The Saving Of Earth-777 (Chapter 6)

“Will you fight for me?” God asked him confidently 

“Fight for you? I barely know you,” The Fighter said quietly. 

“I know you, though,” God said.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“What am I, then?”

“You’re someone to believe in,” God said, with a smile, more warmth coming off of him. 

“You’re wrong. I’m not that. I’m a degenerate. My body is broken. I don't have anything left inside of me. The fire is out. The drive is gone. It died. I killed it. And you . . . you killed it. You–you killed it . . . And you died, too, didn’t you? That's what they say.”

“Aye, they did say that. But, here I am,” God said with his arms out.

“Here you are . . . But, why now?”

“If not now, then, when?” God asked, his voice reverberating around the house. 

“Back when I believed in you. Back when I had hope. I had momentum for a moment, you know. Remember?? You were never there to answer my prayers.”

“I heard them.”

“Then you should’ve answered,” he said stubbornly. 

“Aye, I should’ve,” God admitted. 

“I can’t do it,” The Fighter said. 

“You already have,” God said. 

“LOOK AT ME!” 

“I see you, Kid,” God said, patiently nodding. 

“I CAN’T GET ANYTHING RIGHT!” The Fighter yelled, getting up and pacing back and forth, his head down and his eyes darting around the floor.

“You’ve done just fine.”

“THEN WHY THE FUCK DON’T I FEEL FINE, HUH?” The Fighter yelled again, and more tears squeezed out of the corners of his eyes. 

“What do you feel?” God asked, more warmth and light starting to radiate from him.

“Anger. A deep anger. And . . . Regret. Jealousy. Pain. Bitterness. Old. I feel older than I should. I feel crummy. And tired. I feel so tired. My eyes . . . you know what they say about my eyes, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know.”

“They say that I have sad eyes. EYES LIKE A GODDAMN PUPPY!”

“You do,” God said.

“Fuck you,” The Fighter turned and snapped at him. 

“There is pain in your eyes,” God said softly, agreeing with him. “And anger. Deep anger and regret. Jealousy. Bitterness. This is true. But there is also wonder in your eyes. Intelligence. Wisdom, even—wisdom for a man so young. And there is passion in them. You can intimidate a man with them, that is true, but you can also welcome a child with them. You say your fire died? But your eyes tell me that’s a lie.”

“You know nothing.”

“I know a few things. Probably. Or, once, I did.”

“A fight to determine who the king of the universe is madness. It’s utterly absurd! I can’t fathom it—can’t even imagine it. What if this homeless guy would be a better king than you?” The Fighter asked, his arms flailing about as he paced around his apartment.

God winced. “It’s not an easy job . . . but, maybe he would do better than I would? Maybe he wouldn’t have stopped believing in humanity? I did die, in a way. I might as well have been dead, anyway. I gave up on every timeline I ever created.”

The Fighter stopped and studied God for a moment. He then asked, “What happened that made you believe again? What changed you?”

“An uptight angel of mine showed me a young man that believed his purpose in life was to be a fighter. He was so determined—so sure of his dream—and despite the fact that he faced: adversity after adversity, setback after setback, injury after injury, he kept believing in himself and his dream. The dream that I planted inside of his soul. And . . . he believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. It’s my turn to do the same thing for him.”

A tear fell off the young man’s face and landed on his hand—on his knuckle. “This is the most important fight in the cosmos, though. I’m not worthy of it . . .”

“It’s the most important fight in my lifetime, that’s for sure,” God said casually, while opening up the fridge and sticking his nose in it. 

“Was there a time before you?” he asked. 

“I’m not sure,” God said, voice muffled, as if he had something in his mouth. 

“You aren’t what I pictured. You aren’t like the stories.”

“That’s why they’re just stories.”

“I haven’t been training,” The Fighter admitted. 

“That’s not true. Your knuckles are still callused and pink,” God said with a string cheese in his hand, nodding at The Fighter’s knuckles. 

The Fighter was pacing again. “I’m out of shape. My feet have been hurting. I haven’t been running.”

“Neither has Trevor.”

“YOU WANT ME TO FIGHT TREVOR?? THE SMART-ASS ANGEL THAT ATE MY PIZZA??”

“That’s who the homeless guy picked as his champion,” God said while pulling the stringed-cheese apart. 

“I CAN’T FIGHT AN ANGEL!”

“Sure you can. We got two days. It’ll be fine. We need to find two more people while we are down here, though. That’s where Trevor went.”

“Huh? Who else do you need to find.”

“This writer guy. Trevor says he’s important. And . . . one of my sons.”

“One of your sons?” The Fighter asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah.”

“You mean—”

“Yep.”

