"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12

Is she the one?

Has he chosen?

Does he know?

Will he act?

Faster! I'm bored.

This is madness.

We deserve more than this.

In the days that followed the angel's second visit, I thought of little other than what I'd seen. I described what he'd shown me, as well as possible, to Michael. I knew I failed to fully convey it and, though he remained as supportive as ever, he couldn't truly understand. I couldn't truly understand, either. I couldn't focus, and the boys sensed my distraction. They tested the boundaries of acceptable behavior to see what they could get away with. The morning they broke my grandmother's lamp, I'd been standing in the kitchen, staring out the window in search of forms to match the voices, and taking slow sips of my scorched, too-strong coffee. When Donovan split his lip open on the edge of the coffee table while jumping off the couch, I'd been wiping the kitchen table for the third time since breakfast. I couldn't even remember deciding to do it again, let alone why I'd felt I needed to. And Donovan was definitely the instigator of the two. He always had been, but lately he had taken his stunts to a whole new level. There was almost a frantic quality to his behavior: like he was trying to prove something by pushing the limits and my tolerance.

All of that was why, when Michael came in and found Ike on the verge of cutting his own hair with my giant, razor sharp sewing scissors, his reaction was to sit me down, and demand I talk to him. " I respect that you've got a lot to think about, but what's really happening here, Simone? You need to work through this before the three of us boys burn this place down trying to fend for ourselves."

My husband knew me better than I knew myself. "I just keep thinking it can't be that bad." I paused, trying to find the words to explain. "The world can be an ugly place. You would have to be blind to not notice that people have made a terrible mess of things. We don't take care of our planet like we should. We don't take care of each other like we should. We need to do better at helping those who can't help themselves. We can be cruel to one another. We are greedy and selfish. We do bad things to each other every day."

"But," he prompted.

"But it's not all like that!" This is what I kept coming back to. "There are food pantries where people give their time and money to feed the hungry. There are teachers who would--who do--die to protect their students. And hospice workers who sit for hours and hours with the dying and their families, just to offer them some comfort. There is so much good in the world! And hasn't it always been that way? Hasn't there always been lots of good and lots of bad, all mixed together? At least, ever since Eve ate the apple or whatever happened back then?"

"I suspect you're right," Michael agreed.

"So then, why now? Supposedly something terrible is happening, worse than anything that's ever happened before, but why? What has our generation done that is so much more terrible than the generation that invented the atomic bomb? Or the generation that fought the crusades? Or the generation that dreamed up the Coliseum and sold little children for sexual pleasure to the grown men who came to watch their fellow humans be slaughtered for entertainment?"

We quieted, pondering history as we understood it. When viewed in retrospect, the horrors of humanity were many, and every generation was as guilty as the others.

"Maybe it's not about that," he said after giving it some thought. "Maybe it's not about what we are doing, so much as why we are doing it. Maybe there is something in our hearts now, some guiding thought process that is different than it was in the past."

I considered that. "Maybe. But don't our actions usually mirror our hearts?"

"I think so. But I also think, sometimes, it takes time for outward appearances to show a true image of the inner workings of a man. I think every person, in every culture, in every era, has some concept of what "right" should look like. Well, I mean, there are always some people who are just broken, you know? The Hannibal Lectors of the world. But everyone else, everyone normal, is born with a sense of right and wrong. Some things seem negotiable. Spanking a child may be deemed right by one culture in one time and wrong in another. But beating a child is understood to be wrong by everyone, everywhere, in every time period."

"Some cultures let a man beat his kids without repercussion."

"True, but no one ever says, 'Look at that big strong, brave guy who just nobly beat the crap out of that toddler.' Maybe they allow it, but they don't applaud it. All people seem to know there's just something wrong in harming a child. What if there is some sort of prevailing attitude in our world today that will lead us into a time when that little voice is silenced completely? It would take a generation, or two, or three, or ten before the entirety, or even the majority, of society had 'gone over,' but it would have to start somewhere. What if we're nearing some sort of tipping point?"

"What is it, though? What is so broken in us that wasn't broken in our great grandparents?"

"I don't know." He shrugged and rolled his eyes. "It's not like I'm the one who sits around talking to angels."

I shot him my best skunk eye, and he held up his hands, his charming smile dancing just behind his eyes. "Tell you what. The maniacs in the other room are a constant distraction for a woman tasked with saving the species. Why don't I take them today? We'll go to the bouncy place, and I'll lock them in the inflatable room and let them work all that energy out, and you can go chant in a cave or something. See if you can't think this through. Just be home in time for dinner. I'm thinking we need to order Chinese, and I don't want to be here alone when Ike goes for the sweet and sour sauce head first."

I marveled at how much I loved him. "Sounds perfect. I know exactly what I need to do." As soon as the offer of a quiet, kid-free day was dangled in front of me, I had a plan.

I helped Michael get the boys into shoes and out the door, and then headed off to the mall.

