Accidental God 4.0 -- Section 02

[I'm trying to write every day as an act of faith, walking out into the darkness and trusting God to lead things someplace worthwhile. It means I have only the vaguest of ideas where this story is going, but let's be honest: how is that any different from my writing before this?

[Also, writing is more fun again. I hope you enjoy discovering this section as much as I did.]

The first day of the second year of high school was the first day that I decided, without a doubt, that I was in love.
    "I am in love," I told my sister, Serenity Clara Shupak, who had just taken a bite of her peanut-butter and raspberry freezer jam sandwich.
    She looked at me.
    "Really," I said. "I am now in love. I saw her black hair, and now I am in love."
    Clara looked at me longer.
    "Stop that," I said.
    She sprayed sandwich all over my face and laughed until she cried. I decided that day to never forgive her.

    "I'm Midnight Jane," said the goddess with the muddy-rainbow hair. "This is Tumble Dry."
    "Yo," said Tumble Dry. He reached out his long, long arm and shook Harold’s much smaller hand.
    "Hi. I'm Harold, but I hope I won't be much longer. How do I get a new name? I think that sounds so awesome. Ever since I found out about, you know, my divinity, I've been looking forward to trading in Harold."
    "You don't like your name?" asked Tumble Dry.
    "Oh, I like it just fine. It's just that it's so hard to beat the romance of a name like 'Standing Appointment' or 'Fish Fry.'"
    "I don't like the name 'Fish Fry,'" said Tumble Dry, glaring off into the distance--not that there was much distance to glare into. The windows on the first floor of the Eternal Rest look out on a row of trees across the street, and that's about it. "'Fish Fry' rhymes with 'Tumble Dry,'" he explained when Harold's round face looked quizzical. "Whenever people talk about 'Fish Fry and Tumble Dry,' I feel like I'm part of some low-rent rap group."
    "Do people ever talk about 'Fish Fry and Tumble Dry?'" asked Midnight Jane, looking at him innocently.
    The god with the architectural nose crossed his arms and glared at her. "No," he admitted grudgingly.
    "Then shut up. You're just mad at Fish Fry because he beat you in the pie eating contest."
    She was probably right. Fish Fry is about five-seven, medium brown hair, medium waist, medium shoe size, medium everything except his mouth. His lips part and it looks like Tartarus has opened to inhale the dead of the world in one cataclysmic swallow. I had nightmares about it for a month after, and Tumble Dry had to swallow four pies and his pride that day. Midnight Jane had laughed at him for six hours straight. She may make my heart jump a beat or two, but she has a certain mean streak running through her. It's a slash of red through her midnight soul.
    She's so beautiful.
    "So do I get to pick my own name?" asked Harold.
    "I did," said Tumble Dry.
    "Really?" Harold looked excited, like a slightly overweight puppy discovering chocolate for the tenth time. "You thought up 'Tumble Dry?'"
    Midnight Jane laughed. "Not even close. He may have picked his own name, but the rest of the gods wadded up his idea, blew their noses on it, and threw it somewhere in the garden."
    Tumble Dry frowned and looked off into the distance again. "My name was better. It had class."
    "What was it?" asked Harold, looking hopeful.
    "It was--" Midnight Jane started to answer, but Tumble Dry cut her off with a glance.
    "No," he said.
    "But you're right, Tumble Dry, it was a good name."
    "It doesn't matter."
    "But Harold wants to know. Don't you want to know, Harold?"
    "Yes, very much. I think Tumble Dry is pretty great, so if the name you thought up is even better, well, that would be like having a two-scoop ice cream cone and finding out you actually have THREE scoops, and--"
    "It's not happening," said Tumble Dry, "and that's the end. And don't tell him when I've gone to the bathroom or something, either. It was a good name, let it rest in peace until we change things around here and a body can pick his own name. Or hers."
    Midnight Jane looked at him for a while, then shrugged. "Fine, I guess. Bradley, get us more root beer."
    I looked over at her, then at the empty pitcher that Mad Hatter Barnes had left full just three minutes before. Then I looked back at Midnight Jane. What could I do? I went off in search of the Mad Hatter.

