Giacomo Sartori - I Am God

Without meaning to—you may think that’s irony, but it’s not—I found myself next to two galaxies, one large, one small, that were approaching each other. The deformed shape of the little one, slight but perceptible even to a non-divine eye, like a woman’s belly in the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, made it evident there was an attraction between the two. Later, they would draw closer together and the short, plump galaxy would be sucked in by the large, long one, giving up some of its mass or even being obliterated altogether—always an unsettling event. Now this is instructive to watch, I said to myself , these are cosmic events worth following. Faced with the—I want to say choreography— of the universe, I was recovering the serenity that permeates my heart, call it a heart. No superfluous sentiments, no cloying romanticism, no pointless description needed: what was before me was monumental in its austere abstraction. I have all the time in the world, I can stay here right to the end , I thought, positioning myself to obtain the optimal viewing angle and trying to get comfortable, as they say. The way you stretch out your legs to watch one of those long, long art films in which very little happens, indeed nothing at all happens, but which (wo)men of good taste find stylistically perfect.

If anything cheers me up and makes me feel especially divine, it’s the interactions between galaxies. It’s the elegance of their trajectories, the gorgeous dance numbers executed in perfect detail, their infinite slowness, the sensation of heartbreaking melancholy, but also peace, almost mirth, a tragic mirth that emanates from them, whatever it is, I forget all the rest and feel joyous. Of course, a god is always joyous—what god’s a malcontent, a whiner?—but in this case I’m feeling slightly more joyous, because when by definition one is perfect, differences are measured in microscopic gradations.

To tell the truth, though, there was also a sour aftertaste in my mouth that wasn’t entirely pleasant (for the purposes of metaphor, let us posit I have a mouth, taste buds). And it was only getting worse. Watching the two galaxies converge, I couldn’t help thinking that the beanpole geneticist, too, was heading for a crash, with a body far denser than her own and equipped with much greater gravitational pull. It was a question of mere days and not millions of years, but the highly predictable outcome, as has happened hundreds of billions of times in the cosmos, was that Casanova would either appropriate some of her matter and continue merrily on his way, or he would mercilessly swallow her whole, celebrating with a loud belch.

The very thought astonished me, for never before had the meeting of two galaxies seemed to me a symbol of anything, and it completely spoiled the show. I left the two lovely ladies to their destiny, and headed home. By that I mean the place where I tend to stay, not so much a place as a nexus of the mind, the spirit. What made me move my butt , to use a slovenly expression, was the thought that if I stayed there watching to the bitter end, there wouldn’t be a trace of the beanpole left. In a few million years, not even a tooth out of the poor thing’s mouth would remain. I’d find ranks of crocodiles and other hideous beasties typical of warmer climes, jaws unsheathed. Maybe even iguanas. Thousands of iguanas roaming the industrial plain once inhabited by bipeds, now a swamp, the bipeds extinct. Iguanas with absolutely no sense of humor, iguanas that bite. [18] It’s pointless to discuss crocodiles, they bite and have always bitten. I made them that way, and I take full responsibility. If I’d done it any other way, we’d have a madly overcrowded animal shelter instead of a food chain, and all of nature would be in chaos. The only proper choice was to have the larger animals eat the small. I couldn’t afford to get sentimental about it.

A new job is opening up in her lab, and Ms. Einstein has made the many photocopies and done the never-ending paperwork to apply for it. Not that she expects to get it, and anyway she’s otherwise preoccupied with various mind-bending algorithms. Still, something in her knows she’s far better qualified than the others, and she allows herself to think that if she does get it, she won’t have the dreadful worry every year that she might be tossed out like old Kleenex. She might count for something, maybe she’ll even be able to work openly on her microbe-battery. If she gets it.

But she’s not going to get it. I could have told her it was pointless to waste her time filling out all those forms and collecting those notarized statements to confirm she has blood-colored blood and fingernails at the end of her fingers. You didn’t need divine insight to figure it out, logic would suffice: the job will go to the new PhD (female) in the lab, who’s only been around for a few months but has already earned the protection of the lab director. She hasn’t gone to bed with him; rather, her winning move has been to plant a glimmer of hope while not having sex with him. [19] It’s a solution that works for everyone, for in fact even he doesn’t want an affair. Or rather he wouldn’t mind the pluses but he wants to avoid the minuses, the danger, first of all, that he’ll be found out by his German spouse, who heads a fierce volunteer association protecting battered wives. It’s also true that she resembles a hot young showgirl seen on TV, a fact that has given her a distinct edge in the grueling job selection process—while Ms. Einstein brings to mind a horse that’s grown weary of grazing the same pastures.

But all these goings-on behind the scenes are invisible to her, taken as she is by her clandestine research. She’s getting excellent, convincing results now, and many distinguished international scientists have shown interest—that fact alone would disqualify her in the eyes of her roving-eyed boss, if he knew. She’s on her way to becoming a sort of Joan of Arc, agog in mystical adoration of Science, ready to wade into battle with her superiors and put herself in danger. She seems to have forgotten all about Casanova and his nighttime kiss. Or rather, every once in a while she does think of him, the way a TV viewer will summon up a few faded memories of a show that didn’t leave much of an impression. But you know and I know that little by little she’ll soon decide she is attracted to him, then in love, then truly in love for the first time. (To use the accepted rhetorical formula, although it seems to have no correlative in human physiology.)

He, meanwhile, thinks about her day and night. This time it’s not just a genital thing, it’s more than that, he’s certain. The more he thinks about her, the more inebriated he becomes, the more she seems desirable. By conventional standards she’s not beautiful, but in fact, she is , he thinks. His catastrophic take on climate change has grown less aggressive, more joyful, even slightly ardent. Despite that multiple fracture of the elbow. Unfortunately, the first time they set his bone, the gods of the operating theater were fooling around, and the lad had quite a bit of pain afterward. Human beings are so delicate physically, there’s not much you can do about it.

Not that their wandering hands affect me one way or another, although I can’t avoid knowing everything they get up to. If they want to marry, have fourteen children, commit joint suicide: it’s all the same to me. There are billions of other humans I have to keep an eye on, billions and billions of every type of animal, billions and billions and billions of fascinating stars. Not to mention numerous wars, ruthless terrorist acts, famines and other natural catastrophes whether connected or not to climate change, malaria and cholera hot spots, refugee odysseys, and so forth. It astonishes me that such an intelligent person—so far as intelligence goes, she’s smart, no doubt about that—simply does not realize that young Casanova will quickly grow tired of her after he’s gotten what he wants, he’ll begin paging through his cell phone address book again. And she will be royally screwed, to put it crudely. No job and no boyfriend either.