The gale shakes the earth, obscuring everything at ground level. I cannot see the houses, the waiting crowd that I know is there, those eager, straining faces waiting to see what will happen here, sceptics and believers alike, the grinning face, eyes laughing with disdain and eyes filled with desperate, shining, brimming-wet belief.
There is a roaring as of a waterfall, as from my lips fly the last syllabels of the incantation.
My incantation.
My work, my creation, all I have worked for, so long, so hard. All those sacrifices made in preparation for this: An answer in demand to a terrible need.
The earth shakes, and a sound like thunder. And from the hazy, churning sky something comes racing down. The road is caved in and cracks split the asphalt with deafening sound, racing out. I stand unmoved, unmovable, as it buries itself into the ground at my feet. I am guarded from this violence. I made sure of it. Shingles, glass, brick, all fall from the houses around us with the force of its coming. His coming.
There is silence and then, after a few moments, a wailing.
It is a pathetic, wretched sound. As of a mute child, endeavoring to give voice to its stark despair. It is incomprehensible, but the anguish is unmistakable.
Dust drifts down from the sky, revealing slowly, by increments, the rest of the intersection.
Asphalt and traffic lights, turning green. Trees planted on the side of the road, in orderly intervals, stretching into the distance. This is where the two main streets intersect and even on a calm day the traffic makes speech impossible. I look at the crowd held back by so much blue.
I gaze at them impassively, though my heart, were they privy to its palpitations would tell them a different tale.
I look at them and then I look down.
To where it lies at my feet. It. Him.
A shriveled thing. Bald and emaciated, with long arms and spindly legs. A sunken rib-cage supporting a thin neck barely holding up a wobbly head.
I stare.
Human. Bizarre. Unhealthy. Sexless. In no shape fit for true existence. An impossible and impossibly weak body. But human, unmistakably so. His heaving breaths fill the soundless air. It cannot be.
"Why are you human? Why are you in this shape?" I ask of it. Him. My disbelief mounting. This can't be You. Was it my incantation that did this, did I make a mistake? I involuntarily shake my head. No. It is impossible.
God stares at me in His pathetic confusion, making mewling sounds in terrified, dawning realization.
A slobbering, nasal piping from a toothless mouth not shaped for articulation.
"Is this your shape? The shape of the all-powerful? Unending, limitless might..." I stare" ...and this is your shape?" It can not be.
I take a step back. A trick, it must be.
I feel my eyes narrowing as suspicion dawns. I find my rage coming back. The rage that has brought me here. That has brought Him here. Is this mockery?
"Do you taunt me... even now, when I have taken You from heaven? With everything I have done, all I have shown myself capable of, this is the shape You choose to show me?"
The mewling stops.
God stares and is silent. He is just looking.
His twisted mouth drawn to one side, for all the world smirking at my incomprehension. But no smile on that cretin's face. Too large eyes and a small forehead. A simpleton's stare above his tiny nose.
He is like a foetus. A thing unformed, defenseless and innocent.
I stare into His eyes and think I see a glimmer of something. Comprehension.
I feel something shift inside me in response.
Not innocent.
I feel my face twist as I look at Him. My fingers curve into claws as rage starts to flood my mind.
The street and the breathless crowd fall away.
It's just Him and me and nothing else. Finally. A perfect relationship between man and God. Sir? God will see you now. Oh, yes he will see me now. He can't even look away. The irony dances in my mind.
An old memory, distorted, echoes in my mind.
There will come a moment, when all men are almost dead. And then there will be the last man, and he will be alone with God. And then the moment will pass. The last man, alone with God. Am I that man?
A fleeting moment of melancholy and then purpose reasserts itself.
His eyes bulge as He sees it on my face. He knows why I have brought Him here.
The words, so long prepared, come back from where they've lain silenced and roar back forth into my mind.
For the worship is done, and now there is to be a reckoning.
