Excerpt: This is How it Ends/Just a Glimpse/Under the Infinite Skies/Legend of Paredin

There were fifty finely tailored suits in his closet, each slightly different from the next. There were thirty pairs of shoes, all shined so brightly that you could almost use them as a mirror, in varying shades of white, brown, grey, and black, each designed for a specific occasion. He had lost count of the number of his ties years ago, but was sure that he could wear a different one every day and not run out for at least a year.

Standing naked but for a towel in front of the closet, he began to finger through the suits, lingering occasionally on one that was exceptionally soft, closing his eyes to revel in the feeling of it. Finally, he chose the one that he’d had made two months ago on the occasion of a friend’s wedding, and put it on – it felt so well that it was like a second skin. There was only one pair of shoes that would go with it, but a hundred different ties; he took five minutes selecting the former and thirty seconds the latter. He stood before the mirror to fix his tie –it had to be absolutely impeccable. The shoes were new enough still that they still caused his feet to ache, but he resisted the temptations of the world: he did not indulge in the worldly pleasures of narcotics. It was his private penance to suffer from the pains in his feet, to remind him to be humble.

Before he left his opulent home, he put the necklace with the solid gold crucifix on over his head. The weight of it was familiar on his chest; it was something that he’d worn every day for the past twenty-five years. Outside, the car was idling, the air conditioning on – winter or summer – so that there would never be even the slightest appearance of sweat on his face or on his clothes. The seats were buttery leather, dark in color and because of the air conditioning that always ran, they were never clingy. As soon as the chauffeur closed the door behind him, he closed his eyes and took advantage of the twenty minutes to the studio to sleep a little; as he was getting older, he felt that despite he was sleeping more hours every night, he was getting even more tired during the day.

As always, he came in the side door of the studio; it was an arrangement that he had had with them for ten years, ever since some lunatic had taken potshots at the front door: the monster had killed six people before he had been gunned down by the police. But Leonard Jackobie could not risk putting himself in such grave danger, and so he, along with a handful of others who could pay, always came in the side.

The hallways here were darker and danker than those to the front, but it was a price he was willing to pay for his own safety. The security once inside the building was stringent. Although the whole country knew what he looked like, he still had to present his identification card and look into the iris scanner before he was allowed to enter the studio proper. It was the only way to keep the criminals out, so he put up with it.

The tall men in dark suits hustled him off to his private studio as soon as they saw him, and he was deposited in a room where half a dozen women attended to his makeup and hair, to give him the proper look, his signature look for years untold. The trick, he’d been told long ago, was to look youthful enough that you appeared energetic enough to do anything, and old enough that you appeared wise, and if you could look both, then it didn’t matter if you could do either.

Finally, the process was finished and when he stood up, Leonard felt a new man. Though his head itched, he knew that if he scratched it, he was going to have to sit and wait another twenty minutes and the show was to go on air in just under fifteen. The producer was already looking in anxiously – he was usually earlier than this, but the car had been held up by some traffic around midtown; Leonard hadn’t asked the chauffeur what the problem was.

He took his place in the middle of the stage. It was tiring, day after day, to do a show that was an hour long standing the whole time, but he believed that his strength came from another source, and it was good for his health to come from his everyday job.

By the cameras, he could see the crew talking. Occasionally, they would look over at him, and he wished that they wouldn’t talk about him behind his back to his face. It was a sin, and one that they would surely have to repent of if they ever wanted to go to the kingdom of heaven when they died. He said a silent prayer for them, hoping that this time it would reach their hearts and change them.

The lights began to dim and he made sure that he was standing exactly on his cue; it was the very center of the stage. As he moved around a lot during his show, it was essential that this single spot be the same every day, something for all of his watchers to focus on for the first few minutes while they fell under his spell.

Overhead, he could see the clock counting down the seconds, and then the red light appeared in its place. They were rolling.

“Good morning,” Leonard said, his voice dropping nearly an octave from its normal timbre. “And welcome to my show, Minister Leonard Jackobie’s ‘Explanations for the world through the Divine.’ We begin the day with a prayer…”