“Oh shit. Jesus Christ, this is crazy. This is insane. A writer and Jesus?? And ME?? It doesn’t make any damn sense. Why us?”

“Y’all are our best chance at saving this timeline. We have a divine algorithm that calculates all that stuff for us,” God said while opening up the pantry and poking his head in. 

“This is crazy. Madness, even!” The Fighter protested. 

“We have to get going soon. The Writer guy is close but Jesus isn’t.”

“Where’s he??”

“The last we heard of him, he was living in Vegas. But, that was a long time ago, or it was yesterday. We aren’t really sure.”

“Jesus Christ lived in Las Vegas?”

“Yes. And he is in a band. They’re pretty good, I think. That’s what Trevor says, anyway,” God said. 

“This is crazy. Absolutely insane . . . It’s a dream, I reckon . . . I drank too much. Yeah, I just drank too much. I’ve taken too many shots to the dome. This old brain is breaking,” The fighter said wide-eyed, while he knocked on his head, checking to see if it was hollow.

“You’re fine,” God said with a smile. 

“Fine?? Fine?? No, I am not fine. Not fine at all.”

“You get to fight again, son. You get to fight again. I can see your eyes changing in real time. I can see and feel the excitement building inside of you. The fire isn’t just there inside of you still, it’s raging fiercely.”

“It’s different this time . . .” The Fighter said, his voice seeped in doubt. 

“It’s different every time.”

“I can’t do it.”

God looked at him and didn’t speak. After several passing seconds, he said, “Let’s go meet this writer. Trevor is already there. I’m not supposed to do this, or Trevor said I wouldn’t be able to, but—” God snapped his fingers and they were suddenly inside of a small cold dirty kitchen.

“WHAT THE HELL??” A young man with circular glasses dangling on the tip of his nose yelled out. “What the ‘heaven’,” Trevor corrected politely. “We like that saying much better. See? I told you God was right behind me,” he said, turning to a man who had his feet on the table and his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair, looking at them, wide-eyed, with curiosity and fascination.

“God looks like buff Santa, just like you said,” the young man said, shifting from startled to slightly mocking in an instant.

“I did not say that!” Trevor protested as God glared at him. 

“But, who is the pipsqueak? That can’t be ‘The Fighter’ you were talking about? He’s 5 foot nothing and 100 pounds of nothing.”

God had to hold back The Fighter. “Who are you calling a pipsqueak, YOU SONOFUVABITCH!?”

“Fiesty little fella, isn’t he?” The Writer asked, slightly amused at the scene.

“Are you done?” Trevor asked him, clearly already annoyed with the man.

“These two are supposed to save this timeline? I’d say we are fucked, then. You don’t need my help. We’re all doomed. Might as well enjoy what little time we have left.”

God let go of The Fighter and sat down. The man kept his feet on the table. “Do you have any tea?” God asked after a moment, lacking confidence or direction. 

“Tea? The first thing God says to me when he meets me is if I have tea? This is pure comedy!” He laughed loudly—sarcastically. “No way God is this corny?? No way. Tea?! Really? Where is the originality? God should be original, at least. God should be novel. No way he’s this corny.”

God looked at Trevor for help and Trevor shrugged in response and shook his head. “Buff Santa is probably fair . . . and possibly even a compliment.” The Writer shook his head. “But hey, check this out,” God snapped his fingers and his appearance changed. He looked just like the man sitting across from him; same clothes and everything. “Do I look like a pretentious asshole? Like Hemmingway’s retarded son? Do I look like I smoke cigarettes and listen to The Smiths, while trying to look interesting to the semi-intellectual females that find me almost attractive, so I can have thirty seconds of passionless sex with them?”

“Neat trick,” the man said, unflinching, staring daggers right back at God. 

The Fighter stepped forward. “No way this is ‘The Writer’ you were talking about, Pops? This guy couldn’t write a grocery list, let alone a good story! This is one of those guys that likes the image but doesn’t like to do the work. I know his type,” The Fighter said, sitting down at the table next to God. “It’s always the insecure ones—who know that they aren’t putting in the work they know they should be putting in—that act this arrogant. It’s a show—a performance. It’s a mask.”

“Everything is a show, kid,” The Writer said, glaring at him. “This whole damn world is a stage.”

“Not everything,” The Fighter said hesitantly. 

“Does he have CTE already?” The Writer asked God.

“Cut the cutesy shit,” God said, not quite sternly. “We need your help. I wish we didn’t, trust me, I wish we didn’t, but here we are. All roads lead us to you, and to him,” God nodded to him, then to The Fighter.

“Yes, I’ve heard. But the saying is, ‘all roads lead to Rome’. But, I guess I am confused as to which God you are?”

