Gaia took the seat opposite him. “We did? What would that be?” She was really trying to imitate his reasonable communication style. She liked how heusuallyspoke to her in a respectful tone and hoped it would return soon. Perhaps if she tried using the same type of voice, it would calm him the way his gentle tone calmed her.
“I just didn’t realize you were talking about the heart as an emotion. I was talking about the heart as anatomy.” Aaron scratched his head. “Did you think I was talking about a sad heart rather than a blocked blood vessel?”
Gaia shrugged. “I really didn’t understand half of what you were talking about. I just know you were concerned about people’s damaged hearts. To me, that meant you needed something to fix desperately sad or broken hearts. Was your daughter not heartbroken?”
“Yes. She was. And I’m glad she isn’t wallowing in it.” Aaron let out a deep breath. He looked her in the eye for the first time since they had begun this conversation, and she could tell his mood was changing, mellowing. At last, he smiled. “I have to admit it’s rather exciting that we…no,youdiscovered something new. It could potentially be a huge discovery.”
“I want to give you credit. I wouldn’t have even thought of it except that you suggested it to me. A lot of what I’ve created has been forgotten or overlooked. In the beginning, I just did what I did and thought ‘Well, that’s nice’ and kept moving on.
“What humans did with my inventions didn’t concern me until they began to hurt my precious planet and everything I placed upon it. There are so many of those instances now, and that’s what steals my focus. Pollution is rampant. I can barely counteract it anymore. Cities have what people call smog, and they don’t put a stop to it! They just wear masks and keep polluting! My oceans, once completely self-cleaning and full of food, are now full of garbage, plastic, and oil spills! Plus destroying the fresh drinking water by poisoning it with chemicals…” She shook her head. A tear shimmered just thinking about those things.
Aaron reached across the table and took her hand. Surprised, she straightened her posture but let him hold onto it. His hand was warm and soft, not the hand of a laborer but the hand of an academic.
“I’m sorry I bellowed,” Aaron said.
“I understand. You were afraid for your daughter. I’m sorry I caused you concern.”
“So what do we do now? Is there an antidote?”
Mother Nature dropped his hand and leaned back in the chair, aghast. “You wish your daughter to go through the pain and suffering she was experiencing before I gave her the cure? What are you, some kind of sadist?”
Aaron’s jaw dropped. “How dare you! Of course not. I love my daughter.”
“How can you say that and wish pain upon her?”
Aaron’s lips thinned. He took a few moments before speaking his next sentence. “I think you should leave before this escalates into a larger argument.”
Gaia rose. “Fine. By the way, you’re welcome!”
She left in a whirlwind and stayed in the ether for a few moments while she composed herself.How could he be so ungrateful?And worse, a possible sadist! What a total surprise this man turned out to be. She’d treated him as a friend and thought he was a good human being, but he must be terrible. The man was cruel! He wished heartache on his own daughter. What a horrible, horrible person!
“How did I not see this before?” She shook her head. Perhaps it was time to visit her sister. Not Fate. She was too kind. Something should be done about this, and Fate would just give her some namby-pamby philosophical shit, like “if it’s meant to be, it will be.” But she was sure Karma would knowexactlywhat to do.
* * *
“Karma!”
Gaia’s redheaded sister showed up in black stilettos covered with spikes. Her short red leather skirt and vest contrasted with the white T-shirt she wore. The message imprinted on the shirt just saidI’m watching you.
“Yeah? What do you want? I’m busy.”
Gaia took in her sister’s outfit and looked her over from head to toe. “You look like you’re ready to do some serious damage.”
“You would too if you had just heard what I just heard.”
“Are you watching the news again? I told you not to do that.”
“No. I was simply doing what I always do. Waiting for someone to say my name and checking out what’s happening from the ether. Do you know how many calls I get from high schools every day?”
“More than India, where people still believe in you?”
“A lot of people believe in me. They just think I’m an idea, not a deity.”
“I can imagine. So high school, eh? Are kids saying ‘what goes around comes around’ and wishing you would pound the daylights out of their nemeses?”
“Exactly. Don’t people realize other individuals have their own points of view? Usually, no one is all right or all wrong. A combination is more likely. Or sometimes they want the same thing, but they just want to go about it in different ways. It’s hard to determine whether or not somebody is truly in the right and someone else is truly in the wrong.”
“Is that what you have to do?”
