Spying On Heaven
Edgar Million
Spying On Heaven
Copyright 2016 Edgar Million
“Quit questioning God and start trusting Him!”
― Joel Osteen
“God is a vicious little fucker,” a voice announced, waking Bogumil with a start, dark eyes blinking in the hot urban sun, trying to work out where he was and who was speaking with such a voice; deep, booming, seeming to shake the tarmacked roof which he sat upon, then it continued, “and on the odd day he can be be honest with himself, he knows it.”
“Will this be one of those days though?” asked another voice, gentle, foreign sounding.
The boy twisted and looked around, reloading his surroundings. Two empty tins of beer, snuck out of the box Dad kept on the floor by the fridge, crumpled onto the rough surface, a Gregg's sausage roll, the wrapper anyway, discarded on the floor, along with a magazine borrowed from a box Dad kept on top of the wardrobe, the one he thought no one knew about; pictures of plump naked women printed on thick matt paper; images maybe thirty years old, surrounded by writing he couldn't read, wearing poses he hadn't experienced yet.
He was sitting on a flat roof, The Roof, Bogumil’s favourite hiding place when he wanted some space, some freedom from his two brothers and their fists and their taunts. The space was accessible through a gap in his back fence, up a series of plastic drain pipes. It was his secret kingdom.
The voices were drifting up through a thin slit of open skylight, so he crept across, fragments of the tarmac cracking and scraping his bare legs to sneak a look.
There were two men standing by the sink in the little community hall where all the alkies and druggies met for their support groups. One, was the biggest, toughest looking bloke Bogumil had ever seen, and he towered over a fat little Asian fella, for some reason wearing a thick knitted Christmas jumper on a hot day in June.
The fat man, Bogumil thought from his perched, had a pleasant face, with an expression like a calm day in Spring.
“He's hard work,” the man-mountain continued. The fat one looked sideways at the big guy, and Bog could tell he agreed, but he said nothing.
Bog pressed his head onto the glass and could just make out the scrawny figure they called God, who appeared to be more concerned with trying to make himself comfortable on the hard plastic chair than with their discussion of his failings. It seemed to be prodding and stabbing his bony rear no matter how he arranged himself and he looked agitated and volatle.
The community centre echoed with the sound of cups and saucers clinking, coffee and tea being prepared by a strange, grey looking figure, who Bogumil couldn't quite make out, partly because of the posts and sections of roof obstructing his view of the show, and partly because he just seemed hard to focus on. Bog just couldn’t seem to focus on him properly.
He busied himself, or herself even, with the refreshments table, moving bourbons and ginger nuts about a tray, picking off custard creams here and there.
“Okay dearies,” called a voice originating from a person Bogumil couldn't see, “time to join the circle of trust.”
Bogumil, Bog, to his school friends, liked these little sessions. You heard so much life discussed, all the things grownups normally kept secret, their loves and their weaknesses, their fears and their desperation. Often they would talk about the worst things in their lives, their lowest ebb.
He heard the expression ‘rock bottom’ again and again, and was baffled by some of the stories, strange almost demented encounters and betrayals.
But he'd never seen this lot before.
They were new.
They tramped over to the centre of the room, so Bog tiptoed across to the main skylights for a proper view of their circle, of ten or eleven figures, mostly men, but a couple of ladies as well.
They were healthier looking than the usual types who held meetings like this, not ravaged by their addictions and he wondered what their thing would be.
“So,” said the woman in a plummy, lilting voice which made Bog think of rivers and orchards and flowers, a plump, friendly looking lady in a summer dress, “who is going to kick us off today.”
There were murmurings, but no one seemed keen to go first.
“In the absence of a volunteer, maybe I could ask you to speak first please, God, it's been a while since you joined us.”
Bog peered through glass streaked with the dust of a city which had known no rain for weeks and made out the shape of a skinny figure, scrawny even, who appeared to be wearing some sort of a shop assistants uniform, who started as if stung, looked unwilling, but spoke as requested nonetheless in a flat monotone voice.