“What do you mean?” The Fighter asked him. 

“Well, you guys do know that I am from a Jewish family?”

“So what?” The Fighter asked.

The Writer rolled his eyes. “So, kid, that means they don’t really believe in Jesus and all that. Some people claim he is a horrible false prophet, responsible for 2,000 years of oppression against the Jewish people. They follow the old testament, but not the new. And Islam follows the old testament, with their own twist and interpretations, but they have their own new testament and prophet, Muhommed. The big three monotheistic religions are very similar but profoundly different. And that’s just the Abrahamic religions. There are something like 3,000 current Gods this world believes in. So, I’m curious about what God this one is. It’s only natural.”

The Fighter turned to God, “Is this true??”

“A little true,” God admitted. 

“A little??” The Writer asked, raising his voice. “A little true??” He scoffed dramatically. 

“How y’all interpret me is out of my control. The stories that have been told about me, they’re only one perspective. I am outside of your time and space and I don't fit into your linear narratives. Who people imagine I am is outside of my control. So I’ve appeared in many ways, in many places, in many forms, almost always beyond the human senses. I am a force and philosophy. I am a way of life, not an old man or woman. I am beyond: genders, time, space, rules of the universe, narratives, borders, politics, etc, etc.”

The writer leaned forward. “The Postmodernist somehow resurrected you when they made the statement that there are an infinite amount of ways to interpret the same text. They made believing in you purely as an individual the Christian religion of this era.”

Trevor started, “I believe that was Martin Luther, but that’s not really what they were trying to say—” 

 “I don’t really believe in any of it, though,” The writer said, waving his hand in the air dismissively, clearly trying to look cool. “I don’t buy into all that ‘God’ crap. My family considers me ‘the black sheep’ and I wear that badge proudly.”

“But, God is right here?” The Fighter said, pointing at God’s face, his finger inches away from God’s nose. God’s eyes crossed as he looked at the tip of his finger. “How could you still doubt it?”

“This isn’t God,” The Writer said. 

“No?” God asked him with a smirk.

“This is a phony if I ever saw one. I can always spot a phony. It’s true, I can,” The Writer said proudly. 

God smiled politely. “You don’t believe in a God? Not in any version of God? Not the Western? Or the Eastern? Not the ancient or the Modern? Not in the monotheistic or polytheistic? Not even in the Pantheistic??”

“Nope,” The Writer said, sitting back and crossing his arms, looking around at the three other men in the room with him, challenging all of them.

God snapped his fingers, and a few pieces of paper formed in his hand. He cleared his throat and straightened out the papers, as well as straightened up his posture. 

He spoke in The Writer's voice, as he read the words on the paper to them. 

I stand alone

A few feet in front of his throne

   A few hundred angels are watching us

They are chanting something I can’t understand

   But I know a crescendo when I hear one 

And something . . . is building 

  Something is happening here . . .

A fog settles in

   A warm fog

Like a blanket of joy

   Spreading out

The lighting changes

   Everything starts glowing 

Every atom radiates warmth

   Every molecule is listening, waiting 

   Every cell in my body is curious 

Something is happening here . . .

    Something is building . . .

There’s power here

    Real power

Something with the ability 

   To change everything 

I feel it flowing through me

   I feel it flowing out of me

I breathe 

   And feel peace

There’s a whisper in the wind

   There’s a voice in the birds

There’s a lesson in the river

   There’s knowledge in the dirt

It feels like home

   And it calls my name 

    And like a magnet 

I am pulled towards it

  I fall to my knees

Salt water dripping from my eyes

   It feels like a drug trip

   The crescendo keeps building

The singing, growing louder

   And then one of them starts to clap along to the beat

And in an instant 

  All the angels are clapping 

It’s thundering

   It’s shaking the ground 

A few of them start stomping

  Still singing the strange song

 Something in the air is pulsing like a heartbeat . . .

Something is happening here . . .

Something is coming . . .

    I can’t tell if it’s been a few minutes

Or a few hours

   But I can feel the power

The song grows louder

   The clapping echoes all around me

I feel the song inside of my bones

   I feel the song inside of my soul

All at once

    They stop

And the silence

   The stillness

The moment 

   It holds

It yields 

   It pulls back 

My curious cells start zipping around in my body 

    My hairs stand on edge

The wind whispers once again

   Calling out my name 

But I feel too small to talk back to it

   It calls out my name again

I open my mouth to tell the voice that I am here

   But nothing comes out

And my mouth feels dry

   My tongue feels numb

I try to move my feet

   To take a step

But I am frozen 

   It calls my name again

And I feel as if I might burst open

   My soul might split my body in two

And I have no choice

   But to throw my head back

And let it out,

   “HERE I AM!!”

