In Sickness and in Hell: A Collection of Unusual Stories Read online

  As he prayed at the feet of the statue, he became aware of his exhaustion. He was hungry, his hands and feet ached from the journey, and his knees hurt from resting on cold flagstone. But he had been summoned and would wait until he knew why before indulging in rest or relief.

  Far below in Valley, life for the hundreds of families went on as usual. They worked and ate and learned and played. They gathered fish from the lake and wheat from the field. Even as the kneeling man forced thoughts of the physical from his mind and focused on loving his god with all his spirit, the people in Valley continued to laugh and cry and live and die, oblivious to the revelations that would soon change their world forever.

  Shadows stretched longer as the sun began to fall behind the mountains. A field hand looked up just in time to see the great temple silhouetted in the glory of the dying light. Without knowing why, the laborer covered his eyes, as if ashamed to witness the spectacle of the setting sun.

  Meanwhile, within the dim confines of the temple atop Mountain Sacred, the kneeling man was still praying, waiting for his purpose here to be shown to him. As it grew darker, he built fires in the smaller bowls that lay at the base of the statue. Wood was kept in supply by the priests, along with the tools necessary to make fire. It was forbidden to disturb the fires outside. He struck flint to get a spark, and soon had light and warmth. As he tended to a fire beneath the god’s form, a shadow of movement caught his eye.

  “You have come at last,” said a voice from outside the reaches of the fire. Unlike the Call, this voice was actually a sound, deep and resonating. The man thought that he heard a note of excitement in the voice, though he could not be certain.

  “You’ve served me best of all my creations,” the god said, “and because I know that it has not been easy for you and yours, I want you to know that I am thankful.”

  The man had knelt beside the fire when he heard the voice, afraid to respond, afraid to look.

  “Do you know your purpose here, man?”

  “No, my Lord,” the farmer said, struggling to find his voice, “I simply heard and obeyed.”

  “As I knew you would. But do not fear, human, you will know your purpose sooner than you will want. For now, rise and face me. I must talk with you, my son.”

  “Yes, Lord.” He stood and hesitantly turned towards the darkness. A robed figure materialized out of the gloom, pushing the hood back to reveal joyous, bright eyes and aging pale skin. The hands that laid back the hood looked strong. In fact, the avatar appeared exactly as the artist had depicted him in stone.

  The god and the man walked outside. It was dark now and clouds had obscured the sky. Next to him, the man heard a soft sigh and watched in wonder as the clouds parted to let the moon and stars spill their light into Valley.

  They walked on into the cold air of the evening. The man was still coming to terms with standing beside his creator, but did not want to rush his god into explaining himself. They followed the road around the temple, completing a full circle in the tomb-like quiet. As if resigning himself to action at last, the god spoke.

  “Have you ever wondered about the world? Why I would make this universe, this planet, and all these beasts and people?”

  A look from the corner of his eye saw a troubled expression on the man’s face. “Speak freely, child,” the god said. “You are my Chosen.”

  Bewildered by the title, the man repeated the lessons of the holy books. “We are taught that we exist for you, lord. To worship and love you and obey your laws.”

  At this the god chuckled. “Yes…my laws…” He did not speak for a long time, lost in thought. They continued to walk. They were along the south wall when the god regained his focus. “And of course, love. Your daughter has a doll your wife made for her. Would you say that she loves that doll?”

  “Like a sister, Lord. She takes it with her everywhere, in the fields when I tell her not to, in bed, everywhere.” The man smiled as he talked about the young girl, and the god smiled with him, but his smile bore with it the taint of sadness. The man did not notice in the dim light.

  “And does the doll love your daughter back?”

  “Of course not, how could it? It’s just a doll.”

  “Just a doll indeed, but you have outlined the misery I have lived with for a very long time.” He saw the smile drop from the man’s face.

  “No…do you mean that our love is meaningless, that we are incapable of love worthy of a god?”

  “Quite contrary, it is I who am the doll and you who are the daughter.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It is I who am not capable of love worthy of humankind. My greatest success, and still I fail you all.”

  The god, seeing the look on the face of his confused and distraught companion, began to explain.

  “Let me tell you the story of your world. You must understand that to be a god is misery. I am not perfection or infinite wisdom, as you have been taught. No, I am just smart enough to know that I am incomplete, and just powerful enough to think I’m capable of fixing it.

  “In the beginning, with the knowledge that I was lacking something, some concept or ability, I tried to find what it was that I lacked. To know what I was not, I had to define what I was. This was to be my tragedy, for in defining myself I bound myself by the laws of my own nature. I’m getting ahead of the story though; I did not realize what was happening until later. At the time I thought that although I could not conceive the abilities I did not have, perhaps the things I created could. Thus did I begin creating, so that my creations could find my answer for me. Light and dark, sky and sea, sun and stars, bird and beast, math and physics. Each new creation bound me further, yet from none of my creations could I learn the things I knew I was missing. I began to fear that a creation can never exceed its creator; that every being I made bore with it the very flaws I wished to rise above. I despaired.”

