The Unbearable Burden of Being a God
It’s an innocuous Tuesday morning at eight thirty-six when I reach over to turn off my alarm and end up splitting the damn thing clean in half.
The alarm clock sits in its own broken plastic bones, the cartoonish smiley face emblazoned across the clock face split neatly in two.
I sit on my bed, toes curling in the carpet, and stare at it.
“Fuck,” I say.
I stare at the clock. It is a clock, so it does not return my gaze. I stare, and I don’t think about how I could have possibly severed the thing in two. Instead, I think about how much I want it to be whole again. Amelie gave it to me, she painted the smiley face on, and even though she dumped me, I like having the thing around. It’s useful, and it reminds me of happier times. I want it to be whole again.
And it just is. One moment it’s shattered on my shitty Ikea nightstand, and the next moment it’s whole again, no indication that it was ever broken.
“What the fuck,” I say. The alarm clock does not respond.
*
The rest of the morning continues in a similar fashion. I want to be in front of the line at Starbucks, and then I just am. I want a chai but they’ve run out–– oh wait! The barista finds another bottle hidden in the back of the fridge.
I’m ready to chalk it up to wicked good luck, but things grow stranger. I get to work, and the corner office I’ve been silently coveting for months is mine–– all my things are in it, even my orchid that’s been barely clinging on to life (it’s in perfect bloom now, of course).
I lock myself in the office bathroom and stare in the mirror. I wish to be a little taller, a little more in shape, and then I am. I try purple hair, a hooked nose–– stranger things, too: a duck bill, cat ears, an elephant’s trunk. All come and go at my whim.
It’s intoxicating. I can do whatever I can imagine–– flying, shapeshifting, breathing underwater, reading minds. I can mold reality to my will.
*
Months pass. Every morning I wake up terrified that my gift will be gone, that the life I’ve tailored for myself will crumble around me.
I’ve got my dream job. It’s high-paying, prestigious, I’m revered in my field and I don’t even have to do any work, I just think it and it’s done.
I’ve married Amelie. She left her fiancé for me. I can’t remember if I made her do that or not.
I have everything I’ve ever dared to dream of and more, and I have never felt lonelier.
*
I’m laying in bed with Amelie. It’s a Tuesday night. It has been three years since I split the alarm clock.
Amelie’s body curls toward me, her hair a curly cloud against the pillow.
“Do you think God is proud of us?” Amelie asks. She’s a devout Christian. I haven’t taken that from her yet. “Not like us specifically,” she continues. “But, like, the world He created.”
“No,” I respond. “ I think God is afraid of us. Of what he made.”
Amelie’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“It’s all so fragile,” I say. “So easy to remold, to unravel. I think God thought he was lucky at first, y’know? All this power to create, manipulate, imagine. Probably he had fun when he started–– thought up people, dinosaurs, giraffes, those really long, squiggly fuckers that hipsters keep as pets––”
“Ferrets,” supplies Amelie.
“Yeah, ferrets,” I say. “But then he got scared. What if the world he made isn’t good enough? What if it’s selfish to make it how he likes it? How much is he allowed to mess with?”
“It’s his world,” argues Amelie, “He can mess with all of it.”
“But it isn’t! It isn’t just his world! There’s people, and animals, and plants, and everything has lives and feelings and awareness–– even those fucking ferrets. It isn’t his world, it’s theirs. If he gets his grubby fingers on it now, he’s gonna get it sticky, y’know? He’s gonna taint it. Make it impure.”
Amelie is unconvinced. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m trying to tell you that God’s just some poor sap who thought he had a gift when he really had a curse,” I say. “If God’s smart, he’s dead by now. Or else he’s hoisted all that terrible omnipotence on some other unlucky bastard.”
I know that Amelie wants to argue about this, but I don’t want to right now, so I make her agree with me.
“That makes sense,” Amelie says. “I agree with you. That’s probably what happened. Poor God.”
Amelie did not agree with me until I wanted her to. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.
I roll over in bed, and I close my eyes, and I wish for God to take back all this horrible power.
If he’s out there still, if he ever was, he does not answer.