God of the Immigrants

The universe is a big place, yet sharing it will always be one of sentience's biggest problems. Doesn't matter which realm one inhabits, intelligent beings always quarrel over the same issues. Territory, power, resources and the like. Sad, huh? I've always believed that whoever made the cosmos must have had a sick sense of humor. And so far, I've yet to be proven wrong. In case you're wondering who is saying this, my name is Afar. I am a God. Presently I live in the City of Toronto, Province of Ontario, where I am housed in the body of one Jerome Reynolds, a six-foot-four, burly young man of Jamaican descent. He's a Ryerson University student whose soul departed his body sixty seconds before I entered it. I've been living in what's left of him ever since.

What am I doing in a place like this? Well, the City of Toronto is to Canada what New York City is to the United States of America. The gateway to the North American dream and a prime gathering place for any and all immigrants. Well, that's right up my alley because I am an immigrant. The ultimate immigrant actually. I hail from the Planet Zenith ( yes, that's it's actual name ). My people are something else. A long time ago, we existed as humanoid entities. Hundreds of thousands of years into the past, one of our top scientists discovered the Key to Immortality. He built a machine which transformed many members of our society into Immortals. The only problem is that Immortality was different from what we thought. We thought we could continue to live in our bodies forever. Well, by becoming Immortal, we became pure thought and energy, but without the need for bodies.

Ah, Immortality. Hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens became Immortal, while the rest chose to live out their lives the natural way. There was a conflict between the two sides, the Mundane, as we Immortals called the ordinary mortals we left behind, and ourselves. The conflict resulted in the destruction of our homeworld. For the Mundane, this was the end. My kind soared through the cosmos, exploring our new state of being and the awesome powers we had. We could fly at close to the speed of light, and also manipulate matter and energy. However, we were no longer flesh and blood. We would never grow old or die. We were simply Immortal. In time, many of us started to think of ourselves as Gods. We went to other worlds, and either helped or hindered the development of other civilizations. We caused a lot of problems. To some, we were Gods and Angels. To others, were Devils and Demons. Yeah, we made a fine mess of things.

Eventually, I got tired of it all. I got sick and tired of my fellow Immortals. Trust me, if you had to spend close to a million years with the same people, you'd get tired of them too. I traveled outside of our home galaxy, which you humans in the Milky Way Galaxy have labeled Andromeda. Hmmm. Kind of nice. I like the name. Anyway, I finally found a world untouched by the madness of the Immortals. The planet Earth. I arrived on the planet Earth around 2010, at the beginning of the year. Invisible and intangible, I descended from the heavens and set about learning all I could about the inhabitants of this world. And given my phenomenal powers, what I could learn was a lot. I made the decision to live among the ordinary men and women of the planet Earth. Still, I didn't want to live like a ghost. I wanted to be seen and heard. I wanted to interact with people. I wanted to LIVE.

Well, one day, I watched as a young Black man named Jerome Reynolds got struck by lightning in a wooded area around Mississauga, not far from the City of Toronto. He'd gone camping with some friends from Ryerson University. The lightning killed nineteen-year-old Jerome Reynolds on the spot. I was hovering nearby when it happened. Filled with impulse I jumped inside his body the moment his soul, spirit or essence departed his flesh. Jerome Reynolds was gone, and only I remained. Being inside Jerome Reynolds was awkward...to say the least. You have to understand that I've been alive for almost a million years, as pure intellect without a body.

My whole existence was spent floating around in the cosmos, from one planet to another, sometimes swirling around inside suns, quasars and riding the backs of asteroids. Existing as an immortal being that was both invisible and intangible had its benefits and drawbacks. The benefits? Nothing could hurt us. The drawbacks? We couldn't feel a damn thing physically. Now I was inside a body. One kept functioning by my will and my will alone. To say that I was in unfamiliar territory would have been the understatement of the century. When Jerome Reynolds friends came, they took me to a hospital. The fact that I didn't remember who they were, or indeed anything about 'my life' was attributed to the lightning.

When I left the hospital, my new life began. I had done it. I had a body. I could feel. I could taste. I was alive. Well, more alive than I'd felt since a span of time too great to bother remembering. Now, even while living inside the reanimated body of Jerome Reynolds, I still had vast powers. With a sheer effort of will, I could levitate and even fly. I could also control matter and energy. Yeah, I could do all kinds of things. None of which would make life any easier for me as I embarked on the journey of a lifetime as Toronto's latest newcomer. I chose to resume my avatar's studies at Ryerson University because I felt it was the best place for me to learn all about human society and social norms, to better fit in. I didn't count on running into Stephanie Wahid, my avatar's tall and sexy Lebanese-born girlfriend. Yeah, life would get really complicated for me really fast. However, I'll take it over my previous existence any day of the week. Wish me luck, people.