Job 38:4, by anonymous
Title: Job 38:4
Author: nnaylime
Summary: In the beginning . . . a remix of carnography's Job 1:7.
Characters: Gaius/Six
Rating: Mild T
icedteainthebag has my undying gratitude for the last--minute beta.
Notes: I was immediately captivated by the themes and ideas contained in carnography's original, and was more than happy to pick them up and run with them, telling the Six/Gaius story in and around the miniseries with a rather unique bent. Why yes, I did bastardize, paraphrase, and otherwise distort the Bible for my own purposes!
Timeline: In and around the miniseries
Word Count: 564
=====//====
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
In the beginning (or was it the end), there was darkness and there was light.
And the spirit of the gods (for no man is an atheist who is facing his own mortality) moved upon the face of the waters.
In the beginning were the words, and the words were with her, and the words were her.
“Get down,” she ordered him as his world died and then was born again in the darkness (or was it called night now) and light (the vibrant light of the thermonuclear bomb blasts). And he prayed to his long-forgotten gods that he might be forgiven and that he might be spared.
And the gods answered his prayers.
And Gaius saw that he was alive and he declared that it was good.
In the beginning the gods created man in their own images-male and female.
Gaius remained unsure of where he ended and she began.
She was in him but not of him. She crept into his mind like a fog, ensuring that he never forgot her, and he wondered sometimes whether she were real-substantive-bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
In making love to her memory, was he making love solely to himself or to her as well?
He had faith sometimes that it was her there-spirit made flesh.
And she moved him and she moved through him, and when he touched her, felt her, moved with her and in her, he felt as though he were divine.
Holy and unholy.
Sacred and profane.
Angel and demon.
Omniscient, omnipotent, the center of the universe.
And in those moments, she would tell him that God loved him.
And in those moments, he had no difficulty believing it.
For in those moments, he truly knew God (and he had no other gods before God).
It was when he was alone-in the moments when she crept out of his mind like a waning tide that was felt in its absence by the sparse landscape left behind-that doubts and confusion slipped in to fill the void.
What was she really? Where had she come from?
“I am the child of God,” she would answer, taunting him in her vagueness.
“I am the child of humanity,” she would explain with the selfsame frustrating ambiguity, or even, “I am who I am,” raising more questions than she answered.
And she remained (as she had always been) neither a spirit nor a person, neither real nor imagined.
And when he did wonder about her-in those moments when he sought knowledge, to discern between good and evil and to understand just what he was-he understood that such knowledge was not only powerful, it was dangerous.
As little as he did know about her, he knew enough to be afraid.
For she was a jealous being, and she did not like being questioned or being doubted, and she would visit her wrath upon him with such force that he believed-that he feared-she might actually have the power to kill him.
And while he did not fear death, he also had no hope of eternal life. And so, at her command he got on his knees and began to pray (not for an end, but for a beginning).
All this has happened before and all this will happen again.
In the beginning was the end.
Author: nnaylime
Summary: In the beginning . . . a remix of carnography's Job 1:7.
Characters: Gaius/Six
Rating: Mild T
icedteainthebag has my undying gratitude for the last--minute beta.
Notes: I was immediately captivated by the themes and ideas contained in carnography's original, and was more than happy to pick them up and run with them, telling the Six/Gaius story in and around the miniseries with a rather unique bent. Why yes, I did bastardize, paraphrase, and otherwise distort the Bible for my own purposes!
Timeline: In and around the miniseries
Word Count: 564
=====//====
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
In the beginning (or was it the end), there was darkness and there was light.
And the spirit of the gods (for no man is an atheist who is facing his own mortality) moved upon the face of the waters.
In the beginning were the words, and the words were with her, and the words were her.
“Get down,” she ordered him as his world died and then was born again in the darkness (or was it called night now) and light (the vibrant light of the thermonuclear bomb blasts). And he prayed to his long-forgotten gods that he might be forgiven and that he might be spared.
And the gods answered his prayers.
And Gaius saw that he was alive and he declared that it was good.
In the beginning the gods created man in their own images-male and female.
Gaius remained unsure of where he ended and she began.
She was in him but not of him. She crept into his mind like a fog, ensuring that he never forgot her, and he wondered sometimes whether she were real-substantive-bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
In making love to her memory, was he making love solely to himself or to her as well?
He had faith sometimes that it was her there-spirit made flesh.
And she moved him and she moved through him, and when he touched her, felt her, moved with her and in her, he felt as though he were divine.
Holy and unholy.
Sacred and profane.
Angel and demon.
Omniscient, omnipotent, the center of the universe.
And in those moments, she would tell him that God loved him.
And in those moments, he had no difficulty believing it.
For in those moments, he truly knew God (and he had no other gods before God).
It was when he was alone-in the moments when she crept out of his mind like a waning tide that was felt in its absence by the sparse landscape left behind-that doubts and confusion slipped in to fill the void.
What was she really? Where had she come from?
“I am the child of God,” she would answer, taunting him in her vagueness.
“I am the child of humanity,” she would explain with the selfsame frustrating ambiguity, or even, “I am who I am,” raising more questions than she answered.
And she remained (as she had always been) neither a spirit nor a person, neither real nor imagined.
And when he did wonder about her-in those moments when he sought knowledge, to discern between good and evil and to understand just what he was-he understood that such knowledge was not only powerful, it was dangerous.
As little as he did know about her, he knew enough to be afraid.
For she was a jealous being, and she did not like being questioned or being doubted, and she would visit her wrath upon him with such force that he believed-that he feared-she might actually have the power to kill him.
And while he did not fear death, he also had no hope of eternal life. And so, at her command he got on his knees and began to pray (not for an end, but for a beginning).
All this has happened before and all this will happen again.
In the beginning was the end.