I Am God

by Giacomo Sartori

  * At first I had no doubts at all: he was a charlatan, an impostor. But then I heard so much and such various commentary that even I began to feel unsure, I who better than anyone else ought to know whether or not he’s my son and how he was conceived. If there’s one thing the theologians have always been good at, it’s smoke and mirrors: according to some religions he existed, for others, no; for some his nature is more human than divine, for others more divine than human—in short, a tremendous muddle. So far as I’m concerned, if someone wants to believe, fine, if instead (s)he’s skeptical, that’s fine too; the important thing is that they believe in me. Relatives, even those who put themselves out for the cause, matter only up to a point. I hope I won’t disturb anyone in stating this frankly.

  When the crosses are burning nicely, the lanky unbeliever adds another, larger crucifix to the fire. Only when the pyre really gets crackling does she lay on a big blue angel. Atheists think they can do away with me by despising religious froufrou. They don’t realize that the more they go at it, the more they sink into the quicksand of their own faith in reverse, fall back on surrogates destined to leave them in the lurch (look what became of communism!). I’m always somewhat astonished (insofar as a god can be astonished) to think how seriously they underestimate me. Doesn’t it even occur to them that I’m here watching, that I could swallow them in one bite? Maybe I should be annoyed, but instead I find them kind of sweet. Like children when you see them make some lewd gesture they don’t understand.

  The tall one and the wee one had met each other a few days earlier in a crowd of nutcases kissing and necking in the middle of the road, individuals of the same sex I mean.† Now they’re babbling away beside the burning angels and crucifixes. The tall one says that it’s the church’s fault that the country still doesn’t have a law protecting homosexual couples; the church stands in the way of all progress in civil rights and scientific research. The wee one replies that nothing’s likely to happen soon: it certainly won’t be that smiley new pope who’ll upend that lethal fascist crime syndicate that’s been persecuting genuine spirituality from the beginning. The boyfriend is studying a collection of votive phalluses atop a bamboo chest, his brow furrowed: that is, the way men listen to women talking to one another.

  † Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against homosexuals, but if I created men and women it was for some purpose, if you know what I mean.

  Obviously, it bothers me somewhat that these two girls (as well as their partner in crime pretending an interest in priapic statuettes) take it for granted I don’t exist. I mean, who wouldn’t be peeved: you’re there, you hear every word, you see what’s behind every single breath and syllable, and they act like you don’t exist and never have. It’s not merely bad manners, it’s a question of a total lack of recognition, considering that it is I who made the firmament and all creation (as they say). However, if they think they can get at me by disparaging the church, they’ve got the wrong man (so to speak). I’ve never granted the slightest indulgence to the institution, nor to that kid they call my son (and who probably isn’t). If there’s an institution that has always caused me trouble, it’s the church.

  After gazing at the crucifician immolation for some time, the three of them sit down at the table: she on the side of the fish-counter-become-kitchen-counter with the hunk sitting across from her, and the wee one next to the glass blocks that face out on the post-proletarian shop-yard. She tells them that she’s worked for a number of years in a genetic research unit but also has a fallback job in bovine insemination. So, you’ve got a thing for microbes? says the hunk, in a tone that would like to sound horrified but in fact just sounds phony. Oh yes, says she, her face all tender. Our future is in their hands! she declares, like some nun in the throes of mystical abandon. To hear her raving like that sets my teeth on edge (you might say), but it would be the end of me if I had to correct every piece of balderdash humans say. I’d have to step in tens of billions of times a day.

  ‌I’m Having a Blast

  What I like best, when I have some time for myself (you know what I mean) is to dillydally (what a verb: I dillydally, you dillydally, they had a brief dillydalliance) around the galaxies and intergalactic spaces. I know of no spectacle more intense and thrilling than galaxies and clusters of galaxies. If I could, if I never had to toil, I would do nothing else. Keep in mind, however, that the distinction between labor and free time is meaningless for a god, because inevitably mine is not really labor, and even less so is my free time really free. Simplifying as much as possible, or we’ll never get to the bottom of this, let us say that whenever I can I like to putter around.*

  * Perhaps I should say zoom around, given the velocities infinitely greater than the speed of light (never mind quantum physics). If I prefer putter, it’s precisely to emphasize the completely relaxed and soothing nature of my activity. As always, I must explain myself in broad approximations.

