Good to Be God by Tibor Fischer Page A
Authors: Tibor Fischer
Tags: Religión, Fiction, Literary, General, Suspense, Social Science, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, True Crime, Criminology, Florida, Miami, Identity Theft, Impostors and Imposture, Christian Church, City churches - Florida - Miami, City churches
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G
I wake up with the dawn and I pray hard.
I pray hard for everyone. I don’t even pray for myself. That’s how pure my prayer is. I’ve been praying hard for some time, begging unashamedly for a better world, because I’m appalled by the one I’m in and I haven’t noticed any difference. It occurs to me that probably many others have been on the beseeching trail; surely if prayer had any effect we’d have noticed? On the other hand, just because something doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it’s not working somewhere else. If I had to start a fire by rubbing twigs, I’d be nowhere, and I’d have some chance of pulling off a stunt like that.
Breakfast restores my spine. How confidence-rich a doughnut can be, how character-forming coffee. Time for a miracle. Time to radiate.
The Hierophant needs to be seeded with intimations of my supremacy. He will serve as the chief witness of my divinity, so he has to be fed some amazing information, so first I need some amazing information.
I grab myself a terminal at Kafka’s, and see whether there’s some good stuff on the net. I immediately find an interview with the Hierophant conducted by a Virginia Hawthorn, the journalist at the Lama’s talk. She’s evidently hot on religion. I mark her down for cultivation.
Then I drive over to the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ, where I sweep up, even though since I swept up yesterday, there’s nothing to sweep up. I leave a terrifically phallic blue pen on a 80
GOOD TO BE GOD
top shelf in the Hierophant’s office, which should garner me amazing information.
The next day, I arrive early to filter the mail, in case there’s any amazing information. Sadly there is no letter informing the Hierophant of a visit from a long-lost friend or relation.
There is no news of a large fortune bequeathed to him. There is nothing that could be even considered respectable information.
There are bills and ads for gardening equipment, and since I’ve opened the envelopes clumsily, I have to ditch all the mail to conceal my tampering.
I then plug in to my pen, which can record up to eight hours of conversation. The trouble with recording up to eight hours of conversation is that you then have to listen to it. The material is as junk as the mail.
I discover the Hierophant sighs a lot in private. Every few minutes or so a heartfelt “aaaah” is released. Papers are shuffled.
He sighs more. It’s reassuring to learn that the assured aren’t so assured, but the sighs rapidly become exasperating. There’s also a great deal of scratching, although I can’t identify which part of his body is getting the nail.
Finally, a conversation. The Hierophant explains to an unknown caller that he bought a watch that morning. He went into one shop, checked the price of the model he wanted, then went to another shop where the same model was a hundred dollars more. The Hierophant returned to the first shop and bought the watch.
Not a stunning anecdote, and the Hierophant doesn’t tell it well. He doesn’t tell it any better to caller “Mitchell” and caller “Ellen”. He pads it out explaining how he expressed his outrage to the assistant in the second shop that they were selling the watch for a hundred bucks less in the first, and expressing 81
TIBOR FISCHER
astonishment to the assistant in the first shop that they were selling the watch for a hundred more in the second (I’m précising here).
It’s unfair to knock someone’s repartee when you’re eaves-dropping, but I doubt if I can carry on bugging the Hierophant, not on account of any ethical discomfort, but because it’s so tedious. I’ve snooped on four and a half hours of the Hierophant’s privacy and I’m drained.
G
“See this watch?’’ the Hierophant asks me the next day, relating that it was one hundred dollars cheaper in the shop he bought it in than anywhere else. I resist the
G
I wake up with the dawn and I pray hard.
I pray hard for everyone. I don’t even pray for myself. That’s how pure my prayer is. I’ve been praying hard for some time, begging unashamedly for a better world, because I’m appalled by the one I’m in and I haven’t noticed any difference. It occurs to me that probably many others have been on the beseeching trail; surely if prayer had any effect we’d have noticed? On the other hand, just because something doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it’s not working somewhere else. If I had to start a fire by rubbing twigs, I’d be nowhere, and I’d have some chance of pulling off a stunt like that.
Breakfast restores my spine. How confidence-rich a doughnut can be, how character-forming coffee. Time for a miracle. Time to radiate.
The Hierophant needs to be seeded with intimations of my supremacy. He will serve as the chief witness of my divinity, so he has to be fed some amazing information, so first I need some amazing information.
I grab myself a terminal at Kafka’s, and see whether there’s some good stuff on the net. I immediately find an interview with the Hierophant conducted by a Virginia Hawthorn, the journalist at the Lama’s talk. She’s evidently hot on religion. I mark her down for cultivation.
Then I drive over to the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ, where I sweep up, even though since I swept up yesterday, there’s nothing to sweep up. I leave a terrifically phallic blue pen on a 80
GOOD TO BE GOD
top shelf in the Hierophant’s office, which should garner me amazing information.
The next day, I arrive early to filter the mail, in case there’s any amazing information. Sadly there is no letter informing the Hierophant of a visit from a long-lost friend or relation.
There is no news of a large fortune bequeathed to him. There is nothing that could be even considered respectable information.
There are bills and ads for gardening equipment, and since I’ve opened the envelopes clumsily, I have to ditch all the mail to conceal my tampering.
I then plug in to my pen, which can record up to eight hours of conversation. The trouble with recording up to eight hours of conversation is that you then have to listen to it. The material is as junk as the mail.
I discover the Hierophant sighs a lot in private. Every few minutes or so a heartfelt “aaaah” is released. Papers are shuffled.
He sighs more. It’s reassuring to learn that the assured aren’t so assured, but the sighs rapidly become exasperating. There’s also a great deal of scratching, although I can’t identify which part of his body is getting the nail.
Finally, a conversation. The Hierophant explains to an unknown caller that he bought a watch that morning. He went into one shop, checked the price of the model he wanted, then went to another shop where the same model was a hundred dollars more. The Hierophant returned to the first shop and bought the watch.
Not a stunning anecdote, and the Hierophant doesn’t tell it well. He doesn’t tell it any better to caller “Mitchell” and caller “Ellen”. He pads it out explaining how he expressed his outrage to the assistant in the second shop that they were selling the watch for a hundred bucks less in the first, and expressing 81
TIBOR FISCHER
astonishment to the assistant in the first shop that they were selling the watch for a hundred more in the second (I’m précising here).
It’s unfair to knock someone’s repartee when you’re eaves-dropping, but I doubt if I can carry on bugging the Hierophant, not on account of any ethical discomfort, but because it’s so tedious. I’ve snooped on four and a half hours of the Hierophant’s privacy and I’m drained.
G
“See this watch?’’ the Hierophant asks me the next day, relating that it was one hundred dollars cheaper in the shop he bought it in than anywhere else. I resist the
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