A Wayward God

by Natasha Weber

greeted him. “May we…”

  He crossed his arms and cleared his throat. “Ahem.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Great Shankar, might I stay here?” I bowed.

  “Laying it on a little thick-- but yes--You may be graced with the Great Shankar’s presence and paradise for the night.”

  I looked around, taken in by the beauty. The sun was setting, and this paradise was even more beautiful in the pale red sunset. “…just where is your paradise Shankar? I have never seen it before…”

  “It is hidden from your nosy, prying eyes. I’m glad your friend is okay,” he looked at Heidi with a smile.

  “The Great Shankar honors me…” Heidi said graciously, doing a curtsy.

  “He doesn’t deserve your company,” he glared at me. “You be careful, Miss. You’re not invincible.”

  “I will.” She assured him.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two alone then... what are you doing?”

  I was leaning against the giant tree that shot into the sky. “What?”

  “That’s my Mom!” Shankar shot the earth up under my feet and tripped me. “Don’t touch my Mom.”

  I stepped away, palms turned up non-threateningly. “Sorry… I didn’t know you had such powers.”

  “You better be. Listen, I know you’re good, Miss, but you talk to him… make sure he doesn’t run astray.”

  She laughed. “Yessir.”

  Shankar shot me one more warning glance before melting back into the grass.

  We were both silent for a moment as the sun continued to wan. The world was dyed blue, and a sweet breeze blew by, catching Heidi’s long black hair. She smiled, touching the back of her neck.

  “You know something? I’m already happy to be away from that village.” She said, completely elated. She did a spin and looked up at the sky. “I feel… free.”

  I simply watched her for a moment. Even though I never thought she was pretty before, suddenly, I thought she was very pretty. I was transfixed. And then I felt sick to my stomach at myself and looked away. She was a mortal, nothing more. And she would be dead in five years.

  After a moment, she walked over to me. “Joshua, if you really are a God…. I mean I--”

  She dusted off her dirty dress uncomfortably. “I’m really sorry, Joshua. I don’t appreciate you enough… your job is… I wouldn’t be able to do it; and I understand the necessity of people dying. I mean, if everyone lived forever bad people would live forever, and good people would go on living so long they might eventually go crazy… I just want to thank you for doing your job. It’s a job nobody else would want and I…”

  I stopped her. “There’s no need.”

  She smiled a little looking up at me with her face tilted down, thankful for my rescue. She cleared her throat. “I suppose I’ll go to sleep now.

  “Go ahead. I shall watch over you.” I insisted.

  She nodded and laid her head down. I sat down next to her. She was asleep in minutes, her black hair strewn all over her face. I smiled and then I sighed and looked up at the sky. I felt so tired. Gods didn’t need to sleep because they got tired; they needed to sleep to restore their powers. What an awful feeling it was to be bone-weary from all that climbing.

  Heidi was beginning to see my job was much harder than she gave it credit for, and, likewise, being a mortal was harder than I gave it credit for. I always thought that being a mortal would be the simplest thing. You treat others well, you find your station in the world; you get married to continue your family line… but this feeling of helplessness, of being tired, hungry, and close to death…. I was beginning to see just why mortals craved power over others, why they were never happy… they were so weak, and every moment might be their last. No wonder they were never content in life. But the people who actually did suffer…

  I looked at Heidi. They were the people who would have been content with a normal life. The ones who deserved one.

  Suddenly, I became very drowsy, and I slowly let myself fall backwards and go to sleep.

  In the blackness, I chased the butterfly as usual. Everything was slow, and I chased it until it led me into a small room, with three shadows on three of the evenly sized walls.

  Two of the shadows were my size; the other was the size of a child.

  The three shadows stepped out from the wall.

  The large shadows were Vengeance and Justice. The small shadow was my one red eye.

  Vengeance was angry. “Joshua, you must let me kill the girl. She is next on the list. How dare you unfairly break the rules?”

  “It is not the girl who needs to be punished, it is Joshua himself. What’s done is done. The girl did nothing wrong, we should leave her alone and punish Joshua.” Justice said calmly.