    I have to tell you now about my Chief Acolyte, Rutherford B. Hayes Smithson. (You might think that 'Rutherford B. Hayes' would be enough of a name for any small child, but his parents had to add ‘Smithson’ on the end. Inevitable, I guess. I mean, that was their name.) Interestingly enough, no one in his family knows what the 'B' stands for--his parents never bothered to find out--so, that's his complete name. It's not 'Rutherford Barrett Hayes,' or 'Rutherford Bingham Hayes,' or 'Bartholomew,' or even 'Bradley.' Just 'B.'
    I bring up BB--yes, even my Chief Acolyte has a nick name, while I remain just 'Bradley'--I bring him up, because he has a rather fluid idea of property rights. Fluid like water and as broad-reaching as the Amazon. He simply doesn't comprehend the fact that, even if he needs something, he shouldn't just take it. Your car? He'll borrow it. Your books? They looked interesting. Your toothbrush? If the need is great. Your underwear? Not likely, but let's not rule out any possibilities here. I did mention that his concept of property rights was fluid, didn't I? Is there anything that is more liquid than water? That substance, whatever it is, is the firmness of his grasp of 'yours' and 'mine.'
    Fortunately, if there is a fortunately to this situation, BB also is one of the least selfish people I know. If he were going to borrow your underwear, it's more likely he would be borrowing it for a friend than for himself. While that thought is slightly disturbing, the principle behind it is solid: BB might be what some people would call a 'thief,' but he's the oft-portrayed-in-literature-but-never-actually-seen Thief with a Heart of Gold. He really, truly would give you the shirt off his back if you were in need.
    Or the shirt off some other guy's back. It's all the same to BB.

