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Dual Disillusionment

Jennifer Geist

    The priest glanced out the window again and sighed. The snow, which he usually cherished for its crystalline pureness, thickly coated the entire tarmac. Father Daniel Zelig was well aware, without looking up at the endless rows of “Delayed” signs, that he was spending his night in the airport. He didn’t have extra money to spend on a hotel as well as the flight. He wished he hadn’t agreed to go to a conference in Maine in the middle of winter; he could be at home reading Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. He reminded himself that wishing wasn’t going to change anything, and shifted slightly in his seat. The red plastic clung to his legs, forcing himself to readjust every few minutes. The back of the seat was at an awkward angle which didn’t allow him to lean back to catch even a few minutes of sleep.
    Father Daniel must have dozed off anyway, for he suddenly started noticing someone had occupied the seat next to him. He wondered why anyone, in a terminal full of chairs, would have chosen one directly next to him. Though it went against Daniel’s better nature, he was first tempted with the desire to ignore this stranger. The stranger, however, would not allow such a thing to happen. Father Daniel’s eyes were forced back open each time the man shook out his newspaper. It happened so often that Daniel was sure he could not be reading it, and was doing it just to spite him. He was almost ashamed for ignoring this unknown man, but Daniel was running on very little sleep and could feel his eyes becoming bloodshot. The newspaper shaking ceased for the time being; Daniel was drifting back towards an uncomfortable sleep, his foot propped up on the chair and his head resting on his knee. The stranger beside him began hacking, almost quietly at first, but growing in intensity, so much so that Daniel wondered if he should give him the Heimlich.
    For the first time, Daniel raised his gaze to the stranger. His coughing immediately stopped; he turned toward Daniel and gave a small smirk. “Oh, you finally noticed me, did you, Father?” sneered the man. He had ragged, unkempt hair, brown, sunken-in eyes, an asymmetrical nose, and thin pink lips. He wore a thin brown corduroy coat and jeans, but he was barefoot. Barefoot, in the middle of the airport. Daniel almost shook his head.
    He then realized what the man had just said. Daniel was not wearing his collar, nor was he wearing anything else that might lead the stranger to believe he was a priest. Even his small cross was tucked inside his steel-gray sweater.
    “I’m sorry?” Daniel said. “Do I know you?”
    “You claim to,” stated the stranger simply. “Some might even say you worship me.”
    Daniel didn’t know what to think of this man. “What would make me worship you?”
    “It’s funny that you don’t recognize what you’ve spent your whole life preaching about. I am God.”
    The nonchalant manner in which he said this frightened Daniel. He did not know how to appease the insane. He thought that if perhaps he ignored the stranger’s claim, then he’d go away, or, at the very least, give up his ruse. “Yeah, sure,” he mumbled.
    “I know you can’t possibly believe me,” said the man who claimed to be God. “But I can prove it. I know every little detail about you. I know you were born January 6, that you had your first kiss at 17 with the pretty Grace Miller, that you decided to become a priest at age 19, though you didn’t enter seminary until you were 23.” He paused for a second, then added, “More importantly, I know you decided to become a priest after you met Salvatore and his mother.”
    Daniel sputtered, flabbergasted. “What—I mean, who are you?” he finally choked out. He’d never told a single soul about Salvatore, but this man, this being, did not fit the idea that he’d had in mind for the God he’d been worshiping for most of his life.
    God cackled. “I’ve already told you, now haven’t I? What you really want to know is how, or rather why, I am here, talking to a lowly priest like yourself, correct?” Not waiting for an answer, he continued. “At first, I was pleased with myself. I praised myself for making an intelligent being, one that could think for itself, one that could worship me—that’s all I ever really wanted, in the beginning. Affirmation. I’m like humans in that regard. Soon, I realized this experiment was a failure. Man, I see now, is inherently evil. You quickly became my least favorite creation—I liked roaches more than you!”
