Thoughts of a madman

God awoke and rolled away from the sun that streamed through the window into his eyes.

His mouth was dry and he needed to piss.  Reluctantly, he gave up on the prospect of returning to the dream he’d woken from with its mysterious characters and settings so edgy but reminiscent of a life he may have lived.

He reached for his wristwatch.  He eyes wouldn’t focus, but he thought he made out the position of the hands – that would make it 09:30.

He threw back the duvet and swung his legs out to the floor, searching for his slippers.  No matter how bad the night before, he always made a point of leaving his slippers where he could find them.  It was part of his make-up.  Like “a place for everything and everything in its place”, or “always leave everything as you found it”.  It helped him get by.  It wasn’t easy being a deity.

He wandered into the bathroom and took a leak.  His head was full of the problems of Creation.  The initial idea had seemed fine, but nothing ever goes to plan and the whole Creation project served to prove the point.

He sat back down on the edge of the bed and reached for his cigarettes and lighter.  A low, rumbling roar sounded outside his window.  He recognised the sound.  Car bomb.  The whole thing crammed with American-made explosive.  He could smell it.  Almost straight after, the stench of smoke rose to him as fires took hold.  He was pained by the anguish of the souls caught in the blast; of the wounded and, later, of those whose kin had been killed or injured in the explosion.

He knew, also, the unease in the souls of those who had perpetrated the attack.  They were euphoric at the success of their plan.  They feigned righteousness, but he and they knew it was a sham.  He sensed their questioning.

The interesting thing was that God really didn’t give a shit.  He just felt frustrated and sad that, having created this existence in the middle of a field of nothingness which only he could survey, things hadn’t worked out as he’d hoped.  Every single one of those beings down there was unique – no two the same.  Yet they were all roughly based on his model – on him.  Because of this, there was no deterministic factor – they were as free as he.  They could only imprison themselves.

Life down there could have been good but, no, they had determined that it wouldn’t be.  They had invented Hell and Heaven and decided that they were going to bring about both themselves.  They’d kind of missed the point.

He drew on his cigarette and considered the potential that he’d given them.  They’d received, as a minimum, the gift of being born sentient and aware of their situation. They had the capacity to experience and enjoy it.  Above all, he’d given them the faculty to understand how it all works – they could know as much as he did. Instead, they invented religion, television, war.

Out of the window, he heard the pandemonium in the street.  It was Beirut – a beautiful city by the sea.  One of the countless paradises he’d provided.  His ears were filled with the wails and screams of its inhabitants.  The pain of every soul came up to him, for every soul born was a fragment of his own.

In Beirut, night was falling.  He flicked the end of his cigarette out the window.  Somewhere far below, a shooting-star skimmed through the sky.  Nobody saw.