Aberration in the Sky

The priest was an intellectual man who always seemed to be in the wrong profession. Although he spoke the word of god on Sunday, his true passion rested in science. He was a teacher at heart and took every opportunity he could to educate the kids about astronomy, chemistry, and any other science he knew. He spent most of his time looking through his telescope or tinkering with innovative toys for the kids. On Saturdays when the congregation gathered for dinner, the kids would often flock to Father Edwards to see what new invention he has come up with. He always acted dumb and made them wait, but once he finally revealed it they would all cheer.

He was loved by all and many of us saw him as a father figure. After all, he was the only one many of us had. We lived in the town of Felix named for the corporation that ran the local coal mines. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade, but next month will be the tenth anniversary of the blackout. The blackout happened throughout the town, and everyone remembers where they were and what they heard. If anyone was asked about it, they always included those two details. I was playing in the backyard when everything suddenly went dark. Then I heard a screech of incomparable noise pierce my ears. It was as if a giant metal door was grinding down the street with unthinkable speed, but it lasted only a few seconds.

As soon as the sound stopped, the lights came on; the blackout was over. Everything seemed normal. My mother came to check on me and seemed very unsettled by the noise. After I assured her, she went back inside to finish dinner. My dad was supposed to be home soon, but he never came. We never saw him again. In the moments of the blackout, the coal mine experienced an aberration. A small earthquake ripped through the mine collapsing the inner walls. Everyone in there was trapped, and no one could clear the rubble for months. When the authorities finally cleared the wreckage they found what we had all feared to be true. They were all dead.

The news reported that a gas leak occurred with the earthquake and that the coal miners died peacefully. Many people in the town believed this, but even at a young age, I knew this was a wholesome lie, a lie that is told to make people more comfortable and hide the truth. Many rumors of madness and cannibalism spread as the bodies were removed, but the authorities carefully hid the evidence and denied any stories. The people of Felix didn’t offer any resistance. They were happy to move on from this tragedy.

A few months after the blackout is when my relationship with Father Edwards began to change. I often walked to church after dinner to light a candle for my father. On the way, I passed the clergy house and nearly every evening I saw Father Edwards on the roof. There was a section of flat, red tile where he stood, and propped beneath his feet was his telescope that he peered through often. It felt rude not to wave especially in a town recently fractured by tragedy, and so I waved to him every day. He always returned my greeting and added a warm smile.

One day he extended an invitation to join him on the rooftop, and I felt I couldn’t resist. He encouraged me to look through the telescope, and to this day I’m glad I did. The telescope was pointed at the moon, and I saw a bird’s eye view of the dusty moon’s surface. I felt as if I was floating in a balloon thousands of miles above it. Never did I imagine seeing a sight like that. After my father passed life became mundane, school became a chore, and I often found my friends annoying, but as I floated over the moon life was no longer mundane but a great adventure filled with possibility. Needless to say, I returned there every day.

Father Edwards became my teacher, and through him, the entire cosmos became my schoolyard. We started with the planets and then moved to the constellations. Most of these things I had heard of in one way or another, but once we covered what he called the basics he decided to show me more. He described worlds far off and spoke of planets with increasingly strange names like Mopilus, Xanafold, and Ulubale.

I would often ask “father how do you know these things when the science books speak nothing of them.”

He always responded the same “a gift.”

Over the next few years, our relationship grew and he became like a real father. I looked up to him and never passed up an opportunity to learn from him and gaze at the stars. After some time of teaching me about space and astronomy, he decided to start teaching me about his actual vocation, religion. I like to think he saw potential in me, or perhaps I was just seeking attention from a father figure. Regardless of the reasons, I took his lessons with the intent to impress. I read the New Testament and the Old Testament countless times. I could recite passages from any book, and by the time I was 17, I had written many papers on the meanings of Jesus’s parables. From the outside, you could say I was devout, but looking back I did all this for attention. I think Father Edwards understood this and often showered me with praise.

One day, as I was writing a paper on the parable of the prodigal son Father Edwards approached me with a handful of notes and scratched-out papers.

“Peter Lejeune, You have made me very proud, and I know if your father was here, he would be proud of the way you conduct yourself. You have proven to be one of my best students over the years. You are so gifted, and poised to go into the seminary next year at 18. However, I think it is time you learn the truth.”

