HERE

By Nikolei

WITH HIS RELIGIOUS BELIEFS WANING, ROMAN MUST FIND NEW FAITH IN HIS RELATIONSHIPS, AND HIS OWN ABILITIES TO SURVIVE POWERFUL ENEMIES IN A QUEST TO RETURN THE LIGHT TO EARTH...

In the long, pitch-black winter, Roman shelters in the cathedral where he trains to be an ordained priest. But with resources dwindling, he receives a vision of a co

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922594396

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HERE

A PLACE WHERE

LIGHT STILL EXISTS

HERE Copyright © 2021 Nick van Diemen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in Australia

Cover design by Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

First Printing: November 2021

Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

www.shawlinepublishing.com.au

Paperback ISBN- 9781922594402

Ebook ISBN- 9781922594396

NIKOLEI

HERE

A PLACE WHERE

LIGHT STILL EXISTS

For my loving, resilient grandmothers: Grandma and Oma. I’d always leave you with a head full of stories and a stomach full of food.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my loved ones and first readers: Sebastián Alarcón-Pereira, Mallory Bugeja, Jamie Callaghan, Andrew Feng, Thomas Schmocker, Ben Stilling and Josh Taylor. You had no obligation to read my drafts, especially the funky early ones, but you did that and more. To the landscape design experts Mike van Diemen and Justin Kalinowski: thank you for helping me plan out some very heavenly gardens. For anyone who gave me their support, even by asking about my writing, you have my love and gratitude.

Finally, to Mum and Dad: your constant support has been the stable platform I needed to do something crazy like write a book.

ONE

‘Our sun last set last winter, without a moon or star to follow,’ Father Pitt bellowed, his white hair flopping up and down on his cherry-tomato face.

‘Lest we forget, the sun is still out there. Its light may have been strangled somewhere in the sky, but it’s there.’ His purple fingers turned white as he gripped the edge of the lectern.

‘Our faith is no different. We may not see God here. You may ask where God was for all those who don’t live in Canberra, or the first world, who would’ve perished on the first day without a dawn.’

The hum of the heating ducts from the rear loft of the church filled his pause. They had been shoved through the largest stained-glass window, surrounded by eight dark rosettes.

‘But He is here. With us. And light is here. With us.’ He gestured to the candles lining the walls, under the tiled Stations of the Cross.

‘I feel the light within me. And in our young seminarian, Roman,’ he gestured to me, sitting beside him. I looked down at my vestments, avoiding the stares of the congregation.

‘And in you all. Light is with ye who believes. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ we said, followed by a few coughs.

I couldn’t sleep again that night. Blanketing myself in a sleeping bag, I walked up the nave and looked back from the altar. Everyone was asleep, hidden from view by the pews. St. Agnes was holding a lamb in stained glass beside me. After the light had left, we’d taped the windows over with cardboard. For some reason, we’d left this one uncovered.

Though, with only blackness behind it, it just looked like embossed wine glass.

Wine always made me think of my parents. They were always getting that cheap Aldi wine, the one that comes in silver bladders stuffed into a box. They’re Venezuelan, but even they’d adopted the Australian love of ‘goon’.

Where were they? At home with my sister Nat? And Brad Pitbull

(if he hadn’t already run away)?

I didn’t know. It was the worst feeling to not know. How can you move on? Your feelings were frozen between hoping they were alive and dreading they weren’t. Knowing was what I missed the most, even more than light. It’s like when people say they’re not afraid of the dark, but of what they can’t see. I didn’t miss the light. I missed everything you could see with it. Not that there would be much to see out there.

So, I did what I always did when I didn’t know: I prayed. I stared past St. Agnes, past the crisscrossed bars into the blackness of the four-month night.

‘Please God,’ I said. ‘Anything.’

TWO

We’re in the foyer when it starts getting dark. It’s just after Mass and I’m talking to John and Beverly, two of the parishioners.

‘I’ll get the car warmed up,’ John says. ‘Lovely to see you again, mate.’ He shakes my hand in a farmer’s grip. His silver watch is tight against his wrist. I wonder if that’s so it wouldn’t get caught in farm equipment.

‘I wish we’d just get a new car,’ Beverly says. I laugh. Rather than putting on Sunday clothes, she’s wearing her bright Northern Territory jumper, a picture of the sun behind Uluru.

‘So how are your studies going, darling?’ she asks.

‘Bloody hell, look at this!’ John says. He’s standing outside on the top of the steps, looking up. His missal’s shielding his eyes against the sun. ‘Pardon my language, Father.’

Father Pitt turns back to his conversation with an old Englishwoman in a pink dress. I can never remember her name, so I think of her as the Queen.