He starts to scrabble desperately, atrophied muscles flailing as I advance on him, joining Him in His crater. Somehow he flops himself around, turning his back on me. And what else is new? He manages a few feet before he slides back down. He mewls again, a broken child. So pathetic. So helpless.
You'd think God would've made more of an entrance.
His hands reach out, besceeching, to outside of the pit He's made for himself this time as I grab hold of Him and scream in His face.
An inarticulate roar that makes Him flinch and squeeze his eyes shut. his limbs flinching together, like a spider in its final moments and oh, how apt this is. His hands grasp weakly, encircling my wrists, his drool sprays from his mouth as he heaves his desperate breaths.
One of his hands moves up and hits my face. I flinch, expecting... something.
But nothing comes.
he stares at me, my face inches from his own.
I scream again and there is only hate.
Hate for this nothing-god, this betrayer and deserter. this uncaring and unfeeling monstrosity. This manipulative god in his world built of lies. The faithless king in his broken kingdom.
I throw him down on the gravel, the cracked slabs of his coming.
I spit on him. No god of mine. Earn nothing but a grinding, clenching death. Hurt. Pain. Rage.
I lose myself as my fists start to pummel him.
A red rage is all there is. The futile weakling at my feet, in vain trying to block my blows.
his arms are stick-thin and they snap easily. Dry cracks in the dull twilight.
My screams mingle with his and they echo off of the houses. Perfect communion.
he screams as he finally feels what he, in his almighty wisdom has delivered us to.
But his physical pain is but a fraction of the agony I've been subjected to for so long.
his pain is as nothing to the torments of my mind. The self-induced fever. The self loathing and the all-reasoning, unflinching self-hatred. The endless years of fear and shame.
You dare scream at mere pain. My teeth grind down and clench and I can't speak for the fury in my head. I choke. My head pounds.
My fists break on a splinters of bone and my blood stains his pallid flesh. But the bones of his arms and legs and chest are healing as fast as I can break them. There won't be a lasting mark from this. We're still screaming, a roaring duet of question and answer, like lovers climaxing together, as another sound finally intrudes on my hearing.
The watching crowd, forgotten, comes roaring back with a mob mentality,
They tear at me as they drag me off him, their many-tongued chorus a mad banshee wail of hatred. Their fists rain down on me as they give voice to their hope and their outrage.
Grown men cry as they embrace the thing in the pit. They wipe my blood off of him. Even this I am denied. They carry him out and cradle him close. The mob strains forward to touch their God, their saviour, desperate for approbation.
Meanwhile my mob is breaking me and I rage in pain and fear as tears mingle with the blood flooding from my eyes. They drag me from the place of my greatest triumph, my greatest loss.
I shriek as they strip me from my clothes and their hatred fills my ears. In their hurry, in their hate strips of flesh come with the pieces of cloth.
They stab me. I don't even know with what. My mind is so far gone with fear and pain I have forgotten why I am here. The purpose for this summoning, the reason for this violence. This wasn't necessary. I could. I should. I'm sorry. Please.
Someone has a cable and they loop it over my head and throw it over the nearest traffic light, its lamp burning bright red. Together they haul me up, my feet kicking in the air.
A thousand screaming voices, and not a soul on my behalf.
As the cells in my brain start to burst, I watch, as they cloth him in vibrant colour and carry him on their shoulders.
A thousand screaming voices and all of them shouting for His love and attention.
And he, only with eyes for me.
I'm sorry.
He, only with eyes for me.
His bulging eyes, locked with mine.
There is meaning here, there is purpose here, but my starving brain is deaf and blind to it.
He holds my gaze as I die. His mewling, sobbing mouth voicing imprecations or earnest and comforting truths. It doesn't matter. He's drowned out completely by the crowd. Heh, again, and what else is new? Slowly, I cease to care and let go.
The evening wind blows gently through my open mouth. It caresses my swollen tongue.
From beyond the boundaries of life I look on.
I look on as they venerate this Hah Fallen God.
In worship, in a warring world, they put their hope on Him.
I sigh and pass on.
But thank God.
There is no judgment now.
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