The Inn at the End of the World

As the sun, perhaps afraid of the coming struggle, closed her eye on the weary world of Eric Fallon and Robert Morden, the snow rained down to provide an erratic covering for the unpreventable bloodstains on the frosted earth: these two men both had unclothed iron ready to drink the other's blood. To any onlooker, the fantastic scene might well have been the end of the world, so insurmountable was its glory and sadness.


If you had asked Robert Morden how they had come to settle their differences in such a fashion, he would not have cared as to the answer. As for Eric Fallon, he would have been unable to tell you how such an occurrence could not have been. But the facts of the matter were, they had met quite by chance, if you believe in such a thing, both on an unplanned walk around the countryside. Upon meeting courteously, they had dissolved immediately into argument.

“Good evening Mr. Morden,” Fallon said with all the reverence of a priest, “I am pleased to meet you on such a chilly evening as this.”

“I can't say I have the same pleasure,” Morden commented brightly (for he really was glad), “but I do agree this is a happy chance. Happier still if I could borrow anything in your thermos, if you follow me.”

“Of course,” said Fallon grandly, and offered it to Morden, who drank. “Clearly it was not an accident that we met on such an evening, and with such timing too! The sun, steady in her course, will soon fall, and I am glad that I could warm you up a bit.”

Morden agreed on some bits with Fallon's statement, namely his good fortune, but disagreed as to one not-so-insignificant part. “Well,” Morden corrected Fallon, “I don't believe in such things as 'no accidents.' Accidents happen all the time. Chance and all that.”

“Come now!” said Fallon, “Surely you believe in an ordered universe at least. I do. I am a determinist.”

“I am sad for you,” replied Morden, “for I think science disagrees with you. Quantum theory, I believe, does hold that random events occur. But as a commonplace example, what if I was to perfectly balance an egg on a triangular shape? Would it fall to the left or to the right?”

“If it were perfectly balanced,” said Fallon stiffly, “I would be surprised to hear that it fell at all.”

Morden faltered, but only briefly. “Not perfectly then. Surely you agree that it would be impossible to predict, given the random fluctuation of wind and other factors?”

“Impossible for you perhaps, and for all the scientists in the world. But not for Him,” Fallon said
quietly.

“A theist!” cried Morden, with some delight, “Sorry to hear it old boy. How dull. Such a belief would never allow any variation, any excitement! But if is your choice, I will do little to stop you. I disagree with your belief, but will never disallow it.”

“What?” stuttered Fallon. “But how can you not be the least upset if you disagree, as irrational as your disagreement might be? What about truth? How can you not have the mistaken desire to set me straight?”

“I see little point. I am a chaotic nihilist and I think that one thing matters not at all, and anything else still less. Have your view. It does not affect anything. Nothing does you know.”

“Does what?” asked Fallon, more than a little curiously.

“Matter,” said Morden with a strange joviality.

Fallon was quiet for a moment. Then he brightened up. “I see now,” he cried, “I was right from the start! We are fated to be here, and I am fated to correct you, and save you from your damned ways. See here, if nothing matters at all, why not be a determinist? Just for some variety, hm?”

“I have considered it,” Morden said, “but no thanks.”

“Why not? You can't have it both ways! You can't say that nothing matters and still stay true to something.”

“Oh yes I can. It doesn't matter if I switch or not. The burden is not on me to try every philosophy. I have this one, and there is no reason why I should change it.”

“But,” argued Fallon, “Why do you believe it if you do not believe it to be true?”

“Oh, I think it is true,” Morden corrected, “But it doesn't matter if I believe a falsehood or not.”

Fallon opened his mouth, tried, and stopped. After two more attempts, he finally said quietly, “You can never live that way.”

“I try,” Morden said simply. “It matters not if I succeed.”

Fallon gazed at Morden with first disbelief, next pity, and finally hate. “You plague upon such a
beautiful world! I see now my fate, which was surely written by God in the stars since before time itself. I am here to defend all that is good and holy in this world, and to destroy such a stain as you. I hereby challenge you before the unchanging sun, the solemn air, the immovable earth, and the immutable God to a duel to the death for the sake of Truth. I pity you for your beliefs, though you have no choice but to believe them, but I am sure I am destined to kill you.”

Morden looked at Fallon curiously, ignoring the outburst. “If all acts are necessary, how are they 'good' or 'holy'? If an act is 'evil' and determinism is true, how can it be anything else? How can you live determinism?”

“How can I not?” replied Fallon.

“Well I refuse your duel,” Morden yawned, “such an act would not stand testament to Truth. It wouldn't stand testament to anything. There's not point to doing it.”

“Is there any point to not doing it?” roared Fallon, furious. “If nothing matters, it doesn't matter if you refuse any more than it doesn't matter if you accept! Give me a reason not to fight!”

Morden paused for a moment. A thousand arguments raced through his head, each dying a thousand deaths as he saw the futility of them.“I cannot.”

“Then meet me on that hill in twenty minutes to die. I praise our Creator for planning there to be a smith just down the road to provide us with weapons.”

“Chance,” snarled Morden, and spat on the ground as it began to snow.




A half-hour later, the sun was half-hidden behind the horizon. Neither man had spoken since Fallon had departed to fetch the weapons, except to determine how to randomly distribute the blades for optimum fairness. Morden had suggested the idea, and Fallon, firmly believing that God does not play dice, didn't mind. Now they unsheathed their blades, and stepping into position, each leaned their sword against the others.