It was a forty minute drive. Some days forty minutes seemed to be forever, but that day I ejected the CD of endlessly looping Learn With Mickey Mouse songs, turned on my favorite "Best of the Eighties" station, and sang at the top of my voice, enjoying every minute of the rare solitude I'd been granted. The sheer volume at which Prince and Michael Jackson belted out their hits assured I didn't hear anything other than the music.

I parked in the Macy's parking garage and headed in through the sliding glass doors. My plan was simple. I would plant myself in the middle of a sea of people. I would wander the halls, and sit in the center court to observe my fellow man as objectively as I could.

I moseyed through the juniors department where a little group of college aged girls were picking through the clearance racks. "What do you think of this one?" One of them asked. Another glanced up from behind the rounder. "It's gorgeous! Can you afford it?"

"Who cares? I can't afford any of this. That's what credit cards were invented for!" They all laughed and agreed.

I walked on and found a tired looking mother and her obviously unhappy son in the boy's department. "Do you like the blue shirt or the red shirt?"

The boy shrugged. "I don't care."

"Well... dinosaurs or guitars?"

"Whatever."

"So I should just get the cheapest thing I can find, and you'll wear it no matter what, right?"

"I dunno."

The mom radiated frustration, and I felt her pain. I'd had similar conversations with Donovan.

In the cavernous, echoing hallway outside the store a group of silver-haired ladies in red hats bustled along in a little cluster. One of them was telling a story while making great sweeping gestures with her right hand that, once or twice, came perilously close to her companion's face. In her left hand, she carried several large paper shopping bags from some of the pricier stores. "So I told them, of course, that they simply can't expect a poor old woman like me, living on a fixed income, to give to every charity that knocks on the door. Those people need to stop trying to take everything they can from old ladies like me and get a job. If they can afford their fancy phones, they can afford to buy milk and diapers for their own babies!"

The old women passed a young mom tossing pennies in the fountain with her children. "The polar bears eat the coins?" the little girl asked.

"No, baby. The people from the zoo come and get the coins. They use them to buy food and other things the polar bears need," the mom said.

"Why don't they just let them live at the North Pole?"

"Well," the mom hesitated. This was one of those conversations which was going to stretch into an endless series of unanswerable questions. "The weather's changing at the North Pole. Some people think that it's a good idea for us to protect the bears in zoos so that, no matter what happens at the North Pole, a few of the bears will always be safe."

"Why is the weather changing?"

"I don't know," she answered. "It's just one of those things that happen. Come on now. It's almost story time. We don't want to miss it!" She tossed her Styrofoam cup, still half full, into the plastic-lined bin, strapped the younger child into a plastic stroller, and handed each of the little ones a disposable foil juice pouch and they hurried off down the hall.

"What if your manager finds out?" asked a young man talking to a girl working at one of the kiosks in the middle of the hall where they sold covers for electronic devices. His whole attention was focused on her as he grinned. Everything about him brought to mind the image of a puppy.

"Nobody cares. It's just one little thing."

I walked on, and listened, and a very clear pattern began to emerge. Young people and old, richly dressed and poorly attired, mothers, children, men, women: they were all saying the same things.

"I don't care."

"I'm bored."

"It doesn't matter."

Of course, there were endless variations on these but, over and over again they were echoed. In almost every snippet of conversation I could catch I heard some form of the same thing. For some it was as simple as, "I don't care where we have lunch, you pick." For others it seemed nearly desperate. "Nothing matters in my life."

These people weren't doing anything inherently bad (Except maybe the girl at the electronics cover place). They were just living their lives. But that's all they were doing. Just living... existing. They had no passion, or direction, or fire.

It's the mall, I told myself. The mall sucks the life out of everybody. I would go to Old Town, and enjoy the fresh air while I continued my experiment.

One of my favorite places in the city, Old Town was a two block stretch of historic buildings that housed European style boutiques, artisan chocolatiers, legal offices, financial planners, a doggy rescue place, and an independent newspaper.

These were the artists and activists, the creators, the entrepreneurs, the social conscience of our society. The mall was mindless and dull. Old Towne was alive.

But what I found, was that the mindset there wasn't so different.

At the café next to legal aid I sipped coffee and eavesdropped on the two women chatting at the next table.

"Let's call it like it is, Kathy. He's a black, eighteen year old, high school dropout who had a gun in his car. The jury isn't doesn't care about the rest of the facts. Whether he did it or not, doesn't matter. He'll do serious time if he doesn't take the plea.

My stomach rolled. I tossed a few bills on the table to cover the coffee and tip, and moved on.

I pulled the door of the pet place open, and pushed through the assault of sharp, astringent disinfectants. If it burned my nose, what must it be like for the dogs?

The man behind the counter slammed the phone down.

"I'm sorry, lady. The police are on their way here. They just seized thirty two pit bulls from some guy on the east side. I'm going to have to close up for the day."

"Thirty two?" I was astonished. "Maybe I could help get them settled," I offered.