    My cell phone rang as we sat there around the table in the Eternal Rest.
    "Nice ring tone," said Midnight Jane. "That Brahms?"
    "Yeah," I said, not having any real idea if it were Brahms or not. Classical composers and I had met around the time I was two, hung out together until I was twelve, and then spent most of our time not talking after that. Out of the free ring tones on my phone, this was just the tone I disliked least. I suppose it really was good, though, if you liked arpeggios. "You mind if I get this?"
    "You ask that every time," said Tumble Dry. "Just answer it."
    I flipped my phone open. "This is Bradley."
    "Bradley, this is BB. We might have a problem."
    I pulled at my chin. Hearing from BB was never boring. Sometimes I really, really wanted to be bored. "What happened?" I stood up and walked away from the table as I talked. I had a feeling I didn't want to have to explain any of this to my friends. They're good people, but, well, they tend to laugh. Especially Midnight Jane.
    "I borrowed something," said my Chief Acolyte. "Not a big thing, but a thing. I don't think it will be a problem, though. It's only a minor holy artifact, anyway, and this guy wandered into our temple, really sick and all, and he doesn't trust the elder gods, so I helped him out."
    "What did you take, BB?"
    "Come on, Bradley. Don't talk like that. It's not like our temple is the most popular around. We don't have good music or good sermons, and the government stipend barely covers expenses, if that. We've got to do what we can to show the people around here that you're a nice guy, the kind of god you want to go to in distress--and let me tell you, a healing here or there is just the kind of good press a young god needs."
    I could feel a headache coming on, grinding through the brain behind my forehead and settling up against the inside of my skull, content to lurk there, painful and menacing. "You took something important, didn't you."
    "It was important to the guy I helped! He's been really sick for over a year now, but he was dressed all nice, so I figured he had some money to spare, and you do know we can do good things with spare money."
    I started to worry that I was asking the wrong question. If BB was going to this kind of effort to convince me that things were okay, that had to mean that things--things of all kinds and sorts and types--weren't okay at all.
    That's when I saw him advancing across the dining room of the Eternal Rest. Forgotten Zed is a solid six-foot-six with intent, packed with the kind of muscles that take over two-thousand years to develop...and then have run down a little bit, but nobody is going to tell that to Zed's face. Not me, at least. I don't say much of anything to Zed's face. I did, on one occasion, mutter something behind his back, but my heart wasn't in it. Maybe I'm intimidated by his facial hair--white and electric. I've never been able to grow facial hair more than a paltry sandpaper scruff, and Forgotten Zed's beard, like the rest of his body, is filled with dynamic energy.
    But not necessarily a surplus of coordination. He tripped over a chair as he advanced toward me, stumbling, stopping, and glaring at the offending piece of lumber. Then he snapped the back off and dropped it on the floor. It clattered there, then held still, afraid to attract any more attention from the outraged god.
    The next object of Forgotten Zed's attention was me.
    "Are you Bradley?" he called across the dining room, striding towards me again.
    "BB," I said, almost whispering through the phone, "did you steal from who I think you did?"
    "Who do you think I stole from?" asked my Acolyte. "Because I probably didn't. I wouldn't be that dumb. Why, is he there?"
    I closed my phone and tried to force my cheeks and lips into a friendly smile. After all, I'm a god, Forgotten Zed is a god, and that means we have lots in common. We probably use the same toilet paper. And we both like our lives without pain. Well, at least one of us does.
    "I ask you again, sir," said one of the oldest of the elder gods, "are you Bradley?"
    "I am," I squeaked, then cleared my throat. "I am," I tried again in a slightly less embarrassing register. "Can I help you with something?"
    Zed looked down at me from what seemed like a more lofty climb than the five inches difference in our height should have made possible. I didn't think I was slouching--was I? I straightened my back, looked in his eyes, but then slouched a little again, just to be safe. Or feel safer. I also broke eye contact, having read somewhere that eye contact only provokes savage beasts.
    "You can give me back what is mine," said Forgotten Zed.
    I swallowed. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," I said, "but I'm sure we can--"
    "And then you can have the acolyte who took it executed."
    I blinked. Time seemed to stretch, like a long pull of saltwater taffy. "Excuse me?"
    "You can have your kleptomaniacal acolyte executed as dictated under the Laws of the Divine Brotherhood, codified and ratified by the entire body of the divine in the year 427."
    "I don't think I've read it," I said, trying to stall for time as my mind raced to catch up with what Forgotten Zed had just said. Executed?
    "It doesn't matter if you've read it or not," said this imposing slab of divinity. "Part of the ratified treaty was that, in order to protect our civilization as we know it and prevent cataclysmic war between divine personages, the laws and strictures would apply to all gods, past and future."
    That didn't sound good. Had they mentioned these laws in the orientation packet the government had given me? It was ringing a bell, but there had been a lot of pages. Stalling still seemed like a good idea. "But isn't that rather sexist? You said it's called 'the Laws of the Divine Brotherhood.' Kind of unfair to women, it seems."
    Forgotten Zed glared from under white and bushy eyebrows. "The Laws were ratified by the United Divine Sisterhood in 632. It applies to all gods. Everywhere. Equally. And the law dictates that any holder of Great Office that is caught in the theft of artifacts of power, whether historical or newly shaped through the faith of worship, must be tried, speedily convicted, and put to death."
    "What if he's innocent?"
    "Your acolyte? I think not.”
    I blinked. He was almost certainly correct on that one. I tried another direction. "Are you sure it's the Great Office holder that needs to be executed?"
    His eyes narrowed. He said nothing.
    I swallowed and went on. "Because, the way you said it, it could have meant that the artifact of power needed to be executed. I've seen a couple of those things, and honestly, if they let themselves get stolen, I would say it probably was their own fault--"
    "Don't be fatuous," he interrupted, and he stared--glared, really, the way an avalanche glares its way down a mountain--and I decided not only to stop being fatuous right then, but to never be fatuous again. Ever. I also made a mental note to find out what 'fatuous' meant. "You know what your Chief Acolyte took, and you will get it back to me. Immediately. In fact, I'm almost ready to believe that you ordered the theft yourself." Forgotten Zed leaned down and in until his beard was almost tickling my chin, and I found myself leaning back and a little more back, my calves tense and burning. "And do you know what happens if I discover that you are the one behind this? Chains. Rocks. Eternally devoured by a great bird of prey."
    I tried to stop my mouth. I often do. My mother has said before that when the angels assembled my brain, they forgot to include any of the usual filters or safety features that keep the stupid words inside and let the smart words out. I expect she was correct.
    "I've read that story before," I said. "Didn't he escape?"
    Forgotten Zed didn't get mad. I had expected him to, but there was no thunder in his hair, no fire in his eyes. In fact, he just smiled. It was a friendly sort of smile, almost like we were on a picnic together, we were the oldest of pals, and he was only looming over and threatening me with immense pain the way the oldest of pals do.
    Then he turned and walked away.