Fallon took a moment to admire the rigid steel of his sword, its shape determined in advance by the smith. No erratic cracks, no rough edges, nothing but pure and planned perfection. Morden admired the sparks which flew upon the swords' meeting, spinning and spitting this way and that. Fallon breathed slowly in and slowly out. Morden, his heart racing, breathed more rapidly. The sun seemed to speed up, or maybe both were simply lost in the moment for longer than they intended. And she fearfully dipped behind the hills, Morden lunged forward without a warning, cutting through the crystals of ice which at that moment seemed to be suspended in the air.

Fallon wildly parried the sword, the metal clang ringing in the air. He counterattacked, but Morden stepped back swiftly, almost loosing his balance in the slick snow. Morden swung his blade in a wide circle, sweeping towards Fallon's head, but he ducked and rolled on the ground away. Three times they brought their arms together, and three times one or the other escaped the cut. But the fourth time Fallon slipped as he jumped, and Morden, who had not expected such fortune, took his advantage and rammed his blade easily into his enemy's gut.

Fallon fell to the ground, clutching his stomach in agony. The area around him slowly changed from the purest white to the muddiest red as his blood ran to the earth. But as Morden looked down at his enemy, sad even at his own victory, Fallon tried to smile and said, “Even now I will not despair. I guess that it was not my choice to die here, but God's. He planned this from the beginning, and I am not sad to have finished my part in His play. For even this was worth doing.”

“You're fooling yourself. Every man knows in his heart,” whispered Morden, “that nothing is worth doing.” As he saw the futility and meaningless of it all, he drew the darkness into his heart and the sword into his chest, even as he smiled.

“My God!” cried Fallon, as Morden collapsed to the earth beside him, driving the sword hild deep into his chest. “What are you doing?”

“Does it matter?” whispered Morden through a mouthful of blood. “I'm finished with this world, and care not if there's a next.”

“But why?” stuttered Fallon, and checked his yelling in his agony. “There was no reason for it,” he moaned.

“I know,” said Morden, “but why do you say that? As far as you're concerned, I could not do
anything else.”

Both were silent for a bit, savoring the pain in their hearts and heads. The snow continued to fall, and their wounds grew cold and the blood around them began to freeze.

Fallon broke the icy silence first. “Morden,” he said with the desperation of a dying man, “I am afraid. If everything was set from the beginning of time, what if I am determined to go to hell? God...did you even decide that I should doubt now? What can anyone ever do?”

Morden heard the distress of the man who was his enemy, and replied, shaking, “Fallon, I do not fear, but I am weary. I cannot wait for the sleep of death, to be free from all of this meaninglessness. What should anyone ever do?”

Both men held in their hearts an equally agonizing though different thought, namely, that nothing can ever be done and that nothing ever should be done. But each also held, more secretly, a deep and desperate hope that logic was misleading and things were not quite what they seemed. As the darkness blanketed the land and even the residue of the sun dissipated, Fallon stretched out his hand toward his partner.

“Morden,” he gasped, “we met as enemies. I no longer know what awaits us shortly, but whatever it is let us depart as friends.”

“Not as friends, Fallon,” the other groaned, “as brothers.” And he grabbed Fallon's hand tightly, and as their blood intermingled and soaked the earth, the heat of it melting the snow, they both breathed their last, sending out their souls from the world.





The place's warmth and the laughter were the first things Morden noticed. As he turned his head, which seemed stiff from a lifetime of sleep, he heard the music of conversation behind him.

“Now, see,” said someone to his left a few tables away, “if government is supposed to check the fallen nature of man, how does it help for it to be made up of sinful humans?” The man's companion leaned over his tankard and began his reply, and Morden turned to his right and saw a old man two tables down staring at a faded piece of paper with a few mathematical equations scrawled on it, whispering to himself rapidly with an awed expression. As Morden looked ahead, he saw his friend sitting across from him, and he laughed in exquisite joy.









Author's Note:

I feel somehow that when one writes a story, especially for other people to read, one ought to have a story to tell. I regret to say I do not possess such a thing. Instead, in a rather Chestertonian fashion, I have some philosophies, if I have the word right, to share. I have often felt that Chesterton's stories grew out of philosophical ideas rather than the other way around. This, however, did not prevent his stories from being among the best I have ever read. I doubt that my loose narrative patched from feeble ideas will earn any such honor among anyone in particular, but if it has led you to a better understanding of the world, or even me, it will have more than done it's job (which was simply to act as a canvas for idle thought).

Some of you may find this to be a little out-of-character for me. Well, logician, cynic, and realist though I may be, I have a touch of the romantic, the mystic, and the madman. Chesterton pointed out in Orthodoxy (and elsewhere) that seriousness drives men insane. I cannot agree more. It is when I trust in logic and reason alone that I despair; it is when I turn towards the unfathomable, though not unreasonable, mysteries of God when I hope. And while I may treat life as a well-constructed logical story, I hope I have not pretended that I treat life as anything less.

This story may read quickly and solemnly. Well, I had to make it serious because I don't have the patience to make it funny (Chesterton). Sadly, this did not turn out on paper how amazing it looked in my head. Also, the ending is a bit strange. Such an inn is from The Napoleon of Notting Hill: For you, and for all brave men, there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of the world. I considered writing more with our heroes discovering the Truth behind things and giving my actual view on matters (for I neither believe determinism nor chaotism), but I doubt my ability to convey such ideas well because I don't fully understand the truth of things myself. Once I am a little more wise (through the grace of God), maybe I'll write some more. But for now, unfortunately for the reader, I do not write what I know, but rather what I do not.

A final note: I regret to say that while I am perhaps not guilty of outright plagiarism, many of the ideas and even some of the lines (probably the best ones) are stolen from Chesterton and other authors. But in another act of thievery, I will quote my grandfather (who borrowed it from Belloc), by pointing out that Chesterton's invention is so rich that he can well afford to lend.