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He
Of God and the End of the World He calls me the most beautiful creature in all of existence and I am His. He told me once, "You may call me what you will — call me the Supreme Being, call me the Creator, call me God and I am all of these things," and it is true. He is the creator of all that exists. He is the origin of us all. In simple terms, He was the singularity and so from Him came the quarks, photons, neutrinos, electrons, then the protons and neutrons, then the elements, and the buildup after buildup that led to everything that exists. From Hm originated the universe. He left His creations after giving birth to them. He is not omnipotent and the universe is very large, so those lives He had created were left to play themselves out. "I once created beauty," He told me, "and now I observe it." Because He is neither omniscient nor omnipresent He travels the universe and watches them. This is how He found me. He says that of all the species He has ever seen humans were the ones that look most like Him and because of this we fascinated Him. We are truly created in the image of God. Shape, features, even hair, all so similar that we are nearly identical to Him. Our similarities, I think, is also what makes me so beautiful in His eyes. He says my skin is perfect, and to Him it is because my skin is pale and smooth like His. He says my form is graceful, and like His it is delicate. He says my eyes are gossamer ashes, and they are as gray and silver as His. He calls me a creature of the air that lacks the wings to fly. He found me years ago, decades ago, centuries ago, in times so far gone that they are no longer comprehensible. He found me and He made me His. He loves me — this I know. I do not love Him — this He knows. He is my obsession and no more. What once controlled my thoughts, it appears, has come to control my life as well: He controlled me and He took me as His. He made Himself know to me for the first time as I walked down the busy stairs that lead to the St. James tube station in the center of London. I was with a friend — Sophia was her name — and holding her hand so that the crowd would not separate us. We reached the bottom of the stairs and I felt a touch on my shoulder. Turning, I saw Him for the first time. I dropped Sophia's hand and followed Him away to stand against the wall. At the time I did not know why I followed Him, but of course I did it because He is God. He pressed a scrap of paper into my hand, turned, and left. On the paper was the address of a flat a block away from the St. James station and the next day I went there. Once again I did not know why I acted. Remember: He is not omnipotent but this does not mean He is powerless. He let me into His flat and I stood there, looking at a man that is not a man. His long hair is jet black and shines. His eyes reflect light like beacons. His limbs are long and thin. His skin is cream white and nearly hairless. I knew then, watching Him as I stood before His doorway, that He was no ordinary man. Why this was so I could not have said. It is beyond my power to ever describe God. He is too grand, too all-consuming, too immense for me to describe in any way. He let me watch Him as I stood in His doorway and it was then that the obsession began. He wore gloves that felt of silk as He touched my hand. His voice was a bell as He said my name. He led me to a chair and there I sat, entranced. We spoke of many things that day. We spoke of death and life and He told me the truth: Neither heaven nor hell exist. We spoke of religion and He told me of creation. We spoke of truth and lies and He told me it was all relative — it is. We spoke of many things too complex to understand and many more that I can no longer remember. He captivated my mind and my soul, but my heart sat heavy in my chest, untouched by His presence or His words. He and I spoke often after that day. I would come to His flat whenever I was able and we would sit in His living room speaking of the secrets of existence and reading His many books out loud. He became the center of my world. I saw Him as often as I was able, I dreamt of Him and His secrets, I thought of Him during my studies. He was my obsession and yet I knew nothing about Him. I did not even know His name. I longed for His touch so that I could verify His existence, but although He touched me often He never once removed His silk gloves. We remained intimate strangers for two years. I grew older, grew wiser, and He said that I also grew more beautiful with every passing day. It was a time of waiting, waiting for the time when we would be strangers no longer. He brought that time upon us while I was still very young. Because He loved me He made an attempt to warn me and tried to ready me, but nothing that He told me was enough to prepare me for the destruction that was to come. I was seventeen years old and I came to His flat as I did nearly every day then and He sat me in my chair and asked, "Do you remember any single time that I have touched you with my bare hands?" I told Him I did not and then He asked, "Do you know why?" I shook my head and so He showed me. He removed one white silk glove — His skin below it was perfect, as I had known it would be — and reached out to me. I held my breath. He reached out to my cheek with His beautiful hand. I felt nothing, nothing even as He touched where I knew my skin was. Then He reached for my hand and I watched our fingertips pass each other. He said to me, "This is why." He then told me His deepest secrets. He told me He was God. He told me that He was creation. Before my eyes He proved His power by making the old dusty novels and dried flowers from His living room floor dance in the air. One other secret He revealed — He could not touch those few creations of His that had developed souls and He did not know why this was so. Because I had a soul, He could never touch me. He held me with cloth-covered