God in the Stacks

 

            We were walking to a bar.  The kind where they serve the wings that everyone goes ape over, when really it’s bad barbeque sauce that they can afford to sell at twenty cents a wing.  Only a moron who’s sapped by his job would agree to spend his precious free hours in a cafeteria he doesn’t want to eat at.

            I don’t know what that means.  I sound like a gumshoe, but I’m not a gumshoe. There’s probably a word for that, but even English majors forget what’s up with grammar sometimes. 

            Usually I’d write these little observations down in the hopes that someday I can get all Rushdie on a computer and come out with a bloody mass of pulp that’s the next Great American Novel.  Another narrative brick in the uber-narrative of societal discontent, where people pontificate as though they’re rushing to the bathroom and are trying to confuse the bystanders along the way.

            Ahem.

            So it was me and Eric and Mark.  Walking through the autumnal streets.  We were heading, as I said before, to a bar with questionable food, walking through the freshly opened university.  Metaphors are horrible weapons, not to be wielded by people who spend at least forty hours a week in a cubicle. 

            I’m pontificating again.  So I excused myself from my two roommates.

            “Hey, guys,” I said. “I gotta pee.  I’m gonna find a bathroom in this library.”

            “Can’t you wait?” Eric snorted.

            “No, I gotta go.”

            “Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much soda then,” Mark said. “It’ll rot your teeth.”

            “Okay that was completely unnecessary,” Eric said to Mark.

            “I’ll be right out.”

           

            The bathrooms were clean, and empty.  The library was, too.  For the most part. I couldn’t help myself, so I started to wander through the empty stacks, passing the Russian and Dutch language sections.  I walked into the Sanskrit section, pulling books off the shelf and flipping through them for pictures.  When I got to the Hindi section I had the brilliant idea to ask someone how they deal with serif fonts in Hindi scripting.

“Peter!”

I almost dropped the book.  Not only was there no one around me in the aisle, the

library was so quiet that I didn’t hear anyone near me on the entire floor.

            “Peter!”

            “What?!” I said back.  The hair on the back of my neck was standing up.

            “There’s someone there, right?” the voice said again.  It sounded like an old man.

            “Who is that?”  I asked.  I was walking down the aisle now.  When I got to the wall I started to move as quickly and quietly as I could, glancing down each aisle.  Three aisles, nothing.

            The fourth one, I was blinded.

            It was like looking into the sun, I jerked back the light was so bright. 

“What’d you expect?” the voice asked.  “Lightning bolts?  So passé.  Ugh, I guess it’s better than when the Archangels kept asking me to do the trick where I find a quarter in a Seraphim’s ear.  And don’t ask me to prove that I’m God.  The last guy ran out of here in embarrassment.  It’s better to sit and chat than to go over old occurrences.”

“So you’re asking me not to challenge your divinity, even though you’re wearing a plaid cardigan?”  I don’t know where the words came from, but before I could stop them they were leaving my mouth.  I knew I needed to get out of there, but I didn’t want to turn my back on the voice.  I could see him now, the light had faded slightly.  He was an old man with grey hair and matching grey beard.  He was leaning back in a chair at a desk, cardigan and all, peering at me through square glasses.

“You have a birth mark,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve got a birthmark on the bottom of your tongue,” God said.

“Really?” I tried to curl my tongue down.  “I thought that was a pimple.”

“Yeah, there’s a pimple, but you’ve got a birthmark next to that.”

“Really?  A birthmark?  Not a very cool place to put one.”

“To each his own,” God said.  “Take a seat.”

God pointed to the other side of the desk and a rickety chair materialized.  It squeaked when I sat down in it.

“Well, it’s kind of bright back here,” I said, trying not to fidget.

“Yeah, light. That was a good one.”  God was leaning back, his legs crossed, his arms raised up and his hands cradling his head.

“So are you here a lot?”

“Most days.  It’s better sometimes to sit here and enjoy what people have done rather than have to listen to all the whining that goes on.  Man currently thinks he’s the pinnacle of civilization.  If there were other gods, we’d all sit around and laugh about that one and sip our god tea.”

“You mean, you enjoy reading the Satyricon over dealing with modern problems?”

“Yeah. Those were the days, before the Jewish moralists made everyone feel guilty.”  He scratched his nose and stroked his beard. “Although I suppose if they didn’t write the Bible those overachieving Europeans would have.”

“Wow,” I said, still blinking. “That’s kind of ironic.  And kind of a downer.”

“Irony, I love irony.  Why do you think men have nipples and potatoes have eyes?” 

“Why are you in the form of an old man past his prime?  And why do you need glasses?”

“Well, if my shape were any closer to those of a svelte young woman, would you listen?”

“Yeah. I mean, you are God.”

“Exactly,” God said.  “I made you.  So I know that you wouldn’t listen.  Ahh women.  A wondrous thing, eh?  A lot like light.”

“Hey, are you going to be here again?” I asked.  God looked at me. 

“Sure,” he said. “You strike me as the sort of person who is petrified if not prepared, so maybe you should bring in some questions.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going now.”

 

Outside I ran to my friends, who were still waiting for me outside on the bus bench.  My heart was pounding, my hands sweaty, I was gasping for breath, but I still blurted out a few good “I saw God!  God’s in the library!”

“Are you okay?” Mark asked.  They looked at me lopsidedly.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I just saw God.”
            “You saw God, and you’re okay?” Eric asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  It was…”

“Did you ask him anything?” Mark asked me, leaning forward.

“No, not really.  I mean, like nothing important.  It was God.”

“Wait,” Eric said. “You saw God (or are completely delusional) and you didn’t even test him about his knowledge?”

“How do you test God?” I asked.

“Ask him about women.  If he can explain him, he’s God,” Mark offered.

“Women? Stop thinking with your dick.  Ask him about the secrets of the universe,” Eric countered.

“Any idiot can make up the secrets of the universe.  It takes God to figure women out,” Mark said.

“What about politics? Or world peace?” I said.

“World peace? What the hell? No wonder you can’t get a job,” Eric said.

“No, I can get a job. I just don’t know about a career,” I replied.  I sat down next to them.

“Yeah, like a career in world peace,” Eric said as he moved over.

“If you ask him about women,” Mark began.  “Then you can write a book about them.  You know, be an author.  A writer. That’s a career.”

“Writing is not a career,” Eric said.

“Oh, and like politics is,” Mark shot back.

“The issue isn’t the career. The issue is you’re an idiot and he’s going mad cause he’s feeling a little pressure about a final paper,” Eric was waving his hands in the air now.

“Final paper?” I repeated. “I don’t have a paper to do. I went in there to use the bathroom.”

“Don’t yell at me, you’re the one who said he saw God,” Eric shrugged at me.

“Alright, enough about my sanity.  I saw God, I can introduce you if you’d like.”

“Hell no! I’m not getting involved in your delusional fantasies,” Mark said.

“Right!” Eric rejoined.
            “I just want to know about women,” Mark looked at me, pleading with his cow eyes.

“Alright! Alright! You don’t have to believe me, but I’ll ask him anyway.”  Damn it, he looks at me that way when he wants me to do the dishes.

“What if God is really a woman?” Eric turned to Mark. “Would that question piss her off?”

 

 

 

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