I Am God

by Giacomo Sartori

  ‌Demon Sex

  Someone’s knocking on the door of the old fishmonger’s shop. Again. Has the handsome climatologist returned? Sprained his ankle walking his bike in that dreadful heat? Typical questions a scribbler likes to pose. But apart from a bad headache (too much excitement) on top of the stomachache and the broken elbow, everything’s fine with Apollo. Nor can that be an aunt rapping, no matter how testosteronic her biceps; this is the energetic, imperious hammering of an impatient (maybe even violent) hominid. Daphne, however, goes to open the door without concern, and does not seem at all surprised to find the mechanic who fixed her bike. The burly one with the prizefighter’s nose.

  Yes, it’s him, although he’s not wearing the usual overalls with the Japanese logo on the back. He’s dressed in very tight pale-blue jeans and a tight red T-shirt that clings to knots of bulging muscles that look carved in wood (a bodybuilder, is my guess). On his feet, a pair of oversized gym shoes, like a kid might wear. She barely has time to take in these details, though, because he immediately grabs her head, as if taking possession of the thing he came for (it was clear he hadn’t come for the conversation). She lets him take her mouth without hesitation, as if fearful of crossing him. She also allows his hard, rough hands to slip inside her tunic, indeed she expedites their imperious advance by moving her upper body in concentric circles, moves that resemble the undulations of a cunning snake. When the big hands find her nipples she grips his biceps with all her strength, as though seeking his protection in a situation of grave danger.

  Minutes later they’re on the mat and her tunic is an open book, and not a holy one. Spread over her long body, the mechanic pumps his mighty arms as his pelvis delivers potent thrusts, the way he might pound a large post into the ground. He looks like he’s in a hurry to complete a strenuous task. She, meanwhile, cheek glued to the sky-blue floor tiles, stares out the bayonet window open to the alley of the Nigerian prostitutes, her vision clouded as if she’s about to faint. She seems almost unconscious, or drugged. Alone in a world of wind and bright sunlight.

  Now the bike shop satyr slams harder, he seems to want to break right through the floor and descend into the cellar. (Inferno, I think. Inferno was one of the many hobbyhorses of that supposed son of mine, but I must give him credit, the scenography was undeniably powerful.) Finally the satyr emits a long braying sound, an asphyxiated donkey desperate to catch its breath. He hovers over her for a few seconds, tremors running through him like an epileptic fit, then deflates on top of her. Maybe those rock-hard muscles broke something inside him? It’s another one–zero, but this is merely act one. The mighty tool has only contracted by a few millimeters; he just needs a short break. It won’t be a night of verbal disquisitions or philosophical conjecture; in fact, they’re looking in opposite directions. She, toward the post-Fordist courtyard behind the wall of glass bricks; he, toward the plate of biscotti on the rim of the fish tank.

  ‌Diabolical Collateral Damage

  As far as I can remember (false modesty—my memory is murderously infallible) I’ve never made an error before. I mean, never. Sure, there were times when I massacred innocents, but I have never misread the facts so badly, have never outright mistaken one thing for another. This time I really dropped the ball. All the evidence was before my eyes, but my divine gifts were knocked out by a tempest of feelings (I don’t know what else to call them), the way those electronic gadgets scramble an enemy’s radar. The licentious lassie had arranged her tribal sex session not with the handsome hunk who’s struggling like a fly on flypaper, but with the muscular mechanic (and the outcome was a very disappointing four–zero to boot).

  This situation must come to an end. I’ve said it and I repeat it: while the concepts of time and space-time don’t apply to me, when something keeps happening, it keeps happening, and one can’t pretend otherwise, something must be done. I can’t let my entire existence, or whatever you want to call it, be reduced to nonsense by one specimen of the human race, and not even one of their best. She’s no ascetic consumed by a mystical flame, no paragon of devotion who lowers her eyes and endures the worst torture of the flesh; if she were, that would make up for the various sins and defects we’ve observed. No, she’s a militant atheist who spends her nights trying to sabotage the Vatican website (recently she found a chink in the armor, and I fear the worst). She’s an incorrigible misbeliever who’s in favor of gay marriage and abortion on demand—something she’s practiced herself not once but twice—and all she cares about is her own sexual satisfaction. And never mind that her precious satisfaction is by no means guaranteed, as evidenced by the paltry tally earned in her pornographic brawling. She’s obsessed with sex. A witch, in short, who in another time and place would have been burned at the stake. Nothing like this happens even in the filthiest trashy novels.

