Charley Novak: The Accidental God

  CHAPTER 1: MUNDANE LIFE AND FIRST STRANGE ENCOUNTER

  The fluorescent lights of Buy Less Groceries hummed with the kind of persistent, soul-draining frequency that made Charley Novak wonder if this was how the universe slowly extracted the will to live from minimum-wage employees.

  He stood behind Register 4, his name tag slightly crooked (a small act of rebellion no one had noticed in eight months), scanning what appeared to be every can of beans in the tri-state area. The customer wore a visor proclaiming "BEAN THERE, DONE THAT" in glittery letters.

  "That's forty-seven cans," Charley observed, his voice carrying that particular blend of customer service cheerfulness and existential despair that all retail workers eventually master.

  "You can never have too many beans," the woman replied.

  "A philosophy I'm sure would make Aristotle weep."

  He was twenty-six years old, possessed a bachelor's degree in astrophysics that he'd completed with honors, and was currently earning $14.50 an hour to facilitate bean transactions. The irony wasn't lost on him. He lived with it every day.

  "Charley!" Sam Rodriguez called from the adjacent register, abandoning his customer entirely. "Dude, you see the new episode last night?"

  "Which show?" Though he already knew.

  "The one with dragons, gratuitous nudity, and terrible strategic decisions."

  "You'll have to be more specific. That describes most of prestige television."

  "Game of Thrones, you absolute walnut."

  Charley's face lit up disproportionately. "Oh, you mean the show that gave us Emilia Clarke, the most perfect human being ever to grace this or any other planet?"

  "There it is," Sam grinned.

  The bean lady cleared her throat with the force of someone who had opinions about young people. Charley finished scanning. "Your total is $67.43."

  "RODRIGUEZ!" Dave Smithers—"Mr. Smithers"—was approaching from produce, his face arranged in its default expression of vague disappointment with the universe. "Why aren't you at your register?"

  "Customer situation. Already resolved. Very efficient."

  "Get. Back. Now."

  Sam gave Charley a subtle salute and sauntered away with the unhurried pace of someone who had calculated exactly how slowly he could move without technically being insubordinate.

  Mr. Smithers turned to Charley, and Charley braced himself. "Novak, I've been reviewing the customer satisfaction surveys. Your scores are down."

  "Down from what? Last month I got a comment that just said 'beans' in all caps."

  "This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. You need to smile more."

  "I do smile. I'm smiling right now."

  "That's not a smile. That's a grimace."

  "It's a smile that's seen some things, Dave."

  "Mr. Smithers."

  "Right. My apologies, Mr. Smithers."

  The manager's eye twitched. "You're on thin ice, Novak."

  He made a note on his clipboard and walked away muttering about disciplinary action.

  "You really need to stop antagonizing him," Sam called over.

  "It's literally the only joy I have in this place."

  "What about me? I'm a joy."

  "You're comfort joy. Antagonizing Dave is excitement joy."

  "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."

  The rest of the shift dragged on the way retail always does. At 6:30 PM, as Charley was beginning to fantasize about leftover Chinese food, his phone buzzed. A text from Lyla: "Dinner tonight? We need to talk."

  Those four words had never in the history of human communication preceded anything good.

  Charley sighed and texted back: "Sure. Your place or mine?"

  "Mine. 8pm?"

  "See you then."

  Sam, who had been watching this exchange with the nosiness of a true best friend, raised an eyebrow. "Uh oh. That's the 'we need to talk' text."

  "I'm aware."

  "What do you think it's about?"

  "Probably the fact that we've been dating for two years and I still haven't said I love her."

  "Do you love her?"

  Charley paused, genuinely considering the question. Lyla was wonderful—funny in a gentle way that complemented his sarcasm, patient as hell (she worked with kindergarteners, so that came with the territory), and she had this ability to find joy in tiny things. Like when a kid successfully tied their shoes or when the grocery store had her favorite yogurt in stock.

  "I don't know," Charley admitted. "I care about her a lot. I like spending time with her. But love? I feel like I should know if I'm in love with someone, right? Like it should be obvious. And it's not. It's just... comfortable. Safe."

  "Maybe that's what love is supposed to feel like."

  "Or maybe I'm just settling because I'm twenty-six and working retail and this is as good as it gets." He immediately regretted saying it out loud. "That sounded worse than I meant it."

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "Yeah, it really did."

  He clocked out, waved goodbye to Sam, and walked out to his 2007 Honda Civic. It wasn't impressive, but it ran.

  The drive home took fifteen minutes. He listened to a podcast about theoretical physics and felt that familiar pang of regret. He'd wanted to be a researcher, maybe work for NASA or SpaceX. Instead, he was an expert on the store's policy for expired dairy products.

  His apartment was small but comfortable—one bedroom in a complex with paper-thin walls and a persistent smell of old carpet. The walls had posters from various sci-fi shows, with a prominent place of honor given to a signed photograph of Emilia Clarke that he'd won in a charity auction. It had cost him three months' worth of savings. Lyla had been weirdly understanding about it.

  After a quick shower and a change into jeans and his "WINTER IS COMING" t-shirt, Charley drove to Lyla's place. She lived across town in a nicer complex, the kind with a gym people actually used and a pool that wasn't full of leaves and regret.

  Lyla answered the door with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. She was wearing yoga pants and an oversized sweater, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she looked beautiful but tired in a way that made Charley's stomach clench with guilt.

  "Hey," she said softly.

  "Hey yourself." He leaned in to kiss her, and she accepted it but without the usual warmth.

  They sat on her couch, a piece of furniture that Charley had helped her move in a year ago and had nearly thrown out his back in the process. She'd made tea. Lyla only made tea when she was nervous or upset.

  "So," Lyla began, wrapping her hands around her mug. "I've been thinking a lot lately."

  "That's generally a dangerous activity," Charley joked, but his heart wasn't in it.

  "Charley, I'm serious."

  "Sorry. Go ahead."

  She took a deep breath. "We've been together for two years now. And they've been good years. You make me laugh, you're sweet in your own weird way, and I genuinely enjoy spending time with you."

  "I'm sensing a 'but' coming."

  "But... I need to know where this is going. I'm twenty-six. I'm not saying I need to get married tomorrow, but I need to know if that's something you even want. With me. Eventually."

  Charley felt his throat tighten. This was the conversation he'd been avoiding, the one that required him to be honest about feelings he wasn't sure he fully understood. "Lyla, I—"

  "And before you answer," she interrupted gently, "I need you to really think about it. Because I love you, Charley. I've loved you for a while now. But I can't keep being in a relationship where I'm not sure if you feel the same way."

  There it was. The L-word.

  "I care about you so much," Charley said carefully. "You're amazing. You're patient with my nonsense, and you make me laugh—"

  "But you don't love me."

  "I don't know. I don't know what love is supposed to feel like. Is it supposed to be this overwhelming, all-consuming thing? Or is it comfortable and steady? Because what we have is good, Lyla. It's really good."

  "Good isn't enough," she said quietly. "I need more than good. I need someone who's sure about me."

  They sat in silence for a moment. It felt like an ending, even if neither of them wanted to say it. Charley wanted to say the right thing, to fix this, but he'd never been good at lying about his feelings, even when the truth was complicated and messy.

  "I don't want to lose you," he finally said.

  "I don't want to lose you either. But I also can't keep waiting for you to figure out if I'm what you want."

  Charley stared at his hands. "I don't know how to explain it. When I'm with you, I'm happy. I think about you when we're apart. I want to tell you things that happen during my day. But when you say love, I just—" He stopped, frustrated with himself. "I don't know if what I feel is enough. Or if I'm even capable of feeling what you need me to feel."

  "That's not fair to either of us," Lyla said softly.

  "I know." His voice came out quieter than he intended. "I know it's not."

  She reached across the couch and took his hand. "I'm not asking you to be someone you're not. But I can't keep wondering if you're staying with me because you love me or because it's easier than being alone."

  The words hit harder than Charley expected. Because part of him wondered the same thing.

  "Can I have some time? To think about it?"

  Lyla smiled sadly. "You've had two years, Charley."

  He left her apartment an hour later, after more conversation that circled and went nowhere. They hadn't officially broken up, but they were standing on the edge of it, waiting to see who would take the final step.

  The drive back to his apartment was a blur of streetlights and regret. Charley's mind raced—Lyla, his dead-end job, his unused degree, his unfulfilled potential. Twenty-six and stuck while everyone else moved forward.

  He pulled into his apartment complex at 10:47 PM, exhausted and emotionally drained. The parking lot was mostly empty, everything sickly yellow under the overhead lights.

  Charley was halfway to his building when he noticed the man.

  Standing in the middle of the parking lot. Perfectly still. Staring up at the sky. Wearing what looked like a very expensive suit, completely out of place in this neighborhood.

  And glowing.

  Not metaphorically. Actually, literally glowing. A faint blue-white light pulsed from his skin like a heartbeat.

  Charley stopped walking. The man didn't move, didn't acknowledge him, just kept gazing upward with an expression of profound sadness.

  "Uh," Charley said eloquently. "You okay, buddy?"

  Nothing.

  He took a few steps closer, curiosity overriding common sense. "Hey, I don't mean to bother you, but you're kind of... glowing. Are you aware of that? Should I call someone?"

  Still nothing.

  "Okay, this is officially weird." Charley pulled out his phone. Police? Ambulance? Ghostbusters?

  The moment his screen lit up, the man turned. His eyes were the same blue-white as his skin, and when they locked onto Charley, he felt a jolt of something he couldn't name. Recognition? Fear? The sensation you get when you realize you've left the oven on?

  "You can see me," the man said. Not a question.

  "Yeah, you're kind of hard to miss. What with the glowing."

  The man tilted his head, studying Charley with uncomfortable intensity. "Interesting. Very interesting."

  "What's interesting? The fact that I can see a glowing man in a parking lot? Because I feel like that's pretty standard observational skills."

  "Most humans can't perceive me in this form. Their minds simply... edit me out. But you see me clearly."

  "Cool, cool, cool," Charley said, taking a step backward. "So you're either a hallucination, which would explain a lot about my day, or you're something weird, which would also explain a lot about my day."

  The man smiled, and it transformed his entire face from intimidating to almost kind. "I am something weird, as you put it. My name is Tenuk. And I've been looking for you, Charley Novak."

  Charley's blood ran cold. "How do you know my name?"

  "I know many things. For instance, I know you have a degree in astrophysics that you're not using. I know you're in love with an actress you've never met. I know you just had a difficult conversation with your girlfriend about the future of your relationship. And I know that you're about to have a very strange night."

  "Okay, that's officially creepy. Are you stalking me? Because I should warn you, I have a very particular set of skills. I can identify produce codes at an alarming speed, and I've seen every episode of Game of Thrones at least three times. I'm basically a warrior."

  Tenuk laughed, a sound like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. "I'm not stalking you, Charley. I'm recruiting you."

  "Recruiting me for what? A cult? A pyramid scheme? A cult-based pyramid scheme?"

  "Something far more important than that." Tenuk's expression grew serious again. "But first, I need to know: do you believe in other universes?"

  Charley blinked. Of all the questions he'd expected from a glowing stranger in a parking lot, that wasn't one of them. "Like, the multiverse theory? Parallel dimensions? That kind of thing?"

  "Precisely."

  "I mean, theoretically, sure. It's a legitimate scientific hypothesis. Why?"

  Tenuk's smile returned, but this time it was tinged with something that looked like relief. "Because, Charley Novak, you're standing in Universe 1. And I'm the God and Protector of Universe 2. And I'm here to offer you a job."

  Charley stared at him for a long moment. Then he looked down at his phone, checking the time and date to make sure he hadn't somehow lost several hours or days. Then he looked back at Tenuk.

  "You know what?" Charley said finally. "This day has been so weird that this actually tracks. Sure. Let's go with it. You're a god from another universe. Why not? The universe is infinite and strange, and I scan groceries for a living. Hit me with your pitch."

  Tenuk's glow intensified slightly, and for just a moment, Charley could have sworn he saw something vast behind the man's eyes—something that made him feel very small and very, very curious.

  "Walk with me," Tenuk said. "We have much to discuss."

  And because Charley Novak had never been good at making sensible decisions, and because his life had already reached peak absurdity, he followed.

  The night was about to get much, much stranger.