Chapter 23

“Welcome to My backyard, Doris and Don. Finding yourselves – yourself, because you both are one – you arrive to your final destination: Me.”

“Oh, Lord, Yasu Khrist, Son of God, have mercy...”

“I have, Doris, I have, because I Am. You are doing great, no need to despair, no need to look further, no need to worry. Fear not. Comfort yourself.”

Hearing His words, Doris steps on the stone. Silent, she turns to raise her face up. To see. “You are here, we are here. You are so big. You are huge. Why?”

“Because you are still stuck to the game. In the machine. Well, on top of it. You two have eventually managed to climb out of it. But still stuck to it. For now.”

“Lord,” chimes Don in, “thank You for giving us all that we’ve asked or wondered of, even more on top. But getting us on the other side of the cube, wow!, this is beyond any of our expectations. We’re not dead yet, are we?”

“Truly I tell you that, if you wish to undie here and now, then so be it. Live continuously. See no interruption. All you have to do is ask, and I’ll provide.”

“We’ve got an appointment, with Eli...”

“And Enoch,” completes Don to the hasty voice of his wife. “We must give them a lift. Out of a situation. So...”

“So we gotta get back inside the game. But Lord! Thank you for having us.”

“Wait, wait, Doris! We’ve got all the time beneath us. Let’s enjoy eternity. Just a bit.” Hubby calms her rush down before raising his face to ask Yasu, “is this machine, like the cube crafted in Aaron’s altar?”

“Simple and pure. Yes.”

“I see two more to the-- Wait, I see many stones like this in Your backyard.”

“I keep more than one iron in My fire.”

“And each of these is?--”

“Either is, or might be. Depends.”

“But You chose the womb of the virgin, of Mariam, inside this cube of stone, so she may birth You out as a human, Son of Adam, for You to suffer the passions and to die on the Cross, as we know it.”

“I did.”

“And this sequence had been a one-time event. Unrepeatable. Non-replicable. Unique. As You taught us?”

“Correct.”

“What about the other cubes in Your backyard? Are they backups?”

“Every creation remains its own backup. No, they are not backups of this cube, but of their own, like this consists of its own backups, within.”

“Why did you choose this cube then?”

“Because of ignorance. This machine had birthed ignorance. Thus getting My attention.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Every weekend, I play with Enoch and Eli, and few other guys, a game of genesis.”

“You make things happen!” exclaims Doris in bliss.

“I do. A couple of weeks ago, Enoch asked us to meet his new creation, by her given name Astarte. Oh well, yet another version of Sophie, thought Eli on a whim. Not so fast, smirked Enoch. I knew then. I made My choice.”

“I am still at lost, Lord, but these floww--err--sss are sooo--- beau--ti--full---- I-- I-- ...” Doris is only eyes, big eyes, speechless.

“Don, you follow me?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Good, Doris will follow you in a snap, after a couple of eternities with the flowers. Look at her, she’s admiring My creation, the simple garden where I chose to dwell. She’s drifting for the beauty. Entitled to drink it all. But she never could. Yet she’d wish to forget about the little details, about the here and now. She desires for more bliss. From where she stands now, hand in hand with you, there is no such thing as more. The absolute is the completion of ‘more’ within the here and now, within herself, within Me. It is the enclosing omega. The point where you fathom that you cannot get more, but all the more that gives, you may create it, from within you, by Me.”

“The touch of God.”

“So it is. I had Astarte touched at her soles.”

“I don’t--”

“You listen. Astarte was laying on her back, fresh out of the stone, this stone, scintillating still. ‘Here she is’ – exclaimed Enoch, tiredly happy. Then Eli approached, looking at her, measuring her, contemplating her, he said ‘I name her Astarte.’ They both stepped to the left and to the right, respectively, allowing Me to get near. Passing by, I only touched her feet with My little finger, saying: Let us see.”

Doris, her ears attentive, her eyes even wider, forgets the flowers, listening to her Lord.

