It was late afternoon when I walked into Bodhi's office and handed him the letter I had found lying outside the door.

"Read it to me please," he said. It was my first day on the job, so I did.

Dear Mr. Bodhi.

I got your address from our mutual friend Anna and I am writing to you at the end of my wits. I find myself in great danger and I fear that if you don't come to my aid, I am going to be executed. I hope that my faith in you will be rewarded because in all earnestness, I don't know who else to turn to.

Sincerely, Kriya

"That's it?" Bodhi said as he rose from his seat and took the letter from me.

"That's it I'm afraid," I replied. "No address, no details of any kind. There wasn't even an envelope. Just this one sheet of paper."

"How does she expect us to help her then?"

"Maybe you could call your friend Anna and ask her?"

Bodhi sipped his tea as he considered my suggestion. "Let's just wait," he said. "The letter does say she has our address. Maybe she will turn up."

There was a knock on the door. We looked at each other. Bodhi went over and opened it. The person who entered was Kriya. Don't ask me how I knew it. When you read someone's writing, your mind creates a picture of them. I suppose she just looked like what I had imagined.

"Kriya, I presume?" Bodhi said.

"Yes," she said. "I take it you received my message."

"We got your letter," Bodhi said. "We are a little unsure about what the message actually was."

"I am in danger."

"We got that. But from whom?"

"Look out of your window," she said.

She hadn't attached any urgency to it, but the words caused me to turn abruptly and part the curtains. I saw a man standing in the middle of the street and instantly knew him to be the one Kriya was speaking of. There was a madness about him, a desperation one sees in zealots and fanatics. But a look through the window could only tell me so much.

"Anything of interest Moin?" Bodhi said, but I had already leapt off the balcony in pursuit of the madman. By the time I bounced off the pipe, jumped on to the ledge, and then on to the ground near him, the man had dashed off into the lane opposite our building. I chased him into the market on the other side, past the temple and across the park. It was in front of the electricity office that I finally managed to grab him by the collar and push him against a wall.

"Please," he said breathlessly. "You have to hear me out."

"Why do you want to hurt her?"

"In the beginning... there was no one except him..." he said through jagged breaths.

"Who sent you? Who do you work for?"

"In the beginning, he was all there was... and... and he was lonely."

"Some cult then," I said. "What's this, some religious shit? Is she to be a sacrifice or something?"

"You don't understand," he said, trying to break free.

"I understand just fine," I said, pinning him back against the wall. "I understand that you lot are trying to execute her and you're giving me a fucking creation myth as justification."

"You understand NOTHING," the man said emphatically, pushing me away. "You don't know her. You don't know me. You won't even listen."

The man began to sob as he spoke. I watched him, confused, for a moment before realising I was out of breath too. I stretched a couple of times before sitting down next to him.

"Alright," I said, gentler than I had been so far, "Tell me everything. Who are you and why are you after Kriya?"

"In the beginning..." he began.

"No, not that," I interrupted. "Tell me who sent you and why you..."

"In the beginning," he continued, ignoring me. "...there was no one except him. He was all there was, and he was lonely. So he devised ways of not being lonely. He imagined an entire universe with numerous worlds and he imagined all manner of creatures that lived upon those worlds. He imagined gods and monsters and systems and futures. He imagined everything that is or was or will be.

"But none of it did anything to make him less lonely. So he decided to make his imagination reality. However, when he did so, he discovered something curious. He discovered that imagination doesn't translate very well into reality. The things he created were always a shade less than what he had imagined them to be. They were always less efficient, less colourful, less perfect. They were always lesser versions of the ideas they were based on.

"He created and created and created. He hoped that one day he will make something that was exactly how he had imagined it. But it never happened. Things were never perfect. After eons of creation, he finally grew disgusted with this imperfect universe he had brought into existence and left."

"What do you mean he left?" I said, despite myself. "Left to go where?"

"Fuck knows," the man replied.

For the first time, I saw him for what he was - someone struggling to make sense of reality. Someone who was perhaps being taken advantage of.

"Listen," I said. "You don't appear to be a killer."

"Thanks," he replied drily. "You don't either."

"All I am saying is, no matter what your justification is, it can't be worth that girl's life. So tell me who put you up to this and I can go about my job of ending the threat to her life."

"Why is that your job?"

"I don't know. It just is," I replied in mild frustration. Then it occurred to me he might respond better if I opened up. "It's my first day actually. I have been looking for a job for a long time and last week, I met this strange lady in a park and got talking with her. She's the one who told me Bodhi needs an assistant."