  It’s the collateral damage that’s the worst, however: worse even than the direct harm. The consequences for my state of mind. I can’t sleep a wink, my thoughts grow ever more labyrinthine; my faultlessness less crystalline and exemplary. I’m a pioneering example of faulty faultlessness, a terrible headache for dialectical philosophers. It’s not so much the age difference—I have no age—nor that of rank, for my rank can’t be compared with any other, but a god is a god, and a human a human. I risk making myself ridiculous for all eternity, should anyone find out. I’ll go down as the god who lost his head for an atheist who sticks her arm up cow’s asses and incinerates crucifixes. Stop! I think, I’m raving mad! My thinking is deranged. This can only bring disaster!

  For billions of years (if not even more; truth is, I never kept count) everything went as smoothly as oil from a jug. I kept an eye on things, I attended, I superintended, I rewarded, I contained, I punished (I don’t mind admitting it), I threw fits (yes, it happens). All this was business as usual for a unique god who, because he has no employees or colleagues, must hoist the whole weight of the cosmos on his shoulders but succeeds brilliantly because he’s omnipotent. But now I hesitate, I dither, I procrastinate.

  I wonder if I might be slightly depressed. These days most men are demoralized; they’ve boxed themselves into a corner, and in the course of sitting here watching them, maybe I’ve caught some similar ailment. The difference is, of course, that I can hardly go to some therapist and say, Hello I’m God and I’m not feeling so great. Even Freud himself couldn’t help me. I mean, a lame elephant could scarcely expect a presumptuous Austro-Hungarian gnat to keep him on his feet. Not to mention that ninety-nine percent of psychoanalysts are atheists, which implies a surreal scenario: an atheist having an amiable conversation with God. Nor could I swallow anti-depressant pills (How many? Certainly the label would not include the optimal dosage for the undersigned). A god must always resolve matters himself, whatever happens, whatever mess he gets into.

  It’s this “diary”—N.B. not one day has ever gone by for me out here—that’s bringing me to ruin. You write, and the more you write the dizzier you become, and you end up with a headful of foolishness. Your reason begins to unravel, you fall in love. It’s been happening since the beginning of time to millions of boys and girls in their sad little rooms but also to ranks of adults, even eminent seniors, oblivious to the ridicule they invite. All of them dishing out sticky, sentimental phrases, choking back sobs and wetting their keyboards—once sheets of paper, before that papyri—with hot tears stirred up by the same silly whimpers the keys of their computers make (previously fountain pens and before that quills and styluses). And now it’s happened to me. God or no god.

  ‌Where the Snakes Live

  The snakes live in the scree heap at the bottom of a gray rock face still shielded from the sword-strokes of the rising sun. A real den of snakes, thinks Daphne, a long shiver running up her spine. Behind her, the wee zoologist hops gaily from one stone to the next. They’re so quiet that two roe deer at the edge of the woods graze unafraid. Not even the shadow of a snake is visible yet, but the tiny explorer isn’t concerned. Plenty of snakes, she whispe
rs, smiling to one side as you might when speaking of a particularly dear friend. And in fact, less than two minutes later she is holding one in her fist. The beanpole has no idea where she found it, because she was looking the other way. The sprite is holding it like a belt, not taking special precautions, but delicately, so as not to damage the horn in the middle of its forehead.

  Daphne had spent the whole day previously, Sunday, at the lab, as well as all night. Twenty-three hours straight with only two breaks for three chocolate bignè and a bag of peperoncino-flavored potato chips that she’d found on the shelf of the pimpled chemist who wants to marry her and have ten kids. Oh, and three packets of candied ginger. When she got to the meeting place in front of the Greek herbalist’s and caught sight of the little one’s doe eyes and gum-colored gums, all her fatigue slipped away like a heavy overcoat. In the jeep belonging to the Museum of Science, she let herself be rocked back and forth by the roll of the curving road, and her mood gradually turned better and better, as if she’d just gotten up.

