Episode 3: Alana Gets Some Answers

MESSENGER
A novel in 16 episodes
By Liz Keller Whitehurst
Read by Rachel Pater

 

Have you ever received a message from an unexpected source? What message would you like to receive—or give? We want to hear your reports and observations and to collect any messages you'd like to share. Send us an email at [email protected], and you can see some that we’ve already received on our social media pages.  We look forward to hearing from you!

 

Larry’s message:
Four months after my wife died, I was discussing going to Paris with dear friends. But I felt guilty about traveling without my wife. The next morning when I got out of bed, I stepped on something small and hard. It was a sterling-silver charm from her bracelet. And not just any charm. It was the Eiffel Tower! I believe it was a message from my wife. “Bon Voyage!” 
-Larry K.

 

Credits/Contacts

Author: Liz Keller Whitehurst: [email protected]For inquiries about MESSENGER or rights queries, 
contact April Eberhardt: [email protected]Book editor: Annie Tucker: [email protected]Podcast design/social media: Brandon O’Neill: oneillcreativeco.comAudio production and voice artist: Rachel Pater: richmondstoryhouse.orgOriginal music and sound direction: Wells Hanley: [email protected]Recording and audio editing: Lance Koehler: minimumwagerecording.comSpecial thanks to Wilson, Joy, Audrey and April

 

Find Us Online 

Website: messengerthenovel.comFacebook: facebook.com/messengerthenovelInstagram: instagram.com/messengerthenovelTwitter: twitter.com/messenger_novel

 

Questions to Ponder

Have you ever experienced “the Beat,” as Messenger describes it, or “the Flow” as Alana does?Alana throws herself wholeheartedly into this project. What risks does Alana face? Have you had a time in your life when you thought taking a risk, even a longshot, was justified? How did it work out?Very different people with very different circumstances post about their messages. Do you notice any common threads?Describe the developing relationship between Alana and Messenger. Have you had a similar one? Were you Alana or were you Messenger?

 

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Episode 3 Complete Text  📖 
(Click here to access the PDF)

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Posts continued to pour in on Alana’s blog.

POST: JEFF

 

I quit. I was sick and tired of giving. Of taking the blame for everything wrong in the world. Of taking the fall for a God I was positive did NOT exist—not as my parishioners saw him, anyway. And yes, I do mean Him. A black-and-white, easy-answer, glib-reply, clear-explanations-for-everything-God. I was tired of taking responsibility for this Monster, whom people had created in their need for answers, justifications, for order. Who punished evil-doers with natural disasters of all kinds, infant death, cancer, plagues, AIDS, incest, any other trial or disappointment. You name it and they call it His Will. Gruesome.

            I was also really tired of voicing doubts in the whole system and being met, at best, with blank faces, at worst, with whispers and dirty looks, passive aggression (“Don’t you think you should dress a little more professionally? And that hair!”). Maybe I could have gone on, carried all these projections, all this grief, all these expectations for a while longer before I self-destructed. But the last straw was when this intolerance for doubt extended to the youth of the church and I was asked to step in and do something. The problem was: I was on their side. The way it seemed to me, they acted a lot more grown-up than their parents or the elders of the church. 

            That was the problem—at least my diagnosis of it. Growing up. Nobody wanted to do it anymore. They wanted God to be Daddy—not like the daddy they’d got but a really good, nice Daddy perfectly attuned to them who predicted their wants and needs before they did and granted all their wishes. He’d say, “Yes!” to everything. He would understand everything and never, ever let anything bad happen to them. It was okay if bad things happened to somebody else, but not them. Daddy would fix everything for them and punish anyone who dared do the least thing against them, while he would never hold them accountable for anything.

            This would be just dandy but it’s so far from the truth as I’ve experienced it, with parents when a son comes out of the closet, or an aging parent is wasting away in pain, or a spouse just drops dead one morning over coffee. Or a house burns to the ground, leaving nothing behind. Where was Daddy when they needed Him? Off fishing or playing golf? Where?

            So, I finally stopped a minute. Well, to be completely honest, for a month. I took a leave of absence to “discern and prayerfully consider” what to do next because I was absolutely done.

