I Swear to Tell the Truth

Written in a three person perspective with each perspective delineated by a different font. Looking for constructive criticism in character development, continuity, and plot (keeping in mind that this is not the complete story). Plot is very much dependent on themes. So, I would also appreciate speculation about themes and the deeper meaning behind each character's action and the words I purposefully chose. This is a story about struggling with faith. Not just spiritual faith, but the faith it takes to find and keep true love.

Character Descriptions
Main
God A.K.A. Big Jim Deluca – A 37 year old man in physical appearance with the acumen of someone who has seen it all. He doesn’t know everything, but he definitely knows more than mankind. He ‘dropped’ on to the earth in it’s very early years. He is inquisitive, but scientific in finding his answers. His experimentations have formed life on this planet. He feels as though he has done all he can and is currently conducting the experiment that will allow him to retire. Gave his organic (semen) only one time – to father lyndsey. Represented by impact font.
Lyndsey Detwiler-Witlin – One half of God’s Experiment. Playful and witty. She shares private jokes with herself. Confident, but aware of how life can swat her back down if she becomes too complacent. When she encounters someone without a self-inventory that is fluid in personality she may come across as black and white and offensively stubborn intellectual. She is sagacious and loyal. Able to see through other’s flaws and aid them in finding their strengths. Represented by verdana font.
Emily Slattery – The other half of god’s experiment. Skittish and insecure due to a lifetime of being thought odd and misunderstood. Believes in creating facades in order to make her life and the lives of other’s easier. It’s not fair that they have to discern her particular brand of being. Her flurry of emotions make her feel indecipherable and far too vulnerable. She is self-aware to a fault. But with no idea what do with this information and this further complicates her relationships with newcomers. In particular, new comers that refuse to except the facade. She believes in floating and allowing herself to be controlled by whims and outside forces. Impulsive. She is also perceptive and very knowledgeable in places and things, but struggles with people. Except for the remaining members of her family. Her perceptiveness comes in the form of finding answers to her questions. Everything has a name a place and she struggles with grey areas. Reprsented by comic font.

Supporting only main characters have a hard point of view with their own font. Supporting character's POV are seen only through the POV of our main characters.
Jenna Witlin – the Reverend’s only biological child, but became a sister to Lyndsey when Lyndsey's mother deserted her. She is coy and in many ways an average woman. She can naïve to the workings of reality – such as a devout belief in romance – but also very grounded in her own self and her beliefs. Her belief in romance pushes Lyndsey back to Emily when the two soul mates meet up again.
The Reverend Susan Witlin – a stalwart woman. Faith incarnate. Adopts Lyndsey.
Ian Ketterman – Jenna’s boyfriend and a prophet.
Kiki Longacre – A wise cracking, cross dressing prophet. Recruited by Big Jim for her ability to soothe someone while she is handing them the undeniable truth of their situation.
Mother - a good natured woman, but sometimes pressured Emily too much to fit into a niche. A preconceived socially acceptable niche. Her intentions were pure. She knew that Emily was odd. And gay. And tried to protect her from persecution. She dies when Emily is 18.
Father – a man choking on truth. He never fully recovered from his wife’s death. Stoic and aloof outwardly. Inwardly, he is always trying to find a way to connect to Emily.
Alex - Emily's brother. A dramatic opposite to Emily. Charming. Always has the exact right thing to say in every situation. The funniest thing. The most poignant thing to say. Whatever the situation calls for. Popular and user friendly. Sixteen. He knows something that he has not told Emily. A man told him, on a Tuesday, in a hospital.
Sarah – Forthright with her emotions and words. Worldly for a 12 year old. Emily's sister.
Karen Detwiler – Lyndsey’s schitzo mother. She was diagnosed this, but it is a bi-product of her relationship with Jim. A disciple. Given strict instructions by Jim to report back to him, but never tell Lyns about her divine future. The truth drives her mad. Had meeting with him on the 15th of every month in Laundromats. And on Sundays.

I Swear to Tell the Truth
So Help Me, God._{Book I}

I am god. And this is my word.

