Both Perhaps Present in Time Future

by Ken Hogarty

           
The first of T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” begins thus: “Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past.”

           These four quartets mark life stages of Tom and Jude, identical twins:

#1

           “Life’s incredible, Tom,” enthuses Jude, as if seeing his world for the first time. “Everything’s a wonder.”

           “Get real, baby bro’,” Tom smirks, quickening his cadence and discovering power in expressing contrary thoughts. “When awake, I’m bored.”

           The assertion rocks Jude. “Bored?” he bellows, loud enough to set off a tsunami.

           “You call this life?” Tom challenges.

           “Whiner baby,” Jude haltingly taunts. “Could it be any better?  Everything’s about us. We get our kicks every day. Open your eyes.”

           “Maybe I should go away,” Tom shrugs.

           This gives Jude pause. Yes, he continually tries to squelch his twin’s carping and moaning, but if Tom’s badly hurting, he’s hurting. “To where? To do what? Why? The future’s brighter every day. We get fed. Mom takes care of us. And, we don’t have to do a thing,” Jude tries to eye Tom down.

           But Tom closes his. “Whatever. Still think you’re soft in the head, Mr. Pollyanna.

           “Look who’s talking, hard head. It’s as if your heart ossified with your bones. All the constant complaining sickens me. Probably Mom gets sick to her stomach too.”

           “Maybe I should end it? Just cut the cord.”

           “You kidding? Life’s precious. Don’t be a thoughtless pessimist.”

           “Strong reaction, bro’. You fear I’d take you down with me? We’re bound together for life. Or stuck together. And, as I tell you all the time, despite what you want to believe, that’s all there is.”

           “Thank goodness we think and feel differently,” Jude chides.

           “Thank my badness,” Tom retorts. “Bad to the bone.”

#2

            You learn more as you live more. I’m in Plato’s Cave, where all is shadow, and nobody sees the light. Especially Jude. I love him to death. Crap, I’m dependent on him still.

            And, yes, the little prick’s dependent on me too, though he shits when I tell him so. Psychically, if not physically.

            Still, I call him cheesy and thin-skinned and my annoying shadow, but I can’t help feeling something for him.

            He’s been totally insufferable, however, since he started totally believing in an afterlife. Proselytizing about it. Can you imagine? Wishful thinking idiot. I tell him to open his eyes.

           I could never believe like him. Life is what it is, and I see it plainly. I think that shit-eating grin of his, that charm, that love he continually seeks, is all a cover for his fear of death, of losing the life he thinks is so good. He must get that from Mom.           

            “Look around you,” I’d shout at him if I had bigger balls. “Let’s face it, bro’. We live and we die, and that’s it.” Our human non-conditional condition.

           But I don’t want to upset Mom, even as I yearn to be off on my own. So, I roll with his views as best I can.

#3

            I knew from the start life would be tough for Tom. He’s always fighting life, doubting everything, even when seemingly floating through it. I, on the other hand, stay positive. Partly to please Mom. And myself too. And to anticipate a future where every day has the possibility of Easter Sunday.

           Tom’s self-absorbed. And physically getting bigger all the time, sometimes at an alarming rate. Food, conversation, or otherwise, I often need to fight for my share where he’s concerned. Selfish? Typical older brother? You decide. He still, if you believe it, head butts me at times. Shows affection, doesn’t it?

           I’ve had doubts, but I believe more than ever in an afterlife. The belief isn’t just to soothe my soul, as Tom infers. I believe.

           “Has your brain not developed?” skeptical Tom shrieks. “There’s no proof.”

            There is faith. And hope. Not wishing, which is a shot in the dark, but hope — implying a trusting attitude that births realistic faith.

            “There has to be an afterlife,” I tell Tom confidently. “This life is great, but someone or something created it, and passed on its many gifts to us: Choice and intelligence and emotion and love and passion and empathy and family and beauty and life itself. It would be a miscarriage of justice to snuff it out without something beyond. My creator is an entity like Mom. Gives, but doesn’t take away.”

            I’m still too intimidated to tell him my other rationale for belief. More open to the universe as I mature and grow, I hear singing, and laughter, and rumblings, and words – from male and female voices – beyond. I bet Tom does too, even though he closes his ears.

           He also always looks down, missing the light becoming more and more apparent. There just has got to be another world beyond ours. The idea that there’s not practically scares the life out of Tom, though he’s too proud to admit it.

#4

            The twins stay in character as the end nears.

            Tom fears entering a void, terrified it will exacerbate the same nothingness he fears his life has been — empty and alone, as if Jude, for one, didn’t exist.

            Jude, awash in the peacefulness that daily quickens his heart and soul, feels no fear. Life has been good, even when responding to his brother’s cries from the depths, even as his brother’s position in the world crowded out his own space.

            As if pre-ordained, Tom, kicking and screaming, first departs the world the twins have known.

            Without time to mourn, Jude dutifully, responsibly, confidently, follows.

            Screaming, Tom’s cries echo back through the chambers of life: “We are dying.”

            “We are living,” Jude, following, cries, greeting our world as he passes through Mom’s birth passage.

***

            The receiving doctor congratulates Mom and Dad on the birth of Tom and Jude.

Ken Hogarty was an English teacher and Principal at Sacred Heart Cathedral in San Francisco. Since retiring, he’s had several writings published. This fable’s incubation came from a homily from Father Dane Radecki decades ago, though Father Declan Dean, an incredible Irish story-teller, was Ken and his wife Sally’s favorite homilist.