            Then, on my first week back, a young couple from the church, who had tried forever to get pregnant—all sorts of tests and invasive procedures and finally—yes! She was pregnant and everything was going well. So we thought. I’m not a doctor and don’t know who dropped the ball, but in the course of delivery, the umbilical cord wrapped itself around the baby’s neck several times. She was a big baby and she strangled before the doctors realized the trouble. She had to be delivered just as if she was alive. 

            The couple, dark circles so deep around their eyes, they both looked like they’d been punched, which they had, called me into the hospital. 

            “What do we do now?” the young dad asked me, his eyes wild like a spooked horse. The young mother was struck mute from shock and sorrow. 

            I embraced the dad—held him close as I would a son. But I had no words. 

            He pulled away, angry. “You’re a priest but you have no answers here? Nothing? You got nothing?”

            I had no words for that lovely young man and his wife, no meaning, only silence in the face of a tragedy, the worst gift I could have given them.

            The young mother found her voice. “Get out of here,” she told me. 

            So, I was walking down the street, heading to the Diocesan Office to quit. Yes, you can quit being a priest. They don’t make it easy on you, but it can be done. I heard this weird humming behind me that sounded other-worldly, or like some witch. A chill ran up my spine and I turned to see a rough-looking old lady in a red stocking cap. My eyes met her amber ones. She didn’t say a word, just handed me a slip of paper then walked off down the street. I didn’t know what to make of her or of any of it until I looked down and read the message. WE NEED YOU TO HOLD YOUR POST.

 

POST: ELAINE

Where to begin? Well, I guess I’ve always been a seeker—since Day One. I don’t know why. I was always trying to figure everything out, to make sense of this crazy planet we find ourselves on. My energy worker tells me I need to relax my third eye between my eyebrows—let it fall back and rest. But how, when we’re in such mess? Maybe being an Aries, too, has something to do with it. I’m always in my head. Anyway, I kept noticing this old lady in different places all over the neighborhood. A coffeeshop. A park bench. The street. The bookstore. I didn’t think much of it, just noticed. She could have been homeless, but she didn’t seem out of it like most of them did. 

            Anyway, I smiled at her one day when our eyes met across the coffee shop. She winked at me, like she knew me, or we both knew something everybody else didn’t. I glanced around the room to see if anyone else noticed, but no. 

            I looked back and she stared at me—still smiling. I immediately cut my eyes away, then back down at my magazine. When I looked up again, after an acceptable time, she was walking over. Oh, shoot! I thought. Here we go. She wants money. Should I jump up and leave? Pretend I don’t see her? 

            Before I’d decided, she’d put a hand on my shoulder. It felt so warm and substantial, steady, like it could hold me firmly on the earth in a way I hadn’t been held before. I raised my head and looked into her face. Her sparkling, deep eyes were clear amber but rimmed in white. “Here, Baby,” she whispered. “This is for you. It’s what you’ve been looking for.” She handed me a scrap of old notebook paper. The lines were blurry, like something had spilled on it. “Take it.”

            I stuffed it in my jacket pocket, jumped up and ran out, left my magazine and a half-drunk coffee. I even bumped into this guy checking his phone. I had to get out of there. Then my boss called with a question and I listened to a voicemail from my niece, read a text from a friend I was supposed to meet later. I walked along the sidewalk, really felt the cement beneath my boots for a change, calming my pace, tried to breathe. I felt that paper in my pocket, even though both hands hung by my sides. I wanted to reach in, grab it quickly and drop it on the ground without another glance. 

            I thought about that lady, the way she hobbled over, as if that short journey cost her energy she didn’t have. The last joint of her index finger twisted out at a right angle from the rest. Her nails were chipped and dirty, with traces of red polish. Why had she given the paper to me, anyway? I was a stranger. 