arms as I wept for what I had lost without ever having. He then said something that made my heart stop. He said, "I know a way to change it." This is the explanation that He gave me: He and I, we lived in different worlds. This was true for all sentient creatures — His world was always different from theirs. It was for this reason that He could not touch them and for this reason that He could not touch me. If the worlds were to be the same, then He would be able to touch His creations. If I was to join His world He would be able to touch me, to be with me, to truly have me as His. To join His world, however, would be the destruction of mine. "Not the entire universe," He told me, "but the entirety of Earth, yes." He was my obsession, He was God, these facts must be remembered. I lived my life each day so that I could reach the afternoon and see Him again. It must be remembered that there is nothing more unsatisfying in all of creation than an unfulfilled obsession. I thirsted for His secrets, yes, I longed for His words as well, but I lived for verification, for proof, above all I lived for His touch. And so when I agreed with Him it was not in spite of humankind or my planet but purely for the final fulfillment of what I craved. It was the will of God and I was but a human child. His power is something so great that my will never could have resisted it. Having set out to do so He would have done anything to take me as His — for His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. He told me then, "They will all die," and I nodded. "All the people you have ever known and the billions you will never meet," and again I nodded. "This planet will exist no longer," I nodded again. "The life here, the plants and the animals, all will die," and once again I nodded. I said to Him that I did not care and that He was all I needed. I said that He was all that was important. I said to Him that of course the only thing worth living for was beauty and that He was all the beauty that had ever been and ever would be. He knew I was young and foolish and yet I gave Him the answer that He wished to hear and so He complied without any further doubt of my choice. There was no time for goodbyes. There was no farewell. He took me into His arms, His silk clothes so very soft, He held me close against Him and was silent. He stood there, looking out before Himself, for a very long time. Then He began to glow, began to glow so brightly it blinded me, and I was enveloped by His light. We stood together, His arms around me, and then I watched the destruction of all of life. He is not omnipotent but He is not powerless and I saw then just how great His power is. The room around us fractured, shattered, turned to dust and crumbled. His beautiful flowers burst into flame and died in a small holocaust all their own. Outward the destruction spread, consuming the floors below us and those above. Out on the street men stopped and sank to the floor clutching their heads between their hands. Women cried out and stretched their bodies to the sky. From within they burned, glowing a bright red before the hair caught fire. The buildings fell one upon the other and became ashes. The trees became torches and burned away. Wildfire caught to the grass and it smoldered to nonexistence. And so the world ended in fire and brimstone as all that humans had ever created and all that had ever lived and all that had ever grown on the planet earth burned to ashes. A wind then came and blew the ashes into the depths of space. He held me and I held on to Him as we floated over a gray stone Earth. He leaned down and kissed me and I kissed Him back and for the beauty of the moment I cried, for the fulfillment of my obsession I cried, for the knowledge of what I had done I cried. He made me His then and I have been His since. We live in His world together, only us two, alone. Like Him I cannot touch those beings with souls, but I can watch them and I can touch the plants and the animals and the million other things in this universe. I can also touch Him and I do, often, proving His existence again and again. Seeing is not believing — to touch, to feel, to experience, that is to believe. He has destroyed all of humankind but I do not miss those men. I pity the wasted lives of His creations, yes, and I regret that they died because of me, but that it all. It is not that my grief has faded with time, but rather that the grief never was there. You see, I do no more than survive on Him alone, although I do not love Him and I never will. He has never told me why He loves me I have never asked. Our existence together goes on unquestioned by both of us. Together over all of these eons we have stood side by side and watched the beauty of His creations. Never has He loved one of them the way that He loves me and so we remain forever alone, just us two. I have never left His side for one simple reason — I cannot. My world is different, now, different from all the worlds of all other sentient creatures. If I was to try and touch them my hand would pass through their skin. That is a loneliness that I cannot bare. There is no place for me but by His side and so I remain and will remain for all time. I may indeed be a creature of the air but He has ripped my wings away and now I will never fly. He has told me all of His secrets now. I know all that He is. I know His power. I know His joys. I know His sorrows. I know how He sees and how He feels and how He thinks. Of all creatures in the universe I am the one closest to God. He instilled in me but one message, and it is this: There are some things from which avoidance is not possible. There are some times when the soul is too weak to resist. From these events and times consequences will always emerge. And so, one must be aware. And so, one must be forewarned. And so, one must know that there is nothing the mortal body and mortal soul can do. He has made me a child of seventeen with a soul of ages and I am His. |