Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
The Bagels of Wisdom
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Old Lady Think can flip dark to light and light to dark like a pancake. She lives out beyond the Milky Way, which the Dineh think is made up of the footprints of the dead. (They’re right on this one, but they’re not in this story.)
She’s got a bunch of names, more names than Allah, and—no offense, new gods—she’s far older. Used to sit around in the caves with us, looking pretty overweight and extremely pleased with herself. Now she appears in many forms, sometimes as a mysterious 2 a.m. call on your cell phone, or a bagel you did not order.
Such a bagel appeared on Nora McPherson’s plate during her lunch hour in the East Village. She’d stopped in to ignore some dancers she used to know before she moved uptown and went to work for Wall Street. (Mind you, think about all the dancers Wall Street funds.)
Ms. McPherson took a bite anyway, after the cranky waitress wouldn’t take it back, neither of them suspecting that the waitress held the pose of the ancient High Priestess of Tiamat as she did this. By the end of lunch Ms. McPherson was drafting her two weeks notice; by the end of dinner she was drunkenly apologizing over the phone to a friend from Juilliard, and at 9 a.m. the next morning she had an audition.
Back behind the Milky Way, Old Lady Think just smiled. Making mountains is fun, but sometimes, it’s the little things, like sending visionary bagels to the monkey children.
Original Sin
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
“What is God?”
The old man bent his head. When he raised it, he looked rueful. “God, my dear,” he said, hesitantly. “God is love.”
#
Emeril stood upon the platform as it rose higher, her parents behind her. They were level with God’s knees now. Massive metal sheets flexed in His skin as servos adjusted to tiny changes in air pressure. Oxygen tanks, resting on a table, would be required once they were at shoulder height. Beside them lay the knife.
#
The old man was waiting for something. She thought hard.
“What is love?” she asked tentatively.
“Ah.” The old man smiled. “Love is sacrifice.”
#
Project Deus had begun almost immediately after the Fall. While the theories differed in specifics, all agreed: the Fall had occurred in the absence of God. For redemption, His return was required.
So thirty-seven years passed in hard labor. And even as hurricanes raged, radiation seals failed, birth defects multiplied, hopes rose with the growing juggernaut. And now… Now the machine was built.
But a machine was not God. To become God, more was required.
#
“What is sacrifice?” she asked.
But the old man shook his head. He reached for the dog collar lying on his desk and led her out to the platform where her parents were waiting.
#
Her parents led her from the platform onto a metal grill set into God’s head. Through it she could see the funnels that fed into the AI engines that sat behind God’s lake-sized eyes.
#
“They could have used synthetic blood, couldn’t they?” she had asked her father, as they rose past God’s navel.
“It’s not the same,” he said.
“It’s identical,” she objected.
“No,” said her mother. “Not for the worshipers.”
#
Her father fetched the table with the knife. He placed it between them, closed his eyes, whispered a prayer.
Emeril seized the moment and the knife. She lunged, thrusting it into her mother’s neck. Blood sprayed. Thick. Arterial. She whirled. Her father put up his hands. She slashed his wrists.
“Why?” he asked as he bled out.
“God is love,” she said. “Love is sacrifice. And apparently no one cares who is sacrificed.” She wiped a smear of blood from her cheek. “Except me.”
#
Emeril stood upon the platform as it descended. And she prayed as God began to stir.