Tales of the Other

A God's Life

In the beginning, He was Nothing, just like everybody else: a nonexistent being before the advent of anything. His presence was not felt for eons, until the Beginning.

No one knew exactly how the universe began, but there was a common knowledge of a massive explosion. There were rumors of light springing from the dark, or an island ascending from the sea of chaos. They said the world was the fallen body of a giant, but as this tale had reminded: Nothing had prevailed before. Not even knowledge.

Millions of years had passed before the first forms of life came into existence, another millions before the First Man developed a superior degree of intelligence. Yet humanity existed, once the ancient lizards were wiped off this world.

The First Man stared at the rain, heard and felt the power of thunderstorms, cowered at the shaking of the earth where he stood, and cried when the volcanoes started erupting.

Who could have made these things, such unstoppable forces? It was the first question which the First Man desired to answer. But answers evade his grasps like wind, thus he blindly walked on the road of innocent ignorance.

He cannot understand the forces surrounding him, until he decided that everything that he can neither understand nor control, something that cannot be explained or rationalized with, he gave a name...a God.

And that was how God was born, when the first memory of mankind learned to worship the forces of nature, and such praise of power gave life to the God’s cosmic veins. At first, God was like anyone, a gleeful child, wielding the forces that intimidated the species which gave birth to Him. And so he ruled, punished, and gave His blessing to the worshippers.

God’s name was inscribed on stone and metal. His likeness- or how the mortal sculptor imagined His face was like- was carved on monoliths and trees. Under the stars, God was worshipped. Carcasses of animals were given for His approval. Human sacrifices earned His pleasure.

In a Man’s mind, God was a He or She, sometimes both; His was a Face of Many Faces, One but Many, Many But One.

The God was the deity of the sun, of the moon, of the stars, and other celestial bodies. He was the God of lightning and thunder, of storms and the sea. She controlled the crops and famine, peace and war. In his supervision, life and death was balanced. She was the god of sex and abstinence, of purity and tainted womanhood.

To the mortal worshippers, He and She was a pantheon; to others He was the sole God. Buildings and statues were made to please God, and artworks, songs, poetry, and prose carried His might as a deity.

But God was not unchallenged, for Man’s wisdom grew. With the rise of the mortals came the dwindling of God’s power, and he seeks to make them all kneel before His power once more. Notwithstanding the wrath of God, Man learned to tame nature, curb the metal as his weapons, forge new chemicals from what has been existing, and creating what was not there before.

Science became the new force, something God cannot simply defeat. Humanity found a way to rationalize a number of things, and the Deity depended on their ignorance to gain more power.

Contemplating the stalemate, God compromised with Science, and the two had forged an uneasy truce, standing side by side with each other, albeit reluctantly. As time went  by, however, Science became stronger and God weaker, and the memory of the First Man began to fail, taken over by the fresher blood of his descendants.

Billions still worshipped Him, but His might was not as powerful as before. God began to cough, succumb to fever, suffer the aching of the joints. Senility threatened His wits, and He retreated to the places of worship, His essence scattered like dust.

God sat on His ancient chair, looking beneath the world that created Him. He is writing on His book, and on it came His last words.

“God died just like everybody else; back to Nothingness.”