    I remember reading the story of Prometheus as a child. It was a children’s book about celebrities of the Western Hemisphere, and it included a bit about 'Mister Pro' as his publicists call him now. He has a good life, from everything I can see. His marriage has lasted over five-hundred years, his children seem to actually have healthy lives in spite of all the family money, and the way he's posed in the pictures, you can tell that he's the sort of guy you'd like because he'd like you. He likes people. He likes life. He's happy.
    So between Forgotten Zed and Mister Pro, who has the last laugh?
    Of course, there's one number that always stood out to me from the Prometheus story: six-hundred-eighty-three. It's the number of years the god was chained to a rock. I did the math once. That means the guy had his liver eaten out 249,295 times.
    Between Forgotten Zed and Mister Pro, who has the last laugh?

    I walked the long way around the broken chair and joined my friends at the table again. Already some of the very discrete staff of the Eternal Rest were moving to clear away any signs of unpleasantness. Not that there were any, really. Everyone's friends here. I realized I was shaking, just a little.
    "What was that about?" asked Midnight Jane. "You look like you need a pair of clean underwear."
    "I do not," I said, then sat down and discretely checked under the table. Everything was dry--good to go. "And I honestly don't know what that was about." Actually, if I were being completely honest, I did know a little what that was all about, but I didn't need to tell Midnight Jane about it. She had a thing for fires, and for throwing fuel on them. Also, she didn't like Forgotten Zed.
    "Whatever it is you did," she said, "I applaud you. Anything that tweaks the nose of that bit of prehistoric rock is all right with me."
    "'Tweaks the nose?'" said Tumble Dry, snorting. "No one has tweaked anyone's nose for decades."
    Midnight Jane flicked a piece of ice at him. "It's not polite to point out a woman's age. Come on, Bradley. Tell us what it was about."
    "I admit that I'm interested, too," said Harold. "Forgotten Zed is like Mount Everest. I mean, I've always known he existed, but I've never expected to actually see him. This is remarkable!"
    I knew a bit about what Harold meant. Growing up in Northern Lights, I'd known that Zed was in the area, but I never thought I'd meet him. Or be threatened by him.
    I shrugged. "Something to do with BB, but I'm sure it was a misunderstanding."
    Midnight Jane hooted. "A misunderstanding? With BB? Not likely! What did he take this time? Old Zeddie's beard trimmer? His Angry Toga? Good for BB! I'll have to buy him lunch."
    I shifted in my chair. I wanted her to buy ME lunch, not my Chief Acolyte. Hang on. Switch that: I wanted to buy HER lunch. Then I remembered the dismal state of my temple finances and, in my head, switched things back. But either way, I didn't want her spending her time with BB. I know the guy isn't exactly a romantic sort, but he has a way of getting under your skin with how CUTE he is, and I didn't think Midnight Jane went in for 'cute,' but better safe than sorry.
    But that wasn't the point.
    "That's not the point," I said. "If BB DID steal something--and I'm not saying he did--then Forgotten Zed is threatening to execute him."
    "Under the Laws of the Divine Brotherhood?" asked Tumble Dry, leaning back long in his chair. "Those haven't been enforced for centuries. Not the truly draconic parts of them, anyway." He slapped the table and leaned forward. "I know what this is about."
    "You do?" I asked. I was certain I didn't.
    "The competition."
    Midnight Jane's eyes narrowed. "You don't think so, really."
    "I do," said Tumble Dry, leaning back in his chair again. "I do indeed. Forgotten Zed is worried, and he's decided to play dirty. Get Bradley off his game."
    Harold looked side to side, clearly delighted by all of this and not having any idea what was going on.
    Midnight Jane crossed her arms over her breasts. "That bas--"
    "Language, madame," said Mad Hatter Barnes, leaning in to replace the empty pitcher of root beer.
    She flicked her eyes up at him and grunted an apology. "That jerk. We finally get a competition where the elder gods DON'T have an edge of thousands of years of experience, and they immediately step in to start sabotaging our best player. I cry foul."
    "So this is all about some contest?" asked Harold.
    "Yes," said Tumble Dry.
    Midnight Jane nodded. "Definitely," she said with confidence. "They're trying to intimidate Bradley."
    I had looked into Forgotten Zed's eyes, and I wasn't so sure this was just about intimidating me. This was more than that, somehow. However, if it WAS about intimidating me, I knew one thing: it was working.