“You’re not real.”
But I am. I came to you as this, through a small connection we share from the conception. I have chosen to see you, to be with you, for a moment.
“Why?”
The serpent made its way across the floor, to her.
She crawled back until her shoulder blades were pressed against the wall behind her.
Because you were the one I wanted, Maggie. You were the one I chose. You must think that an odd choice for the creator to come for someone like you to destroy something like the world… but know this, I chose you because you were one of the most pathetic creatures I beheld. You were so vile, so lonely, so disgusting… and you drew me to you with that, because you reminded me of all the things I so hated about your planet… all the poisons of myself that somehow littered this place.
But honestly, Maggie, how many could I have chosen of your planet that would have been equally pathetic? Surely there were so many more, but in my haste, I found you. And so, here we are. I must be quick. I have but a fleeting moment through this connection to speak with you… mother of my child.
“When?” she asked. She was too bewildered to articulate her thought, which was, “When did this happen?”
You would not remember. I spoke with your Kirk one night and while you were amidst your silence, your sleep, you were given a sedative that gave me the perfect opportunity to take you, and give you not only my child, but the most important piece to ending all this that has caused so much pain to me… to my most beloved creations. You cannot know… cannot understand… what it is like to be a great artist… to create something so majestic and beautiful and see it corrupted into something petty. In the past, I have had difficulty releasing those parts of myself, even when they have failed to reach my vision. But with this abominable creation, I have determined that things must be set into order. An order to bring back those qualities of the Heaven of old.
It was easy in the early days, when I kept those creations that were so heinous separate from my beloveds. It was easy when separation was a part of their everyday experience. But when I created this world, and saw the seeds of darkness in it, I desperately wanted to put it away, keep it from my love, but he wanted to tend to it, and so he asked that I leave it be. And slowly, I watched it rot away, and as he found sympathy for your disgusting people, as he saw the darkness, so he brought that into the realm of the higherlings. Through you, he saw what he believed were injustices in our world, and he compelled the higherlings to demand a different one—a world that was not simply as I chose it to be.
But what your world doesn’t understand is that governments are not the way to peace. They do not create order, but confusion. I am the only deity capable of creating the sort of order that can generate peace, for I did it for so long, and I will do it again.
Maggie found it difficult to believe His perspective was accurate, considering her discussions with Kinzer about the old days and the oppression he’d faced as a laboring higherling. However, she was in no position to dispute this specter before her.
The snake coiled around her, enveloping her in its body.
She pulled her arms close, wishing she could retreat within herself to get away from it.
You fear what I say, because you do not understand what it is like to be the artist who has lost control of his art. You do not know how desperately you will work to bring your vision back to that first image you crafted. And you do not understand how easily it can wiggle from that place in your thoughts. Mortals have such a distant understanding of what it means to be the Creator. They have such a silly idea of what it means to be a god. But then again, so do my higherlings. Never will they grasp to the full extent how painful it is to watch the things you create degenerate and transgress against you. There is nothing more painful. I would liken it to having a child that grows up to murder its own father, and yet, even that seems like such a petty comparison to what I speak of.
Speaking of children, how have you found our son? Beautiful? Mystical? Ah, so things that are so dark come in such lovely packages? Don’t they? Those things that are most beautiful are usually the most poisonous. This is not something I chose with intent, but it seems to be something so ingrained within my being that it spews forth regardless of how I create. It lets itself manifest in everything I touch.
“You don’t have to destroy us,” Maggie said, finally speaking up. “Can’t you just leave us alone?”
It’s too late for that. You are too ingrained in our politics. Too much a part of our ideology, thanks to the Leader’s meddling. You all must be destroyed, and he is the one to do the deed. I hear your thoughts. You think of stopping our son, and yet, look at what he does to you when you’re near. You can’t… even if that is your desire. I was concerned about that at first—that you might harm him, but your efforts have been futile. Indeed, he even gives you something that you so crave…
“If only he knew…” she said, thinking how he would not poison her if he knew what it really did to her.
Knew? Do you think that he doesn’t know?
Of course he didn’t know. Why would he give her that rush and fall if he knew it was depleting her of life?
Oh, Maggie. You believe him to be a human baby… with human thoughts that are so primitive and naive. But you must remember that this is a new form of life… a creation that I have devised specifically for that purpose. Oh, no, Maggie. I see his thoughts. I see how he feels, and I assure you he does not feed you so you can reel in pleasure. Though I can see why Veylo believes so, this is not the case.
“Then why?”
Because he knows all your sins and all the times you struggled with him. He knows when you wanted to rid yourself of the burden, and he hates you for that. He poisons you in the most twisted way that he can conceive of… a torture devised just for his mother.
Maggie shivered as she took in the horror of what the Almighty (or at least this illusion) was saying. Was it true? Was her own baby really doing this all just to punish her for when she had tried to rid herself of it?
And so you will feel this pain… intense as it is, growing, radiating, spreading, until your very end.
Despite Maggie’s freedom from the pain in that moment, she feared even the suggestion that the pain she had felt would continue to torment her. How could she go on like that?
And, Maggie, do not be fooled by the stories. Do not believe in transcendence. Or salvation. There is no storage for your soul. There is no paradise… or even an eternal torture chamber. There is only annihilation. That is the only peace that exists for my children.
She recalled her childhood. So many years in church. So many years watching her mother perform in tongues. She had watched as friends and family pleaded for answers. Now, she had access to those answers, yet she knew they were not the sort anyone wanted to hear. Even as she sat there, being assaulted with the revelation, she immediately wished she could have stripped the experience from her memories. However, she had learned long ago that no amount of wishing or hoping could save her from the painful truths of reality. She was, as she had always been, a leaf in the wind, knocking recklessly about toward a fate that she had no control over.
***