She stood there. Waiting for the firefly to come back down out of the darkening sky. Her head up-turned, she believed that if she willed it to, this beautiful luminescent creature would return to her. Because she willed it. Because she believed it, as the sun hid behind the distant hills, the bug stayed up there, in sight dipping low enough to cause her to stretch her arms upward, but it would instantly loft skyward again. It remained in the sky, flickering, meshing with the immerging stars. There were other fireflies nearby, lighting up, signaling their maturation, but she believed this cavalier creature, however tempestuous, was meant to be hers. She was meant to hold it for a minute or two. She would admire it then return it to whatever fate awaited it. But right now this firefly and this girl were meant to cross paths. She believed it.
I must meet you. She thought. Almost as if hearing her plea the firefly descended at once. Again she reached out her arms. Felt it in her fingertips. 20 feet. 10 feet. Gone. A bat stole her fate. It swooped in and took what was meant to be hers. She followed the bat with eyes to the eves of the barn. Walked over to it. Head upturned to the sky.
She stood there. Waiting to see the fiend that took what it wanted with no reason but that it was better equipped than her to get it. The organism emerged from between two planks and flew quickly off into the burgeoning twilight. Not even bothering to notice that this young girl had not moved on. That this girl blamed this bat. That this girl could not see the soft beams of a firefly lighting up the back of her shirt.
It is human condition to want to believe in something. I made you that way. To believe. Have faith. In me. In each other. Science. Gravity. To have absolute belief without absolute truth. Convictions. Integrity. But that’s all gone to shit. Everybody thinks they know everything. The whole truth of it.
I feel like a wizened substitute teacher staring at a room full of pimply faced boys and girls. Some doing everything they can to win my approval. Others using every trick they can think of to question my authority. Some trying to forget the trauma of yesterday. Others, yet, thinking about what’s for lunch. But all of them think they know themselves better. That what they know is absolute truth and unchanging. Jesus Christ.
Look what happened to him. A product of a group of people thinking they know better than me. When word got out about my ‘experiment’, it was all anyone can do to prove it right or wrong. The thing is there is no truth. Only the scientific method.
All of the earth is of my own experiment. Not design. I made hypotheses. And followed through. I was but a lonely man having my way with mother nature for billions of years. I appeared one day on a rock in what is now the sea of Gibraltar. It was like I slipped out of a coma, I was human. But not. Because humanity had yet to be defined. In fact, the Rockies had not yet been defined. The world was a great big chunk of uncalculated figure and form. There was no symmetry. No circles. Just a lot of crashing and noise. A lot like what the world is today. That is why I started the ‘experiment’. I have done what I can. After a million millennia of trying, I finally got a pretty good copy of man and woman. But I can go no further. First it was Jesus. But we all know how that went. And even if that had not gone horribly wrong, it never would have worked. I know now how it must be. So after centuries of planning, I have come up with a way to retire and to set the world back on its path. To find the wonder in the world. Not the truth.
It is human condition to want to believe. In me, heaven, science, soul mates. I exist. I am God. But the not the god mankind has made me to be. Heaven does not exist in the context it has been made to be. It is a very real place. You can visit it here on earth. And love is real. Love is that one true emotion. It is not the idea, but the act itself. Not candy, flowers, romance. Love is the alpha and omega – a purity of emotion. You can love someone most when you are mad at them or laughing or when you are forlorn at their absence. Love is real and uncalculated. And the only truth. The reason I started experimenting in the first place. Love is true human nature. And a very beautiful thing. But there are only two soul mates walking the earth. One pair of people destined to be. And they. Are lesbians. And I totally made them that way.