I don’t know how to describe what I felt at that moment. It was some kind of deep dread blended with boyish excitement. It was these juxtaposing emotions that disrupted my usual thought and left me speechless in my seat. Father Edwards took my silence as an invitation and laid his notes on the table. A book landed with a thud on the table and I knew my life would never be the same.

That night was very long. Father Edwards started by rejecting Christianity. He said the bible was a book of fools, and that he would show me the real gods. That alone was enough to enrage me. I had gotten up to leave but he assured me and ushered me back into my chair. He then continued, informing me that Catholicism was a smokescreen. The higher-ups like himself knew the truth, while the lower masses believed in myths.

I had never heard him talk like this before. He always had a kind nature, and this behavior gave me such a surprise. What was he trying to do? What was the purpose of telling me all this? When did he start believing this? These are all questions I had, but I was too astonished to ask. The next part I couldn’t take. It was such a departure from the truth that I rebelled against it both mentally and physically.

Mopilus, he told me, was not a place in the stars. It was a great immortal being whose physicality was indescribable and whose powers existed beyond our understanding. I asked him to stop but he kept going. He said it was through Mopilus, not religion that we can understand the world. I stood up and he told me to sit again, but this time I had enough. As I started gathering my belongings he became silent. His passionate attitude faded and he accepted the fact that I was leaving. He told me one last thing on the way out.

“You’ll be back soon enough. The knowledge we can gain from these gods is far beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. It was my fault to tell you at this time. “

I never went back. I considered him a crazy fool that duped me all these years. In the next few months as I was finishing my senior year I became very detached. I spent a lot of time in my room. My mother noticed this behavior along with the fact that I wasn’t visiting Father Edward’s anymore. She began asking me questions about our relationship, and she even accused him of sexually assaulting me. After constant badgering, I told her we didn’t align on my future. It wasn’t entirely a lie. I wanted nothing to do with the seminary anymore or catholicism after that night.

The summer following my senior year I was lost. I spent many hours alone thinking about what Father Edwards had told me. It was so difficult to reconcile these truths with everything I learned. No, reconcile isn’t the right word. Replace, I couldn’t easily replace my deep understanding of catholicism with this religion of wild claims. I barely came out of my room. The few friends I had remaining in town came to tell me goodbye as they went off to their other colleges, and I couldn’t begin to explain the loneliness I felt as they left one by one. The day Henry told me goodbye broke me.

Henry was a dear childhood friend whom I knew since the days of kindergarten. We grew apart as we got older but he was always nice to me. The other children would sometimes make fun of my studies with Father Edwards, but Henry would try to step in and try to stop them. He rarely succeeded but his attempts I valued more than anything. The day he left he hugged me and told me that whatever I was going through was going to pass. As he left, he handed me a brochure from The University of Rork, the one he would be attending.

“Your mother told me you don’t have any plans. If you ever need someone, I’ll be here,” he said pointing to the university pamphlet. “Maybe, we can start classes together.”

That night I tried to hang myself. I won’t go into the details, but I will say my mother found me an hour later and rushed me to the hospital. I stayed there for a week, and I don’t remember how the change occurred, but during my stay, I became fixated on discovering the truth. I wanted to learn as much about Father Edward’s false religion as I could. I was determined to set out and find the truth and decided The University of Rork was the best place for it.

Two weeks after talking to Henry, and one week after leaving the hospital I departed. My mother was worried, but I assured her I was ok. She gave me a modest amount of savings she was collecting for when I attended seminary school. I thought it was the sweetest thing anyone could do. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to secure a small place of residence outside the university. I still needed a job and I knew I wanted to work where I would have time to investigate the claims of Father Edwards. One morning while reading the newspaper I found the perfect one. The university library had a graveyard shift for a library attendant. Many kids complained the library wasn’t open long enough so they were looking to have a late night shift added to extend hours. I applied immediately and got the job just as fast.

With all that taken care of, I only had one thing left to do, enroll in classes. It was such an obvious choice. Religious studies was a topic I was already familiar with thanks to Father Edwards. I also thought this allowed me to look for clues about Mopilus in the religion of other cultures. As my teachers would lecture, I would often write down anything that sounded remotely close to what Father Edwards described so that I could research it later.