‘Oh, what is it?’ Beverly asks. ‘I’m talking with Roman.’

‘It’s getting dark,’ John says.

‘Right, so we’re getting rain,’ Beverly says. She rolled her eyes at me.

‘No, no,’ John says, almost stamping his foot. ‘Come have a look.’

There’s something about his tone of voice that cuts short all conversation in the foyer. We go outside and look up.

There are no clouds, and yet the sun is getting darker. It’s as if someone’s slowly turning down the dimmer. By now, I could look directly at it.

Father Pitt sniffs the air. ‘They must be burning off.’

Fire is my first thought too. The previous summer, we had devastating bushfires. For forty-five days, Canberra had the worst air quality in the world. It looked like you were walking around in a hellscape. But this time, the colour hasn’t changed.

Just the darkness.

‘It’s not a fire, mate,’ John says. For once, Beverly nods in agreement.

‘Are you sure it’s not one of those eclipses?’ the Queen asks.

With her poor eyesight, she’s not bothering to look up.

‘Don’t know about that,’ John says. ‘There’s nothing passing in front of it. It’s just getting darker.’

‘I think we’d better go back inside,’ Beverly says.

We agree, and the 17 of us shuffle back into the cathedral. We close the outside doors, then the foyer doors, and huddle together on the back pews. We each fixate on the stained-glass windows.

It’s amazing how much light is in the air. Even when you’re inside, away from the sun, light just seems to fill the air. Now that light is draining away until, finally, there’s utter darkness. Not even the glints of the moonlight. It’s like emptying a bottle, then sucking the air out. There’s nothing. No light, no sound. I’d always thought in these situations that people would break into chaos, but we’re totally silent.

‘How about a prayer, Father?’ Beverly murmurs.

‘Right,’ Father Pitt says. ‘Roman, get me a candle, would you?’

‘Yep,’ I say, standing up. I feel my way to the vestry where I’ve left my phone in my backpack.

No reception.

These two hours are the most terrifying of my life. The big candle in the sky we’d always taken for granted has burnt out. Nobody knows what to say. I hadn’t realised how many comforting phrases involved the sun coming up tomorrow. Now, it’s no longer a certainty.

Father Pitt declares it almost immediately as an act of God, maybe a test of our faith. In the candlelight, I can see most of the parishioners nod in agreement.

‘Or one of our pollies finally pushed their little red buttons,’ John says.

I mentally agree with him. This isn’t the Old Testament. What was more likely a plague of darkness or World War Three?

At the same time, I’m terrified from Father Pitt’s talk of demons and Hell. If I die today, I’m not so sure I’ll go to Heaven.

I jump with everyone else when we hear the outside doors open.

We hadn’t locked them.

Bootsteps in the foyer. Then, a heavy slam against the door.

It shakes the hinges in the frame.

‘Firies!’ shouts a man from the other side. John goes to stand, but Beverly holds his forearm.

‘Don’t,’ Father Pitt hisses.

There’s another bang, then something drops in the foyer. The bootsteps fade and the outside doors close.

‘Blow this,’ John says. He stands up and opens the doors. We’re immediately greeted with extreme cold and a few cardboard boxes with instructions. There are heating ducts, candles and food rations.

‘Oddly prepared of the Government to have all this ready,’ Beverly says as we’re going through it.

I nod in agreement. Was there something the politicians hadn’t told us?

Maybe they didn’t want us to panic, having all the headlines say ‘Nuclear Winter is Coming!’

Then again, Canberra’s a capital city. We’re probably extra prepared for this kind of thing.

We’re probably the lucky ones.

‘Could we close the door?’ the Queen says, ‘We don’t want to catch our death.’

I am startled awake, reaching out in front of me. I grabbed the metal maroon-coloured pipe along the back of the pew, then recoiled. It used to heat up, but now it was freezing.

Some clanging was coming from the apse. Lifting my head over the pew, I watched Father Pitt moving things from the vestry to the altar.

My steps echoed along the brick walls, up to the high, angular ceiling. I used to find all that space comforting.

Now it was isolating.

‘Hello,’ I said when I reached the altar.

Father Pitt nodded and pointed to the chalice and dish. ‘Give these a clean, will you?’

‘Everything alright?’ I asked, but he was already waddling back to the vestry. I started polishing the chalice with a cloth, looking at the fake white lilies that sat in a vase on the altar. They were the ones with plastic dew drops on the petals. I was jealous of how they stayed fresh while we all wilted away.

Father Pitt returned, and I rushed through the cleaning. ‘I had a dream last night, Father,’ I said.

‘Hmm?’ He started examining my cleaning work.

