Sorry about the horrible formatting. FictionPress is being stubborn and refusing to let me add paragraphs. Instead I've added slashes where each paragraph should be. Thanks for your patience! -TSB

The Ecstasy of Gods

'Please don't shoot me.'

/

I hesitate, then lower the gun just a fraction. 'Why not?'

'I don't want to die.'

'But you do realise I have to shoot you, yes?'

'No. Why do you have to?'

'Because if I don't then they'll shoot me.'

'Why do they have to shoot you?'

'I suppose it's because if they don't somebody else will shoot them.'

'And that person?'

'Just the same.'

'So is there one person making everybody else shoot each other?'

'You mean the One God.'

'Well then why don't you shoot them?'

/

I pause again. This is unfamiliar territory.

'Because… well… because if I tried to then I'd be shot.'

'Who would shoot you? I mean, if they're all being told to shoot people by that one person, don't they want that person to be shot?'

'But the One God would tell the other people to shoot me before I could shoot them. In any case, that would be Against the Rule.'

/

It's their turn to pause. I lift the gun again.

'What if you did shoot them?'

'What do you mean?'

'If that person just let you shoot them. What would happen then?'

'I would continue the work of the One God.'

'And tell people to shoot other people?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Well, what else would I do?'

'You could tell them to stop.'

'What would be the point in that?'

'You think there's a point to killing people?'

'Well of course.'

'What is it?'

/

This one requires some actual thought. I can't quite figure it out, so I move to the computer and look it up on the Database. Ah yes. I'd forgotten. I pick up the gun again and move back to the kneeling Not-Person.

/

'The point is-'

'Yes?'

'The point is that it's only natural.'

'Natural?'

'Yes.'

/

The person looks up at me, and for the first time perhaps shows anything other than upset. I can't quite place it, but it hurts.

'You think this is NATURAL?'

'That's what it says on the database.'

The feeling of discontent increases in the pit of my stomach. I don't like it.

'On the DATABASE? You're following a DATABASE?'

'That's where we get all our information!'

'And who do you think writes this information?'

'I don't know!'

'The person telling you to kill everybody else, of course!'

'We're not trying to kill everybody –'

/

I don't like this Not-Person. They're hurting me somehow, killing my insides with their eyes.

'Does that MATTER?'

'I don't know!'

'You should! You should know! You need to know, because otherwise you're just stuck in this echo chamber full of your stupid one-sided database and your idiotic "killing is natural" and your broken little force-fed ideology -'

/

I raise the gun again. The Not-Person breaks off, mid-sentence.

'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to shoot you now.'

The distress returns abruptly. 'Why?'

'Because if I don't, they'll shoot me.'

The face takes on a look that I have to look up later. At first I thought it was a thing called being 'crestfallen', but apparently it's 'Willing Submission to the Correct Authority'. I must write that down.

/

'Please.'

Weakness Water begins to run down their face. I can't see where it's coming from, or where it's going. Only children and Not-People produce Weakness Water. I'd nearly forgotten.

'Sorry.'

The word feels tainted in my mouth, like a bad curse. I decide to redeem my sin.

/

Later, when I'm taking the body to the furnaces, I feel liquid on my face. I must be becoming a Not-Person, I think to myself. So, according to what the Database says to do, I take one last look at the body in the flames.

/

Then I join the body in the ecstasy of gods.