The next year worked out better than I could have ever imagined. The classes were easy because of my background, and my nights at the library were the same. It was nearly empty during the hours I worked which meant no one was there to bother me. I could get as much research done as I wanted. I spent hours investigating the origins of different religions we learned about in class, but none of them lead me to anything like the beings Father Edwards spoke of.

During this time I began to open up more and even spent some time with Henry. He was a good friend and talking to him always helped me feel grounded in the world which helped me stay sane during my mentally exhaustive quest for the truth.

In the summer of my first year. I went back home and stayed with my mother for a month. The library was closed due to renovations and I hadn’t seen her in a year. One day we went to the grocery store together, and I saw Father Edwards. I had a deep burning hatred rise in my heart at the sight of him. At this point, I was convinced he was lying. I had spent a year studying a multitude of other religions, and I saw no evidence of anything he told me that night. Learning about so many other religions expanded my perspective, and made me doubt Christianity which in turn made me doubt Father Edwards even more.

However, he approached me that day. He asked how I was doing, and told me he was proud of me for attending the University of Rork. He told me mother informed him that I had gotten perfect grades in my first year. Everything he did was extremely loving and supportive. I missed that. This made it hard for me to hate him, and I became so unsettled the next few days that I returned to the University early.

I was about to give up on searching for Mopilus, but I was still troubled by the sincerity in his voice the night he first told me of him. This reignited my passion for the truth. I felt I could never be happy until I learned it. However, this passion wouldn’t last very long.

I spent many late nights scouring through the religious section to find nothing, and my classes also disclosed no noteworthy information to me. Midway through my second year I stopped spending so much time in the library and began to hang out with Henry’s friend group. This was the first time in a long time that I felt normal. I began to see the world the way they did, and I started to forget about Father Edwards and his crazy gods.

My life for the next year was normal. After my sophomore year ended I resolved to stay on campus instead of going back to Felix. It hurt not seeing my mother, but even the possibility of seeing Father Edwards haunted me. I had given up that life and had found peace. I had a group of friends. I picked up hobbies like tennis, and theatre. I was normal. I began to resent him for even teaching me religion in the first place.

Junior year started and my life of normalcy continued. I even revoked my position at the library and picked up a position with Henry at a campus pub. It was a popular hangout for students as well as professors. A few nights before our winter break my teacher of Latin American religions came into the pub on a night I was working. He was escorting a visiting professor, an old friend of his. He requested that I serve them and spoke about me in the highest regard. He told him that I was the brightest religious studies student he ever had and that I aced every test because of my profound knowledge of the subject. I served them for the next five hours as they joked and laughed. Occasionally they would call me over and ask me questions and get my opinions on different topics.

After my shift was over I was preparing to leave but they invited me to join them so I ordered a beer and sat down. We spoke at length about some of the studies being published. We had a few debates, and everyone was having a good time. However, very unexpectedly my professor said something that rooted me to my seat and caused my stomach to turn with anxiety in a way I had never felt.

“Did you see they discovered more evidence for the Mayan myth of Mopilus,” he asked the visiting professor.

“Yes, but why is that surprising? Everyone knows that Mopilus, at best is a precursor for their God, Quetzalcóatl.”

“You think,” my professor asked curiously. “The word Mopilus is so foreign to the alphabet of the Mayans. Some experts are saying this Mopilus was a god of another civilization that the Mayans adopted. How strange would that be?”

“Yes, but we’ve both read Savage Theories from a New World, the descriptions of the Spaniard are so outrageous. We can’t take these things as anything but word vomit from a man in a hallucinogenic state."

I stood up with a jolt staring blankly. They met my gaze with alarm and asked if I was ok. I gripped my stomach, complained of really bad cramps, and insisted I was going to be sick. I told them goodbye quickly and before they could say another word I hurried outside. I lied about the stomach cramps but I did feel sick. I started running toward the library, and after a few blocks, I bent over and started throwing up. I was sweating and chills were radiating through my entire body.

If anyone was in the library when I arrived they would have thought I was a madman. I hurried to the card catalog and frantically searched for Savage Theories from a New World, and to my astonishment I found it. I’ve spent the past years looking in the history and religion sections when all this time the knowledge I sought was classified as fiction. I would come to learn that this book’s writings and ideas were so contrary that many believed it was a drug-inspired work of fiction by a Spanish explorer. But, at that moment I didn’t care about its origins. Here it was sitting on the shelf, an old thick book that hadn’t been touched in years. My body teemed with excited dread as I opened it. Flipping through the pages I saw names I never recognized, and things I never even remotely heard of, but finally I got to it, a chapter titled Mopilus.

