ezra Let us simply cross as best we can the divided noontide, the slick wriggling hammerhead sharks that flock across the sky at dusty yellow noon
When the sun is overhead the dry hillside is burned black and I spread the ashes of burned papers between my fingertips and throw them fluttering to the rocks
It is cold when I go home and the dog and I trapped on the wrong side of the barbed-wire fence. I call on god to help me but god is slow. I demand his assistance and he shakes himself slothfully
god It is not, let us make it clear, that I have no time for you. I have all the time for you. All the time that there is for you is time that I built. But it is now time for you to do the things that you do and I prefer not
ezra You prefer not?
god I don’t like to alter. What I built works. You can climb the fence.
ezra I didn’t stir you with prayer to be told I can climb the fence.
god No, probably not, but it’s the case.
ezra What about the dog?
god There is no such problem.
ezra You have fixed the problem?
god All that has happened here was known to me at all times because I exist in all times. The problem was always going to be fixed at that moment, that is the moment that the problem of the dog unable to climb the fence was fixed.
ezra Thank you.
god Your graciousness is pleasant and I will bask in it for longer.
ezra Thanks. Really.
god Yes.
ezra I’d best climb this fence and get home.
god The end of graciousness?
ezra I can’t stay here and pray to you in thanks all night.
god You can.
ezra Do I?
god I... Answering this question about the future will directly affect the choice you make...
ezra I’m not going to stay here all night and pray. Thanks, I’m going home. Justice! Justice, come on! Justice? Where’s the dog?
god Fixed.
ezra Gah.
ezra The problem with calling on God to solve a problem is that he has no sense of proportion. When I ask God to solve the problem of my dog being trapped on one side of a barbed wire fence, I assume he’s going to lower the fence, or remove the barbed wire, or give my dog amazing jumping powers. God, unfortunately, can be prone to thinking along the lines of ‘No dog means no problem’. So all of a sudden I never had a dog. But rather than just miracle it so that I personally never wanted or was able to have a dog, God fixes it so that there never were dogs to have. The species does not and never has existed. All dogs instantly cease to have ever existed - physical traces of them were never here in the first place, and God fixes my memory of the miracle so that I can’t remember them either, and then he leaves me in the middle of a speech with no idea of what the hell I’m talking about. Something about a fence? Something’s not right, I feel like I’m missing something but I don’t know what. There’s just this slight ache in my heart as if there’s a tiny gap that something was supposed to fill, and now it never will. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know who’s responsible. Damn you, God!
god God is everywhere.