  Still clutching the viper-necktie, Aphra, the small one (I’m getting mildly tired of calling her small), kneels on the ground. With her free hand she gets her equipment out of the knapsack and lays it out neatly on a flat stone. A half-smile lingering on her finely drawn lips, she makes an incision with her scalpel in the skin behind the viper’s head, lifts the tiny flap and inserts a small electronic chip. She then carefully disinfects the wound and applies a bandage two fingers wide. The bandage will fall off in a while, it’s done on purpose, she says in that voice as clear as water, putting the viper on the ground. For an instant it is motionless, then slowly slinks off, like a patient who’s been to the doctor and needs a moment to review what was said.

  Daphne’s now a little frightened. What if another horned viper—this rock pile seems to be full of them—suddenly appears and bites her on the ankle above her motorcycle boots? Something could go wrong. Perhaps because she sees her brow furrow, Aphra tells her it’s almost impossible to get bitten by a viper; the cows Daphne has to deal with are far more dangerous. The wee one’s calm is contagious and Daphne’s doubts disperse like clouds racing across the sky, and disappear. Human premonitions do have a way of disappearing like that, even the accurate ones.

  Leaning against a comfortable branch in a stand of larches by the side of the stone heap, Daphne observes Aphra. Her sensuous cat’s body (only her head is a doe’s) obviously needs to hunt this way, it’s a genuine vocation for her. The horned viper is at risk of extinction and she’s studying it to determine how to help save it. Watching her move, she thinks her friend is right about animal life: you have to take nature as it comes. She, instead, has always been thinking about how to modify nature, how to work out its secrets, put it on a leash, and exploit it. This new idea is slow to advance, a cart with rusty wheels, but she promises herself she’ll think about it. For the moment, she’s fine with this silence, with the sun that’s dusting the crowns of the larch trees. Then she thinks of nothing, because she falls asleep. And sleeps like an angel (angels don’t sleep, but whatever).

  As they drive down toward the plain with its blotches of asphalt and concrete, Aphra says she can’t bear working at the Museum of Science anymore. All they want to do is organize idiotic exhibits. Like everything else, the natural sciences are slaves to the dictatorship of the free market and the ignorance of the masses. They’ll use the excuse of the recession not to hire her, they’ll never give her a full-time job; she’s too much of a troublemaker. But fine, she doesn’t want to be complicit with a system that’s driving the human race to the brink of catastrophe. She wants to farm, grow carrots and cabbages with her own hands, raise a goat and some chickens, and if possible a donkey. The time has come to organize a real resistance.

  Daphne is taken aback. She’s always lived in the city and can’t imagine settling elsewhere. She’s always believed that even the most modern agriculture is still quite backward, and must be brought up to date with technology. The wee zoologist’s ideas would ordinarily horrify her, ideas so similar to the wishful thinking practiced by her mother’s friend and his buddies, with their gray hair and their weakness for red wine and marijuana. And yet, when she thinks of growing carrots in semifeudal conditions, she nearly bursts into tears. She has no idea why, and she makes sure the other doesn’t see her.

  On their way back into town, the short one tells her she’s decided to leave Vittorio. She waited for him to behave better; she’s been patient, but now she’s fed up. She hasn’t told him yet, but she will soon, she says with gay resolve, in that tone of voice you adopt when talking about your vacation plans. Anyway, sex with him was never that great, she says, hammering in the last nail. Daphne says nothing, although she wouldn’t mind talking about her two–zeros and her three–zeros, and the one–zero. Always zero. The lump in her throat has returned, and so she gazes out the side window.

  ‌Thinking of Nothing Again

  It’s not that I’m neglecting the other seven billion humans, God knows, but as will happen when one’s preoccupied, I listen to them with one ear while trying to work out the problem at hand. I’ve never played any favorites, and honestly I’m not thrilled about starting at this venerable age. So I make an effort to do things properly, and safeguard my scrupulous, exemplary professionalism. If an old fellow is taking a long time to die, for example, I don’t deliver him on the spot, as I’d be tempted to do, I let his throes go on for as long as it takes.

