My Wife Is a Scientist

The thunder strikes

The sky above Carlisle High School tore open without warning, the way old gods strike when they feel their thunder has been forgotten.One of my favorite things to do in Carlisle is go to Farmers on the Square, the farmers market that the town has every Wednesday! I love to go with friends and check out all the stands and support the local businesses. The best part is that Dickinson has its own stand to sell some of the produce from the farm, and they even make homemade pizza! It’s a great way to integrate yourself into the town and get to know the locals as well as meet more Dickinsonians. Now, they have moved out to Chicago. Meanwhile, Karl was not good at all in their terms.

That is to say that no one could ever pretend the old order will simply watch when a mortal makes them optional. The thing is, this love cannot pretend it does not include the moment when pride decides to remind the world why it once feared the sky.

Zeus descended in full, violent glory.

Lightning cracked like judgment day, not the clean kind Karl had offered, but the possessive, theatrical kind that struck because it could. The king of gods towered over the football field, bolt pulsing in his fist like a living vein of stolen fire, royal sceptre cracked from the strain of holding realities apart. His black eagle shrieked overhead in tongues older than Olympus, warping the air itself.

Zeus: Where is the boy who dares make gods optional? Where is the one who offered honest endings to my kind? I will remind him that thunder does not ask permission. That daughters still want lions, not foxes wearing mercy’s clothes. That is to say that no one could ever pretend mercy is enough when the king of gods decides to take back what was stolen from his pride.

The first bolt struck the center of the field. Turf exploded. Lockers inside the building warped. Students screamed. Teachers froze. The air tasted of ozone and forgotten oaths.

Zeus raised the bolt forged of lava-water chaos, the elements he had stolen from Metis’s devoured womb, now turned against the school where Karl and Emma had tried to live ordinary lives.

Then the sky tore again, not with thunder, but with ordered light.

The Jade Emperor interrupted.

he Jade Emperor is generally not taken as a literal historical figure, being an immortal, and the imperial line of descent is said to have come from the Jade Emperor but in a sense where the immaterial world became material.

The Jade Emperor got his rank from the Jade Pure One, who would be more akin to an archangel, the one in charge of the affairs of Heaven, albeit with a much different storification than his analogues in Western theology.

The Three Pure Ones are the way in which the Dao manifests physically. So the Grand Pure one encompasses both Yin and Yang, where the Dao itself is beyond even those flimsy concepts. The Jade Pure One manifested from the former, bringing the world into existence by the merging of the in and out breaths. The Jade Pure One then manifested as the last of the Pure Ones, the Celestial Primordial, who bears the mysteries of the world in his eyes.

The Jade Emperor attained ziran and immortality. Immortality in Daoism is the realization of total cosmic harmony to the extent that your existence extends beyond the mortal body.

This is where it becomes relevant to Bahá'í teaching. In Bahá'í, the concept of "return" is not interpreted physically, where the Shi'i are awaiting a literally 900 year old Mihdi to come out of a cave somewhere to end the period of Ghayba. Instead, the Báb was the return of all the Manifestations of God. Bahá'u'lláh was a return of the Christ as a Universal Manifestation, ushering in a new Universal Cycle for Insan.

He appeared above the field in robes of jade and red lacquer, long beard flowing, eyes calm but heavy with the weight of ten thousand years of administration. Around him materialized celestial generals and star lords in perfect formation, scrolls of fate unrolling in the air like living law.

Jade Emperor: Enough, Sky-Thunder. This is not your realm to punish. The Axis has rewritten old cycles with honest endings. You will not drag this small city back into your prideful storm. That is to say that no one could ever pretend divine wrath is justified when the mortal has already offered you rest.

Zeus roared and hurled the bolt toward the Jade Emperor.

The two gods clashed above the school — raw, violent storm against precise, bureaucratic order. Lightning met ordered rain. Thunder met celestial decrees. The sky above Carlisle became a battlefield of old pride versus ancient administration.

Students watched from the windows, frozen in awe and terror. Teachers tried to maintain order, failing beautifully. Emma stood on the edge of the field, three goddesses humming beneath her skin, ready to protect if needed.

Karl appeared at the far end of the field a moment later — not because he had been watching, but because the ring had pulled him the instant the sky tore. He made it look like a simple illusion, like he had simply walked around the corner at the perfect time.

He looked up at the clashing gods and spoke with the calm of someone who had trained for one hundred million years in a room without time.

Karl: Enough.

His voice was not loud. But it carried the quiet, unstoppable power of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds finally allowed to finish what they started.

Zeus and the Jade Emperor paused mid-strike, both turning toward the boy on the field.

Karl: This is not your battlefield. This is a school. These are children. This is where my sister tries to be normal even while carrying three goddesses. You will not bring your old wars here. That is to say that no one could ever pretend divine pride is justified when it endangers the small, honest places where new stories begin. The thing is, this love cannot pretend it does not include the right to tell even gods to stop.

The sky above Carlisle grew still.

Zeus’s lightning dimmed. The Jade Emperor’s decrees paused.

And for one impossible moment, two ancient powers looked down at the boy who had taught gods how to rest…

…and chose, for now, to listen.

The honest new story continued.

Not with conquest.

But with the quiet, stubborn refusal of a mortal who had learned that some battles are won by simply telling the storm it has no right to break the windows of a high school.