I was born into an odd life. An exceptional life. I do not mean exceptional as in rare or excellent. I mean abnormal. I do not feel abnormal. I was not aware that my crazy mother was in fact crazy until I was 12 years of age and she moved away. “moved away” is a calm way of saying she abandoned me. Disappeared one day. I was not aware that it was abnormal for me to not have a father. There was no reason to think about abnormal. You agree to the reality you are presented with. My mother had her quirks. My father wherever he maybe was anecdote. It all came to me and I interpreted it at face value. I just carried on. Pretty easily. Didn’t mind the circumstances.
I was being pulled through life. In a world where everybody struggled through life feeling every blow, I coasted. As though I already knew where I was going. I learned to have faith in this – to trust my instinct. When I started a new endeavor I trusted that I would be able to get through it – better or worse – I would come out pretty much ahead. My other mother, the reverend Susan Witlin would sit me down in the parlor of her house and spout religion at me “Lynnie, you are God’s servant. He made you very special. He is testing to see if you are worthy of your specialness and gifts.”
I am not sure I have ever had faith in God. Through all the pulling, I never once thought it might be divine. Some call it luck. Or statistics. Probability. Other’s call it intelligent design. I believe in numbers and science. Fate has little room there. Statistically, I have had a lot of improbabilities. If God has had a hand in the forming of my life, then he must be a pretty creative guy. After all schizophrenia is so far from lucid, he’d have to be able to be both lucid and transparent in thinking. That is one odd disease. But I did not know that. Normal is relative.
I was perfectly fine with my life. Content in believing my life was normal. Maybe a fluke as far as statics go. But it was normal to me and not a test. I had no need to be special. But I was. I was told, quite often, that I was a prodigy. The reverend Susan Witlin again explained that my many diverse talents were reparations for the crap hand I had been dealt and my crazy mother. Not in so many words. She left out crazy. And always steered clear of crap. I never understood why my life was supposedly so dynamic. And odd. Abnormal. Then I fell in love.
If I ever had faith in God, it was strongest when I met her. Emily. She was odd. Even though she tried to mask it. I noticed immediately, but saw it as a spark. A curiosity. Not something to fear. She was not what she seemed. Like a chocolate with caramel center. Except that the chocolate was not chocolate and in fact was made of gunpowder and razor blades. These dissolved with a little time. But the flagrant neurosis never did. I was pulled to her. I trusted the instinct that brought me there.
If I ever had faith in God, it was destroyed when I had to leave Emily. I tried so very hard to make her see that it was okay to be herself. To be odd. Be whatever she wanted. I wanted to soothe her neurosis. To let her be passionate. I wanted to stay. Everything in me told me to stay. But if I was not enough then I was not enough and I had to cut my losses and move on. Ever since we broke up, I don’t feel pulled anymore. I feel pushed. I am shoved in a place where I don’t belong. Hello, square peg. I’m the a-hole.

Bluster. A cold wind blows through me. Seeking a warmth, I cannot pretend I don’t want this. Sensation. A dialogue. A humbled, mediated rumbling of nerve endings. Shared feelings from one synapse to the next. Billowing into a thought. I am cold. How long have I been this cold? How long have I been seeking the cold? How long have I been numb to everything else.
Were the cherry blossoms blooming long that year? A stab of pink camouflages her face. Rosy from the cold. It was unusually warm that spring then a snap of frost. The blossoms peaked long before they should have and died. The green came not long after that. I should have known. I was aware. Conscious of ending. Everything. Withers.
I met her the summer after my mother died. In the entryway of the admissions office. Lost. Not her. Me. In so many ways. She was charming. Abrupt and completely disarming. Concealment was not a strategy.
I had thought many times before of going to college. Becoming a social worker, doctor, politician. Politician. I can be paid for lying. I lied. Opening up to anyone was impossible. Liar. Liar. Lyndsey gave me no option. Painful. Uncomfortable. She won me over. Pants on fire.

As with all experiments, there are always a few miscalculations. Misinterpretations of clues, outcomes, data. I brought Emily and Lyndsey together when they were very young. Thinking they could grow with each other. Because of each other. But that scientific proposition was about as accurate as suggesting atom bombs can be used in surgery. They grew as a result of each other. But there was nothing left of their relationship. The body is open. But there is not enough of the system left to save.
What I need Emily to be. Inquisitive, Nervous, Passionate. Is exactly what pushed Lyndsey away. Lyndsey’s perspicacity allowed her to see through the turmoil. It is pertinent. That Emily feel understood. Lyndsey’s capacity to turn weaknesses into strengths is flawless. I am confident that these two will resuscitate the stagnation that is now life on earth, but I lack certain amount of conviction in their ability to work their own shit out. Emily in particular.

Happy birthday. 25 candles. 25 flames. Wish.
What tiny twists of fate have brought me here? Thought I was acting on my own free will. I knew I was, but the choices made were based on limited outcomes. I would choose to fly had I any wings. It has never been done without wings. Or maybe I could fly without them. Maybe limits are illusions. Maybe if I leapt off a building all the atoms would rise up to greet my bravery. All matter tangible would commend me, bend for me. But plenty of people have jumped off buildings, off cliffs, and bridges. None of them flew. And they were the ones that needed to be lifted.

