God's Rot

I killed God, a little over a century ago, as I reckon time. I don’t even remember why I did it. Was I angry? Whatever happened, I could never bring myself to bury the corpse. Being a sentimentalist, I wanted to believe that God would rise, be reborn as a God beyond God to inspire stories and imaginings once again, yet it was not to be. Now God is decomposing in the town square, and the whole situation has become a public health hazard. God rots, you know. It takes a while, but eventually everything disintegrates. For the longest time I just watched, as maggots bit at God’s putrid flesh, grey and translucent, hanging from a ruined skeleton. The maggots had names – one of them was ‘Nationalism’, another was called ‘Spectacle’, and then there was 'Bottom Line'. A particularly grotesque two-headed maggot gnawed at God with tiny angry teeth. One head went by the name ‘Atheism’, the other head ‘Fundamentalism’. Before I knew it, there were too many maggots to count. Some had names I recognized, some I did not, and soon they became flies, buzzing around me in a most unpleasant fashion. Did I mention the smell? You see my dilemma. So I’m considering my options. Is burning best, or burial? Where to inter God – the family plot? Maybe I should just dump the body in the river. Whatever I’m going to do, I'd better do it quickly. Otherwise everybody will get sick from God’s rot.

(2012)