A Timely Chapter from Talisgate

This is an entire chapter from my novel, Talisgate. It’s Chapter 45, to be precise. I don’t normally share full chapters from a place so deep in my stories because context is important, and you should have some background before diving into something so far along the arc of the story. But I feel like this needs to be read. Even if you hate my books and never read them, read this. We are, as I post this, on the eve of a presidential election here in the United States. The country is very divided. I am genuinely concerned about how the losing side of this election will behave, regardless of which side that ends up being. In this chapter, Sojourner is talking to Troy about a world Troy has nicknamed “Warworld,” because it is engulfed in war. If you don’t know the story, it’s set in 1976. Troy is eleven years old. Sojourner is a non-human being who appears in human form. Sojourner leads Troy and his best friend, Molly, through magical gates to parallel worlds. If you want to know more, go to Amazon and grab a copy of the book, or at least read the synopsis there.

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It was still dark. The warring remained subdued, but there was still a lot of smoke in the air, and random small fires burned here and there as Sojourner and I made our way through the devastated neighborhood. He seemed to have a direction in mind, but he didn’t offer to explain how. I took the opportunity to ask a few more questions as we walked.

“So, Sojourner,” I began, “just who is fighting?”

“What do you mean? Do you mean here, now?”

“Yeah. I mean, there’s some kind of war going on. Who’s fighting who? What’s the war about?”

“War makes no sense. There’s nothing good about it. So, I guess it’s about nonsense and bad things in general.”

“That makes less sense that what you said before, back when you were confusing me with free will and everything being set the way it’s supposed to happen. And fighting isn’t always bad. You’ve said it yourself. Some things are worth fighting for.”

Sojourner’s steps stuttered a bit, but he continued walking, slowing some so that we were more side by side, rather than single file. “War is failure,” he said, sadness coloring his voice.

“Failure how?”

“Failure to love one another. Most wars start because someone wants something someone else has. It might be land, which seems to be the most common, or at least when you look at all of human history. It might be riches, power, or control. It’s almost always a bully pushing someone around. The bully pushes until the one being bullied feels like they have to push back or else get run over.”

Now, this was something I could relate to. “Right. I know all about bullies. They’re the worst.”

“Yes,” Sojourner agreed, “they are. But why? I’ll tell you. They can’t be happy with what they have, and they can’t bear seeing someone else who they think is happier than they are, which is wrong in two ways. First, they could be just as happy as the person they see being happy if they could be content with what they themselves already have. Second, they think that somehow, they will be happier if they make the other person unhappy by taking away something they think is making that person happy, when that isn’t the case at all. Happy people are happy because they find a way to be content with what they have and where they are at any given moment in their lives. You can’t make yourself happy by making someone else miserable. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Is this the same ‘It’ you were talking about before?” I asked.

Sojourner halted for a second to ponder this and then resumed walking. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose it is. Happiness is free for all who will claim it. It’s not like gold or silver or jewels, valuable because there’s a limited amount of it that needs to be shared. It’s an infinite resource. Bullies who start wars by invading other lands to take material riches always end up disappointed when they realize things are not the source of happiness. Contentment is the source of happiness. Contentment comes when you finally realize you aren’t in charge of everything. You aren’t responsible for everything. Things happen to you. Things happen around you. Some of these things are good. Some of them aren’t. The only thing you can control about these things, good or bad, is how you react to them. In this way, you choose to be happy or sad. It’s up to you. I know that sounds ridiculous on the surface.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “It sure seems like it would be hard to be happy in this world, Warworld. People are fighting. It’s a mess. I imagine if you live here a big part of your day is spent running for your life. Kind of hard to find a way to be happy and content in a situation like that.”

“But yet, people do.”

“How?”

“They are thankful for another day. They are hopeful that peace will come. They find joy in small things, like a birdsong or a sunrise. It’s hard to imagine such things being so important when our own lives are so much easier in comparison. It’s all relative, and it’s one of the most marvelous things about humans. Humans can find hope in the darkest times.”

Sojourner was quiet for a while. We walked for a good five minutes in silence as I let his words marinate my mind with their truth. I almost forgot what I had originally asked. Almost.

“But you didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Who is fighting? Who’s the bully? Who are the ones fighting back? You know, good guys? Bad guys?”