I am 26 and embarking on a career of no real interest to me, but at least I have normal. Which I am told, by none other than the Reverend Susan Witlin, is a good thing. Stable if your able. Or able if your stable. Regardless, the message is to assimilate. I do not mind the stability. My life being the same as the ‘everyone’ the reverend always mentions. I have friends and a family. I have a path. And I realize that this is all the reverend wanted for me. Not just the stability, but the ability to just be. Maybe that’s all I wanted for Emily.
It seems to me that the quarter-life mark is quite a gift after the lows of adolescence. Even without my abnormal life, adolescence is quite onerous. With the hormones ramping up every thought and feeling. That period of my life was heart-wrenching and full of a unique brand of austerity. I spent quite a bit of it unsure of which direction to let myself be pulled. The Reverend is a brave woman. She put up with more than a lot.
It was kind of her fault. She made me aware of the pain I was supposed to feel. Enlightened me to how different my life could be. But she did this to help me heal. To instill a sense of direction. She was the north to my moral compass. Her daughter the south. I was not wrathful. Wanting revenge or reward for my strife. But I was certainly seeking answers. And the Wiltins, all of them, did the best they could to give me that. They did it by giving me a family. A friend. A path.
It doesn’t matter what environment we grow up in, the consensus appears to be that each of us must find in ourselves a way to face and navigate these trials. Adolescence is the cog to the screw. It is the first time we have enough of an idea of who we are to fight for want we want even though we have no idea what that might be. Our environment must, has to, directly dictate our personality, achievements, and resources we used to solve problems, thus molding us into the adults we become.

I didn’t think about the path of my life. Not in the context of planning. But of dreaming. Of what life could be. Not what it was and is. I’m not a realist. I am a flight of fancy kind of being. Ticking. Waiting for something. Tocking. Wanting something to grab me and tell me I am greatness. Success was meant for me I am just simply existing until it happens. In the meantime, during the existing, I am to discover moments and fall on minutes. Each one with its syncopates that I am to interpret. Thus, my life is a series of experiments conducted by outside forces, but I am to conclude the results. And try very hard not to embarrass myself.
Of course I am nerdy. You don’t figure out the world on your own and expect to be super cool. It doesn’t work that way. Trust me I know. I figured out the world. Tuned myself to the hum of all things. Except my own emotions. They flap out of me like a chicken out of a gun. Cock and load. Heart on the sleeve is not an option. It, my heart, dangles around my neck like a noose.
I was taught that love is a word meant to get caught in your throat. You swallow it whole, girl. Let it rip at your throat.
I fell in love with a girl when I was twelve. I didn’t know it of course. Because girls don’t love other girls. We love in terms of sleepovers. Hair braiding. Gossip. Mani-pedis. Or so some believe. I thought I was just odd. Love was meant to be a secret. I was convinced that I love other people more than most and I could never let them know. That there was this great passion for people. Places. Things.
I could linger on the faces of others. They found this threatening and odd. So I found ways to keep it hidden. Secret. Until I met another girl at 19 and it all fell out. And when she left, I fell apart. Put together a new and even more diluted version of myself. I was weak to let her go. Weakness. I know how to be strong. I don’t know how to stop thinking. To stop. To be strong. To go. To allow myself to be weak.
Weakness is the absence of strength. You are not being weak because you are capable of strength. A coward is weak. Are you a coward? But weak is not cowardice. Weak as in the context of my Spanish is weak. My Spanish is weak because I never sat down and really tried it. But I know or at least believe that I could speak Spanish if I just gave it a little gumption. This is weakness in the form of laziness or inability to discern the right way out of weakness.
This girl who’s hair I wanted to braid was a neighbor. We shared a hi-c fruit punch juice box. I wanted to show her. We spent the week together. By the end of the week, I felt more myself. I expressed myself as I saw myself. And this she found odd.. We never spoke again Except. In high school. Just once she said, “Emily, quit looking at me you fucking dyke.” I hear she owns a Subaru now.