            I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just drop the paper but, for some reason, I couldn’t make myself read it either. I never read comments teachers wrote on my papers, whether good or bad. Something in me couldn’t bear the scrutiny, as if my nerves would snap—like the string that flipped back and blinded my violin teacher in one eye. There’s a breaking point for everything. This was the same. It took nerves I didn’t have. What was the solution? Keep walking. Past stores and restaurants, churches and markets and florists and bars. Shuttered fronts of buildings and scaffolding. I imagined how I would explain not reading the message to another person. Me, a seeker. It didn’t make any sense.

 

POST: ANONYMOUS

 

I leave my apartment to get some beer and Red Bull on a Wednesday afternoon around four. Just went down the street to the bodega. From out of nowhere this old lady in a red hat comes around the corner and grabs my elbow. She gets in my face and says, “Honey, what has broken your heart?” I hate being touched so I pull away and yell, “What? What do you want?”

            She waits, closes her eyes, then hands me this lousy, dirty piece of notebook paper. Why I took it I’ll never know, figured it was just some trash, like she was. Some lunatic. I just wanted to get my six-pack and get the hell out of there. Get back to Call of Duty. 

            But I read it. It was impossible not to. And it was a bunch of bullshit. YOU’RE WASTING YOUR LIFE. Man, it PISSED me OFF! Who was she to tell me anything? I tore it into a million pieces and threw it down on the sidewalk, right there outside the bodega. Went in, got my stuff. When I got back out, she was gone, so I headed back to my apartment. 

            The more I thought about that bitch, the madder I got. I kept seeing her weird-ass eyes. Those eyes were not right. Sinister. I went on-line to see if there were any posts about her. I found “Have You Seen Her?” and then your blog, asking for reports of encounters with this so-called Messenger. You’re goddamn right I’m going to post. This Messenger shit is nothing but fraud. Pastor Mike talks about abominations that are festering all the time in his on-line sermons I listen to. He’s very powerful and the sermons have gotten me off Call of Duty and back into the real world. Anyway, the festering gets out of control. Control is a must. Order. The natural order of things. The way God planned it. These messages don’t mean anything and are part of a larger conspiracy, something a whole lot bigger than you or her. I’d bet my life on it. God wants them to stop. 

 

ALANA’S NOTEBOOK

OBSERVATIONS FROM POSTS

 

*She gives each person the message he or she seems to need at the time, sometimes at the exact moment they need it most. 

*One person at a time does make a difference. 

*It’s not so much what the messages say but the timing that’s important, that creates a change in people’s lives. 

Oh—one really hostile post:some guy upset because he didn’t like his message. Very different response than most others. Ask M. if she ever gets negative responses from people. Guess you can expect it. His message must have pushed this guy’s button.

 

ALANA LEARNS MORE ABOUT THE MESSAGES

 

“How did the messages start?” Alana asked. She and Messenger had just made a loop, starting and ending at Fifth Street. It took Alana a few blocks to finally get in sync with Messenger’s ancient pace. She’d brought Messenger a whole bag of Dove dark chocolates, wrapped individually in red foil. “Yum! These are just wonderful!” Messenger exclaimed. She popped another one in her mouth. “You want one?”

            “No thanks.”

            “Oh, come on, Honey. It’s never too early for chocolate. It always helps!” Messenger unwrapped one for her.

            “Okay.” Alana took the small square of dark chocolate and ate it quickly. “Now,” she said. “Back to the messages? How did they start?”

            Messenger nodded, her amber eyes focused on the sidewalk beyond them. “How can I describe it? Um, in the beginning was the beat. This constant beat! I was shocked when it just started inside me. Of course, it had been going on all the time, but that was the first I heard it in my head, my heart, my whole body. It was so strong, like a wave washing over me. It called to me. I had no choice but to answer. It’s been very true to me and never lets me down. Later words, then messages came. Loud and clear—straight down through my arm, out my hand and onto the page. For a long time, messages, messages, messages. Day in and day out. Liked to drive me crazy.”

            “So, you just wrote them down? All day long?”

            Messenger nodded. “I was shocked at first. I never was too good at writing—for starters. I did my best. Usually they were short. In the beginning, for the longest time, I thought the messages were for me! Oh, my. Can you believe that, Honey? Of course, that was before I realized what it all meant. What exactly was going on.”

