Chapter 38

“I’m about done disassembling the old furnace, these last few bolts are really a two man job.”

“Tomorrow?” Dad asked, the tiredness still on his face.

“Tomorrow is fine, or even Monday.”

“After school?”

“No, it’s a teacher in service day. They go to school we don’t.”

“How is it you get so many three day weekends?” Dad asked.

“There’s two almost every month, or a significant break that month instead. I think that’s why we started on the first, to cover all those days that we get off.”

“I’ll have to look at your schedule again, if you have any significant time off, maybe we could go camping.”

“Or Hawaii? Or camping in Hawaii?”

“I was going to say we can’t afford that, but that’s not the case anymore.”

“Camping in Fiji?” I suggested.

“Let’s hold it to domestic travel first. But, I’m definitely a fan of somewhere warm for your Christmas break.”

“Winter break,” I reminded him.

“Right, the PC police.”

“No, it’s the official war on Christmas. Too many people grow up convinced that if they just believe hard enough, something will happen without having to work for it. You see that with the climate change deniers, they believe that it’s not real, so it doesn’t matter what proof you have. The war on Christmas, with it’s lies about Santa and presents and flying reindeer, is to stop teaching kids the wrong values, to put belief over demonstrated reality.”

“So it’s something official? I’m not surprised, Christmas is one of the biggest group delusions out there,” he conceded.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Jesus was born probably in the fall, not midwinter. The shepherds would not have been in the fields when it was snowing. The three wise men didn’t show up until after Jesus was a toddler, probably around one or two years old, not at his birth. If they were sent by a divine power, it certainly wasn’t God, because they wouldn’t have been sent to the guy who wanted Jesus dead, and massacred a bunch of children to try to kill him, if it had been God.”

“Seriously? How much of the story is true?”

“I don’t know about the story itself, but most of the celebration is made up of borrowed pagan traditions and known falsehoods.”

“So we skip Christmas and go on vacation? Somewhere warm?” I said.

“That sounds like an excellent plan.”

“Excellent!” I cheered.

“So,” he said, growing serious, “What do you believe?”

“I definitely believe in Gods, but I’m unaware of any local deities, or if they would want any sort of particular worship.”

He snorted, “Local deities? Where did that come from?”

“I’m just saying, I believe there are super powerful beings out there, I just don’t know if there are any locally.”

He chuckled, “I think that’s considered agnostic.”

I remembered Hiram’s journal, it mentioned the components used in the Orb. “I think I’m on the side opposite of Atheism, when it comes to my agnostic beliefs, because I know that there are, or at least were Gods, somewhere, somewhen. Whether he-she-it-they were the supreme creator of everything, don’t know, and not so sure it matters.”

“Fascinating, what leads you to believe in these higher powers?”

“I’ve had some thoughts about it, but take it from this point of view. If all of reality is truly infinite, an infinite number of dimensions, universes, etc, then every possibility, every imaginary and unimaginable thing is real and exists somewhere in the infinite. So my belief in the infinite, guarantees my belief of Gods, because if there’s one, there’s an infinite number of them also.”

“I think I’m following, but it must be a math thing.”

“Right, infinite like numbers, you can always add one.”

“I get why your teacher wants you to move to the next level of math if you are having thoughts like that about infinity.”

“There’s nothing greater than the power of our imagination, except infinity which is bigger than we can imagine,” I said.

“Is that a quote?”

“Yes, esteemed mathematician Samwise P. Atwood,” I laughed.

“You really are too smart. It worries me, because big brains like you need caution, not confidence.”

“Well I’m 16, I’m going to believe that I’ll exist forever because that’s what 16 year olds do.”

“We should have never celebrated Christmas when you were a kid,” he joked.

“Seriously, am I what you would consider normal?”

“You defy expectations in the most delightful ways, Sam.”

My eyes started to tear up, it was one of the nicest compliments he had ever given me.

“I love you too, Dad,” I told him, then gave us both a moment to hide our emotions by suggesting more pizza.

Five minutes later we were enjoying the third pizza which we decided to split. “I’m still not a fan of pineapple on pizza,” Dad said.

“Just pretend you are acclimating for Hawaii.”

He laughed, but let it be. Personally, I think that if you add something spicy like chorizo to a pizza it needs sweetness like pineapple.

Dad coughed, “Wow that is spicy!” he said, then guzzled from his bottle.

“Does that mean you don’t want the last slice?”

“Keep your mitts off my pizza, boyo,” he growled between pants.