When Gods Ask Why

When Gods ask why.

The boom was loud. VERY loud. In a few days someone would come in and do a bit of an inspection and call it "A gas leak". A gas leak, really? Come on now, let's not piss around. Yes, gas leaks exist, and they are dangerous and all the rest of it. But really? Today?

This was too much.

I don't want much. Just a little bit is all I really need. I've had it all. I've seen it all. I've tried it all. And failed. Something always comes up. It always comes up just at the pivotal point and destroys it.

It started in what is known today as Turkey. I was part of the Catalhoyuk, about nine thousand years ago. I was a potter. I made pots. I was an apprentice to a man, two years I spent with him. I did all his shit-work, cleaned the workshop and house. I was pretty much a slave, really. "Indentured servitude" they called it. I worked like that to pay for my teaching, not that he taught me much. I basically worked for him for free. The bastard never even fed me... Not that I needed food, but that wasn't the point, he should have provided it at least.

I started with basic stuff. Small bowls, Then I got better and made small pots, then larger pots then on and on. Two years I spent with him, learning his trade. Yeah, I learned many things, the main one was that I needed to pick a better mentor.

After that I set up on my own in another village. The mentor I had finally stepped up and gave me some money when we parted. I nearly fainted when that happened. So, I bought clay, shaped it, made patterns on it, and fired it. Most of it was crap, meant for everyday use. It had to be cheap because it didn't last long. That was what got me my daily needs. The nicer stuff doesn't sell well. People don't spend money they don't have on things that don't last long. So nicer pieces were a rarity for me.

I had only been on my own for half a year when one of the villages nearby attacked us and I was killed. I had only just paid off my debts, that very morning I had paid off the merchant Izor the last of what I owed. In fact, he was even considering buying one of my nicer pieces. My first sale being a debt free potter!

And then they attacked... And I died. Fuck!

So, I tried again. Egypt this time, about three thousand years later. I made bricks. Mud bricks mixed with straw I got from the market. We bought raw clay, mix it ourselves and pressed it into a mould and let it bake in the sun. I started out working for someone else, I didn't have money and I didn't want to cheat so this was the only way. I was a good worker, and I was fast. I was clearly the best worker and got the best pay. When the owner got ill and died, he passed the business to me. You would think I would be proud. I swear he only did it to piss me off. He never mentioned that he had debts. Fucker.

So, with all the money I had I paid off what I could and ran the business to continue paying off the debt. Again, just after paying the debt, my first day debt free, boom! Dead. A rival business had paid someone to kill me. There had been a poor inundation for the past two years and food prices were up. The cost of the straw to make the bricks was going higher as it was also needed to feed the animals. The other businessman needed the work to pay his staff and control the market. I only had two other people and they died with me. I was really annoyed with that. Don't worry, the murderer didn't make it out of the yard alive. Humans don't really understand the concept of pain until they meet someone who can really deal it out. And I am one of those people.

So, I tried again. Ancient Japan this time. Towards the end of the Jomon period, about five thousand years ago. I was a cord maker. I started out gathering and processing plant fibres to sell, then later I learned how to braid from an old man and his wife who took me in. I worked for and with them. They used to make cord for the braiders in the town. They would be the ones to make the amazing decorations on the armour of noted people, Shoguns and the like.

We also made the cord and rope for the pottery, that was where the main business was. This time when the owners died their son took the house back and moved me on. I had nothing but the skills I had learned so I did just that. I made my own hovel and made cord. I was happy for the first time. No debts, no stresses and nobody looking for me.

And then the local wars started, and I was, again, dead. Happiness was not to be mine, I guess.

Through the years I tried again and again. I could do jobs, but I couldn't be in charge. I was a miner, a sailor, a farmer, I worked construction, I even tried rearing horses on a farm in Arabia. Everything was fine until I was in charge and then it all fell apart. The closest I ever got to it was in England in 1940. I owned a chicken farm for a whole year. I had worked on it all through the '30s and when the owner's son was signed up for the war in 1939 and was killed very early, he lost all hope and killed himself. I took over and when nobody argued I stayed. I lived like that for a year. Debt free. The farm was owned free and clear by the family and only had running costs to worry about.

It was a German plane that killed me in 1941. It had been on a raid and had gotten lost. It landed on the house that was blacked out. I was killed instantly. Funny how a German aircraft just happened to run out of fuel over my farm. Miles of farmland around me and he hit my house.

I was beginning to suspect something... Odd.

In all I lived 30 or so lives like that. All ended with me dying as soon as I became my own person. No debts, no liabilities. At that point I died. And that brings us back to the gas leak from earlier today. Today was the first. My standing order would have been processed by the bank. The bank loan would have been paid off. I would, again, have been clear. My little shop, my business, would have been all mine. Me, myself, and mine. I stocked cord, rope, and the like. A gas leak and the fire ripped through it all.

Now I am stood in the middle of an inferno, the flames all the hotter because I was angry, and nothing burns hotter than a God with issues.

All I wanted was to do it the hard way. I was a God for Pete's sake. I could snap my fingers and have things be. To be honest I didn't even need to snap my fingers, I just had to will it and it happened. You may have heard of the term "Living life on easy mode" well that is the life of a God, but I was bored with that. I wanted the one thing I couldn't have. A challenge.

So, I picked a planet and had a go. I found a life form and worked with them. I learned things. How did a thing happen? Not simply a case of 'do', but think, observe, learn, and try. That was a thing I had to learn, failure. Gods cannot fail. We will it and it is done. The concept that you might get it wrong is just alien. So, I tried it and I found that I enjoyed it. Some would say I chose the easy life. But I take my trials where I can. I don't need food or rest, but my mind is so much more. I don't need cord or rope. I just move things, I don't need bricks or a roof over my head, but I now understand the human need for security, from people and the elements. Nothing could hurt me but now I understand that daily fear that other creatures understand instinctively.

Now I understand something. Something is working against me.

But something is also happening to me. I don't understand it. Is this... Fear?

I am a God. I see all. I know all. But it seems that living with the humans has changed me. I now understand, such Godly arrogance. I do not see all, and I most definitely do not know all.

Something is out to kill me. I need to understand why.

Fin.

I may continue this... I don't know.

So far nothing is coming to mind about how to follow it.