  As soon as I can, I turn my attention back to what interests me most now (in the heat of the moment, I was about to write the only thing). I watch her at work in the laboratory, her white smock open over that slightly coarse skin, a blonde’s skin; I watch her while she’s on the toilet defecating, the blind cat on her knees; while she sleeps. I love to watch her sleep: stretched out between the sheets without the serious, thick glasses, abandoned to sleep’s slightly damp and sensuous heat, her innocent sexuality smelling almost of bread, or yeast. She reminds me of one of those very long angels in certain Mannerist paintings, announcing some arrival or other, or floating on the ceiling of a church. When she’s sleeping I don’t fear her committing acts that offend me, and there’s no danger she’ll masturbate. She dreams, and I love following her optimist’s dreams, fresh as the water from a brook (Petrarchan?) with continual surprises and plot twists.

  It’s when I watch her sleep that the craziest fantasies come to me. My friend (that’s how I think of her in private) could become a goddess, I think. I could raise her to divine standing; that’s something the immortals (fanciful figures beloved by the Greeks, thought to have eternal life) used to do all the time. She could become my consort. Common-law wife, concubine, whatever you like; freed, you understand, from having to expire—a fix that technically speaking is a snap. Instead of running around stealing crucifixes or stuffing herself with Sicilian cannoli, she’d be by my side, or trekking around the galaxies. She’d fit in fine: I can easily imagine her here, her and those pigtails. Instead of microbes, she’d study meteorite fragments, or some cosmic scientific enigma. There’s material enough to nourish her mathematical soul for eternity, and slowly her knowledge would surpass mine (as it were). At some point she might decide to set down a giant summary bible, a compendium that would be admired to the end of time. I would no longer be alone, we’d be a couple, a pair of gods.

  The present ritual foresees that God has a son, a descendant, but no consort, or companion or whatever, but you know what, the monotheistic religions would simply have to get over it.* And I may be worrying too much; the doctrine regarding me has always been quite vague and approximate, so that married or not married wouldn’t change much. Besides, there would be no need to broadcast the news to the four winds, we could just carry on discreetly for the moment. Slowly humans would begin to sniff out the fact that I was no longer alone, and then they’d have to catch up, bring the sacred texts up to date, redo the iconography and all. Taking their time.

  * One more proof humans are intrinsic
ally selfish; I see no reason why they should spend their days coupling, or thinking about coupling, while I may not even take a legitimate wife.

  Stop! I say to myself. You must cease thinking about that girl this instant! Whatever happens, you must forget her. And return to thinking about nothing, which in fact is the only way to think impartially about everything! I am God! I tell myself.

  ‌A Terrible Planetary Injustice

  On her arrival at the lab, everyone gazes at her the way you do someone who’s just lost a close relative. But Daphne doesn’t notice. She slept only about half an hour under the larch trees but feels perfectly up to carrying out the bombardment she’s planned. They seem to have posted the results of the job search, mumbles her stoichiometric admirer, studying, as always, the shoes that stick out from under his smock, shoes a priest might wear on an outing. She listens as she would to a monumental bore, without noticing the intense glow of his phosphorescent pimples. Only after she has calmly fired off all the tiny golden bullets coated with modified genes does she go have a look. And learns that the clueless goose has won the prize. And that she has come second in the ranking. She thinks she must be dreaming, but no—she is second, and by many points. Her first thought goes to how she can save the microbe battery, the way you worry about how to protect a child.

  Now as a rule the injustices of planet Earth leave me neither hot nor cold. And that’s not me being cynical, but merely simple good sense. To intervene would be like trying to plug all the holes in a colander as big as the globe.* But this time I’m indignant; enough is enough. It shouldn’t be terribly difficult to remedy the situation, though. I can visit a very aggressive type of leukemia on the lab director, one of those conditions that despite ample painkillers provokes harrowing screams and sends goosebumps up and down a whole hospital ward. Or better yet, I can snuff the fellow out in one go along with the charming appointee: a ceiling that collapses, a cylinder of oxygen that explodes, two souls united in job-search manipulation and in the hereafter. Now as I said, I usually abstain from such methods (so primitive), but sometimes a case needs special handling.