God’s Will


God is dead, and it's a secular society, now. Time to wrap up the estate, then, since it surely was the will of God that God should leave a will. And as we who were once God's children are now surely all God's orphans, I might be a beneficiary. So I called lawyers until I found the one handling the estate. That was when I got my first surprise.


“Yes, sir, the will names Philosophy as the Executor. I guess that's because Philosophy did so much to put the estate in order while the deceased was still living.”


That was true. Philosophy had first given explanations for how things were and why they happened without mentioning any God at all and had been pressed into service to make God's estate more rational. Gone were the days of simple offerings of ecstasy at an orgia as a revelation. Thanks to Philosophy, a majority of followers wanted a stable relationship between the revelation and what the revelation means. The nature of God, too, must come under the weight of Philosophy's administration. God's description must have Philosophical meaning as His nature is applied to the issues of category, description, and consistency. They wanted the nature of God to correspond to the world of nature around them and, before Philosophy, that wasn't always the case.


The crowd at the lawyer's was older than I had expected, but thinking about it, that made sense. Death is for those who recognize her face. This was not a task for the young ones.


As always with a will, first came the declarations. Sound mind and body, name of the Executor, no revocation of previous wills. Obviously if you can see the future, you get your will right the first time.


Then came the specific bequests where a particular item or a specific amount is left to an individual or charity. This being God's will, though, the bequests were a little bit different. There were also a lot of them so I'll only mention a few.


“To the Scientists: I give the task of understanding the universe. Clergy once tried to learn how the universe worked to know me better. They were at the forefront of astronomy, genetics, and mathematics. But the clergy withdrew from science and now merely comment on whether the experiments of others are ethical enough. The only thing left to stay the scalpel of cold utilitarian thought is an obscure ethics committee.”


“To the Greens: I leave the task of restoring my Earth and making it fruitful again. Farmers were supposed to do this by leaving fields to lie fallow but economics means they put on fertilizer instead. The fertilizer is made of oil and eventually that runs out. When it does the obesity epidemic will be over.”


Not fire and brimstone, maybe, but the kind of neo-Old Testament we've come to expect from the greens. We're exceeding capacity, resources are limited, they can't be replaced or tapered off. Collapse and crisis is coming, to be openly feared and secretly hoped for.


So God was giving tasks to new groups because the original ones had failed. I wondered what it was like to be a parent whose child had disappointed them. Clearly, not everyone in the world has done the job they were given. It seemed to be a disappointing world to Him. Then came a surprise.


“To the Young: I give what I have given everyone, always, and what has never been used. I give them a second chance. Use it and solve problems in a manner than doesn't create new problems, to live a life without regret, to make lives that leave the world unadulteratedly a better place.”


Was that the difference between us and Him? Not the immense power, the knowledge of everything or the creation of the universe. The real difference was He used his second chance while we all rushed headlong into using our first.


And then the bulk of the estate – the heavens and the Earth, the stars, that sort of thing – was handed over. And then /it/ was over. The universe was left behind, we were left to get on with our lives for the rest of our lives.


The reading had taken some time and it was dark when we spilled out of the lawyer's offices. The night was clear, the stars still bright and the blackness around them sharper than I remembered. God is dead. Thankfully, the Goddess is still alive.



© D. Jason Cooper





 

Communion: obsolescence

 

Forlorn clerks

stare

down bare aisles

at sparse lots.

 

The feast is gathered

but the customers have dispersed,

slid back to ancient orbits.

 


One Last Insult

 

Cheap stones,

spotty grass,

water-stained walls:

 

here weeds, not flowers,

mark memories,

 

and exhaust

from passing cars

casts incense

over the dead.

 


© Karl Miller


Karl Miller is a graduate of the University of Florida, and lives in Coral Springs. He works in the insurance industry and has had his work published by a variety of literary publications.


D. Jason Cooper was born, is alive, the third part of the trilogy will be out eventually. Comics fan, wrestling fan, author of seven books including *Slums of Paradise* (Twilight Times Press). He says “If you want your vampire's resurrection modified by the Pope in a 23rd century Fall-of-Rome story, this is the book for you.”