  Let me be clear: when I move through the universe I do not strut about like the owner of a great corporation in the hallways of his headquarters, and even less like a scowling Tolstoyan latifundista on horseback. The term that comes closest, although it’s still profoundly inadequate, is tourist. Like a tourist, I have no precise objective, like a tourist my frame of mind is receptive and benevolent, I’m unstressed, I like to compare, digress. Of course I know that tourism is widely considered anything but a spiritual activity, but in my view, if all tourists acted like tourists in their everyday lives too, the so-called world would be a lot better off.

  There are dozens of billions of galaxies, and even the paltriest of them has tens of millions of stars of all colors, stars with halos in various styles, pretentious plumes, nebulae in the most garish colors, even planets and satellites. Some stars are as quiet as little angels despite the deadly nuclear reactions inside them; most however seem to be possessed by the devil, hawking up foaming lava that swells into giant bubbles, or just the opposite, collapsing and shriveling until they nearly disappear, a billion times denser than lead. But the interstellar spaces, too, with their fresh and invigorating atmosphere measuring two hundred sixty degrees below zero (to use a scale everyone can understand) and their glimmers of all but impalpable dust, are by no means wastelands without any appeal, and they vary greatly. In short, it’s almost impossible to get bored.

  There’s such a quantity of stars, each one putting on a fabulous show, that every galaxy is a sort of multiplex with millions or billions of screens. And so you could not altogether mistakenly characterize my existence as having season tickets to a billion multiplexes with millions of billions of screens. I watch all the films at once, however, and they are shown (as it were) 24/7. It’s not so different from the job of control-room supervisor of a megagalactic nuclear power plant; my locus, my workstation (shall I call it that?), is something like a cyclopean control room.

  You might object that I’ve already seen what I’m about to see, and thus it’s not that much fun. But that would be quite misleading. As if a tram conductor who had worked in a particular city for millions of years could remember the faces of all his passengers, how they were dressed, what stop they got off, et cetera et cetera. With my limitless powers, I have no problem at all picturing each of the billions and billions of stars in detail, but when I find myself there looking I’m forever amazed by all the variety—I get caught up and, moral of the story if I may use a somewhat profane expression, I find I’m having a blast.

  One big difference with the movies are the smells. That’s one of the greatest appeals. At times the scents are delicate, suggesting vanilla, or cinnamon, or there will be a faint smoky smell, like a cigarette perceived from afar, or better, a pipe. More often there are violent fumes of ether or acetone, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon vapors or other deadly organic compounds that bring to mind the crater of an angry volcano or some industrial park full of chemical plants. Stinks and stenches don’t bother me at all (whatever those bigoted theologians may say), they make me think of the
fierce violence of certain magnificent expressionist paintings. I’m certainly no fop who lives on rose water and the smell of soap; at times I greedily fill my lungs (so to speak) with acrid fumes, or even just nitrous oxide, which makes me laugh until the tears come. Just as the dung-scented aroma of Kolkata has nothing to do with Copenhagen’s coniferous tang, I can recognize many a galaxy by its smell alone.

  ‌Moonmilk

  When they finish the algae and capers with a dash of mountain larch lichen essence, the beanpole asks Don Giovanni what he does with himself. With a deep sigh of false modesty, Vittorio (no loser’s name for him) replies he is studying pointless stuff. For example? For example, moonmilk. In a somewhat breathy voice she says she didn’t know that moons produced milk, and he says not all do, but some, yes. And how do you milk them? she asks, her bird eyes widening like a child’s. Moonmilk, he tells her, is a limestone secretion found in caves, you just go there with a suitable container and collect the stuff. And then you drink it? It sounds as if she’s swallowing a big stone. Pushing back a wayward neoromantic lock, he replies that in fact moonmilk serves to quantify man-made environmental damage, in other words to certify our probable cause of death.