“Hi, my name is God, and I am attending this group because I need to learn not to be so violent with my world.”
“Welcome back God,” the group chorused.
“And please remind the group why you come to these sessions.”
“To try and learn how to treat Her, my woman, my world, right again. Because if I don't, well She's not going to take it much longer,” the man ran a hand through thinning hair, a little greasy, “look, I didn't really want to come, but She insists, and unless I want our trial separation to be made permanent, I attend. And I don't, I really don't.”
“Go on.”
“I love her, you see,” he told them, looking to a green cloaked dwarf for reassurance, “even if she never knows how much, I do love her.”
God lifted a chipped cup coffee to his lips, breathing in the sour aroma of instant coffee, then sipped, wincing as the liquid touched his lips.
“Part of the problem is I just get so jealous when I think of her,” He said, “that I find myself just dishing out these little punishments, even when I knew deep down she's done nothing to deserve it.”
“Little punishments?” someone asked.
God shifted again, muttering about the “bloody chair” to no one in particular.
“Nothing really,” he told the group, “a tidal wave here, a nuclear explosion there. She’s, my planet, so She needs to know who's in charge. But She says I need to ‘respect’ her more.”
“You judge these, er, correctives, to be small transgressions then?”
“It was nothing really,” his voice rising, just a touch, “the global equivalent of a black eye, but the problem is, the beatings, well they're not having the right effect anymore. More and more she doubts me.”
God lifted his slender arms towards the ceiling revealing damp patches on his nylon shirt, then explained that the “bacterial cells which formed her had become sentient and less forgiving of his whims and his admonitions. Look out the window, see what they've built. They're losing faith.”
Bog glanced over his shoulder at the city of London in the distance, new buildings springing up all the time. It was an impressive sight.
The fat man leant back in his own chair, looking comfortable on the small plastic despite his enormous girth, closing his eyes, as the Christmas jumper strained, the snowman adorning his stomach growing enormous.
“You will not be punished for your anger,” he told Him, “you will be punished by your anger.”
“Thanks, Buddha, that's deep. Did you get it off of the Deep Thought For The Day on Twitter?” the man shook his head, “seriously, the grownups are talking now.”
The man he'd called Buddha cracked his knuckles, the noise echoing off of the bare walls of the community centre.
“God, you know I preach peace, it’s the only true path, but you do rather test my patience, old chap.”
God glances at Buddha, looking surprised at the sharpness of the rebuke, then he continued.
“Look, back in the beginning…” God continued, but stopped, his eyes clouding over for a moment, other worlds and places vi
sible in them, “ha! how I love that phrase. In The Beginning. In the beginning, I was a God.”
“We all were dude,” said an American guy in a shiny jumpsuit, “no biggie.”
“Don't dude me, you were a minstrel, there was no glory in that,” then, ignoring the man's wounded expression, he continued, “you know what it's like with a woman. Early on, you promise her everything, to take care of the her. Of the little cells which form her. The ‘people’ She call them. I gave her so much, a beautiful garden, lovely food, livestock in the millions, trust in me. I'll see you alright. Just do as you're told.”
“Sounds like a fine deal,” the big man agreed.
“I did my best,” he told the room, “sure sometimes she was forced to go without, in life, well the extra sweet chocolate topping on the mocha would be life everlasting, if She put up with it. Mansions. Clouds. Re-unions with long lost loved ones. The whole kit and kaboodle.”
“She bought it then?” Thor asked, shaking his head a stupid grin on his face, “yep, that's the girl I remember. Very trusting.”
God looked up at the big man, a nasty look in his eyes, but he didn't say anything, just continued.
“I made her a promise see, unbreakable, a life after death deal. I promised Her, and the cells, that if they were good, obedient, then they would all come back, live forever, with us in heaven, then She touched my face and told me She trusted me. That I had a truly kind heart. I wept that night.”
God lifted his