The chapter was short and the descriptions of Mopilus seemed nonsensical. My body was functioning purely off of emotion at that point. There was never a thought of whether I should continue. My fingers kept turning pages and my eyes would not move away. The more coherent descriptions detailed an entity with a large eye that was always looking right at us, while the more ambiguous descriptions painted the picture of a beast with thousands of black extremities reaching in every direction and even directions that didn’t exist. And, though every description I read seemed to vary there was one consistent detail. He who looked upon Mopilus gained forbidden knowledge and paid a price. The accounts were vague but described men who would descend into an unconsolable madness, while other observers were immediately obliterated by the sight. Eventually, I would learn that these men are known as the lookers and that Mopilus is only one of the entities known as the watchers.

I remember standing there for what I thought felt like an hour. All I thought about was Father Edwards and the night he tried to tell me this. I kept trying to convince myself all of this was false beliefs. But the genuineness in Father Edwards’s voice that night haunted me. Something inside of me sensed he was telling the truth, and after finding this it only made that feeling grow.

I stole the book from the library that night and proceeded to study it daily. I distanced myself from my friends and began missing classes. I quickly understood why this book was in the fiction section. Often the stories were so outlandish. How could anyone believe this? During that time I often wondered how much of this book was true.

Less than a month after I discovered Savage Theories from a New World, my mother called me and said Father Edwards had become very sick. She encouraged me to come to see him, and upon taking her advice I left the University immediately. I felt a deep sickness hearing about Father Edward. I had rejected him for so many years. He practically raised me, and I wouldn’t be where I was without him. I knew I needed to go see him not only to reconcile our relationship but also to discover the truth about Mopilus.

Once I arrived, I tried to go see Father Edwards at the clergy house, but Mom told me he no longer lived there. Shocked by this news I pressed her for more details. She said he’s been staying in a small cottage on the top of the Bourbon mountain range. The Bourbon Mountain range is a small ridge of mountains that encapsulates and overlooks the city. The views from their peaks are unrivaled, and the stars I imagined would look beautiful. It was no wonder Father Edwards decided to spend his final days there.

Mom gave me the address, and I drove there that evening. The road winded through the mountains and about every mile a private driveway would deviate from the main road leading to individual cottages. You would never know this if it weren’t for the occasional mailbox. I finally got to what I thought was the right address, but it was taped off. Yellow hazard tape was tied from the mailbox to a tree blocking the entrance to the driveway. Perplexed, I got out of the car and checked the address. It was correct. The hazard tape made me curious, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me from seeing Father Edwards.

I began walking up the driveway which seemed to become steeper the higher I went. Everything was quiet, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. As I finally reached the top, I saw the most majestic view of the city. It wasn’t very large but the lights from all the houses and street lamps lit it up. Surrounded by all these mountains it seemed as though it was being cradled by god.

I spotted Father Edwards standing shirtless next to a ledge looking over the city. His body was frail and hunched. He did not resemble the man I once knew. But, his telescope was positioned right next to him like the first time he invited me to join him, and I knew undoubtedly that it was him. It was then that I noticed a very rancid smell. I concluded that a large animal must have died nearby, but, as I got closer I noticed a large circular patch of dirt with the remains of some large, dissected animal spread across it. Deep carvings of symbols I have never seen before made that patch of dirt look like some Wicken sacrificial altar.

“Father, what are you doing? What is all this!” I said approaching him. He hadn’t heard me approach and nearly fell as he turned around in shock. He came to hug me and I could see his eyes swell. I held his feeble body in my arms and wept with him. He looked from me to the dissected beast on the ground.

“It is so good to see you, but you must step back. There is something I must do if I am going to live. I promise I will explain everything to you, but I must do this now.” He grabbed my shoulder and guided me a few steps away.

I stood still as he walked over to the circle with the scattered animal remains. He took tiny candles out of his pocket and lit them while positioning them around the altar. He then kneeled in the middle, grabbed the beast’s heart in both his hands, and sank his teeth deep into it causing blood to pour out.

