I WAS GOD ONCE

OCTOBER 11, 8:46 PM, 1 DAY AND SIX HOURS REMAINING

        Director Aaron Wallace's hallucinations of former selves began when he was thirteen, and continued on until he was nineteen, when he found, one day, that they could be reached. On the ten o'clock news one night, as he sat in his bedroom, his parents arguing in another room, their voices rising above the reporter on screen, he'd seen the image of a gas station. A local, tiny thing, near his high school. A murder, or suicide, or something had happened there. The camera's, strangely, had not shied away from the doorway of the gas station that was simply covered in blood. As though someone had taken a balloon full of it, popped it, spraying it everywhere. The reporter had looked pale; the officers on sight had looked pale. It was an awful thing to behold. The gas station owner, a man named Heather Martens, had simply disappeared, and left behind nothing but a splash of blood. He found his other, Aaron had known, staring at the television.

        Heather had been an old man, sixty-eight and going senile. One of his eyes was blue where the other was gray, and his upper lip twitched when he spoke to customers. Aaron and his friends had laughed and watched him, on numerous, numerous occasions, shouting, "You! Yes you, there, you get off my god-damn property, how many fucking times do I have to tell you! Get the hell out of here before I call the goddamn poh-leece!" To no one. At least no one his friends could see.

        It had stopped frightening Aaron when he was sixteen, and he had been in church, in the furthest pews, his parents on either side of him, his two, younger brothers, arguing in harsh whispers over who got television dibs first once the sermon was over. The sermon had been of the Book of Revelations. The preacher- a dark man with a lisp and strangely bright eyes- had been passionately going on, and on, of the end of times. "There will be great suffering," He had said, breathless, "And great terror, and tragedy. And all of mankind will feel His wrath and also, His mercy. For God said, those who invite Him in will not suffer, but will be given mercy, and will eat with Him at His table. For when the suffering ends- and it will end- it will be a glorious place. So open your heart to him-" "Amen," said the church-goers. Aaron's brothers were still arguing and his mother was reaching over his lap to grab one of them, hiss a warning. The preacher was reading from his big, leather book now, his finger pointing wildly to where he read, "'LOOK! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them-" Aaron had seen, several pews ahead, a boy with blonde hair, twisting his head to see him, a boy with dark eyes, a boy like himself, "'They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them-'" Beside that boy, another boy, older, pale, and with white, white hair, like some angel, "'And be their God..!"

        The mantra of Amen's and the moans and groans of the church goers, those praise Jesus' and so on and so on had become static to Aaron that day, his mother gripping his brother's arm, his father hissing for them both to shut the fuck up, the faint scent of alcohol in his father's breath, his mother's cigarettes making the air stale, all of it, all of it had faded to nothing. For God had shown His face to Aaron that day, and Aaron could not give a single shit for his low-life father, his bitch of a mother, and his annoying brothers. What were they, compared to the face of God?

        Aaron waited and waited for the apparitions, each variation of himself, to become strong enough to reach him. They have been searching for me for years, he'd thought, let them come. They deserve the relief. For what came next, he knew, would be God Himself. He only needed to find Him. Wasn't that what religion was all about?

        He'd wondered where he'd go, when finally they'd touch him. Would he go like Heather had, in a burst of gore? Would that hurt? Strangely, he didn't really care either way. Maybe that was what happened when you denied them. What would happen, he wondered, if he accepted whatever it was they had for him?