            “Okay.” Alana scribbled wildly. “What exactly IS going on?”

            Messenger stopped, nodded at the empty benches by the school where they often sat. The lady with the Chihuahuas must have already come and gone. They sat down together and she continued.

            “I can’t tell you exactly how or from where the messages come. They usually come first thing in the morning, but they can come any time. I grab my pen and look for some paper, or maybe I get lucky and have some stashed. Usually I have to scrounge. The beat’s insistent. It grows louder and won’t let me be. My eyes start to water. I sit so very still and listen to the beat until words just pour out of me and I obey. I let my hand go with the beat. My poor chapped hands sometimes bleed in the cracks (I try not to get it on the precious paper). I don’t know what the message is going to be or what it says. I just let it all come out. I know when I’m done because the beat stops. Not entirely. Hah! I’d be dead! After the message is complete, the beat lets me go a little and falls back to the normal, calm beat in everything— in everyday life.”

            Alana jotted down Messenger’s words, strained to keep up with her. What beat? she was dying to ask but didn’t dare say a word or stop Messenger’s flow. She’d never gotten on a roll like this, no matter how many questions Alana had pestered her with. 

            “So, out the message comes without me doing anything, really. I just let my hand move. While it’s happening, it’s like time stops.”

            “That happens to me sometimes,” Alana said. “When my writing’s going well and just seems to flow.”

            Messenger’s face brightened and she smiled so widely, Alana could see all of her teeth. “So, Honey.” She paused, as if she was telling Alana something really important. “Remember that. You already know how it feels.”

            She wondered what Messenger was getting at. Alana rubbed her eyes and glanced down at her notes. “Oh, I know. Has anybody ever had a negative reaction to a message? Like it was something they didn’t want to hear?”

            “Sure,” she answered. “But I can’t help that. Have you happened to notice how some people don’t like to hear the truth? But I do know for a fact that nobody receives a message she isn’t ready for or more information than she can bear. People get what they need. That’s just the way it works.”

            “Why?”

            “Why?” She smiled at Alana. “Do you think I make all this up? I’m just telling you what I know, Honey. Somebody way smarter than me is going to have to figure it out. I can’t tell you.”

            “Or won’t.” Alana answered automatically.

            Messenger took another sip of coffee, wiped her mouth with slow-motion attentiveness and stared at Alana. “Oh, Honey. Those eyes of yours,” she murmured. “Just like hers.”

            “Whose?” Alana’s voice shook this time. “Whose eyes?”

 

MESSENGER’S COMPOSITION BOOK: THE WAVE

 

This job keeps me really busy. There’s way too much to write down. So much richness—all around us—our universe pours it out 24/7. My messages come with the beat, like a friendly wave. The first thing a baby learns to do after smiling back at a face, is to wave at everybody she sees. They get really excited and wave their feet at you. That’s part of it—the part babies do and we all do the whole rest of our lives. Feel that beat—wave to the healing. Because Earth herself, she’s doing it, too.

            It’s waves, I tell you. Keeping those waves and layers and currents of waves—pulsing, whirling— straightened out. Gentle waves, like ocean waves, can help move you where you want to go. But they can also overwhelm you. TV tangles them. Internet. Texting. Those damn tweets all the time. Are you crazy? Permanent knots. Takes days to sort it all out. 

            Used to be, I wasn’t necessary. Way back when, people used to listen and could hear for themselves. No more. I can’t say too much about this. They won’t let me. The waves are too tangled up now. All these devices are not bad in and of themselves. They can help. They have a very good side to them. Connecting. Just like splitting that atom could have had a real good outcome instead. But death was on their minds. That’s just how it goes. 

            Same with this Internet. We shall see where that all leads. I’m working on that. The waves are speeding up. Everything is. Everything’s faster, see? Moving to that one beautiful point when everything will change. But we don’t have to fight about it or get all stressed out. Just relax, get in sync—it’s the letting go that makes it happen. 

