by Scott Kaelen
The beginning is a good place to go wrong, some say, but there’s a certain deity who omnipotently disagrees. Forget all you thought you knew about the first moments of existence, and prepare to have your beliefs played with, tickled, spanked, stretched across spacetime and shattered into so many irrelevant motes of stardust. Travel back to before creation itself, and witness what happens… WHEN GODS AWAKEN.
WHEN GODS
AWAKEN
A Short Story of Cosmic Proportions!
by Scott Kaelen
2014
CONTENTS
Dedication / Very Serious Copyright Notice
Equally Serious Disclaimer
When Gods Awaken
Poem: Gods Of Extinction
Obligatory Quotes Page
Excerpt: The Hyperverse Accord
DEDICATION
For atheists and secular humanists the world over, who live and die looking around this fantastic universe in wonder, asking questions, and striving for sensible answers. And for all the extinct species of the Earth which snuffed it long before they had a chance to be ridiculous.
VERY SERIOUS COPYRIGHT NOTICE
This ebook is protected by Via Lactean copyright laws, which provide severe penalties for the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material. Such penalties could include, but are not limited to: harsh labor; every first born son killed; vexed and smited; given as a heave offering to a priest, to be eaten by him, his family and his servants; cast into servitude to serve servants already in the service of others (who may or may not also get to eat you during or after your servitude); turned into a pillar of salt; stoned to death; exorcised; ears and nose cut off by an army of soldiers on horseback. You have been warned.
When Gods Awaken
All content copyright © 2014 Scott Kaelen
Cover design by and copyright © 2014 Scott Kaelen
All rights reserved
EQUALLY SERIOUS DISCLAIMER
The short story When Gods Awaken, as with the original story it is based upon, is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real people, events or places is purely coincidental. All characters, events and locales are either the product of the author’s imagination, a result of the author’s critical thinking and deductive reasoning, or used fictitiously by the author to convey a sense of humour. Any offence taken as a result of reading this story is none of the author’s concern.
WHEN GODS AWAKEN
PART ONE
In the end…
The Observer observed, from deep within non-space. None could challenge his powers of observation. At this, if at nothing else, he was without peer.
The death of existence had come around again, already. This cycle had been surprisingly active, especially all that stuff towards the end with those nucleic quasars forming rudimentary intelligence and learning to build machines that spirited them from the hearts of their galaxies to gather at the far edges of existence. Now that had been a spectacle worth observing.
But now those isolationist quasars were crushing together with their long-lost galaxies, screaming in fear and spiralling into a tight ball of radiance, until only a glint of light and a glimmer of consciousness remained. Then a final wink, and—
Void. Existence had once again disappeared up its own proverbial sphincter. The Observer sighed. Why did it always have to be a Big Crunch these days? He’d hoped for Heat Death for a change, but no.
“Better luck next time,” he muttered, with little optimism.
But here it was – non-space surrounded by a cozy blanket of nothingness – and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy it. It had been so long since such serenity had existed.
Or not existed, he thought, in a rare moment of non-essential existentialism, and proceeded to confuse himself into a state of apathy.
Aeons passed as he relished the peace and quiet. But such perfection had never lasted…
Ethereal filaments – memories and hazy concepts of past and future – bled into the void. The wandering elements coalesced into an undulating core and, in a colossal explosion, vast rings of energies burst outward. Stars huddled together into newly-formed galaxies, narrowing like the dazzled eyes of newborns.
The Observer fixed his attention on the immense nexus.
He watched, anticipating.
And there it was, as he knew it would be – tendrils of consciousness forming the fundaments of self; the emergence of a cosmic entity, oblivious of its recent death and reincarnation, mewling and unfurling.
With a nebulous flourish of stardust, and a swipe of barbed planet-shattering talons, Cosmos roared into existence. The entity’s shining shadows bristled as it contemplated the stars.
The Observer groaned at the familiar sight. Cosmos considered itself the creator of existence – every time! – but the Observer knew that even a toy-maker’s wood must first be cut from the tree. The entity’s self-deception was inevitable, of course, carved as it was into the very building blocks of creation.
The arrogance of cosmic deities was unparalleled.
Cosmos gazed out upon a gleaming mosaic of swarming nebulae and cascading walls of galaxies. These were his primordial infants, and the black backdrop was their playground.
He turned his attention to a small planet orbiting a bright star in a nearby galaxy, on the fringe of an immense galactic supercluster. The little planet whirled, clumsily pirouetting in mimicry of its elders. Cosmos pondered the blue-green orb, and he reached a decision.
“You will be called Earth, and you will be rightly named, for—” Earth? Cosmos sighed. I can do better than that. Think, he willed himself. Something I can make rhyme.
Existence danced patiently as Cosmos ruminated.
Finally he said, “You will still be called Earth, but you shall have many other names. Therefore you shall also be called Terra, and you will be rightly named.” Cosmos reared, swelling in might above the tiny world. “Let there be terror!”
Bad-um, tssssh! the Observer thought, as he watched the unbalanced entity plunge into the planet’s exosphere. Cosmos’ inherently cruel disposition permeated through space, enveloping the planet in a shroud of suffering.
