them.
I didn’t do it because I hated them. My feelings for my parents had become as absent and selfish as theirs for me. We shared the same house but nothing else — they didn’t know about my dreams of going to technical school for graphic design, or how I’d almost-but-not-quite died at the hands of a jealous bully. They didn’t know about the voice.
I killed them because the voice had started whispering to me, not once in a while, not in times of distress, but every day. Every night. Every hour. And not just words, but pictures too.
The voice showed me the outcome of every path I could take. It showed me lives full of joy and misery, the only difference in something as simple as a missed bus. It told me which way to turn when I came out of the diner where I worked part time as a busboy. Left was one life. Right was another.
All these lives, cascading like a fistful of cards in a trick. Pick one, any one. Some days you get the king, others the joker.
Life with my parents alive was a long series of disappointments culminating in my complete and utter lack of success as a human being.
Life with my parents dead…was glory.
All spread out before me, the world to be gripped in my two hands, but not for my own pleasure. Not to raise me up for my own sake. No, I was to do the work of my true father, not the man who’d impregnated my mother and had happily spent his life with grease under his nails and his breath smelling of cheep beer. I was supposed to make a difference in the world. That’s what the voice told me.
The voice of God.
Not the one from vacation bible school, some old man with a long white beard and robes. My fathergod didn’t speak from a burning bush. My fathergod didn’t ask me to martyr myself so the sins of others would be forgiven. People needed to be responsible for their own sins.
No, my fathergod told me it was my job to bring a light to the world and show people how important it was not to follow the words some men had written down eons ago in texts that have been ruined through interpretation over the years. It’s not important to read.
It’s important to listen.
My parents died when the gas line to the stove my mother never used perforated, leaking gas into the kitchen that was ignited by a spark of unknown origin, maybe something simple like the phone ringing or the shuffle of my dad’s sock-clad feet on the carpet, making static. There were a lot of rights and lefts in that scenario; the voice showed me the myriad ways it could happen, and in the end it didn’t matter how. Just that it did.
The house was gone, and so were they, but there was plenty of money for a guy who didn’t need much. All I needed was my voice, and people to hear it. The problem was, I was still invisible.
So came the clothes. White suit, white shirt, white tie. Top to toe. The cadence of my words became an up-and-down lilt, and the message came next, shared in a way people were familiar with even if there were many who mocked. I became a caricature, just like the ones I was so good at drawing.
The Christian folk castigated me because I was making everything they ever believed into a lie. What they didn’t know was that they could keep on with their water into wine. They didn’t have to give that up. The non-believers mocked me and lumped me in with the Jesus sellers when that’s not at all the story I was telling. They didn’t have to take that on.
All they had to do was learn to listen.
I started with the website. Blog. A Connex account, a personal page not one for a business or a celebrity, because I wanted to connect with people as myself, not an entity or corporation or someone on a pedestal. I wanted everyone I connected with to see me as someone they could message and talk to, tag in their statuses. I replied to everyone, every time. I gained connexions at a startling rate. Social media, the hand of the voice. I started an internet radio show with only a few listeners at
I didn’t do it because I hated them. My feelings for my parents had become as absent and selfish as theirs for me. We shared the same house but nothing else — they didn’t know about my dreams of going to technical school for graphic design, or how I’d almost-but-not-quite died at the hands of a jealous bully. They didn’t know about the voice.
I killed them because the voice had started whispering to me, not once in a while, not in times of distress, but every day. Every night. Every hour. And not just words, but pictures too.
The voice showed me the outcome of every path I could take. It showed me lives full of joy and misery, the only difference in something as simple as a missed bus. It told me which way to turn when I came out of the diner where I worked part time as a busboy. Left was one life. Right was another.
All these lives, cascading like a fistful of cards in a trick. Pick one, any one. Some days you get the king, others the joker.
Life with my parents alive was a long series of disappointments culminating in my complete and utter lack of success as a human being.
Life with my parents dead…was glory.
All spread out before me, the world to be gripped in my two hands, but not for my own pleasure. Not to raise me up for my own sake. No, I was to do the work of my true father, not the man who’d impregnated my mother and had happily spent his life with grease under his nails and his breath smelling of cheep beer. I was supposed to make a difference in the world. That’s what the voice told me.
The voice of God.
Not the one from vacation bible school, some old man with a long white beard and robes. My fathergod didn’t speak from a burning bush. My fathergod didn’t ask me to martyr myself so the sins of others would be forgiven. People needed to be responsible for their own sins.
No, my fathergod told me it was my job to bring a light to the world and show people how important it was not to follow the words some men had written down eons ago in texts that have been ruined through interpretation over the years. It’s not important to read.
It’s important to listen.
My parents died when the gas line to the stove my mother never used perforated, leaking gas into the kitchen that was ignited by a spark of unknown origin, maybe something simple like the phone ringing or the shuffle of my dad’s sock-clad feet on the carpet, making static. There were a lot of rights and lefts in that scenario; the voice showed me the myriad ways it could happen, and in the end it didn’t matter how. Just that it did.
The house was gone, and so were they, but there was plenty of money for a guy who didn’t need much. All I needed was my voice, and people to hear it. The problem was, I was still invisible.
So came the clothes. White suit, white shirt, white tie. Top to toe. The cadence of my words became an up-and-down lilt, and the message came next, shared in a way people were familiar with even if there were many who mocked. I became a caricature, just like the ones I was so good at drawing.
The Christian folk castigated me because I was making everything they ever believed into a lie. What they didn’t know was that they could keep on with their water into wine. They didn’t have to give that up. The non-believers mocked me and lumped me in with the Jesus sellers when that’s not at all the story I was telling. They didn’t have to take that on.
All they had to do was learn to listen.
I started with the website. Blog. A Connex account, a personal page not one for a business or a celebrity, because I wanted to connect with people as myself, not an entity or corporation or someone on a pedestal. I wanted everyone I connected with to see me as someone they could message and talk to, tag in their statuses. I replied to everyone, every time. I gained connexions at a startling rate. Social media, the hand of the voice. I started an internet radio show with only a few listeners at
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