“I can tell you, but let Me show you!” At which moment the thirty-four meters long body of Astarte appears, laying on her back, over the stone, next to Doris and Don. “It is just a hologram. She is dead now, the poor thing. Follow the blue sparkles.” From her soles, throughout the transparency of this hologram, they notice the signal moving upwards, to her brain, via all the neurons of her body. “Her first dream was of Me. That brought Astarte to life. Dreaming of Me. And I wasn’t there when she first opened her eyes.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be there. By the game, I had to leave. I always left before.”

“But?”

“Like any other virtual version of Sophie, this one had to meet her master-to-be, her man, her lord, her provider.”

“The one that would make things happen for her,” wonders Doris, again.

“Indeed. That one, for Astarte, had to be Kronos. A virtual version of Me. Leaving, I looked at Enoch, asking for a click.”

“A click, what is a click?”

“This!” Yasu pokes the air with His pointer. It clicks. Concentric circles depart all around. The backyard echoes with a click. It literally clicks.

“Wow, You’ve just clicked reality?”

“Existence, actually. So many realities are contained in existence. It clicks, yes.”

“What about the click You were expecting from Enoch?”

“His click had to notify existence about a new female apparition, initiating a swift process demanding of Me to create a new cron, a new male person to pair with Astarte. This is standard operation in this game of worlds.”

“Game of persons, Lord. You’re creating persons to their own worlds.”

“Correct, Doris. Creation is all about persons. The worlds are just a distraction.”

“So Enoch gave You no click?” Continues Don, curious to get the idea of ignorance.

“No click, no cron, no male person for Astarte. A second later, Enoch confirmed his hesitation and stood by it. He won’t give a click to pair his creation. I have to give him that. He is a free man, making his own conscious choices. Understanding his game, I clicked and Kronos came to be.”

“Too late for Astarte.”

“A second too late. Impatient and innocent, she already had given birth to an abomination, to her version of a lord, master and god. To an illusion. To nothingness. A startling moment, even for Me.”

“What do You mean by this?”

“Look at Me.” God turns to the nearest block of stone, clicks for a pair to pop out. He says NULL towards them. No reaction, they keep smiling and waiting until He dismisses them. Next He turns to another block of stone, clicks, another pair comes up, He speaks NULL, they look idle, non responsive, until He dismisses them too. He then turns back to this block of stone. “Doris and Don, have you heard the NULL?”

“Yes. We did, twice. Why didn’t the others?”

“Because there is no NULL throughout eternity. Furthermore, there is no NULL, no nothingness, within any other block of stone in My backyard.”

“Astarte birthed the notion of nothing. In our block.”

“She only needed one second.”

“So this is why You chose our planet?”

“Not so fast, little man. This is why I chose this block, this universe. The planet came up as a candidate because Astarte emanated her nonsense in a star holding this proto-planet, then because Kronos (in his quest for the sleeping beauty) was hitting at your proto-wives. But none of these proto-reasons were decisive.”

“Proto- like in prototypes or protohistory?”

“See how simple it gets when you ask questions. Proto- is about experimenting with a possibility while prior- is about contemplating a reality. I chose to allow the characters, the game, to sort out a selection of planets. Twelve Adams, and twelve Eves, I have built then, on each of these twelve planets. Giving them equal premises, equal conditions, equal temptations. All things equal.”

“So it was our Adam’s choice?”

“Eve’s actually.”

“Because she listened to the deceiver?”

“Because she allowed it upon her.”

“Wasn’t it consensual?”

“Up to a point, yes.”

“Up to which point?”

“She consented to listen to the nonsense, she tasted his fruit, then accepted his venom. This has been all consensual. The moment of sin.”

“But?”

“But the snake sensed the whiff of glory. Unrestrained, intoxicated by the touch of My DNA in its victims, it went a step too far. Marking a territory inside their bodies, it infested their guts. Killing them slowly, painfully, excruciatingly. The moment of blasphemy.”

