A Wayward God

by Natasha Weber

  “Joshua, if you don’t get up off your lazy…” Heidi breathed in. “You are such a selfish snot.”

  I said nothing. This work was beneath me, and beneath every God, of course. She was harvesting food still on the next day, and she wanted me to assist. I was sitting nearby on a rock, just watching her.

  She was angry. She looked away. “Forget it…” she continued on her own, her back turned to me. I stuffed my hands in my pockets.

  She was trying to pull up a particularly tough plant from the soil. She grabbed it by the root and positioned her foot on a nearby rock for leverage. Her foot slipped off the rock and she fell backwards.

  A little worried, I ran over to her and hefted her up.

  She pushed me away. “Dammit! This miasma is killing my plants! Why are we cursed with this poison…?”

  I grabbed her shoulders. “I’ll help you, Heidi,”

  “I’m not sure I want your help. Why don’t you just go and sit inside. You’re a God apparently, and it’s what Gods do.” She seemed less willing this morning to push me into doing my work in her despair. Such was the ever-changing way of human emotion. Another thing for a God to be annoyed about. She got to her feet and sighed. “I can barely afford to feed myself…”

  I watched her continue her work, and then I got to my feet. Without a word, I helped her, and she appreciated the peace and quiet.

 

  We worked until sundown, and I helped to get her crops and garden looking presentable. We kept some for her to eat, and the rest to sell or trade. My hands were worked raw, and I’d never been more grateful in my life for a simple sip of cold water, as I felt so dry I may as well have been a fish on land. Normally, Gods did not get hungry or thirsty; they ate or drank merely for pleasure. But with my powers stripped, I needed it. An unwelcome surprise.

  Heidi did most of the work, though. She didn’t like her father, I knew, but I knew she depended on him to help her do this hard work, which was why she was feeling hopeless. She always thought she was tough enough to do this work on her own, it wore her down when reality struck. Heidi worked a little longer than me, and when she was done, she sat down on a rather large rock at the back of her house. I sat down next to her. She looked lost in thought. “I feel tired all the time these days… Joshua, if you’re a God, answer me this… why does it seem like I was built just to suffer?”

  She had a green bruise on her arm from where her Father had punched her the other day before he’d died. I closed my eyes, feeling that old burning hatred boiling in my very bones. This girl deserved better than that. Whenever I’d looked at her from my pool in the clouds, she’d been nothing but kind, helping others whenever possible. She took time out of her day to comfort a crying child, give extra gold to families even poorer than her own to pay taxes to the ruling class; and she could always make someone smile. A hundred human beings could never hope to be as decent as Heidi was, and she didn’t even have to try. I didn’t know why good people like her always seemed made to suffer. Perhaps it was because that kindness was taken advantage of.

  All I could say to her was, “you get what you give, Heidi. You shall have everything one day.”

  She laughed and changed the subject. “What do you know? Anyway, Can you cook, Joshua?”

  “No. If we Gods want to eat, we just snap the food into our hands. We don’t need to eat, though. The only reason for us to ingest is because we like to taste something once in a while.”

  “Well, one of us is going to have to learn.” She stated.

 

  “This is awful,” Heidi said when I was done making our food.

  I shrugged. “It’s a meal.”

  She didn’t look up at me when she said, “so, are you going to tell me the truth about you now?”

  “I have.” I said.

  “You know I can’t stand that.” Heidi, as I would come to learn, was sassy at the best of times, but especially when people weren’t truthful with her. “Tell me the truth.”

  I closed my three eyes. There was nothing left to say if she decided not to believe.

  “I guess you can choose to be a lying piece of filth if you want. Don’t come crying to me when it gets you into trouble.” She looked up at me under her angry, bushy eyebrows.

  “It’s not my fault you choose not to listen.” I answered evenly.

  “Come on, Joshua. There’s no such thing as Gods.” She insisted.

  “That’s not a nice thing to say to a God who saved your life.” I countered, always attempting to keep a level head. I had to.

  “Why would a God be looking after me of all people? Why would they give up paradise, even for a year, for my benefit?”