‘I don’t know. It was weird. I was in this, like, long tunnel, but it was sort of wet dirt and maybe it was underground? There was this room at the end of it. And this old guy just sitting there in the corner. He greeted me; I think he knew my name. Then he kept telling me to come closer, so I did. I just remember this smell – it was like old books but also like worm shit. Or poo, sorry.’

Father Pitt sighed. He picked up the chalice and dish and started buffing them himself with his sausage fingers. How did he even know he was making them cleaner under the candlelight?

‘Sorry,’ I said again. ‘But the worst part was when I got up to him. He grabbed my arm and just squeezed the crap out of it. It felt like my wrists were just getting cut open, so I bashed him over the head with my fist until he let go. But when I looked down, there was this number – 241 with a circle next to the ‘one’. And then - oh God, this was the worst part - the numbers started bulging, like there were needles under my skin trying to prick through. Then, these worms burst out of the numbers.

Earthworms just squeezing out of the slits in my arm. It was haunting.’

Father Pitt cleared his throat.

‘Sorry. It was just so vivid.’

I pulled back my sleeve, half-expecting to see a scar.

Father Pitt shifted his lips like a toad processing a fly. He didn’t say anymore until that afternoon. After a lengthy sermon about faith, he asked me to meet him in the vestry.

He was examining something under candlelight when I came to see him.

‘Shut the door,’ he said from his desk. I closed it with a shaking hand. He scratched his thigh, audibly breathing through his nose.

I shuffled my feet as I waited for him to talk.

‘Um, did you ask me here?’ I asked, now unsure if he had or not.

‘Mm,’ he said. ‘As you know, Roman, your training hasn’t stopped with all of this.’ He waved his sausage-fingers in the air.

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I’d argue that we need our faith now more than ever, wouldn’t you say? We need to set an example for the rest.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘A few of the parishioners are concerned. We can’t have our seminarian sitting beside me daydreaming and wandering about at night.’

I nodded, feeling my cheeks get hot. ‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t need to remind you why your parents suggested you take up your calling.’

‘No,’ I said. I wished I could forget.

Ash Wednesday. I’m staying home from school with a ‘cold’. Really, it’s so I can invite over this twenty-six-year-old guy I’ve been talking to on Grindr. His screen name is an eggplant emoji and a peach emoji followed by an up and down arrow.

Surprisingly, it’s not his real name.

‘Alex’ arrives at the door, wearing a North Melbourne guernsey, track pants and thongs.

I let him inside, closing the door behind him.

‘Uhh, do you want a drink?’ I ask, glancing down at his bulge.

‘Can I kiss you?’ he asks.

‘Of course! You don’t have to-’ before I can finish, he’s already pulled me towards him. His mouth tastes like cucumber and cigarettes. There’s something so otherworldly about doing this in my family home. It’s like seeing a dead body in daylight. The portrait of Pope John Paul II is staring at me from behind Alex. I close my eyes and feel the ridges of his abs. We move to the couch.

And that’s where Mum finds us, twenty minutes later. She was meant to be at the morning tea after Mass, but it wasn’t on because of Ash Wednesday. She finds us, ass-over-face, in the lounge room.

I look up in horror at her ash-crossed forehead.

It sounds funny. If the story ended there, it would’ve been.

That night, I’m playing BioShock in my room. My door swings open, but nobody comes in.

‘What?’ I say, taking my headphones off. There are voices outside: Mum talking in fast Spanish, my sister almost screaming, and some men I don’t recognise.

I run out to see two paramedics wheeling a stretcher through the lounge room. Mum is beside the stretcher, holding a hand alongside it. Nat’s against the wall, an ash cross on her forehead. When she sees me, she comes to wrap me in a hug.

‘What? What’s going on?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know,’ Nat says. ‘I think it’s his heart again.’

‘Shit!’ I say, breaking away to run up to them. I see Dad’s face, almost as dark as the ash crossed on his forehead.

‘What happened?’ I ask Mum, putting a hand on her shoulder. She turns. In her watery eyes and her stiff lips, I see exactly what happened.

She’d told Dad about what she’d seen.

No, I didn’t need a reminder of why I was sent to the seminary.

I didn’t want to ruin my family like that again.

In the vestry, I cleared my throat. ‘I remember. Why do you ask?’

‘Well, how is your faith?’ Father Pitt asked.

‘It’s good.’ I stood on the sides of my feet.

‘No doubts?’

‘No,’ I lied.

‘Not any?’

‘Like I mean, some, but…what?’

Father Pitt was shaking his head. ‘Ah, we can’t have that.’