  “Punishing the girl is like punishing Joshua. Mark my words Joshua. I will have Vengeance.” He said adamantly.

  “You fool. It is not right for the girl to suffer when she did nothing wrong…” Justice continued.

  “The girl is a mortal to be used as we see fit. She was meant to die anyway.”

  They continued to argue vehemently; until they both became so enraged they turned on me. Vengeance seized my neck and squeezed it as hard as he could. Justice, being the clear-headed of the two, pulled out a sword made of light and got ready to stab me with it. The whole time I was screaming for the one eyed, red-eyed child to help me; but he just stood there, mouth trembling, and a tear in his eye.

  “Please help me!” I screamed. “You’re the only one who can!”

  I woke up and shot upright. My two other eyes were closed and the only one that was open was my green eye. Heidi was awake too. She rubbed her eyes. “Are you okay Joshua? You were thrashing a moment ago…”

  Vengeance stared at her expressionlessly and wordlessly.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Joshua…?”

  Quick as a snake, Vengeance seized her neck and squeezed, she was trying to scream, grabbing my wrists and pinching them. She managed to draw blood, and Vengeance let her go. She ran away as fast as she could, but Vengeance was on his feet and after her in a moment. Being ten feet tall, he covered more ground than she did. He was closing in on her quickly, and his arm was so long he reached out and grabbed her long hair that was flowing behind her. He pulled her hair to yank her closer and she cried out in pain.

  He grabbed her neck, but this time, a wall of earth shot up from underneath Vengeance’s feet—he was knocked backwards, and a prison of hard earth was erected about him. The rest was all a blank to me.

  Someone shook me awake--the green child—Shankar. This time, I opened all three of my eyes. Shankar was looking ready to lock me up again if need be. “Are you feeling better?”

  I rubbed my temple. “Yes…”

  He smacked me. “I knew there wasn’t something right about you. The Great Shankar should have listened to his intuition and told you to leave.”

  Vengeance took over… without my permission. What was happening? Was it because I hadn’t allowed him to come out for so long? I was dangerous now, unless I could get this under control. Perhaps it was only a onetime thing, a force of habit because I was used to alternating between my three personas at certain time intervals.

  “Where is Heidi?”

  “I told her to go home…” Shankar said, shaking his head. “But she refused. She’s with Mom.”

  I walked past him, and headed for the tree in the middle of the forest. There Heidi was, looking a little scared. She backed up a little when she saw me, and then she realized I was back to normal. The wicked flame that had seized my heart had evaporated.

  I sat next to her silently, ready for her to give me the brush. I found myself not wanting to be alone—wanting to be selfish—I wanted her to stay with me.“Who was that, Joshua…? He wasn’t like you at all. Was that… Vengeance?” She shook a little.

  “He still wants to kill you.” I had to be honest with her. She had a right to know what she was getting into, so she
could back out if she wanted to.

  “Will he come back out…?” She asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “I… I still want to come.” She said.

  “Heidi I… can’t guarantee your safety.” I said somberly.

  She was silent, just looking thoughtful, and then she said, “tell me more about your eyes.”

  The next day, Shankar told us that, in order to leave, we just had to keep walking away from the forest, and we would end up at the spot Shankar said he had rescued us both at.

  So, we began walking. Heidi was silent, still shaken from earlier, understandably. I thought she was just about the bravest person I’d met. Willing to give everything and anything for someone she knew little about. It could have been that she was just reckless. She said often that she felt unphased by most everything in these past years of her life. She had seen the worst, and even her reactions to almost dying by the red vapors and me was more miniscule than I thought they’d be.

  Heidi was a little ahead of me, and when she took one further step away from me, she disappeared. A little worried, I headed after her.

  Suddenly, we were out of those barren lands and back onto land with grass growing on it, and only normal vapors to deal with. Even if it was dead grass, I was glad to see it. Shankar had taken us a little further.

  Silently, we kept moving. Even the air was hotter and more suffocating in this place, especially compared to the clean air of Shankar’s forest. Being a God, I normally didn’t even have to breathe, so this air was especially hard for me to breathe in.

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