  She put her bowl down on the filthy floor and waited for an answer.

  All I could say was, “you didn’t deserve to die.”

  “Then why…” She shook her head. She got to her feet and went outside.

  Of course she had quite the temper. I couldn’t blame her. With all she’d been through, she earned whatever fits of anger she had. To myself I murmured, “if things were fair Heidi, you would have my life, and I yours.”

  Heidi cheered up over the next few days. I went out of my way to help her. First, I cleaned up her house and organized it until it was fit for a God. That was for my benefit as well as hers. Then, I cleaned up her garden. As most of my power had been temporarily taken away by the Gods, I only had so much left to sneakily make her garden healthy, and to make it grow full and bountiful.

  Heidi was elated. She would murmur to herself several times that day, “my luck is finally turning around!”

  She grew to be fond of my company, and even embraced me when I cleaned her house while she was gone all day. At first, she didn’t want to be seen with me outdoors, as people would whisper things about me, and she didn’t like to hear them. But when she saw I didn’t care, she didn’t mind either.

  As for me, I hated the work and still thought it beneath me; but for the first time in my life I felt what it was like to make someone else happy. Even though my hands were raw, I felt like I knew what happiness really was for the first time in a long time. Life in The Above was muted. Nothing was extreme; everything was even, even emotions. Here, I could be who I really was. I felt free. More importantly, the world was not on my shoulders.

  For a month, we did the same things. Tended to her garden, took walks, spoke of mundane things, and Heidi was making the most profit she ever had. She seemed happy, which was everything she ever deserved. I was happy, too.

  But that wasn’t good for me. I would always have The Fear. The Fear that all Gods had, and needed to control; some Gods were able to control what they felt wonderfully--like Fate-- so it was understandable that Fate allowed herself to feel whatever she liked.

  For me and for Death too, however, it was dangerous. And I was afraid that that was one of the things that had corrupted my brother. Being in the presence of a mortal woman and feeling things too much had corrupted his mind.

  I didn’t love Heidi, luckily. She was a wonderful person, and an even better friend, and I loved that she kept to her own business mostly. Beyond that first week, she no longer joked about me being a God, and she gave me a chance that no one else in that village was willing to give me. They would have either killed me, or sent me away by now if it wasn’t for her, and her kindness made me feel love for the mortal races that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  But I could tell she wondered about me, although she did not ask many questions. Instead of pushing the subject of whether I was a God; one day, after we were done tending her garden, as the sun waned and she was guzzling water as humans tend to perspire a lot, she looked at my vacant face and asked, with a little laugh, “don’t you ever smile?”

  I looked at her and blinked. Then I looked up at the sky and said quietly, “smiles are earned. You have earned them in full--I have not.”

  She looked confused for a moment, and then smiled. “You
can’t put chains on a smile. Smiles aren’t earned; they should be given to you by those you love.”

  I attempted to give her a very slight smile at that, and then I said, “You have a good point of view, Heidi.”

  We were silent for a while, and then Heidi suddenly gave a little gasp. “You know what I realized! The prince of Ga is coming this season. He always vacations here…”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What’s so special about that?”

  “Me and the prince have been friends for a while.” She answered.

  “You and a prince…?” I was a little incredulous. I had looked upon princes before in my life, with all three of my eyes, and in general, none of my eyes liked them. They were selfish, greedy, cruel people, who built fortunes on the backs of honest mortals. I couldn’t imagine a prince being friends with one as poor and honest as Heidi.

  “I can’t understand why he vacations here. Ga is much more exciting.” She shrugged.

  “There’s a peaceful atmosphere here…” I offered.

  She snorted. “It’s boring. I would much rather be somewhere more exciting, but there’s not much security in that.”

  “I think you can do anything you wish Heidi. You have the tenacity.” I commented honestly.

  She ignored the comment, too humble maybe to accept it. “You know… I’ve been thinking. You’ve been more a help than anyone has to me. You don’t have to stay here any longer if you don’t want to. We can get you a job elsewhere.”

  “I want