Giacomo Sartori - I Am God

Yes, it’s him, although he’s not wearing the usual overalls with the Japanese logo on the back. He’s dressed in very tight pale-blue jeans and a tight red T-shirt that clings to knots of bulging muscles that look carved in wood (a bodybuilder, is my guess). On his feet, a pair of oversized gym shoes, like a kid might wear. She barely has time to take in these details, though, because he immediately grabs her head, as if taking possession of the thing he came for (it was clear he hadn’t come for the conversation). She lets him take her mouth without hesitation, as if fearful of crossing him. She also allows his hard, rough hands to slip inside her tunic, indeed she expedites their imperious advance by moving her upper body in concentric circles, moves that resemble the undulations of a cunning snake. When the big hands find her nipples she grips his biceps with all her strength, as though seeking his protection in a situation of grave danger.

Minutes later they’re on the mat and her tunic is an open book, and not a holy one. Spread over her long body, the mechanic pumps his mighty arms as his pelvis delivers potent thrusts, the way he might pound a large post into the ground. He looks like he’s in a hurry to complete a strenuous task. She, meanwhile, cheek glued to the sky-blue floor tiles, stares out the bayonet window open to the alley of the Nigerian prostitutes, her vision clouded as if she’s about to faint. She seems almost unconscious, or drugged. Alone in a world of wind and bright sunlight.

Now the bike shop satyr slams harder, he seems to want to break right through the floor and descend into the cellar. (Inferno, I think. Inferno was one of the many hobbyhorses of that supposed son of mine, but I must give him credit, the scenography was undeniably powerful.) Finally the satyr emits a long braying sound, an asphyxiated donkey desperate to catch its breath. He hovers over her for a few seconds, tremors running through him like an epileptic fit, then deflates on top of her. Maybe those rock-hard muscles broke something inside him? It’s another one–zero, but this is merely act one. The mighty tool has only contracted by a few millimeters; he just needs a short break. It won’t be a night of verbal disquisitions or philosophical conjecture; in fact, they’re looking in opposite directions. She, toward the post-Fordist courtyard behind the wall of glass bricks; he, toward the plate of biscotti on the rim of the fish tank.

As far as I can remember (false modesty—my memory is murderously infallible) I’ve never made an error before. I mean, never. Sure, there were times when I massacred innocents, but I have never misread the facts so badly, have never outright mistaken one thing for another. This time I really dropped the ball . All the evidence was before my eyes, but my divine gifts were knocked out by a tempest of feelings (I don’t know what else to call them), the way those electronic gadgets scramble an enemy’s radar. The licentious lassie had arranged her tribal sex session not with the handsome hunk who’s struggling like a fly on flypaper, but with the muscular mechanic (and the outcome was a very disappointing four–zero to boot).

This situation must come to an end. I’ve said it and I repeat it: while the concepts of time and space-time don’t apply to me, when something keeps happening, it keeps happening , and one can’t pretend otherwise, something must be done. I can’t let my entire existence, or whatever you want to call it, be reduced to nonsense by one specimen of the human race, and not even one of their best. She’s no ascetic consumed by a mystical flame, no paragon of devotion who lowers her eyes and endures the worst torture of the flesh; if she were, that would make up for the various sins and defects we’ve observed. No, she’s a militant atheist who spends her nights trying to sabotage the Vatican website (recently she found a chink in the armor, and I fear the worst). She’s an incorrigible misbeliever who’s in favor of gay marriage and abortion on demand—something she’s practiced herself not once but twice—and all she cares about is her own sexual satisfaction. And never mind that her precious satisfaction is by no means guaranteed, as evidenced by the paltry tally earned in her pornographic brawling. She’s obsessed with sex. A witch, in short, who in another time and place would have been burned at the stake. Nothing like this happens even in the filthiest trashy novels.

It’s the collateral damage that’s the worst, however: worse even than the direct harm. The consequences for my state of mind. I can’t sleep a wink , my thoughts grow ever more labyrinthine; my faultlessness less crystalline and exemplary. I’m a pioneering example of faulty faultlessness, a terrible headache for dialectical philosophers. It’s not so much the age difference—I have no age—nor that of rank, for my rank can’t be compared with any other, but a god is a god, and a human a human. I risk making myself ridiculous for all eternity, should anyone find out. I’ll go down as the god who lost his head for an atheist who sticks her arm up cow’s asses and incinerates crucifixes. Stop! I think, I’m raving mad! My thinking is deranged. This can only bring disaster!

For billions of years (if not even more; truth is, I never kept count) everything went as smoothly as oil from a jug. I kept an eye on things, I attended, I superintended, I rewarded, I contained, I punished (I don’t mind admitting it), I threw fits (yes, it happens). All this was business as usual for a unique god who, because he has no employees or colleagues, must hoist the whole weight of the cosmos on his shoulders but succeeds brilliantly because he’s omnipotent. But now I hesitate, I dither, I procrastinate.

I wonder if I might be slightly depressed. These days most men are demoralized; they’ve boxed themselves into a corner, and in the course of sitting here watching them, maybe I’ve caught some similar ailment. The difference is, of course, that I can hardly go to some therapist and say, Hello I’m God and I’m not feeling so great. Even Freud himself couldn’t help me. I mean, a lame elephant could scarcely expect a presumptuous Austro-Hungarian gnat to keep him on his feet. Not to mention that ninety-nine percent of psychoanalysts are atheists, which implies a surreal scenario: an atheist having an amiable conversation with God. Nor could I swallow anti-depressant pills (How many? Certainly the label would not include the optimal dosage for the undersigned). A god must always resolve matters himself, whatever happens, whatever mess he gets into.

It’s this “diary”—N.B. not one day has ever gone by for me out here—that’s bringing me to ruin. You write, and the more you write the dizzier you become, and you end up with a headful of foolishness. Your reason begins to unravel, you fall in love. It’s been happening since the beginning of time to millions of boys and girls in their sad little rooms but also to ranks of adults, even eminent seniors, oblivious to the ridicule they invite. All of them dishing out sticky, sentimental phrases, choking back sobs and wetting their keyboards—once sheets of paper, before that papyri—with hot tears stirred up by the same silly whimpers the keys of their computers make (previously fountain pens and before that quills and styluses). And now it’s happened to me. God or no god .

The snakes live in the scree heap at the bottom of a gray rock face still shielded from the sword-strokes of the rising sun. A real den of snakes , thinks Daphne, a long shiver running up her spine. Behind her, the wee zoologist hops gaily from one stone to the next. They’re so quiet that two roe deer at the edge of the woods graze unafraid. Not even the shadow of a snake is visible yet, but the tiny explorer isn’t concerned. Plenty of snakes, she whispers, smiling to one side as you might when speaking of a particularly dear friend. And in fact, less than two minutes later she is holding one in her fist. The beanpole has no idea where she found it, because she was looking the other way. The sprite is holding it like a belt, not taking special precautions, but delicately, so as not to damage the horn in the middle of its forehead.