It is disheartening, sometimes, to see how easy it is for well-intentioned people to be turned aside from the righteous way. We, brothers and sisters, prefer to believe that faith in the Father-King and the Repository will lead our warriors home without trouble, but it is never so easy. The Enemy is sly and brilliant, and though he cannot win the battle, he will never give up when he has weapons to wield in human souls.
I could see the trouble almost right away, when I went to meet Morgan and find the basis of her sorrow. You see, Morgan already knows the person with whom she is meant to spend her life. This person is someone she has known for years, who has stood by her in hard times, who gives her strength and succor. This person makes her happy, helps lift the weight of her difficult days, and she, too, feels the pain of this person’s struggles and wishes to take them away. To us, there is no obstacle, but on this stolen Earth, it has never occurred to her that this person may be the one she is looking for, because this person is a woman.
I arrived for observation shortly after Morgan had gotten up for the day. She had not had a job for some time, and so she was feeling low—I could feel the cloud of despondency hanging around her. The emotion was visible, too, in the disarray around her person. She had not bothered to get dressed or comb her hair, and she walked with shoulders slumped and feet scuffing the floor of her tiny apartment.
Her roommate had already been up for several hours and was busily hammering away on a laptop computer set up on a folding table in her room. She leaned out of the door and called to Morgan, “If you’re making coffee, make me some.”
Morgan grunted a reply and went into the kitchen. She set the coffeepot burbling and leaned against the counter, her hands over her face. She was tired, having stayed up too late scrutinizing her finances, and then she had been unable to sleep for some time after that. God, she prayed, please help me. Please send me a job. Any job. I’d take a commercial for some hideous disease or a soap,[1] for crying out loud. Just help me. Please.
I stepped closer to her, radiating comfort and strength. “He is,” I said to her.
She yawned and blinked, looking more awake. She is very lovely, Morgan—of middling height and strong, with long brown curls and bright blue eyes. Of course, she believes herself too heavy, and her hair too curly, and her skin too freckled. It is one of the things I will have to work on with her.
When the coffee was done, she poured it into two mugs and brought the second to Brooke, who was still busily hammering. “What are you doing?”
“Deadline at noon,” Brooke answered briefly. “Few more sentences.”
“Your coffee’s gonna get cold.”
Brooke lifted one of her hands from the keyboard, leaving the other to clatter just as quickly over the entire span. She took a sip of her coffee without breaking stride and returned to work.
“Show-off.”
Looking up, Brooke gave Morgan a smile. Behind that smile, I felt all the warmth of her affection and respect for Morgan, as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud. “Years of pushing deadlines in a state of panic. You should be glad you’re not as good as I am.”
Morgan could sense Brooke’s feelings, though her mind did not recognize them for what they were. Some of her anxiety faded away under that warmth, and she returned Brooke’s smile. “Well, get that sent off. You want some breakfast?”
“You mean lunch? Sure.”
It was so strange. To the human eye, the two of them are simply good friends, amiably sharing a physical space, but no more than that. But their emotions show a tie that is closer than any other, a bond that has survived difficult moments and brings both of them strength and joy.
They met while they were in college, and though they were studying very different things—Brooke is an urban geographer, which seems to mean she studies the way humans live together in cities—they became very close thanks to a shared devotion to their faith. They supported one another through pain—the death of Brooke’s father, the drawn-out stresses of Morgan’s struggling family—and have come to understand one another in a way that many people would envy.
My task is to open their minds to the possibility that they are each exactly what the other needs. But I must work quickly.
While Brooke and Morgan were in the middle of their meal, Morgan received a call, one that made her very excited. She picked up her phone and ran into her bedroom, leaving Brooke with the dishes. I knew that I should have gone after Morgan, to hear the news, but I felt such a rush of dismay from Brooke at Morgan’s departure that I stayed with her, wanting to comfort her. From what I had seen of their relationship, I knew that Morgan would tell her what the call was about.
I was correct. After Brooke had finished both her meal and the washing of the dishes, Morgan came rushing back into the kitchen and threw her arms around Brooke’s shoulders. “I’ve got a job!” she shouted.
Brooke blushed, and the direction of her thoughts as she freed herself from Morgan’s embrace made me realize that there is only one mind that I will have to open. “That’s amazing!” she cried, hiding her embarrassment with another hug, face-to-face this time. “What is it, tell me!”
“Just a local commercial, but the guy says if I do well, he’ll put me on his contact list! This could be a real chance for me, Brooke!”
“Well, then obviously we have to celebrate,” Brooke said with a grin. She grabbed Morgan’s hand and pulled her into the other room. “First we grab a slice, and then we’ll hit up Circo’s. Oh—but we need to get some champagne.”
“I don’t need champagne,” Morgan protested, still giggling.
Brooke expressed her scorn with a single rude noise and started pulling on her shoes. “You want to hit up the Redbox, too? I think the new Star Wars is there now, and I’ve been wanting to grab it.”
Morgan’s phone beeped, and she looked down at it again, laughing. “How many times have you seen that one? How many times have you made me watch it?” Her face falls. “Oh, Brooke, I can’t. The director wants to meet me.”
“What?” Though there was humor in her indignation, there was misgiving in Brooke’s heart as she came to look over Morgan’s shoulder. “You just got the job. How does he even know who you are?”
“Well, if I want to keep the job, I better go.” Morgan hurried to pick up her purse. She was halfway out the door when she stopped short, called back by Brooke clearing her throat.
“You know, I think you look adorable,” she informed Morgan, her heart picking up speed as she said it, “but this big-shot director might not have picked you for how good you look in your pajamas.”[2]
Startled, Morgan glanced down at herself, shrieked so loud that it hurt even my ears, and bolted back into her room to dress.
This was enough to convince me that Brooke’s feelings are well developed, and that she is conscious of their meaning. She believes, however, that Morgan would not return them, and so she is protecting herself with silence.
This will not last. But my time has elapsed—I will continue tomorrow.
[1] I am uncertain as to her meaning of ‘soap’ here. Soap is a substance used for cleaning their bodies, so it is odd that she would mention it in connection to her work. I do know what a commercial is, though—it is a way humans have to persuade others to buy certain objects, a means of persuasion used in their communication network which they call television.
[2] Pajamas are special, very comfortable clothes worn only for sleeping. They are sometimes attractive, but not in this case.