‘I know, but it’s hard. It’s freezing and dark and everyone’s getting sick. How can I feel God around here?’

‘I feel God everywhere, Roman,’ he said indignantly. ‘You’re losing faith when it should be strongest.’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe…’

‘I think you’ve been set a challenge. With this dream.’

He pulled something into the candlelight. It was a black helmet, like something Daft Punk might wear.

‘Came in that kit they gave to us,’ he said.

With a groan, he dragged out a crate from under the desk. There were some newspaper wrappings on top that he pushed aside, revealing a bundle of black folded material. ‘It’s part of this whole suit you can go out in. But it wouldn’t fit me.’

I smirked at the thought of him trying to jam his toad legs into the suit.

‘How does this relate to my dream?’

‘It relates directly to it,’ he said. ‘There’s a compass in the visor.

I think you said there was a number with a dot next to it?’

I shuddered as I remembered the worms. ‘241.’

‘241 degrees,’ Father Pitt said. ‘It’s a direction.’

‘What?’ I closed my eyes and remembered my dream. A single worm had burst out to the top right of the 1. ‘It could be,’ I said.

‘It is,’ he said firmly.

‘Why? What’s in that direction?’

‘I’m sure the Lord knows,’ Father Pitt said, picking up the helmet. ‘And he wants you to find out.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You’re the youngest. You’re the fittest. And the dream came to you.’

I could see myself frowning in the reflection of the helmet. ‘You want me to go outside? Do you even know if this suit can deal with the cold?’

‘I think the way is clear, Roman.’

‘Mm, I don’t know…’

He slammed his hand on the desk. I jumped, and so did the shadows on the walls around us. ‘Where is your faith!?’ he asked.

‘I’m…’

‘This is your test. All Souls’ Day is coming and we’re counting on you.’

He thrust the helmet into my hands. Tentatively, I put it over my head. It was heavy, but it had a comfortable padded lining. Once it was on my head, I was looking through a rectangular window. There was a compass in the form of vertical bars. As I moved my head, a red bar went back and forth along a 360° scale.

But there was another scale in smaller text. ‘Is there a radio in here?’ I asked.

I pulled the helmet off my head, and Father Pitt took it out of my hands. ‘I’ll keep it here until you’re ready.’

‘It was a radio,’ I said. ‘Have you heard anything from outside?’

He shook his head and muttered something. ‘…battery power…’

‘Why haven’t you… What’s happening out there? Did you hear something?’

‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said.

‘Did they say what’s caused the darkness?’

‘They say they still don’t know. But you know very well it’s an act of God.’

I nodded. Of course, he’d say that. Even if they had given an explanation, he would say it was an act of God. It was his only way of feeling like he was in control.

‘Okay. But what’s All Souls’ Day about?’ I asked. Father’s face paled.

‘Why?’

‘You just mentioned it.’

‘Well, it’s coming up,’ he said.

‘I know, the 1st of November.’

‘No, that’s All Saints’ Day,’ he said. ‘The 2nd of November is All Souls’.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘So… why did you mention it?

‘Don’t worry about that now.’

I shuffled on my feet. ‘I kind of feel like I should know if I’m going out there.’

Father Pitt folded his hands and sighed. His rheumy eyes were fixed on the candlelight. ‘That’s when they say the power will be lost. Midnight, November 2nd. They say to find other means after that.’

I thought back to the date of the sermon that afternoon. ‘What!? That’s super close…today is October 23rd!’

‘I’m aware of that. That’s why you need to follow up on your dream. Desperate measures.’

I leaned back on the doorjamb. ‘So, you’re sending me out in this spacesuit?’

‘It might well be a sign from God,’ he said. Then he added: ‘If we do nothing, we’ll just be waiting around for death.’

I scuffed my shoe on the floor. ‘I don’t know.’

He handed me back the helmet. ‘You might as well hang onto it. Just keep the radio between us.’

‘You’re not gonna tell them?’

‘They need hope more than anything,’ Father Pitt said, patting my shoulder. ‘You’re a good man. I’ll go and tell them your plan.’

My plan? I thought. How was this my plan?

He stepped past me, through the door. Air rushed in, flickering the candle flame and with it, the shadows in the room. Within minutes, I could hear him telling others outside. I wondered if he had any faith in the plan, or if it was just a stunt. Something to give everyone else hope.

‘So, this is the suit, is it Ro?’ Beverly asked, shouting over the rumble of the heating duct.

I nodded, inspecting the helmet for the thousandth time.

‘It looks a bit like that Star Trek one. What’s his name, that Darth…?’

‘Yoda,’ I said with a straight face.

‘No, no, that Darth Vader.’

She and her husband John had joined