    He paused for a moment, like he was trying to regain his composure. His face had gone a little red. Father Daniel, still speechless, waited for him to continue. “I became very disenchanted with the human race. I tried to wipe you out a few times, but you always managed to hold on. Stubborn bastards.” He gave an abrupt, humorless laugh. “After several centuries, I got tired of watching you fall from so far away. During the Dark Ages, I decided I wanted to see your misery first hand; I wanted to watch the human race kill itself off. I figured I wouldn’t have to wait too terribly long, with the way things were going. Burning people alive? How messed up are you? But you proved me wrong; you procreated faster than you died. I’ve lived on Earth since then, masquerading as a human, causing chaos and watching you fall further than even Lucifer himself. He tried to fight for humanity, you know. I would not have dissent in my ranks; he had to be removed.”
    “I don’t quite understand,” said Daniel. “Why would you want to tell me about all this, if you really are God?”
    A short laugh erupted from God’s thin lips. “And still you don’t believe me. No matter, you will. As for the reason why? Maybe I want to help the downfall of man. Enough prods in the right direction, maybe I can have this place cleared off in a few centuries. Maybe I’ll make a planet inhabited only by dolphins. They’re such happy creatures when not surrounded by humans.”
    Daniel was quickly becoming angry at this man—at God himself! He’d devoted so many years of his life to preach that God was a kind, loving being, and welcoming souls to heaven, and he now seemed to be the exact opposite. For his senior trip, he went to Mexico. He could still remember it vividly. He was walking down the street to his hotel. A small child, face gaunt, hands dirty, darted out of an alleyway, away from his mother. “Por favor, puedo tener un poco de comida?” Daniel didn’t know much Spanish, but the child’s stomach growled just then, emphasizing his words. The child’s mother grabbed his wrist and dragged him back into the alleyway, scolding him for asking for help. “Salvatore, no necesitamos su ayuda,” she kept repeating, nervously glancing at Daniel. It was obvious they were living in that skinny stretch of alleyway. A dirty cardboard box and a ragged blanket seemed to form their bed. He knew that he couldn’t allow such poverty, such misery to go on. Daniel gave that mother all the money he had on him.
    He went back to his hotel room and thought about what he could do to help people like Salvatore and his mother. He remembered attending a Catholic elementary school and learning about the priests. They took a vow of poverty and devoted much of their time preaching about living simply and giving to others. Daniel had been young at the time and had not really paid attention to the priests, but after seeing Salvatore, he wanted to become a priest too. Any of his money which he did not absolutely need would be given to the unfortunate, and he’d spend his time preaching and helping others. It seemed strange that a small boy in Mexico would become his savior, but he did not question it. His parents didn’t approve of his choice and urged him to consider a career in social work if nothing else, but now he felt a close connection to God. He understood what it was like to see misery and feel helpless to stop it. A few years later, he joined a seminary in hopes of learning all he could about God, and consequently, humanity.
    “Man is not the cause of evil,” Daniel began, “you are.” God nodded as if instructing him to continue. “You allow evil to exist. You are the evil one, causing natural disasters simply because you are displeased with what you have created. You’re like a small child, frustrated with what you can no longer control, so you try to destroy it. In Isaiah you admit that you are the creator of evil: ‘I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things,’” he said, quoting a piece of Scripture that often gave him pause. Before, he had just tried to ignore God’s claim that he created evil, as it did not fit with his idea of what God should be.
    “Ah yes. You priests like to use that one. That’s the result of a bad translation. It’s supposed to read, ‘I make peace, and create calamity.’ But how am I the evil one, when humans are the ones slaughtering each other? How am I evil, I ask, if you can’t even take care of your own kind?”
    “What did you want us to do? What would have pleased you, oh almighty creator?” he scathed.
    “You completely missed the point of life. You’ve built up entire systems based on money and material values. I didn’t mean for people to live in poverty because they don’t own magical pieces of paper saying they’re worth something,” said God.
    Daniel argued back, “How can I believe in you anymore? How can I believe in a being that blames us for an error that was present when you created us?”
    God smiled knowingly. “Don’t believe in me. The only hope mankind has for itself is to believe in each other.”
    He rose and padded his bare feet back across the empty terminal, disappearing out of Daniel’s sight before he even turned the corner. He wasn’t sure what to do anymore, as no one in his church would believe he had met God, nor would they allow him to preach about what God truly is—an insolent child. Daniel looked out the window. The snow, once so beautiful, was now tainted and dirty.

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