“So, if I understand, sin was consensual, invited, accepted, yet the blasphemy was forced upon Eve and Adam?”

“First Adam, then Eve.”

“You lost me again--”

“First Eve, then Adam – this is how sin touched them, in all coziness. Blasphemy however was first forced into Adam, then into Eve. Without their consent, by mutilation, with blood and suffering and shame.”

“A guy wrote somewhere that taboos had to help us forget the unbearable.”

“What else could you do, as a collective, than dispense of those terrifying memories. Taboos did a good job protecting you from your own past.”

“Lord, may I?” asks Doris.

“You may. I already know the question in your mind. May I answer it before you speaking?” Doris nods. “What was the catch? The pretext for saving the fallen man and his drifting woman? As you know, I could erase the NULL from the very beginning. But then what would have Enoch said to Me? That I wasn’t able to handle his conscious hesitation? He dared Me. In his game. A fair dare. I took it. But Enoch’s dare was nothing to what Eve taught Me.”

Big and bigger eyes.

“Wonder, little ones, keep wondering. I wondered too when I realized a little secret: that innocence, which is curious ignorance, is the greatest ineffable thing of existence. Astarte was impatient and stupid. Eve was innocent but curious. Burning herself, she became proud and stupid. Pride and foolishness, these are the two pillars of your history, from Adam and Eve.”

“Proud is the snake. Fool is the human. Eventually the human wins. Because nothing is the snake and because the human is God.”

“Pretty poetry, my little ones. Even more attractive is the following truth: that no pride can encompass any idiocy. Dying in her pains and sorrows, Eve dismantled the devil under its own premises. Vanity had finally reached its own demise. Hosts of angels defeated it to a corner but a silly woman dwindled it for ever.”

“Lord? May--”

“For your readers, of course you may. But allow Me! When I came to live and die, as you, I did this only for you, for Adam and for Eve, for all My Adams and Eves. Do not insist on your idiocy (not even I can measure the immeasurable) and do not believe that I had something to claim from the NULL. There is no NULL, no nothing. Everything that is, is within Me. Nothing is not. Other references of conflict convey to the house of Astarte, the fallen ones, other affected persons throughout the universe inside this block of stone. A helluva game, this dare of Enoch.”

“They said that every dumb guy has a guardian angel.”

“I tell you even more: not a guardian angel is what any idiot has, but Me, Yasu Khrist Pantokrator. I walk with them. I hold them by hand. I cross rivers and abysses together with them. And let Me tell you even more to even more that I’ve already said: I admire them idiots. Curious innocents that are mystifying the existence around Me, their minds go beyond any reality. They are the surprise beings of all creations. I love them like I love any other composed, calculated being. I wonder at them unlike at any other – of whom I already know their precise, predictable ways.”

“The dark charm of the whore.” Whispers Doris.

“And her legs marry to death; her walk causes men to recline in Sheol. And she treads not in the way of life, for her paths lead them astray and they are unknown. – See why I couldn’t wait to be born as the Son of Adam, a Man of Earth. I wished to meet these imbeciles. To hold their hands in Mine.”

“Mary Magdalene.”

“Yes. Sublime. Touching her hand, she saw Sophie, instantly. She is now many reflections within Sophie. A true upgrade to Our creation kit. These gals killed the snake. Eve killed it. Totally unaware. There is no miracle because of Me but let Me tell you that I don’t know what to make of these silly women. They humbled God.”

“But, how--”

“Shut up, Doris,” moves Don ahead, “humble is the keyword in the works of existence.”

Yasu smiles at the little ones. “À Propos, Enoch, he may need a lift.”

“Ah, on our way down. Doris, hug me tight. Thank You, Lord!”

And they dove away.

The block blinks three times before allowing a misty volume to raise above it.

“Sophie, what do you wish to watch?”

“Call me Maggie now, my Lord.”