problem?” She asked, looking miffed. She gave me a hand.
I got to my feet. Although Heidi was a girl of twenty-five, she only reached five feet, and when she saw that I was ten feet tall, her eyes lit up, wishing she were that tall. Like all humans, she had a jewel embedded in her forehead to protect her from the poisonous vapors that covered the world. The jewel emitted a shield of light about her body in a circular fashion.
“I don’t hail from a foreign kingdom. I hail from The Above,” I explained, looking at the girl I had sacrificed my comfort for. She would never be beautiful by human standards, but she had a spark of life to her that was infectious, and she certainly was cute as a button, as the mortals said. She was plump with raven-black hair, and she liked wearing dresses over the overalls that her father tried to make her wear. She was filthy; her father never let her take too many baths. She had suffered much, I knew, and despite all that, she still couldn’t stop smiling. The last thing I expected was to smile back.
She giggled again and suddenly looked directly at my third eye. “What are you?”
“I’m the God of Justice.” I said simply.
“Very funny. Alright, I’ll play along. Are you traveling, Mr. God?” She asked sarcastically.
“Yes, and I’d like to spend my stay in your house, as I saved your life.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got some delusions. What a line. I’m too smart to fall for that. If you love me, just say so, but don’t lie and say you’re a God.”
I was confused by her bluntness for a moment. “I don’t love you. You didn’t deserve to die in my eyes, so I saved you.”
“Alright, I’ll humor you. Tell me your story.”
I told her everything, about Justice and Vengeance, and how I judged… everything. It wasn’t against the rules, after all. She seemed surprised that I happened to know how her father died, and everything concerning her life recently, but she simply dismissed it, thinking I must have heard about her circumstances from someone else.
“Wow, you’re crazy… I suppose maybe your head just got hurt. You can stay the night.” She nodded. She grabbed my robe as we walked to her house and observed the fine fabric as she did so. “Wow… this is beautiful. Did you make this?”
“No. Art did.” I answered.
“Art, huh? Another God?” She snorted derisively.
“Yes... you don’t believe me?” I looked at her, surprised.
She opened the door to her house, and then gave me a look as if to say, ‘what do you think? Just look at me.’
The house was a horrid mess. Her Father had left wine glasses everywhere, and there was dirt and all manner of items scattered around on the floor. Everything was dusty, there were cobwebs…. Just an absolute disgrace. It didn’t help that the house was only one large room. Heidi set me up a sleeping pallet. “Yeah, I know, I’m no princess. But you should count your blessings that I’m being so kind to you. Tomorrow, I’ll go ask the village elder what you are, and we can get to sending you back to where you came from.”
I was ashamed and disgusted that a God should have to sleep in such conditions. It should not be this way… but I had nowhere else to go.
I chased that butterfly through the bloodied landscape and past it. I met two other Gods in the dream, one a bit younger than me, and the other still a child yet. We ran together, but when it came to running with them as opposed to the butterfly, I would always pick the butterfly.
“C’mon mister…” Heidi shook me awake.
I awoke and climbed to my feet, bumping my head on her ceiling. I rubbed my head expressionlessly. I was confused. “That… hurt.” Gods did not feel physical pain, unless they were hurt very badly.
“Yes? Oh yeah, you think you’re a God… well c’mon. I’ll take you to the village elder. She grabbed my hand and dragged me outside. It was an incredibly small village of about fifty people. I didn’t want to be around them a second longer, but I had to accept the folly of what I’d done, and that included living among them. The only house that looked different was reasonably ornate, and was the elder’s house. As Heidi took me there, all the humans in sight stared at me.
She walked in first, and then I ducked and walked in after her. Once inside the safety of the house, Heidi’s jewel protecting her from the vapors turned off and the shield that had been protecting her body from the poison disappeared. The village Elder, a mousy, hunched old woman, dropped the plate she was holding. “Who is this, Heidi?”
“His name’s Joshua. I found him yesterday. He doesn’t talk much… but I think he hit his head or something- he thinks he’s a God.” Heidi explained.
The Elder took a moment to recover; the jewel in her forehead was especially large. “That is a very serious claim, Joshua. This could be blasphemous. Where are you from? The Emma Woods?” The Emma Woods was a place mortals had made up to scare one another and their children. A pocket in space, that phased in and out of reality, where demons supposedly came out of.
“I am from The Above.” I said again. I would not lie about my divine heritage.
“Tell me the truth or you will be in big trouble for posing as one of the Divine.”
Heidi tugged on my robe. “Tell her the truth! You could be killed…” She whispered.
I met the old woman’s gaze steadily and expressionlessly. This was why I hated mortals. Even when the thing they worship is right before their eyes, they still doubted, consumed with self-pity, selfishness, and doubt.
The old woman sighed. “Have it your way. I suppose I’ll have you hanged.”
Heidi raised a hand. “Wait… I’m sure he’s just hit his head. Please, let me look after him, and I’ll keep him out of trouble until he gets his head back.”
The Elder looked at Heidi thoughtfully. It seemed as if a minute passed before she changed expressions. “If he steps one foot out of line… you both will be in trouble.”
“Of course, Elder. I’ll keep watch over him.” We left the house. Going outside, the jewel in her forehead projected a protective circle around her once again.
“Why…?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Even though you’re crazy, you seem harmless, and since Daddy’s dead, I’m gonna need help on the farm. So you’re going to help me.”
“I don’t know anything about farming…” I said.
“Well, you can pull the weeds, and I’ll do the hard work. By the look of your perfect hands you haven’t lifted a finger in your life, but that’s just how it’s going to be.”
Behind her house were rows of corn, grapevines, starfruits, and other such things that farmer’s grew. It was all dying though.
Heidi sighed. “Nothing’s as green as it used to be… it’s all because of these vapors…” she looked crestfallen.
Although the miasma had existed on the planet for thousands of years, sometimes the poison liked to change concentrations like the weather on any normal planet. The miasma concentration in this area would be comparable to a drought or even a dust bowl on an average world.
She dug right into the work; she put on gloves and began picking what little produce she had. I simply watched her for a moment. She was a hard worker; the type of person who earned respect just for the sheer amount of work and suffering she’d been through since a young age. Human women were insulted for working, but Heidi didn’t care. Most women were married by the time they were eighteen, and Heidi wasn’t considered attractive enough by any of the men in the village to marry.
Gods didn’t notice that type of thing as much.
She looked up at me through tangled black hair. “Hey! Get to those weeds.”
I found a weed. I stared at it for a moment; my hands lank at my side, not willing to bend down.
Heidi laughed from out of eyesight. “You pick that weed or I’ll throw you back to the Elder!”
I bent down from my high height and picked it with some trouble, and then I threw it into the bowl Heidi had brought out with her.
She snorted. “Are you serious over there? Quit being such a baby.”
I went on to the next weed, and slowly picked that one too.
We were both done at sundown.
I was not happy with my new job. My back was sore and my hands raw when we had finished. We sat outside together, she on a rock, and me on the grass.
Heidi smiled brightly. “Hard work, huh? Makes you feel good, though…”
“Heidi, I’m from The Above. Gods don’t lower themselves to do such menial tasks.”
“Look, Joshua, as long as I’m housing you, I have to spend extra money to feed you. Considering that, I’m going easy on you. Especially since you keep telling me all these lies to get out of work. Even if you were a God, you don’t understand worth a damn what it’s like to walk in my shoes.” She went inside and started running her bath.
That was true. But she had no idea what it was like to walk in mine, either.
“Gods don’t eat…” I replied to her earlier statement.
A Wayward God Page 3