“I’m afraid they’re all bad. That’s what makes this war even worse than most. There’s no moral high ground. It’s just two groups, one calling themselves the Blues and the other calling themselves the Reds.”

“Reds? You mean like communists?” I had learned about communism in school. Sometimes, people referred to communists as Reds.

“No,” said Sojourner, “not like that at all. Here’s the short version of the story. Essentially, everyone wants the same things in life. A place to live. Enough to eat. Safety for themselves and their children. A decent job. You know, the basic stuff. People sometimes disagree about how to get those things for everyone, but basically, that’s the story. If everyone understands that much, then people can work out their differences and compromise. Humans can settle most every disagreement with compromise. You might not get exactly what you want in the end, but you get something you can live with. You understand, right?”

I nodded. I knew there had to be more. I was not hearing anything worth fighting about yet.

Sojourner continued, “So, that’s all fine and that’s pretty much how it went until the fringes got involved.”

“Fringes?”

“Fringes. These are people who won’t compromise. They can, of course, but they choose not to. They, in fact, want people to argue more, not less, because it puts them in a position of control and power, and that’s what evil people want more than anything, control and power. You see, if you can keep people arguing about stuff, they can’t come together. They can’t unite in a way that maximizes their freedoms and minimizes the role of government. Now, government is needed, of course, but when two different extreme philosophies are trying to put people in an all-or-nothing proposal, government becomes oppressive. A few select individuals high up in government become rich and powerful, while everyone else goes hungry. It doesn’t matter which side, the Reds or the Blues, ends up in charge, the result is the same, a tiny ruling elite and starving, poor masses. Human history in all the worlds is overflowing with stories that follow that same pattern. Fringes meddle and strife happens.”

Sojourner’s explanation was becoming interesting, and it was passing the time as we walked. I still didn’t know where he was heading, but I wanted to know more. “But how did it get to an all-out war?” I asked.

“It didn’t, at first. At first, it was just a bunch of arguing. Eventually, Reds and Blues on the fringe started convincing their followers that those on the opposite side of any argument were simply evil, wanting to take from them to advance their own interests. Of course, this wasn’t true, except for the people on the fringes of both sides. But they were loud. They were persistent. They made it seem as though you were stupid or somehow immoral if you supported any idea from the opposing side, no matter how innocuous or innocent it was.”

“Surely that didn’t work,” I said.

“Surely it did. No one wants to be shamed. No one wants others to think they support something bad, but that’s just what the fringes did. They did it on both sides. It made people who were normally completely rational gravitate closer and closer to the fringes. It was a slow process, but it was effective.

“Eventually, you had two completely polarized groups in the United States, those who were Reds and those who were Blues. This sentiment spread to other countries. At first, it was just what you would call westernized countries, like England, France, Germany, Spain, and a few others. All the Reds from every country involved banded together. The Blues did the same. The fires of hate spread from one country to the next.

“Over time, maybe a year, it expanded to most of the world. Finally, it was like a spark on a mountain of gunpowder. The whole world erupted into a global civil war of sorts.”

“What was … what is the goal?” I asked. “Surely there can’t be some kind of global Red or Blue government, can there?”

“Both groups think so,” Sojourner answered. “I know. It can never work. Things like local culture, the human elements of life, drive needs and desires that make local governments necessarily specific and diverse. It won’t work, but that doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is fighting and somehow proving you aren’t one of those despicable Reds or those horrible Blues, depending on which side you are fighting.”

“And the crashers?”

“Oh, the crashers love it all. They work on both sides, sowing as much chaos as possible. Humans embattled in a life-or-death struggle, even a manufactured one such as this, are much easier to control, much easier to fool. It’s a crasher’s paradise.”

“Do people here in Warworld know what crashers are, how gates work, and all the other stuff about the gates?”

Parting some thick palmetto fronds and heading into a thicket that seemed like it was much too likely to house snakes for my comfort, Sojourner nodded and cocked his head to the left. “Some do. Some don’t. Some know some things but are ignorant of others. Most of them either know or suspect at least a little that is true. At the same time, most of them believe a lot of stuff that is pure bathing fluid for porcine farm animals.”

“You mean hogwash?”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, it isn’t, but that’s what you meant.”

I was about to ask Sojourner what these truths and lies were when he suddenly shot his right arm straight out in front of me to halt my progress. “Shh!” he hissed.

“What?” I whispered. “What do you see?”