We’re all gods who have forgotten what we used to be.

We’re all gods who have forgotten what we used to be.

We spend a lot of our lives trying to remember who we were, to claw our way back there. We’re most ourselves as children. Our memories have been stripped, but our character, is still, relatively pure, god-like in soul but not yet of mind.

The problem is, I’ve read about gods, even met a couple in passing; I’m not convinced they’re particularly happy beings. I think, most of us would rather not remember, I think the majority of gods grew tired. Tired of the power which made them responsible, in part, for the misfortune and mistakes of other beings. They knew your own potential will always, frustratingly, and exponentially, scale with the pain you cause, through omission. It would not be an irrational conclusion to think that keeping yourself weak, but innocent, is a valid choice.

I think they envied animals, sure they were, brutal, often terrified and always hungry but they never wondered why. Things never, could, for them, they just were; which I imagine, saves them a great deal of worry.

All the gods, except the most power-hungry and strong of character, chose to put their souls, but not their minds into a new animal, us. They misunderstood souls however, it is true you can’t completely change them. You can however stretch them, crush them, crack them, cover them and warp them, and warp them they had.

A strange echo rippled out of the heavens, a tiny well-meaning lie hung in the air, picked up and reverberated. Each human soul, now equipped with a tiny tuning fork that hummed this lie but never spoke it. The plan, of course, for these new gods was happiness and the little hum grew louder each time the lie was told. Over time, however, it was impossible to hear, for it was all they had ever heard. I imagine eventually it was indistinguishable from silence.

We new gods are terrified of silence and the newer the generation of god, the more we seem to fear silence. By now it must be deafening, but the silence can’t be heard over our apparent happiness. For happiness was the plan.

Children are very quickly given the plan. Taught that their ability to reverberate is important, and doing so, will of course be awarded in a loud cheer. All things, all correct pursuits, will lead in some way, to happiness.

However, there are some children, born with painfully sensitive ears. No amount of noise will stop the deafening silence. They learn to hum, in strange tunes, that make them look rather mad. They always seem to be a little tired, eyes wide open seeing what could be. This is, of course, impossible, for an animal does not do could and this saves us all a great deal of worry.

A strange thing started to happen, however, the new gods would often pray to the old. Sometimes a prayer was obvious, knees, head down, desperate words. Sometimes the prayer was more subtle, a book was written, a crowd was left, a lover scorned, an unsavoury tune was hummed. It was usually children with exceptional ears, that would pray quietly.

An obvious prayer, was often annoying to the old gods, loud, bias and demanding. The subtle ones however had a strange beauty. They were much more likely to be granted, often a curse from a power-hungry god or a heavy gift from one of character. Either way, always given in hope that another similar prayer would come. Each prayer granted would take a little bit of an old god with it, a shard of a mosaic that a ‘ new ‘ soul looked upon jealously. The tuning fork, dislodged a little, every time they felt this jealousy. A little less warped in the pursuit to imitate.

The silence is rather loud these days and we appear to be trying to comfortably, and happily, drown it out. One day we’ll realise, that we were only ever on vacation from being gods. We’ll realise we preferred to be ourselves, tired, guilty and powerful but not afraid of the nothing. We’ll finally be able to dance and make music when the silence isn’t so loud. For now though, some of us, will just have to look a little mad.