  There in the former fishmongers’ shop, you see, an ancient ritual is being played out. Men talk, their words a screen to conceal their basest instincts. The fact is, the fetching young man has the hots for the bacteria manipulator and cow inseminatrix. You don’t have to be the supreme being to notice: his pupils are as big as marbles and every word that comes out of his throat sounds like a caress. His girlfriend can see it; she’s got her sights locked on the scoundrel, once again up to his tricks. The godless microbiologist, however, is playing dumb. She gets up to put another crucifix on the fire, which is now a bit sluggish, and with a long-handled fork pushes all the crossless redeemers to one side. Poor half-smoked devils, they make a noise like a rusty old chain. They might be soldiers with their arms flung out at the moment of death—or maybe they’re already deceased, thus the rigor mortis appearance.

  The lanky unbeliever, whose upper half resembles a skinny, asymmetric El Greco figure, her lower half a plump young Titianesque matron (I’ve always been an art lover, ever since the first cave paintings) sits down again, this time with her chair facing the IT guerrilla workstation and her elbows resting on the chair back. In a dopey female voice, she says she’d love to taste moonmilk. Frailty, thy name is woman! The devious male, an amiable smile on his face, says that nothing could be simpler: if she likes he’ll take her to a cave that’s full of it. Rivers of lovely milk.

  There are times when I think that it’s not all that wonderful to know in advance how everything will turn out. I wouldn’t mind watching my film from start to finish, noshing on popcorn in peace (I’ve always been drawn to that greasy, earthy smell).* As I was saying, the problem with being God is that you see what humans don’t. I’m no prophet, but I can see the future a million times better than any old soothsayer or fortune-teller. Not only that, I can see the past. For example, I’m aware that one evening the previous week, our dreamboat told his wee mate he was going to the gym and instead he went straight over to see her best friend. They fell into bed almost immediately, and he came twice and she once. Then late at night he returned to sleep at his mother’s house. Good Italian son that he is, he’s still tied to mamma’s apron strings.

  * Before I began to think, everything was okay with me. I would never have dreamed of finding even an infinitesimal reason to complain. But now, I see, my words reveal many dissatisfactions, many unattainable desires.

  So maybe we could all go on an outing to the cave together? The fierce atheist is in an ecumenical mood. The tiny one, shoulders quivering like a tender fawn, says that caves give her claustrophobia. She’d gone in one once but felt like she was back in prison, and nearly suffocated. Thinking that she’d been rude to their host, she is now trying to compensate. (A reader may wonder how the writer knows what a character’s thinking, but in my case the point’s moot.) Don G., in a typical petty male reaction, takes his girlfriend literally, and remarks that she much prefers an iguana to a cave, that’s the problem. We’re all free to find iguanas more interesting than holes in a mountainside, she replies, revealing her gum-colored gums. At least my caves don’t bite, he shoots back, showing off a scar on the side of his hand.†

  † If there is one sphere in which humans reveal their lack of perfection, it’s the couple. I personally have never seen a pair of penguins shouting vile accusations at each other about mothers-in-law or nail scissors. Humans on the other hand are forever dissatisfied, they seem to go out of their way to find reasons to squabble. Or rather, after a brief pacific idyll comes a crescendo of misunderstanding and reciprocal intolerance until full-scale war breaks out. Not a pretty picture in a species so devoted to crooning love tunes, one that considers itself a thousand times superior to all others.

  After she pours them coffee with cardamom pods, the lanky microbiologist throws two hefty blocks of wood on the fire. The spelunker, testosterone thrumming, wonders if the logs came from a crucifix, and she says they were beams swiped from a nearby building site, next to the Indian who sells cell phones supplied by the Camorra. She answers as though she regrets no crucifix was involved.

