Unbeliever

What makes a villain? Necessity, of course. Money doesn’t grow on trees, nor does medication for a sick child. Counseling vanishes when you lose everything, and your wife leaves with the last boy child. Bitter? Am I bitter? Of course not. A bitter man would seek revenge—on doctors, insurance adjusters, the makers of the foam insulation that gave my daughter cancer, or maybe even on God.

Time is an abstract concept, pushing us forward in a linear direction, but there are moments where the lines blur, and the indecision between God and the rusty mechanics of reality distorts everything. It’s within this ripple of unreality that I find myself. The pulse wave burns away the skin, leaving only potential superposition and consciousness. God wept.

I see the Maker of all things before me, on his knees, confessing his sins to a mindless void wrapped in storms of maybes and could-bes. Timelines spin and flip, unanchored, like hoses filled with unbridled water seeking escape. I place my hand on His shoulder as the storm beats us both to our knees. I peer into God and see only my own face staring back.

“Fool,” I say, “We are the chicken and the egg, saint and sinner, king and beggar, man and God.”

He turns to me. “Find her and save her. Choose a path and save her. If you fail, try again. Thou art God.”

He waves, pointing back, and I turn to see another me come into being. I launch myself into a timeline and find my daughter asleep years before. I know this future and will create one for her. Tomorrow I’ll speak with my banker and buy stock. Money is no barrier now. Fate is only a tool, and if I should fail, I now know God.