            Just picture everything falling into its place, being used and used well. Think of a rag rug, with all sorts of colors and textures woven together. Thrown-away threads, scraps of clothes and linens and tablecloths people think they don’t need anymore. They’ve lost their usefulness in their present form. Refuse. All of it, the good and the bad, taken and woven together to make something new. A thing of beauty, complete and whole. 

            But it takes time—something people don’t have much of anymore. What they don’t know is—time is short but wide. Ride the wideness of time and you’ll have all the time in the world. There is time to pause. That’s a way to find the beat, too. And ride the wave. 

 

ALANA GETS SOME ANSWERS

 

The day was cloudy and gray and the cold settled in. It was one of those days that felt heavy, like it would never end. Alana had headed straight to Ed’s that morning from her apartment, not hoping for much. She’d looked for Messenger for several days with no luck. She opened the door to the coffee shop and, as the little brass bell rang to announce her, felt her heart leap. Messenger sat there smiling, like she’d been waiting for her to show. She even agreed to answer some questions without Alana having to beg.

            But first, Alana had taken Messenger’s coffee up to the bar and shook chocolate powder into the steaming brew the way Messenger liked it. She poured a smidgen of half-and-half into her own cup, then headed back to their regular seats. 

            “That heavenly coffee!” Messenger said. “Thank you. My mother had a percolator. You don’t know what that is, do you?”

            Alana shook her head no.

            “It was a coffee pot that you sat on the burner and it had a little glass globe on top. I’d watch it bubble, smell that rich, dark aroma. That was the sound and smell of early morning in my house. I just love watching people walk in here, see their faces relax as they wait for the brew Ed’s making them.” She smiled. “Same smell.”

            “I couldn’t live without coffee,” Alana said. She pulled her notebook out, her pen, and set her phone to record Messenger.“Ready?”

            Messenger held up her coffee cup and clinked Alana’s cup, in a toast.

            “Okay, would you please describe your process for me? You know—how it all works.”

            Messenger smiled, “If I knew that, Honey, I’d be . . . Well, let’s just say I don’t understand most of it, either.”

            “But how do you do it, then?” 

            “Well, I walk. I walk for a while, get a coffee here at Ed’s.” She looked up and their eyes met. She raised her coffee cup as if to toast him, then flashed a big smile his way. 

            “Does the coffee help you focus?” Alana asked.

            “Something like that, I guess.”

            “And?”

            Messenger paused. “I try and get myself out of the way, so the message can come through. Some days, it’s clearer than others. I can’t control it, that’s for sure.”

            “Then what happens?”

            Messenger closed her eyes, suddenly looked very tired. She sipped her coffee. Alana was always amazed at how slowly Messenger did everything. Everybody in this city seemed on hyper-speed, herself included. Not Messenger. 

            “Don’t worry, just wait.” She kept her eyes closed. “Just listen to the beat pound inside you. The words will surely come. Just un-focus your eyes, let your hand go and do what it wants across the page. Hold your pen loosely. Get it down.”

            “Is that it?”

            She opened her eyes and took another sip of coffee. “Always say, ‘thank you’ when it’s over. You’ll know when that is. Your hand will just stop.”

            Alana jotted Messenger’s words in her notebook. 

            “How ‘bout giving me a few of those pages, Honey. I already used all the paper you brought me last week.”

            “Okay, sure.” Alana ripped out some pages and handed them over. 

            Messenger clapped her hands like a little girl. “Goodie! Thank you!” 

            Everybody in the coffee shop stared over at the ruckus. 

            Messenger folded the paper carefully in half and slid it into her coat pocket. “I’m always going through garbage cans. People think I’m looking for food. No sir! I need paper. You’d be amazed how many people put perfectly good paper, even books, into the trash. Can you believe it? All these beautiful, beautiful words. I love them so much. They are each and every one dear to me—to my heart. Then some fool goes and throws away a full cup of coffee and it spills all over everything.”

            “Gross.” Alana made a mental note to buy Messenger some more paper at the Rite Aid.

