From: "David Hearne" Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 12:01:43 -0500 Subject: xfc: The Better Judgment (1 of 1) Source: xfc From: "David Hearne" TITLE: THE BETTER JUDGMENT (1 of 1) AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE RATING: PG ARCHIVE: Yep. SPOILERS: Signs and Wonders, Orison (yes, again) AUTHOR'S NOTES: If you've read "Goin' Down South," then you know that last night's episode was right up my alley. Of course, for all the grotesqueries I put in "Goin' Down South," I never had a woman give birth to snakes. As they say on "South Park," that's pretty f___ed-up, dude. Also, I pledge that this will be my last story to make reference to "Orison." For now, anyway... XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX My face is pressed against the box. I can see through criss-crossing wires into its shadowy insides. The snake lies within the box, coiled and hissing. A man is holding me in place and growling about judgment. He grasps my hand. He forces it inside the box. Despite everything taught to me at Quantico, I can find no way of breaking his hold. The strength this thin man has makes me feel like a child. At this moment, I find several thoughts going through my head at once. I'm afraid, of course. I'm also begging for Mulder to rescue me. However, I'm also thinking about the snake and noticing what a beautiful animal it really is. The body is long and smooth -- admirable in its simplicity. The arrangement of color on its skin could have been created by a skilled seamstress. The eyes... The eyes know everything. They can learn your smallest weakness. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God was actually surprised. The snake understood His creation better than He did. It was aware that humans are always looking upon what is denied to them. Tell them that some things are not for them to know and you are only creating a mystery to be solved. Even as I try to free myself, I find myself wondering if this *is* a test. When the snake looks at me, will it see righteousness or evil? Have I committed a sin that will damn me? Or am I to be forgiven? What will be the judgment of a snake? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX If you're a churchgoer, you want your pastor to be like Samuel Mackey. You want a man who is kind, understanding and not so quick to judge. Of course, this is what you want if you're middle-class and college-educated. Or if you're a woman frightened of your own father. Mackey knew what we wanted to hear. He gave Gracie O'Connor comfort. He gave Mulder and I a convenient villain in an intolerant backwoods preacher with a scary church. Sure, Enoch O'Connor impregnanted his own daughter. I mean, that's what these crazy Southerners do, right? Then we find out the Reverend O'Connor was actually trying to protect his daughter from...well, Mulder is inclined to believe the supernatural here. I have to wonder myself. However, Mackey didn't have to be a literal demon. I know very well the kind of monster an ordinary man can become. In any case, does that mean O'Connor was the good guy here? Was his gravelly voice the voice of reason? Was the light of hellfire the only means by which to find the truth? You can understand if I'm a little unnerved by that idea. I probably shouldn't be surprised that Mulder has a good word to say for a snake-handling fundamentalist. How long has he been searching for someone or something with all the answers? For all of his sarcastic antiauthoritarianism, Mulder yearns for a world where all shades of grey get dissolved into a midnight black and a pristine white. His search for aliens has not just been a way of finding his sister. It's how he gives meaning to a world overrun by so much injustice and evil. I suppose I can't fault him for that. After all, wasn't I the one who secretly wondered if there might be an answer found in the judgment of a reptile? However, things are not and never will be simply black-and-white. Even if O'Connor was not the villain here, it's the meanness and suspicion of people like him that give the Mackeys credence. Yes, we need to be judged. We need our goodness rewarded and our evil punished. However, there has to be a better kind of judgment than the instincts of an animal. What, then? Ever since I shot Donnie Pfaster, I've been thinking about my soul. I've wondered if there's a stain on it that will never be washed away. And if I can wash it away, what must I do? What kind of task can redeem me? Now, I realize that redemption is not mine to take. If God will judge me, He will do it in His own way and on His own time. What I did to Pfaster may have been necessary. It might not have been. I can't provide an answer either way; nor can Mulder, Skinner, my mother, Father McCue or anyone else in this world. Does this give me the right to evade the judgment of the law? No. Not that in of itself. However, this is about more than just me. "This is his alone," O'Connor whispered as Mulder screamed from behind the door. He couldn't have been more wrong. If Mulder was being judged as a righteous man, then I had to be involved. We have become more than partners over the years and more than friends. So much of who I am has been the result of knowing Fox Mulder. In return, I have become just as much a part of him. This is a statement of fact, not of vanity. We cannot be judged separately. That's why the rightness of my actions can only be known in the next life. If I subject myself to the judgment of this world, then that will leave Mulder alone. It will be like turning my back on him. Whatever doubts I have and whatever guilt I feel, I know for certain that abandoning him would be a sin. We have to face the future together. It's the way it has to be. It's the way I want it to be. Because a judgment without him will be worse than the judgment we will receive together. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX