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  That evening, he mused upon the nature of such an account, and upon the purposes of the Power that would maintain it, for he was not stupid, merely shallow. But his reflections led him in a direction that made him more uncomfortable than the rejection of the Card had done, so he put them aside, never to return to them.

  One thought stayed with him. The Card might have other limitations. If he preferred not to be taken unawares by them, he had best keep to the patterns of life he had already established.

  ***

  Middle age shades imperceptibly into seniority, and often there comes a slow sweetness to the days as the song of one's life enters its closing stanzas, especially if it has been well sung. The urges of the body diminish, presence supersedes progress, and resonances of achievements and pleasures from years past ring through each moment, if one has lived well.

  It was not so for Richard Schiffers. At the age of fifty-six, his jittery need to distract himself with a chain of novelties and diversions had never waned. For sixteen years he had worked, spent, traveled, and amused himself in innumerable ways. But he had achieved nothing of substance, he had remained alone, and no measure of peace had come to him.

  Except for one terrifying lapse, the Card had never failed him. It had meant the difference between an ordinary middle-class wage-poverty and a standard of living that approached luxury. It had cushioned his existence against a thousand nuisances and disruptions which anyone else in his walk of life would have had to scrimp and sacrifice to meet. It was more reliable and more supportive than any friend could have been. He had long since ceased to examine it, or to ponder why it had come to him.

  His spending had expanded somewhat that first year, but it had restabilized thereafter at about the previous level. He had abandoned most of the plans he had made; all of the most grandiose ones. He sometimes wondered whether some of them might better have been tried out. He was always vaguely troubled by the thought. Even so, he would then remind himself, he had managed to climb out of debt. He was beholden to no one and nothing...except, of course, the Card.

  It was a cool spring Saturday evening. Nothing pressed upon him, so he was trying to decide whether to take in a movie, and if so, which one. He was pacing the living room of his apartment in an irregular way, simply because he had never found it easy to keep physically still. A twitching had begun in his left arm. He paid no attention to it until it grew to a spasm that pulled at his chest. As he regarded his wayward limb in surprise, a wave of cold passed through his shoulder and chest, followed by the sensation of a tremendous impact. He sensed the dissociation of his consciousness from his body. He realized that he was looking down at his body, which had fallen supine and motionless onto his living room floor, its eyes still open.

  Abruptly he was removed an infinite distance from the world and its events, and in a place that was not, as we mean it, a place at all, he passed an interval which no living human consciousness could grasp.

  ***

  This is your Time. Ask what you will.

  Death had ended Schiffers's life, but not his consciousness nor his capacity for terror. He knew without question that the Presence whose Voice resounded in his mind was infinitely vast and infinitely potent. Yet he was certain that Its whole attention was focused upon what remained of him. There was no one and nothing else there.

  - Where am I?

  That is unanswerable. I can come no closer than to invoke a referent from your memories: consider this your Particular Judgment.

  - And You are God?

  That too is unanswerable, but it might be easiest for you to think of Me as such.

  Terror churned his thoughts into an untameable vortex. It lasted for only an instant before the Presence stilled him.

  It is unnecessary to feel such fear. Your period of choice and consequence is over. Ask what you will, that we may proceed.

  - What now? Am I damned?

  You need not fear punishment. But you have failed your test, and will not go forward.

  - What was my test?

  The Card.

  - What does it mean to go forward?

  Those who pass their tests are permitted to develop further. Their mentalities enlarge. Some take up roles in more complex worlds.

  - And the rest of us?

  At present, they wait. I concern Myself principally with those who continue to develop.

  - But You will return to us, then?

  I have not yet decided. Even though time as you have known it does not bind Me, I too must order My concerns, according to what you would call priorities. I am supreme over your world, and others like it, but in this sphere I have limitations, though you could not be made to comprehend them.

  Schiffers's foretaste of the solitude to follow would have unhinged a living man. He feared with all his soul the approaching moment when the Presence would remove itself, but there was only one more question he could frame: the one he had actively suppressed for nearly fifteen years.

  - Tell me of the Card.

  It was tailored to your configuration of desires, strengths, weaknesses and insights. Presented with such an opportunity, a creature like yourself will either come to an understanding of the temptation, or surrender to the fulfillments available. Every intelligence that lives, that has ever lived, and that ever will live must face such a test.

  - How did I fail?

  In three ways: You never grasped the essence of your own nature, the things that are human. You failed to think enough about the basic features of your world to understand their functions. You failed to consider the implications of the existence of the Card, while you used it unceasingly.

  Schiffers could only feel incomprehension.

  - But what were these essences, these implications? You speak as if they ought to have been crystal clear, but during my life nothing was ever perfectly clear.

  Nonsense. Was it not clear that all things have a cost? Did you not know that the ultimate cost of all things is labor, physical or mental? Could you not have deduced that to demand a discount from others as a matter of right is to assert ownership of their labor, making them your slaves? Could you not have deduced that in a world with unbreakable natural laws, such as yours, you would never have been permitted a privilege such as the Card without being required to pay?

  - But how did I pay?

  With your own life. Each use of the Card caused a portion to be deducted from your lifespan.

  The Presence paused, as if It were brooding over what It had done. Schiffers wondered for a moment whether It was feeling remorse. But Its final statement to him filled him with a remorse whose depths he could never have imagined.

  I am just. Your payment balanced your Card-given advantages as best I could arrange. You would have lived about fourteen years longer if you had never used it. I took twenty percent off.

  The Presence withdrew.

  ====

  Francis W. Porretto is an engineer, fictioneer, and commentator. He operates the Eternity Road Website (https://eternityroad.info), a hotbed of pro-freedom, pro-American, pro-Christian sentiment, where he and his Esteemed Co-Conspirators hold forth on every topic under the Sun. You can email him at [email protected]. Thank you for taking an interest in his fiction.