“Don’t do this,” I said beginning to move towards him.

“Please do not interfere,” he yelled back “you will soon understand.” And then he began to recite what sounded like a prayer in a language I’d never heard. A strong wind began to blow around us and I watched the candles flicker but remain lit. It was already night but the sky grew darker

“Look towards the sky” he yelled at me.

At that moment dust blew in my right eye, I couldn’t keep it open and started rubbing it as I hesitantly looked toward the sky. The sky was already dark but in the center, it seemed as though nothing was there not light or dark or any object. Emptiness is the only way I can describe it. The wind picked up and the candles surrounding Father Edwards went out. Lightning ripped across the sky and I saw the city of Felix down below go completely dark. A sound erupted from the emptiness in the sky that paralyzed me. It was the same noise I heard the night of the blackout. In the sky, a portal seemed to open from that dark spot of nothingness and a figure appeared that goes beyond my understanding. It was a contorted, mangled shape of black mass that was unlike anything I’d seen before. Its shape changed but remained the same, its colors shifted but remained colorless, and its texture was hard but fluid. None of this made sense, but then I saw something unmistakable. It was an eye. Not an eye like we are used to seeing. This eye had a giant red iris and from the iris branched off lightning bolts in all directions flashing chaotic patterns. I understood that this was Mopilus.

The moment I saw this entity, my left eye, the one still open began to burn. I had to look away. I switched from rubbing the dirt out of my right eye to rubbing my left eye whose pain continued to grow. I looked over to Father Edwards for help, and what I saw I will never forget. He was standing arms outstretched, body ablaze, looking up at Mopilus. As he did this I saw his body suddenly begin to transform. He grew a little taller and his muscles seem to become more toned. He was aging backward right in front of me.

I cannot explain why the following chain of events happened. Despite all my research, this is one question I have not been able to answer. Father Edwards’ transformation lasted no more than a second before his body collapsed back in on itself. I wanted to go help him, I wanted to react, but the pain in my eye grew so severe that I collapsed to the ground. I could hear his bones breaking, and he let out a shrill yell that I would only attribute two a man plagued with a thousand years of suffering. The flames surrounding him intensified and turned blue and quickly disintegrated his misshaped body. As quickly as the flames arose they died out, and as they died the wind gusts stopped. The town lit back up. Before passing out from the pain, I looked back at the sky one last time. Mopilus was gone.

When I awoke, I was in a hospital bed, and the first thing I remember was my mother wrapping her arms around me. I was still in shock and completely emotionless. Apparently, after the blackout one of the neighbors drove up to Father Edward’s cottage to check on him. All they found was me lying there on the ground. The official report would go on to say that nothing was unusual except for a large burnt circle in the ground next to where the telescope was found.

I had multiple interviews with the police, and I always told them I never saw Father Edwards. I told them as I got close to the cottage my eye started burning and the pain was so bad I passed out. Of course, that was a wholesome lie. I didn’t want to tell the police the truth. I know they would have thought me insane, and I wanted nothing to do with a mental institution. But something else kept me from telling them what I saw that night. I realized to tell them would have been cruel. To tell them would have been to take them away from their world of angels and demons, and submerge them into my new world of monsters and darkness. But you know the truth because I am telling it all to you at this moment.

When I was released from the hospital, I took my mother’s car back up to the cottage where I first saw Mopilus. It felt surreal being here now because everything was so normal. I went to the burned circle of dirt on the ground, and I found nothing more than dirt. I looked over the ledge for a moment taking in the scene of the town before heading into the cabin. I came here with a purpose. I wanted to find that book Father Edwards had, the one he dropped on the table so long ago when he was going to confide all his secrets in me. Despite my best efforts to search the cottage, I found nothing. I headed back into town and snuck into the clergy house by telling them Father Edwards had a few books I let him borrow and now I wanted them back. I got access to his study, but once again came up with nothing.

I was riddled with curiosity, and determined to find out the truth. I left to look for the book and because of that I never returned to the university. I wanted to learn the truth about the world we lived in and I needed to know what monsters lurked in the shadows. I thought my best opportunity to do that was out in the world, not in a library. All I remembered from Father Edwards was that the Catholic Church played a big role in this and so I set out for the Vatican.