“Here we go,” the Observer muttered. “Again…”
PART TWO
Cosmos spiralled down through Terra’s skies, his rumbling laughter crashing clouds together into lowering, bruised monsters that burst over the lands and seas in torrents. Cresting the airwaves, he circled above the mountains and sand-swathes and grasses, then plummeted to the rain-drenched ground. At the last he buffeted his shadow-etched wings and landed with a quake that shook the land for miles around, splitting mountains asunder.
Lightning tore the dark skies, and Terra shook under peals of thunder. Cosmos uttered the words of Creation and flicked one of his barbed tails at the ground, scoring the earth. A small bipedal figure climbed from the mud and clay. It lifted its hands and wiped some of the dirt from its face. Two blinking eyes stared up at Cosmos.
“You,” Cosmos said, “shall have many names. Your secret name shall be Cosmodore, being the first to whom I have gifted life. You shall also be known as the Progenitor, for you are the first of your kind. And, lastly, you shall be known as Terry. Behold—”
A gap opened in the dripping clay beneath Terry’s eyes and he spoke, spitting globs of dirt. “Are you my mother?”
Cosmos shook his head and sighed. “No. I am your Creator.”
“Well make your mind up, won’t you? Did you give birth to me or not?”
“No…”
“You’re my father, then?”
Cosmos considered the question, for it was a good one. Being a divine entity of infinite might, Cosmos was all things. “Look here,” he said, “I am nothing so restricted as a mere woman
or man, a mother or father, though I am male. It’s complicated; more so than you could wrap your little head around. But know this: I am better than you, for I am omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnificent—”
“Are you saying you’re an androgenid?”
“Oh, you just made that up!”
“No, I didn’t. Well, maybe a little. I suppose hermaphrodite would be just as good a word. You know,” grinned Terry, “when the son of Hermes and Aphrodite was ravaged by the naiad, Salmacis.”
Cosmos cleared his throats. “I know all about Aphroditus, you fool. I created him just as I created you. And I created that rapacious water nymph, too. Well, I didn’t create them, but I created their creators. Or, rather, I will do in about, oh, two hundred thousand years.” Cosmos shook his heads, exasperated. “Look, forget it. It’s too convoluted for your simple brain to grasp. Who in Hades told you about all that, anyway?”
I should just leave and come back, he thought. Start again. As beginnings go, this one’s turning into a real stinker.
The warm deluge had washed most of the mud and clay from Terry’s face, revealing long, thick hair framing dark, prominent features. “I suppose,” he said, slyly, “you must have imparted the knowledge to me. Since, you know, you’re omni-whatever-you-said, and all. Like just now—something about a Hades?” Terry shrugged. “We should probably also ignore that we’re really communicating in a series of clicks and grunts rather than a language filled with complex grammar and syntax, subtle verbal nuances, particles and participles, prefixes, prepositions—”
“Shut up.” Cosmos flicked the top off a nearby mountain. “Can we get back to the matter of my name? You don’t mind, do you, Terry? You don’t have any further nuggets of insight you’re dying to impart? No? Right, then.” Cosmos drew himself to his full height. His cavernous chest swelled and his wings and various other appendages spread open, encompassing all the land and the rain-filled skies. “Henceforth,” he boomed, “you shall call me your Omniarch, or Creator, or Lord. Maybe God. Lord Omniarch sounds best. But don’t call me Jehovah or I’ll drop a mountain on your head. I’m not joking.”
“Fair enough,” said Terry, quickly adding, “Lord Omniarch,” when Cosmos growled.
“And you shall spread word of my names – except Jehovah – to everyone! And to the dust shall you shout my names; yea, to the trees, also. And the mountains shall ring with the echo of my names, and the beasts of the ground and of the air and rivers and seas shall hear of me, and, though they will not comprehend, they will yet grovel under my might.”
“Why,” said Terry, “if you don’t want me to say it, do you keep mentioning the name Jeh—” The wind changed, and Terry gagged as rain gusted into his mouth. He brushed aside his drenched hair that had plastered across his face, and looked around. He held his arms out and shouted into the lashing downpour, “Who exactly am I supposed to tell? I’m the only one here! Unless you want me to start preaching your names to the Neanderthals? If I’m honest, I think it’ll probably go over their heads. They’re not the brightest bunch, you know? I could make a pilgrimage and spread your word to the various hominids and Gigantopithecus to the East? I think the ape-men might—”
“I’m the only one here, CREATOR!” Cosmos boomed. “Look, forget about prophesying to that lot. It won’t do them much good since they’ll all be dead in a hundred and sixty thousand years.”
“You’re going to kill them?” Terry said. “All of them?”
“Don’t go climbing on your podium and preaching at me, little man! For your information it won’t be me who kills them, it’ll be you.”
“What?” Terry shook his head. “I’ve got nothing against the Neanderthals. Certainly no grudge enough to warrant genocide. Is it just them and the Gigants, or do I get shouldered with the extinction of any other species?”
Cosmos’ myriad grins did not reach his eyes. “All of the uprights will die,” he pronounced. “Man will survive all other hominids, for only Man is my creation, and therefore only Man may have a soul.”