I shout louder than hundreds of angels singing and clapping.

    I shout it so loud that it shakes the mountains miles away.

But the voice responds with barely a whisper, almost unrecognizable from the wind,

    “. . . There you are.”

“. . . Here I am . . .” I whisper back. 

     “I’ve been waiting a long time for this team-up.”

“How long?”

    “Eternity.”

“I’m sorry it took so long.”

    “Don’t be sorry. It all happened exactly like it needed to.”

The angels start to sing their song again, only this time it is slightly different. It starts softer—happier—but, just like before, it starts to build. 

The fog grew warmer.

The glow got brighter.

The mountains and sky started to sing along with the angels. 

They all started to stomp their feet to the beat, and the most powerful bass drum in the cosmo’s shook my soul. 

I was in awe of it all. 

Something is building . . .

Something is coming . . .

Something is happening here . . .

The sky cracked open in a booming thunder.

   The voice of all voices spoke again; this time, not in a whisper, but in my mind; and across the valley, and over the mountains; and through all of space and time. 

It said,

“YOU! . . . YOU HAVE BEEN BURDENED WITH GLORIOUS PURPOSE!!”

And I felt it. 

I felt my purpose. 

I knew it. 

It was as clear as it could be. 

But,

Then I thought, 

Burdened?? . . . Wait, what does that mean?? Why am I BURDENED with it??

And then it all disappeared . . . 

God glanced up from the papers with a smirk. The Writer, who was looking out the kitchen window.  “You don’t believe in God?” God asked him.

“No, I don’t, “ he said, still just as stubborn.

“This says differently,” God said, flicking the paper with pride. 

“No, it doesn’t.”

“No?”

The Writer’s eyes turned from the window and found God’s. They were vicious—furious, even, and full of tears. “Let me ask you one question, you miserable sonofabitch, was that you in that poem? Were you really there, or was that all my imagination?”

“In your mind or in reality, what does it really matt—”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” The Writer said coldly, standing up quickly, his chair falling backwards. “DON’T YOU DARE, YOU SONUVABITCH! OF COURSE IT MATTERS IF IT WAS REAL!!” Spit was flying from his mouth as he yelled at God, and the veins in his head and face were protruding out of his skin. 

The Fighter stood up when he did and fell into his boxing stance, his left foot forward, his hands up by his chin, his elbows in—protecting his body, and his chin tucked slightly under his left shoulder. It was pretty corny, but it did look like he could fight in his sleep if he had to. He was looking at God, waiting for permission, but God looked at him softly and shook his head, so he sat back down, unclenching his fist as he did. 

“YOU WEREN’T THERE!” The Writer continued after seeing The Fighter sit back down. “THAT’S THE TRUTH!! I WAS HIGH ON MUSHROOMS AND MUSIC WHEN I WROTE THAT! . . .” he took a few deep breaths but his eyes were still full of fury and rage. “That’s all it was! That’s all it was. I know that’s all it was . . . I was just high on mushrooms and music.”

“It is whatever you believe it to be,” God said, gently.

“Ohhhh,” The Writer said, mocking God. “So goddamn, cryptic, ain’t ya?? I’m sick of you, you know that? This world is sick of you. YOU’VE BEEN GONE! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN??”

“He was suffering,” The Fighter whispered.

“Like hell he was!”

“He was in a pit, like we were.”

“What pit?? I was in a goddamn pit, pipsqueak. It was in hell on earth. I needed God then! I called out and the only thing I ever heard was my own voice echoing around my skull.”

Abruptly, God stood up with a look of genuine concern on his usually soft face. “Trevor??” he said, his voice vibrating through the souls of the two men in the room with them.

“I feel it,” Trevor said nervously, looking around.

The tension in the room seemed to be pulsing. 

“What?? What’s going on??” The Fighter asked, starting to panic with them.

“He’s got him,” God said, his voice starting to tremble. They both felt God’s fear and it was beyond terrifying. 

The lighting dimmed. 

The silence that lingered in the cold air was not the absence of noise, but the petrifying sound of a dark horror filling up the skulls of the men. Fear filled the space in the room that was usually occupied by air. Any joy or hope the two men, the angel, and God had been feeling was quickly sucked out of them.

“W-Who has w-who?” The Writer asked, his own voice trembling beyond the point of recognition.

“Lucy has him. Shit, Trevor! How did this happen??” God asked.

“I don’t know . . .” Trevor's lip was trembling. 

“Lucy has WHO??” The Writer asked.

God looked at all three of them. His eyes weren’t stoic, or sad, or afraid, or jolly; no, God’s eyes for the first time in a long time were alive with anger. “Lucy has Jesus in hell.”