The Loneliest of Gods
by Slawomir Rapala
part 1 of 2
So it came to pass that on a slippery mid-summer night full of wildflower scents and the lure of birdsongs, a man was met by a god. The man did not come calling, nor did the god, but they were compelled to meet one another because such was the Weaver’s design. On this most terrible night, wet with the tears of the man’s children, a god was undone and he was brought forth to where the man had fallen, having crashed through the glass propelled by the force with which his car had struck the pole.
The man’s name was Aldous, and the god’s name was unknown; and he was undone in ways that could never be repaired. His name was a secret for he was a secretive god, and although he was compelled to come forth and reveal himself to the man, he only obliged because of an ancient curse that had been laid upon him eons ago. He was not pleased.
Aldous felt himself slipping away, lured to the other side of the weavings by Cleo’s serene voice. Wildflowers were all about him though he was lying on concrete, and the sun shone bright into his eyes though it was a dark night and the clouds had long cast a gloomy shadow over the slippery and desolate highway. The light was bright and his was a bright soul, and when Cleo’s shapely hand had reached out for him from the brightness of the light, he wanted to reach out too and to touch hers, soft and nimble like a child’s, a hand he had adored and a hand he had kissed only moments before when he had released the steering wheel to accept her embrace.
Their fingers almost met, but then a primal fear had spilled into his heart and stained it black, and Aldous realized then that he was still meant to live. For only the mortals were not strangers to the fear of all the uncertainties that the bright light had to offer.
Cleo’s smile did not fade, though, and instead she faded into the light, and he watched her go, his heart naked and raw, his body crippled, a bloody ruin on a barren highway cutting the Arizona desert.
The god came forth then from the shadows whence he had watched the scene with the unmoving eyes of an immortal. He stood as tall as a mountain, and his naked body glistened in the chrome light of the moon. A shadow, its darkness immeasurable by any means possessed by mankind, had fallen across the land, and its edges reached Aldous in that same moment as Cleo, his only joy, slipped away into the light to be claimed by the Weaver.
The god’s shadow slipped beneath Aldous, an unlight like no other, wrapping him like a blanket in a menacing effort to comfort a soul shattered by the unforeseen. But the touch was cold and Aldous shivered, his crippled body rejecting the cursed god, the unnamed and the unknown, who loomed above him, great horns stretched across the sky, twisted and turned in odd ways as if designed to rake the moon and lay ownership to its already scarred face.
With Cleo gone, light had faded and unlight was all that remained, and with it a god who was compelled to come forth from his underground sanctuary where he rested and gathered strength before the war that was coming. And along with the unlight, all that remained was the rain and the chrome moonlight peering from behind the dark clouds like a shy lover still unsure of what was to transpire.
The hope, the light, the joy, all gone from his broken soul, Aldous opened his mouth in a voiceless scream, but the only sound was the rain stopping as the god drew near and stood over him, his great frame shielding him from the rain. A giant hoof stomped the earth, and it seemed that the desert itself had shaken and that the moon would fall from the sky as some of mankind’s lore had predicted; and this tremor reverberated through the red-stained asphalt and through Aldous’ body, sending him into an oblivion of pain unmatched by anything he had thus far experienced.
“What is it you wish upon yourself, mere mortal?” The god’s voice rolled across the desert like thunder, and his eyes were suddenly engulfed in flames, a red blaze mirrored by the crimson strings of smoke passing over the silver face of the moon.
And in this moment of despair and weakness, a moment when he should have been strong but wasn’t because he had just lost the only joy he had ever known, Aldous surrendered to weakness. Like men before him and like men still to come, he was broken by the burden love had placed on his shoulders, and he now knew the bottomless pits of true anguish. And there were years of it to come, for he had lived and she had died.
So it came to pass that when he should have been strong, he was weak instead, and he wished for the loom to shuttle back and to reclaim the joy that was stolen with such absurd ease.
“Nay,” the god’s voice echoed in Aldous’ pained mind, which was stretched beyond the limits of mortal men because only in such state could it accept the god’s image and voice. “Nay, mere mortal, the shuttling of the loom is beyond my reach.”
And so a bright thread in the darkness was withdrawn from his reach, and though he knew it not, Aldous was spared from other despairs that would have surely come his way had the thread not been severed now, just as it came into being. For any thread, no matter how bright, could turn dark, and one that was not of the Weaver’s design but borne out of man’s wants would always blacken as the eyes of man did not reach as far as His, nor could they see the true end to the path chosen.
Aldous sunk back to the red-stained road and his crippled body sprawled out on the pavement, a bright stain on a black canvas, fire ablaze beside him and a god standing over him in judgement.
And then another bright strand.
And the god listened, and at length he bowed to the man whom he was compelled to meet.
“A trinket, then,” he thundered. “Not the first and surely not the last I give to one of your kind.”
A gold ring materialized in Aldous’ pocket. He felt its weight immediately and his eyes lit up as darkness retreated into the mists of forgetfulness, his wish answered and his desire granted.
“Know now, mere mortal,” the god added, his horns stretching across the sky and dispersing the clouds. “Know that a gift from me is never without a price, for a gift without strings is nothing more than charity, and I do not deal with the poor in spirit but only with those who have something to offer.”
A rapt, hushed voice rose from the ground, the bloody ruin of a man spitting into the night: “It is yours...”
“And so it is,” the god said, his eyes solemn, and a face that had never known a smile leaned over the man’s broken body. “A bright soul indeed.”
And with that he was gone, a mist in the night, a breeze among the clouds and a grain of dust within the vastness of the desert. Aldous was left alone with the pain of his crippled body and the fading memory of Cleo slipping away into the light with him unable to follow, and with the disturbingly pleasant weight of the gift bearing down on his breast pocket.
The sirens were coming closer and the rain had stopped. Aldous looked into the sky, his eyes shut. Wildflowers bloomed around him and there was light again, but there was no Cleo this time, just the promise of a better tomorrow. A bright strand weaved into the darkness of a slippery night, but what he did not see was the Weaver’s sorrowful face as he shuttled the loom and spun another thread to weave into the one Aldous had just been granted.
And the Weaver’s thread claimed the man’s and soon it was gone, and Aldous was doomed.
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Copyright © 2011 by Slawomir Rapala
