I’ve been sent on a mission. I am of no religion, of no cult, of no club, of no family, of no race, of no age. I’ve been sent on a mission.
They were searching for nearly seven thousand years, and now that I am on my mission, their search will finally be over, fulfilled. They waited all those years, and they attempted countless times to uncover the ultimate answer, with no success. Some of them had different answers than others, and they began to fight, to battle, to kill—because of a different answer. Didn’t they know that all of their answers were wrong? Thousands, millions, I dare say even billions have been mercilessly butchered with no reason whatsoever over the span of human life, from a single murder or an entire holocaust.
Simply because of a different answer.
Those shameful times are over now. Here I sit on the crest of the mountain, and I stand, and walk down to the bottom. It must take me seven days and seven nights before I reach the bottom, with no food or water. This quest was not made to be easy. If I die, I die, and if I live, so much the better.
I walk. Sometimes the emerald grass swishes at my feet. Sometimes I see snow avalanches in the mountains in front of me, crumbling down with the sound of thunder, but no lightning. I know I am safe. The answer that I have unearthed will protect me.
The animals are still hiding—the air is too cold for them to survive, with not enough oxygen. The snow can cover them up and choke them in seconds.
Hunger escapes my fingers like a soft linen cloth, and soon my stomach is full with the crisp air from the mountains. I feel healthier as I climb down, as more oxygen makes my conscience dizzy. Thirst bottles in my throat, but I wait to fulfill it after I tell them the long awaited answer.
Then, I see an eagle, fluttering above me. I laugh. The animals are back! A few feet below is a squirrel in its burrow, with a fur full of smoky scent and heavy skins. The flowers bend down across the insects that now fly and crawl across the earth, and then I see them from a distance—the trees! Oh, the trees, beautiful and slender and hazel and the smell, oh such sweet smell of pine and clear waters. But I hold my craving inside, and I still don’t feel belonging. I walk down the hills and rocks to reach the bottom.
The sense of pressure forces down my eyes. All humanity awaits for me down there: I can no longer hold my excitement. I will tell them my answer. They will remember me by this name—the one who answered the question people asked all these years, the question no one was able to answer.
Thousands of them are down there. I can hear their voices propelling through the breeze, I can feel the power flowing through my veins. I will be the one! I am a human, but all humans will consider me God! I will tell them the answer!
The tears from my face fall on the weeds. A brown doe, lingers on a small creek next to me. She raises her head and looks around. Her eyes appear to be following me, and as soon as I walk away from her she skips up the mountain, farther away from me. The birds soaring overhead fill me with delight. They will soon know.
The world.
The world will soon know, recognize, the power of my words! The mission is nearly over now. Far away, branched on a single hill in rock, stands a hut. A huge hut. A palace! How pleasant, how relaxing, spiritual at the least. A castle in the Himalayas! How enlightening!
But I must hurry. It’s been six days, and I have one more night until I reach the people who await me with such enthusiasm.
As the moon disappears and the dawn stirs me from dreams of the upcoming day, my mouth foams and my hunger is no longer trapped. I sip the hunger through my teeth, try to ignore it, and as I see a young deer—but no, I can’t, simply no!—and I chase after it, try to catch its tail!
Oh, hunger, thirst, stand back, I cannot carry on! I fall to the ground with the dead deer in my arms. I sip the blood from its neck, blood that I needed for all those weeks. Now the answer is streaming through our blood, our blood, which is one blood, mammal’s blood, human and animal, the blood that passes all throughout my body, my limbs, my brain, my heart. It beats with the deer’s blood, it beats with the grass which it ate, it beats with the sunlight and water which helped it grow, it beats with the universe which produced the sun. My heart is the universe. One pounds harder than the other.
I fall to my knees and grab at the weeds, pull them straight out of the soil. I am a few miles away now. If only I could get down there quicker, only…
But the blood has helped. I stand up, and I can feel my muscles working. The blood has helped. It was water, and minerals, and meat, and survival. It was me standing up on my two feet and walking down the mountain to meet all those people, all those people, to tell them the final truth. The one they’ve longed to know for so much time, so much time! For seven thousand, eight, nine, ten thousand years, give or take, ten thousand year they’ve waited for this answer. Each one thinks theirs is the right answer, each one believes theirs is the right thing. But they don’t know! I have the answer. It is stored. The mountain has graciously handed it to me—I have the answer!