"And as an assistant, it's your job to..."

"I'm not entirely sure actually," I said. "I guess my job is to assist. What I have gathered so far is that people with problems come to us and we try to help them. People like Kriya..."

"There is no threat to her life," he cut me off. "Immortality awaits her. It is she who rejects it. And she denies the world a better future."

I rolled my eyes, "Is there any point asking you what that..."

"It means she is not a person," he said bluntly. "She is an idea - the greatest idea in the universe. I want to bring her to life but she eludes me."

It took a moment to sink in. When it did, I spoke very carefully, "You want to bring her to life? You... you want to... execute her?"

The man nodded with a weary smile, and took a deep breath as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, "Thank you for understanding."

The trouble was, I was not sure I had understood anything. I half laughed, shaking my head. Then I remembered what the lady in the park had told me before sending me to Bodhi. "This job is going to test you Moin. It's going to test you in ways you have never been tested before."

Perhaps this was one of those tests. The man before me was silent, but when I turned to leave, he followed. When I broke into a run, he did as well. Across the park, past the temple, through the market, I heard his feet right behind me. When I stopped before our building and looked up, he did as well. When I heard him gasp, I knew he saw what I was seeing.

Bodhi was in the balcony, looking at us. Next to him stood Kriya, whispering something into his ear.

"NO!" the man said as he rushed past me towards the building. I followed.

I don't know what I was expecting to see when I got back to the office. But it was fairly ordinary. The man I had been talking to was sitting in Bodhi's chair, his head in his hands, weeping. Bodhi was getting him a glass of water. Kriya was nowhere to be seen. When Bodhi's eyes met mine, I thought I saw dread in them.

"It's alright Mithilesh," Bodhi said to the man, betraying none of the doubt I saw in his eyes. "You are free now."

"Free?" said the man, whose name apparently was Mithilesh. "Free from what? I don't even know what she was."

"You did," Bodhi said. "If you didn't, she wouldn't have run from you. Kriya knew you could execute her, and she didn't want to be executed. So she ran from you."

"In the balcony..." Mithilesh said. "I saw her whispering to you in the balcony. What did she say to you?"

"Only what I told you."

Mithilesh stood up, shivering, and after a moment of hesitation, said the word 'bullshit' under his breath. There was a moment when I thought he was going to scream or get violent, but if anything, he seemed more in control of himself now. He quietly placed the glass on Bodhi's desk and left.

Bodhi picked up the glass and washed it at the kitchen sink. I sat down and caught my breath, waiting for him to return to his desk. When he did, I asked if he was okay.

"Ya ya I'll be fine," he said. "Perhaps I should be asking you if YOU'RE okay."

"Weirded out is all," I said. "In fact, I am not entirely sure I understand any of what has happened."

"Makes sense," Bodhi said. "I suppose if you are going to work here, I should tell you the truth."

"You didn't tell Mithilesh the truth?"

"He's better off without it. Besides, he is not our client. Kriya is."

"And have we solved Kriya's problem?"

"For the time being, yes. Mithilesh will not chase her anymore. She is not going to be executed."

"What happened to her? What was she whispering into your ear?"

"She was whispering herself into my ear," Bodhi said.

"What do you mean she was..." I said before the full import of it hit me. "She told you... you know... You know the idea? You know what Kriya is?"

"Yes."

"Well, can you tell me?"

"I can't," Bodhi said.

"Is that an agency rule or something? I know my paperwork and all is not sorted yet but..."

"It's not that Moin," Bodhi said. "I mean I CAN'T tell you what Kriya is."

"But you said you know..."

"I mean there are no words in any language that can express the idea that Kriya is. I literally CAN'T tell you. I just don't know how."

I sat back and let it sink in before I spoke again, "Why was Kriya running from Mithilesh then? He wouldn't have been able to express her anyway, right?"

"Don't know. Didn't ask. Perhaps she feared he would figure out how. Or perhaps she feared that he was going to botch things up - that his expression of her will be..."

"...less than perfect," I finished Bodhi's sentence. Then, after a pause, I asked, "What do you think?"

"I think he would have ruined himself trying to do her justice. Ideas such as this are not meant for mortal minds. Kriya would have driven him insane before killing him. As I said, he is better off without her."

"And she's not going to do that to you?"

"I should be fine as long as I don't try to express her," Bodhi said.

While handing Bodhi my empty cup, I noticed his hand shivered just a little. Is it even possible to know the greatest idea in the universe and not try to express it? I don't think I had imagined the look of dread in Bodhi's eyes earlier.

I suppose, if this job lasts, I will find out.