He gave me a look conveying his opinion of my intelligence. "Thirty two pit bulls don't get 'settled.' But dealing with them will take the rest of the day so, I'm sorry, but I need to close up now."

"I thought you were a rescue organization. There must be something you can do."

His shoulders slumped. "I can only rescue dogs someone will take home someday. I don't have the resources to house thirty two animals no suitable home would consider adopting. Now, really," he opened the door and held it for me, and I stumbled back into the fresh air and dazzling sunlight.

Would people sit by while nearly three dozen animals were slaughtered for no reason other than their place of origin?

Of course they would. It happened every day. People didn't have the emotional energy to get worked up over every injustice.

Perhaps, knowing that, we'd begun to protect ourselves from exhaustion by building walls that prevented us from getting worked up about any injustice that didn't directly affect us.

A Bible verse I'd learned as a little child came to me. "So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

Maybe we were facing this impending crisis because we'd become a society of lukewarm people. Could it be we had danced, so long, upon that fine line in the middle, we'd become broken?

I considered history. Whose names had been remembered? Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, DaVinci, Shakespeare, Columbus, Napoleon, Salk, Hitler, Churchill, Ford, Gandhi... These were men and women whose names had lived on far beyond their years. Some of them had been judged bad and others good. Most were thought to be mad by their contemporaries. But whatever you thought about what they had done, they had been men and women of action, and of immense passion. They cared. They were never lukewarm. And they propelled the human race forward in all sorts of ways through their zeal.

What could be accomplished by a society that completely lacked passion, belief, or conviction? What would happen if that lack of passion was touted as freedom, and sold as a bill of goods to all the people in the entire world?

What would happen if even the angels began to buy into the philosophy that we shouldn't care about anything beyond issues that directly affect us?

I shivered. More than anything in the world, I wanted to be home with my husband and children again.

I hurried to my car and found Freyja perched on the trunk, reading a Tom Robbins novel. As I approached, my anxiety drained away.

"Have you ever read this book?" she asked.

"Yes. A long time ago," I said.

"I find it interesting that this man can write stories that have such big subject matter, and fill the pages with words about giant turkey-mobiles."

"I guess that's why people love his stuff," I responded.

"Did you love this?" she motioned to the paperback.

"I liked Jitterbug Perfume better."

She clapped her hands in total delight. "Me, too! I think Mr. Robbins must have personally met Pan. He writes about him exactly as he was!" With a motion that was more graceful than anything I've ever done in my entire life, she hopped down from her seat. "I'd love to ride home with you, if you don't mind."

Did she just say that Pan was real? Weird. I giggled. She must have cast her special brand of magic over my emotions and, like that day in the park, left me feeling slightly punch-drunk. "Why do I feel so good around you?"

"Do you? Oh! I'm so glad! I imagine it's because I love you. Love, given by one who embraces the Light is the Light Itself," she said.

A few weeks earlier, I'd have balked at a relative stranger professing their love for me, but from her, it sounded nice. I liked being loved by her. It felt good--like having a sister. I hit the button to unlock the doors, and we climbed into my little car to head home.

"Did you find what you were looking for today?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. "I'm not sure what to do with the information, though."

"I suppose life is often that way. Only this moment is illuminated. We must wait for the next moment to reveal itself. When it does, you'll know what to do."

"You sound very confident."

Her lovely laughter filled the car. "I am always confident!"

"I saw you on a throne. I saw someone polishing armor. Are you a queen? A warrior?"

"I've been both. I'm a servant of the Light. That's a role with many variations."

"Do you think there will be war? I mean the kind of war that humans think of when we talk about war? Not... like... spiritual warfare."

"You mean bombs and guns?" She shrugged. "There are always bombs and guns among the humans. Every day there is war, somewhere. There are those who are so surrounded by such violence its occurrence is barely a disruption in their daily routine. You feel untouched by it, living in the time and place you do, but it's always there."

"But what will happen?"

"It's not for me to know the future. I swear, though, that I, and all those loyal to me, will stand with you regardless of what comes."

The thought was comforting and terrifying in equal measure. For a while we road along in a pleasant silence, and then she told me, "The angel wants to take you somewhere tonight. I told him I wasn't sure it was a great idea, but he feels like it's important for you to see. I can't go where he is taking you. Or... well... it's best if I don't."

I didn't need the details to know I already hated everything about this proposed trip. "Where does he want to go? Why can't you come? Why do we need to go at all?"

"It's a place where those who dwell in the shadows can express themselves. I'm not one of the Legends. I'm a creature of the Realms and a follower of the Light. I'm not welcome there," she said.

"And the angel is?" I asked.

"Angels such as he go where they please."

No doubt that was true, but I felt there was more she wasn't telling me. "Did he ask you to come and tell me about this?"

"No," she replied. "He told me of his plan, and I thought it would be best if I gave you a little heads-up."

I wasn't sure I wanted to know.