May 12, 2010 23:31
“Not your problem?” Kali responds, feeling her rage ignite. Her hands begin to flare, but remembering how her fire failed to singe his wayward son, she controls her anger.
“Bit of a prodigal, Lucifer,” God murmurs. “Graceful, silver-tongued, and an aspect that made my Angels weep to behold its beauty. But so much pride, so much rage. He cast himself out of my Presence and blamed his brother for it.”
“But now he walks the Earth,” Kali says. “If he and Michael fight, half of humanity will die.”
“Why do you care?” God asked. “This is the Apocalypse of the West. It won’t reach much further east than Iraq. Your people will largely go unscathed --Asia, the Pacific, plus a good bit of Africa-- and you’ll be rid of Europe and the Americas. You Hindus, along with the Buddhists, will be sitting pretty. Maybe, if the Koreans let me go, I’ll be able to get some sleep.”
Kali stares at the old God in shock. She’s met his brothers, Yahweh and Allah, but of all of them, the American God is the worst. So smug, so self-centered.
“How can you abandon your people like that?” she asks, horrified despite herself.
“Abandon them? They’ve been asking for the End non-stop for centuries! There’s only so many times their prophets can point out the signs of Certain Doom before I give in and bring it to pass.”
Kali shakes her head in disgust. “You people of the Book. Always prophecy this, prophecy that. How can you live inside such a narrow trajectory, always headed for the End?”
God heaves a sigh. “Depressing, isn’t it. I thought I’d made it clear that the Kingdom of Heaven was always immanent, but they just didn’t get it. They rush toward the End as though it were ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished.’”
Kali peers at God, her anger banking a little.
“You want it too, don’t you? To fall asleep, never to awaken?”
God’s old, tired head falls forward. His blue eyes well up with tears. “They don’t love me any more. They twist my words to suit themselves. All they do is petition for wealth and power. They pray for themselves and nobody else.”
“You are a God of jackasses,” Kali says, not as meanly as it sounds.
“You said it, sister,” God agrees. “And with so many internal contradictions, I wink in and out of existence from day to day. They are ripe for Apocalypse. No one even dreams of the City anymore.”
“What about my petition? Can you stop your children from destroying the world?”
“If anyone destroys it, it should be you,” God whispers.
“That’s what I think,” Kali agrees. “In my fire, like a phoenix, the earth renews herself.”
God is silent for a long while. “Lucifer is so strong, in part because I’m so old. He has become almost as powerful as me in their hearts. So many of them have fallen to the ancient heresy, believing in evil equal to good. Maybe, if I let go, Lucifer will also weaken, and we’ll make way for a new God.”
“Yes,” Kali says, nodding. “That is the way of things. Destruction leads to rebirth. Your own Son is a God of Love -- his words may yet take root in the hearts of your nation. He is so like my Krishna.”
God nods, the tears falling from his eyes. “It is as you say. Even as we speak, you feel your brother, Lord Ganesh, renewed in the hearts of his followers. Maybe it will be that way for me and mine. Come, little sister. Hold me in your arms.”
Kali moves toward the decrepit old god. His energies are dying back fast as he lets go of his lukewarm followers. Kali takes him in her arms as he loses consciousness. Will his departure truly make way for the New Age so many have prophesied? Will his death weaken Lucifer, Michael, and Heaven so that humanity may live?
Kali holds the dying god in her arms, and her love wears away at him like the ocean against the beach head, like the wind through the slot canyons, like lichens into limestone. God crumbles, and only the coolest of her flames dissolve his traces into dust.
Somewhere far away Kali hears the rushing of wind as a new god breathes into the hearts of thousands, and hundreds of thousands.
She stands and brushes the dust from her hands, shakes away the last traces of the American God. Already, the Apocalypse has turned as two Heroes and their friends selflessly offer up their lives to save the world. The first chapters have already been written-- words of fire, and wind, and speed; passion and pain, music and ecstasy; sacrifice, triumph, and Holy Love; error turned to heroism in one grand unified song -- the Winchester Gospels, the first Book of the New God.
fic,
winchester gospels,
women of spn,
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