            “Oh, I’m not picky. I’ll write on anything I can find. Handbills, margins of pages torn out of books. Backsides of grocery lists, cardboards from pizzas, if they aren’t too greasy. Sleeves from coffee cups. Last week I found a little spiral notebook with no writing in it. Perfect! It hadn’t even gotten wet. Just a few coffee stains.” She patted her pocket. “Thank you. These sheets of paper will do just fine. Okay, Honey. Sorry. Gotta go now.”

            Alana sighed, watched her gather her things. She knew nothing she could say would stop Messenger. 

            “You going, too?” Ed asked her. 

            “Yep,” she snapped at him, closed the door hard behind her.

            Alana headed down the street, striding faster and faster, arms pumping, literally pounding the pavement so she wouldn’t cry. Or explode! This was all taking too long. On the days she could even find Messenger, all she would dole out were bite-sized bits of information. Alana stopped abruptly just before she almost knocked down this sad old guy who tottered along with the crowd, leaned on a strange, hand-carved wooden cane. She didn’t even apologize. 

            Focus, Alana, she demanded. She slowed her pace so she wouldn’t run into another innocent bystander. Alana fought the panic rising up her body. She realized she was way over her head. It had all seemed so promising at first. She wondered what people thought of her, tagging along after Messenger. What would my friends think? she wondered. She had intentionally told no one about this project, had guarded her precious story so nobody would steal it.        

            Who was Messenger? Alana still didn’t have a clue. Messenger wasn’t in the same category as the ones she saw on the street, who talked as they paced, rummaged through trash cans, looked for something to eat or picked up cigarette butts to smoke the remaining threads of tobacco. Or cursed the air, their invisible companions or tormentors. But where did she live? Where did she go? Alana had combed the Internet every way she could think of, for hours, used every possible search combination to find some trace of her, some sliver of information about her past or present. Apparently she’d accomplished something extremely difficult and rare—Messenger was off the grid. 

            You’ve got to be calm. Patient, Alana cautioned herself. You’ve got to figure out how to write this story. She walked up First Avenue, shivered in the cold. Beyond the story, though, something else about Messenger kept her going. This was the first time she’d allowed herself to acknowledge it. Whenever Messenger touched her, even slightly, Alana swore she could feel something—electricity, energy—whatever you want to call it—pouring out of Messenger’s hands. 

 

MESSENGER’S COMPOSITION BOOK:

 

Drugs? Those poor folks are trying to drop into the beat, too. I’m sorry to say that’s cheating—it speeds things up in an unhealthy way. Blows their minds sometimes—literally. This body you got is your instrument and your nervous system has its limits. Slow is good. If people understood the amazing power they already possess, any need or desire for drugs would fade away. They’d see with fresh eyes, just how fascinating they are, how fascinating the world really is. 

            They’ll say they’re looking for permanent peace or Nirvana or something. Hell, no again! That’s not it. That’s not what life’s about. There will always be sorrow, pain. Just the flip side of all the good stuff. Contrast. The trick is to wait it out. It’ll flip. Guaranteed, and in the same measure. That’s what this swerve is all about, you see. 

            Listen. Everything’s going to shift over. As soon as enough people get it, that’s the tipping point. Not a majority—oh no. Doesn’t really take so many. That’s what people don’t get, either. 

            I wonder sometimes how people can be so cruel to each other. The closer they are, the worse it is. Disrespect folks and not think one thing about it. What they don’t understand is: the person they’re harming? Themselves. It blocks the flow. I want to be clear, so I can receive the messages. That’s what I think about all the time. There’s nothing special about me. Everybody has the exact same wiring. The potential is there—put it that way. 

            Our children know. More and more are coming in with this new wiring—we don’t understand or know how to handle it, so we stone them—not with real stones but with drugs. Of course they can’t sit still in a classroom for eight hours a day! That’s because it’s torture—plus a very rotten way to learn. These autistic children, Aspergers, whatever label you slap on them. It’s not that they can’t communicate with us. We just haven’t caught up with them yet. They are what we will become. They just got here a little early. They’re the pioneers, explorers. You could call them astronauts. They are sending. We just can’t receive. It causes a lot of problems for them. I’m like them. I speak to everybody, but I usually don’t use my voice. Works better that way.

 

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