  They circled the temple again, following the well-worn road. In the back of his mind, the man sensed that it was getting darker out. He was too caught up in what he was hearing to consciously notice the change though. The deity, who knew full well the significance of the gathering gloom, continued to talk.

  “But my efforts had unforeseen consequences: evolution. I did not make humankind the way I made everything else. You evolved from my other creations on your own, struggling to the surface by your very desire to exist. Born of my efforts but not of my mind, humanity's spirit was thus born outside of my laws. It was not long before I realized that this being was my last hope of ever reaching my goal. Humanity, the apple of my eye, was the answer to my question, a being capable all the things I was not: both love and destruction.”

  “You consider the ability to destroy a virtue?”

  “Not in itself, but it is an ability I do not possess. Keep in mind that my goal was completeness, and the fruits of humanity are the abilities I do not have. It took me a very long time to learn what I am telling you now, but each stolen bite lent me knowledge into the potential of humankind. Potentials that are beyond me, for I am only a creator. What I’m saying is that the virtue of your species is not in the times that they destroy, but in the times they can and do not. That is why each of my previous creations had failed to answer my dilemma: not only could I not conceive of destruction, I did not realize that the ability to destroy is the natural prerequisite to forgiveness. Humankind’s greatest virtue is forgiveness, and forgiveness is the decision not to destroy when one has the right and the ability to do so.”

  They turned a corner of the temple wall. As all that he had ever known of the world collapsed around him, the man interrupted, pleading desperately in the face of the truth, “But lord, you cannot really mean that humankind is above you!”

  “You don’t believe me? Then look at your own family, who were cursed by me. Look at what you yourself have had to do, how hard you’ve worked to rebuild your family’s name. And why? Because of me. You have not heard the prayers of your parents as I have. You have not li
stened to their honest pleas for forgiveness every night until they died. But I cannot forgive, because I can only create. My laws defined my nature, and it is my unchangeable nature to avenge the breaking of my laws. I ruined your family mercilessly for it. Did you know that even at her death your mother still did not hate me? No, both your parents never stopped loving me. I still can’t understand, and sadly I know now that I never will. How could I? I am only a god; they were human.” The god smiled at the shocked expression on the man’s face. They came around the temple again, finishing their fifth lap.

  “When I realized what these differences were between humans and god, I saw how great humanity’s potential was, and I was hopeful again.” He paused. “Until I saw that I could never learn what I wanted from your kind.”

  They walked on in silence. Physically they walked abreast but mentally the man was far behind. The god stopped his lecturing to allow the man a chance to catch up. It was hard to tell time there on the mountain in the dark, but sooner than the god expected, the man spoke again.

  “I think I am beginning to understand, Lord, although I am beginning to think that I do not want to understand.”

  “If that is so, then you must be on the right path. Let me tell you more of what I learned about humanity’s unique status in the universe so that your choice will be easier to make when I offer it. To know right and wrong, you must first hear the knowledge that I have gained.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Very well then. Human spirit, having been grown outside of my mind, could conceive the things that I could not. Yet the human body could not understand. The body was bound to my laws like everything else around it in the world. Humans acted at times in ways that even to them did not make sense, because my laws forcibly superimposed themselves on humanity’s dual nature; the only beings capable of destruction, trying to reconcile their existence within a universe in which destruction was unknown. Constantly these forces moved against each other and, sensing this, I knew that humanity would not be able to achieve its full potential until my laws were gone. Only then would you be free at last to unite conception with understanding.

  “But it was a long time before I figured all of this out. At first I thought only that humanity was my answer. I watched and shepherded my adopted creation. I began testing and experimenting, trying to understand your actions, your spirit. Trying to find what was so beyond my nature yet so central to yours.”

  “What sort of experiments?”

  “Plagues, famines, things of that nature.”

  “Then—” The man hesitated, afraid to hear the answer. “Then what of the man we were taught was your son, whom you sent among us to teach us how to live a godly life?”

  “He was my ultimate experiment. Though not my son, he was a man bred and sheltered and learned and experienced in such a way so that he would become the exemplum of all humanity’s best and purest essence.” The holy being chuckled in bitter humor at the memory.

  “Your books have it backwards, human. I did not send him to you to learn godliness; you sent him to me to teach me humanity.

  “That experiment failed, though not entirely. From him I learned that I cannot understand that which is beyond my very nature. But it was also from him that I first learned of humanity’s ability to conceive beyond their understanding. When I realized what it was that stopped you from uniting the two, I knew that there was only one thing left to do. This was a hard lesson for me, for it meant that I could not be the one to do it.

  “As I have told you, it is against my nature to destroy. I know it is my time to leave, and to take with me the laws of the world that prevent humankind from doing what I could not, from uniting his divided nature.” He stopped walking, but did not look at the man. Instead, he gazed at his beautiful heavens, hanging above him.