  Now the iguana-lover speaks up, her voice as pure as a jet of water, languidly caressing the words. Has she always burned crucifixes? Oh boy, I knew the reptile-hugger would soon come to hate her tall rival—hate her with every neuron of her brain, every cell of her myocardium—but right now you might almost think she likes her. Rosa Luxemburg of the purple locks replies that she’s been burning them for years, only when it’s cold, of course. If everyone did, it would solve the problem of the Catholic Church’s overweening power, says the seducer, currying favor. His wee friend asks where she found all those crucifixes and the other looks blank as though she doesn’t understand the question. Nailed to the wall, she says finally, seeing no polemical intent, just plain curiosity.

  ‌Humans, Their Preposterous Conceit

  A good many human beings believe God’s at their service. Billions of them, even the most dismal failures, the least presentable, bask in the ludicrous conviction that God has nothing better to do than indulge their petty, insignificant point of view, see the universe from their perspective. Which, you understand, would be technically possible: the ability to perform multiple tasks, to identify with an infinite number of subjects—to seven billion human beings we must add billions of billions of billions of protozoa, insects, arachnids, myriapods, sponges, annelids, mollusks, springtails, and so forth and so on—the exponential multiplication of points of view, that is, and the filing of all the necessary information, are just some of the basic tricks of the trade.

  So I repeat, it would be doable. But I don’t do it. A god must keep his distance, if only to maintain his image and avoid spreading himself too thin. But also to allow each of them to show what he or she is worth morally. It would be pointless to set up the Last Judgment (supposing I were in fact to realize that tribunal my alleged son is always going on about—in short, to calculate the bottom line). My philosophy, to use a word I’ve never liked, is this: Grant everyone the maximum freedom, then do the accounting.

  Others—many, too many—make the opposite mistake. They are convinced I don’t exist. These are the fundamentalists of reason, science, and progress, the fanatics of logic, of the French Revolution, social leveling and democratic procedure. The type who go around saying God is just a drug, that minus God human beings could finally realize themselves and be content (as if anything would satisfy them for long). Emaciated philosophers and poets who grin nervously, swelling with pride to think they can face existence without a shred of meaning or sense. And above all, billions of wise guys who take advantage of my absence to wallow in materialism, with no thought for anything but consuming as many goods as possible, pleasuring themselves to the max day after day. In place of the old rites (but in need of some liturgical celebration) they
mount noisy musical performances and ball games, these too steeped in commodity fetishism.

  And then there are the in-betweens, the chronically undecided. The way they see it, maybe I exist and maybe not, maybe I’ve got the cosmos in hand and maybe I don’t, maybe I’m omnipotent and maybe I’m a figment of somebody’s imagination, like Sancho Panza and Emma Bovary: they don’t know and they can’t be bothered to find out. They shrug their shoulders, they’re proud to be so open-minded. Quite often these opportunists dabble in certain fanciful religions that hold I’m an Immense Intelligence, a Supreme Postulate, a Cosmic Essence, the Big Poo-Bah. In some ways these maxi-vacillators are even more of a pain in the backside than the infidels, if I may say so. I wouldn’t mind suddenly materializing before them wearing my big beard, hair receding at the temples (according to the painters of the Renaissance and the Baroque), to see how they react. Somebody looking for me? I’d snarl, like the Most Wanted dude in a crime movie. Anybody want a kick where the sun don’t shine from the Universal Hive Mind?

  Of course it’s not easy for a human being to understand who I am, how I think (as it were), what I’m capable of. It’s like asking a protozoan to describe an elephant: he could tell you about an infinitesimal portion of one hair on the scrotum, or about a single epidermal cell from the auditory canal of the right ear, in short whatever was right there before him, but he’d never be able to describe the elephant in all its majestic entirety. Obviously the difference between (wo)man and me is a billion billion times greater than that between a human and a protozoan, and an elephant does not embody the meaning of all things; mine was just a rather vivid example.