Seer

Brad

I get out yesterday’s Thanksgiving leftovers for another go-round for dinner. This is the best part of Thanksgiving - a couple of solid days of delicious turkey and dressing and potatoes. Stef seems to have her appetite back, thank goodness, after having spent a couple of months green around the gills. She’s not showing yet, but I know it’ll be soon. And I’m actually looking forward to her slender frame growing, rounding. It’ll be sexy. And wonderful.

Jonathan gobbles his food. Heh - he gobbles the gobbler. I know he’s looking forward to Gabe getting back to his Dad’s house, since it’s Friday.

After dinner he’s getting antsy, wondering when Gabe will come over. The sun’s already down, but it’s not dark yet, and he asks if he can go check to see if they’re home yet.

“Yeah, go ahead, but don’t go anywhere else. It’s getting dark.”

He grabs his jacket and heads out the door.

Jonathan

When I get down to Gabe’s house I see that their cars are already parked in the driveway. I wonder if they’re still eating dinner since Gabe hasn’t come over to my house yet.

I knock on the door, and his Mom answers. “Hi, Jonathan, come on in. Gabe’s upstairs in his room.”

Huh. They’ve already finished dinner apparently. Why didn’t Gabe come over?

I go upstairs, pass by Natalie’s room where I see she’s laying on her bed reading, and get to Gabe’s door. He’s also laying on his bed, reading a comic book. Lame.

“Dude!” I say as I come in. “When did you get here?” I take off my jacket and toss it on his chair.

He sits up. “Hey, Jonathan. We’ve been here since lunch. I guess I just got wrapped up in reading this new manga and forgot to come over. How are you?”

That’s annoying. How could a manga make him forget to come and play with me? But I don’t tell him that. “Good. Glad you’re here. Lemme see your manga!” I put a smile on my face.

“Sure,” he says, and tosses it over to me.

Natalie

When Jonathan passes by my room I ask Angel what’s up with him and Gabe. Dad asked Gabe after we got here if he was going to go play with Jonathan, but he just shrugged and said “Yeah, maybe in a while.” But then he never got around to it. I was so interested in my book that I didn’t think of it again until just now. But it is kind of weird. Normally Gabe wants to spend all the time he can with his best friend.

Angel says, “Your brother has been feeling somewhat reluctant to spend time with Jonathan.”

“Why?” I ask. “Did they get in a fight or something?”

“No, but Gabe has noticed a few times that Jonathan’s interests are different from his.”

I look closer at Angel. Sometimes I can see that he is trying not to tell me something that he knows, like he is worried that it’ll bother me. I thought the whole God thing would’ve cured him of that.

“Dude, Angel,” I say, rolling my eyes at him. “You know I can tell when you’re not saying something, right? You need to get over that! After telling me about God you should understand that there isn’t anything you can’t tell me. So what is it?”

Angel laughs and shakes his head. “I certainly have no secrets from you, do I, my darling?”

“Well, it’s only fair, since I have no secrets from you, with you watching me and in my head every single second. So, spill it.”

He laughs even harder. “Of course, my dear. You are in charge. The situation with your brother and Jonathan is growing somewhat tense, because Gabe is starting to notice more often when Jonathan is unkind. He is usually careful not to show this side of himself to Gabe, because he values their friendship. However, Gabe has noticed recently that Jonathan seems to enjoy harming others if he can. This is troublesome for Gabe.”

I nod, thinking. “Well, Jonathan has always been mean to Timothy, and I think Gabe knows it, but he just usually tries to ignore it or get Jonathan to do something else instead. Has it happened with anyone else?”

Angel looks like he sighs. Sometimes I wonder about that - I know he isn’t actually sighing, but I think that he does stuff like that to add to the words that he says, to make them mean more than just words alone would. Well, I guess people do that too, using their hands and face while they’re talking. Maybe I’ll ask him to tell me more about that another time. But I don’t want to get distracted from the thing about Jonathan.

Angel waits a minute, and I know he heard that whole thing in my head, and he smiles and nods, to tell me that I’m right and we can discuss it later if I want. But for now he says, “Yes, there have been other instances. For example, Gabe has witnessed Jonathan taking pleasure in killing insects, and that disturbs your brother. Last weekend when they had their overnight, he believed that Jonathan may have injured a small child at McDonald’s, although he didn’t actually see it happen. But he is starting to suspect. Your brother is a good and kind person, like you are, and these incidents are beginning to lessen his desire to spend time in Jonathan’s company.”

“Poor Gabe! Jonathan is his very best friend. It would be sad if he didn’t want to be friends anymore.” I think about this for a while. “I wish that Jonathan would just be nicer, so that Gabe would like being with him better.”

Angel shakes his head and smiles. “Sadly, my dear, Jonathan is who he is. You have seen how disagreeable he can be. It doesn’t seem likely that he will change for the better.”

Yeah, he’s been mean to me and Timothy for a long time. I hinted to him a couple of months ago that he should act nicer, since his guardian angel might be watching, but he didn’t care. Mostly me and Timothy just try to stay away from him.

Angel is watching me, calm like always, following along as I think. I pick back up the book I was reading. It’s a children’s Bible, that my grandma gave me for my birthday. She always likes to take us to church with her when we visit. That’s pretty much the only time I’ve been to church. She talks about God and Jesus a lot too. And even about guardian angels, ever since I found her painting of one at her house in Albuquerque when I was really little. I think she wishes that Gabe and me would always go to church and pray and stuff. We’ve done that stuff with her. I just do it to make her happy when we’re together. I have never seen any point in praying to God when Angel is always just sitting right here.

And now, of course, I’ll never have any reason to pray to God. Now that I know he doesn’t even exist. Only guardians exist, like Angel.

But, I’ve started reading the book. Since Angel told us last week that there isn’t a God, and that religion is just something people made up, I’ve wished there was something we could do to make people stop hurting each other over religion. I’ve always wanted people not to hurt each other, but the idea that they’d do it over some fake God that has never existed just makes me really upset. I want to figure out if there is a way to change it. And I decided that the best way to start is to try to understand it better. So I’m reading this children’s Bible.

The stories are interesting, I guess, a lot like other myths I’ve read. Like Greek myths and stuff.

I’m about to start reading again, but I hear Jonathan and Gabe horsing around in the room next door. They sound like they’re having fun, but I wonder if that will last. If Gabe is starting to wish Jonathan was nicer, I don’t know how much longer they’ll be friends. Poor Gabe.

Well, wait a minute! I was trying to understand religion more so that I could find a way to change it for the better. I wonder if I could do that with Jonathan! Like, could I try to understand him better, make friends with him, and help him be nicer? It would be easier for Gabe to keep his best friend if he wasn’t so mean all the time to other people.

It would be like an experiment! Before I go trying to change something huge like the way people hurt each other over a fake God, maybe I could see if I can just change one person. Just Jonathan. It would be a good start. And it’s probably best to start small.

Angel is watching me while all this runs through my head, and he’s starting to look a little alarmed. “Darling,” he says, “of course you would like to help Jonathan be a nicer person, for your brother’s sake, but I do not know how that would be possible.”

“Well,” I say, “can’t hurt to try. And I can’t really know what to do unless I understand him better.”

Angel laughs softly and lifts his hands up. “Very well, my love.”

So, that’s my new experiment. I can’t wait to tell Timothy about it when he comes over to play tomorrow. But for now, it’s time to start. The first step: trying to understand Jonathan better.