“Oh,” Terry said. Then he frowned. “So, who created the others?”
Cosmos snarled, and the skies shook. “Can we just drop it?”
Terry shrugged. “At least the animals survive.”
“Actually…”
“Oh, you’re joking!”
“Most have already gone extinct, but many more will follow them; those too weak, too tasty, or just too stupid.”
Terry’s shoulders slumped. “Even the dodo?”
“Especially the dodo. It’s survival of the fittest, not survival of the fattest, dear Progenitor. Anyway, don’t intermingle with any of the creatures. You stay with your own kind – Mankind.”
“Um, about that…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I don’t like to hammer a point home. It’s just, you know that thing we mentioned earlier?” Terry coughed into his hand.
“What’s that you say?”
“I’m the only Man here. The whole place is teeming with Neanderthals, but completely devoid of Homo sapiens, except for me.”
“I see your point,” Cosmos said. “I wasn’t intending on creating a woman for you for some time yet. I wasn’t going to create you so soon, but it seems I’m a capricious Omniarch. In truth I intended to wait another – oh, I don’t know – two hundred thousand years, give or take. Right now I wish I had. But, since you’re here, I suppose…” Cosmos pointed one of his many-taloned appendages at the coastal horizon. “Behold!”
“I can’t see anything!” Terry craned his neck, trying to get a better view.
“Oh, for the love of—” Cosmos plucked Terry up and set him back down several leagues to the north, amid a grassy landscape near a sandy coast. “Is that better?”
Terry nodded, staggering dizzily, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The Progenitor blinked into the rain. “We might find some Gigants around here.”
“Forget the Gigants already!” Cosmos swept a grand gesture. “Behold!” he roared. “Eden!” And he was pleased to see the Progenitor shut his mouth and give an appreciative nod. Cosmos pointed at the grasses and spoke the secret words of Creation, and a sapling emerged, its branches lengthening and leaves unfurling till it towered thrice the height of Terry. “Life,” said Cosmos. “The first tree of Eden.” he pointed again, and a second tree rose from the soil. “Knowledge,” he told Terry. “You’ve already proven yourself to be a smart-arse, but I’ll let that pass. From here on, you’ll resist the temptation to be clever. Leave the omniscience to me. Touch the tree of Knowledge and reap the consequences.”
Terry started to speak, but the wind gusted and the rain lashed into him. Cosmos pointed at the raging seas beyond the sodden land. From the depths rose a towering wave that came crashing towards the sands bordering the east of Eden. The Progenitor crouched and covered his head. Cosmos clasped a claw about Terry’s waist and lifted him, setting him down safely under the boughs of the tree of Life. With a grin, Cosmos whipped four of his barbed tails into the air and cast them far and wide across the land. They arced down and plunged deep into Terra just before the approaching wall of water. He tugged the tails back towards him, tearing deep furrows through the land. They met and became one, gouging a cleft through the centre of Eden. The foaming torrent raged into the newly-made canyon and swept along, fanning out into the channels like the flexing foot of a monstrous bird.
Cosmos said, “Behold the rivers Karun, Baton, Tigris and Euphrates, merging and forming the River Eden. Karun leads to wealth, such as golden stones of power, aromatic resins—”
“It’s all very beautiful,” Terry said. “But I think you might have overdone it a bit with all that rain and tidal waves and stuff. It looks ever so slightly flood-prone to me, especially there.” He pointed to the River Eden. Terry’s eyes narrowed and the ghost of a smile played across his lips as he said, “You wouldn’t want lovely Eden to become … engulfed, would you?”
Cosmos clenched his assortment of appendages and stamped s
everal of them down in exasperation, shaking the ground.
“That probably didn’t help matters, either,” Terry muttered, quite within earshot of Cosmos’ omni-auditory organs. Then the Progenitor brightened and said, “Fish would be useful. Are there any fish?”
“You simpering git! Yes, there are fish.”
“Will you show me how to catch them?”
“No. You’re a vegetarian.”
“Am I?” Terry opened his mouth and pointed a finger inside. “Denn why goo I ag—?”
“Yes, you are,” said Cosmos. “Now, shut up and listen, you malodorous little shit.” He cleared his throats, then pronounced, “You can eat any fruit in the garden, but one. Fruit from the tree of Life will give you eternal life; those, you may eat. But from the tree of Knowledge, I command you never to eat.”
“Why’s it there, then?”
“Decoration. And because I put it there.”
Terry scratched his head. “But you don’t need Knowledge, since you’re already omniscient. Which means the tree of Knowledge is a bit of a wasted effort. Unless you’re just trying to be a—”
Cosmos sneered, and the Progenitor wilted under his might. “Not only will you not eat the animals,” he continued, “you also will not copulate with them, for none will be a good helpmate.”
“All right. Wait – A what?”
“A helpmate…” Cosmos trailed off, muttering in frustration. “Look, I’m ordering you to not have sex with the beasts; not the mammals or the birds, nor the reptiles or insects; yea, not even the fucking Neanderthals!”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not compatible!”
“O ye of little faith.”
“I’m your Lord Omniarch. I don’t need faith. You, on the other hand, would do well to procure some.”