  “I am, and yet I should not be. I must die, but my very laws forbid me from passing.”

  The man understood. It was the conclusion he had begun to realize was inevitable.

  “So you need one who is not bound by those laws, one born outside of them, one who can destroy. That is my purpose. You need me to kill you.”

  The god closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath.

  “Yes.”

  They passed the south wall and stopped near the same place the man had climbed up almost a full day ago.

  “I won’t do it.”

  “You will. You must. It is the only way your race will be able to grow.”

  “But my whole life I have worshiped you!” It was a weak, meritless plea and he knew it even as he gave it voice. The god looked him square in the face.

  “And I live in misery of knowing I’ll never understand why you love me as you do, despite what I have done to you. But I have chosen you to do it. I can’t make you, of course. It is your choice alone to make. I have given you all the knowledge that I have learned and you must act of your own free will, as humankind always has, whether or not you knew it. It is what allows your kind alone hope of escaping from my boundaries.”

  “But why me? Why not any other human in Valley?”

  “Humanity must break its own chains. No other creation is capable. Why you specifically? Because despite my punishments and trials, you have succeeded in personifying the greatest ability of humanity. You have never held your family’s woes against me. You have always loved me. I chose you because you are a good man, the living epitome of man’s unholy value: all that is not me. And I chose you for my own selfish reason as well. I chose you because someone will have to explain to all the daughters of men why their dolls can’t love them back.”

  The man took a few steps away.

  The god let him go, knowing that this was not an easy choice to commit to. He watched the man, consumed by nervous energy, walk around the temple again.

  The farmer had listened as all the teachings were turned upside down. He did not doubt his god. He did not want to do this thing, yet what he was told made too much sense and he could think of no other option. He tried to comprehend eternal agony of watching dreams without being able to be part of them. He tried to imagine what he would do if it was his existence that was suffocating his children. By the end of his seventh circle, the man had made up his mind.

  “What must I do, Lord?”

  With the man’s words, the god’s shoulders visibly relaxed. He had been worried that the man would refuse.

  “It is almost done already, human. The fires that surround this temple have burnt with my spirit ever since the temple was first built. These fires were created by me so that when I found the right man he would be able to destroy them. Look around; most of them are dark now. Each question rings as horns in my ears, and with each question you ask of your god, you extinguish another fire. With each answer, I return that part of my spirit to this body. Look behind you at the walls of the temple: they are crumbling away, their very foundations shaken beyond repair, like all the lessons of your childhood. Soon the walls will collapse and the temple will cease to exist. There is only one more question to ask, one more decision to make, and one more action to take. Even as we speak, all that remains of me is what you think you see in the darkness: the shadow of a god.”

  The shadow walked towards the edge of the cliff the man had climbed. He spread his arms and held high his head. “Do you wonder how the artist who carved my image came so close to the truth? It was not divine inspiration, there is no such thing as that. Far greater, it was his own human inspiration that conceived such a heroic vision of a god. I made myself in the image man made for me.

  “Even now I want nothing more than to emulate that artist of so long ago. My creation is all that I am not, and I will never create anything greater. I should leave—” His shoulders dropped. He turned to look at the man. “But I cannot do it. Only a human can banish me completely.”

  “What will happen when you are gone?”

  “I do not know exactly what effects my death will have, but you will adapt and survive, as you always hav
e. It will take time, but my laws will fade. Then, it will be humanity’s time to grow.” There was a fatherly smile on the god’s face: pride mixed with sadness.

  Hesitantly, the man approached. He wanted to grieve, but he knew that he must respect the sanctity of the existence he was about to end. He could not stop his tears, but he did not look away from the kind face atop the cliff. Feeling that it was right, he hugged the robed figure out of sudden fear of the new world that would come with the sunrise.

  “This sacrifice…it’s a very human thing to do, Lord.” He whispered, unable to speak any louder through the tightness in his throat. He kissed the god on the cheek.

  Then the man put his hand on the chest of his god and, very lightly, pushed.

  With the slightest of exertions he destroyed his creator. All that had been needed was an act, a decision by the only being able to destroy. The god fell slowly, seeming almost to float down the cliff face. His body began deteriorating as the air rushed by. First, the robe unraveled into dust, followed soon after by the being inside who seemed to loosen and grey, the dust and ashes spreading out as what once was a holy deity became nothing more than an expanding dark cloud. The crying man turned and began the long walk home. Behind him, the cloud continued to grow.

  * * *

  The farmer’s wife saw a man sitting in front of the shrine praying. It was her husband, who had been missing for three days. He was wearing his best robe, but she could see that it was creased and muddy. With tears of relief in her eyes she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck, covering him with kisses.

  “I’ve been so worried!” The words tumbled from her mouth. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”

  “I…”