. I picture the men and women inside laughing big belly laughs at all of us out here, watching us somehow and laughing.

Maybe if I break open the relic, there will be a key inside or a code so that I can gain entry. Maybe this is the test. So, I pick up the largest piece of metal that I can find and swing at the statue, but the effort is too little or the statue is too much, because the face just looks at me, unfazed.

Desperate, I enter my name into the pad again, and this time the click sounds real. Oh, my God, it is real. I scramble inside as the door opens and then my world crashes down because what is in front of me is another door, another pad. This door moves toward me like an usher, pushing me back out. I dig my heels into the dirt, but it keeps pushing until I am outside the first door again.

The relic is over my shoulder again and I sink down.

Try again, little princess, the relic says, then comes that harsh laugh again. Them’s the breaks, the statue adds. A party cup comes flying over the wall at that moment, spilling some strong beverage, adding insult to my latest injury. This is not my day.

As Jonah said, Oh, whale.

JD DeHart is the author of two collections, Decaf Days and Sunrise of Tomorrow, available on Amazon. His work has appeared in Sulfurings: Tales from Sodom & Gomorrah and the Garden of Eden anthology.