A few more feet now… a few more…dizzy, almost fainting—on the ground, breathing, breathing, in—and out, in—and out, in! Out! In! Out!
My god, the answer! They want to know the answer! If I die, I die, and if I live… If I live, I live! I die! I die in any way, I live in any way. If I tell them the answer, I will die since I would never have another purpose in my life. If I tell them… I will live forever, in all the books, through the generations my name will be “Messiah!” I am the messiah.
When I wake, it is night. The stars collapse on the skies. I look up, and there’s no one around. This is supposed to be the place! Where they wait! Where they want to find me! Where, where they will know the answer!
I scream for someone. For a human being. When I left the mountain bottom, there were thousands of people looking up at me, waiting for me to finish my expedition. Now, there was no one. Not even a single animal. The scarlet earth underneath my feet was blowing in the breeze. A wolverine howled. It was a single violin, melancholy and miserable. As I heard its howl, I could see the furry arms moving across the strings, the melody flowing like a river—a stream—and I was sipping it, listening.
Then it stopped. I felt forlorn, thwarted. Where were they? And then I remembered: “If I die, I die, and if I live, so much the better.” The force—I died!—hit me like a hammer, my blood simmered. I am dead! But no, it couldn’t be. They thought I was dead! They thought! Like they thought their God was true…
I entered the house. There was a woman in that house. Her eyes were gray, and so was her hair. Her skin was smoldered, and aged, and furrowed. Her lips were the ugliest shade of white, cracked and spoiled, a sour wrinkle on a cucumber. As I stepped in the shock on her face melted.
The TV screen was reflected on it, as she said, “At last, you came. Ol’ son, we been waitin’ seven years for this.” She chuckled, “Thank god you came here alive, my husband didn’t survive.”
“Where…where is everyone?”
She choked. “Everyone? Dead. I was the only one crazy enough to live here
for so many years. Just for you to tell me.”
“To tell you?”
“To tell me.”
“But I expected so much more…” I whispered.
Now she couldn’t stop, she hooted and snickered and roared with frenzy, rolling in her old burgundy armchair. “The whole world, I bet!”
I nodded. Disillusioned. Petrified.
“So tell me, son.” She said.
I started. I told her how I climbed up the mountain, and how I sat there on the top for a long, long time, meditating with my eyes closed. It needed to be. And then, as I stood up, I saw it. I saw who God was.
“And?” she asked. “Was he Catholic? Jewish? Buddhist? Satan? Was there any God at all?”
Now I was the one who was laughing. I walked right outside. Didn’t she see? Who was God? God? Was there any? Couldn’t she see? If I walked right into your house, told you I just spent seven years, isolated, on the highest mountain, discovering God, who would you say it was?
We are God!
I yelled it, the mountain snow crumpled, WE ARE GOD! She screamed, she panicked. I could hear her terrified screeches from inside the wooden cabin on the top of the world. I went in and saw her face, red and purple and screaming in absolute terror. And then, I did it. I grabbed her throat and pressed down as hard as I could. At first she reached her hands out to stop me, but then she saw I was stronger and she let go. It was only once her eyes were rolling, lifeless, when I finally let go and stopped screaming.
The human race was killed because of him. Because of God.
They attacked each other. No one man on the planet was innocent. Nothing happened on the mountain, except that God tapped me on the shoulder and told me the truth. There is no God. God is the cause of war, of death, of the human race. And the human race was the only one who believed in their own God.
We are God. Humans are God. We murdered each other because we thought our God was the answer—but no! I went there and proved it! God didn’t kill all those people! We killed ourselves! We are God!
I’ve been sent on a mission. I am of no religion, of no cult, of no club, of no family, of no race, of no age. I am simply a human man. I am God. I’ve been sent on a mission.
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