Author: H. Young

The monastery was often quiet at shadow-time. There was something about the darkness that inspired a meditative silence among the monks of the Godhead. The giant metal beast that lurked in the sky cast its massive shadow down upon the earth beneath, bathing the planet in semi-night whenever the sun reached a certain height in the sky.

The only sound was bells and chimes that rang throughout the mountainside leading up to the monastery, stirred by the freezing wind brought on by the sudden darkness. Isaal Smithe staggered his way up to the high temple, arms wrapped around himself, holding his jacket tight to his body in order to save some warmth. Turning to look upwards at the sky before entering the temple, he cursed the Godhead silently. The empty monstrosity was indifferent to his displeasure, floating in space as it always had.

The high priest sat at his long wooden desk, sipping on a caramel-colored liquor that he swirled incessantly in its glass.

“All the supplies have been delivered, as usual,” Smithe told the clergyman, lurking in the doorway, itching to leave.

“Come in, Isaal, have a seat.”

Smithe grimaced and hesitated a moment before obliging the man. As much as he hated the cold, he hated more to be in the presence of the priest during shadow time. The man was prone to becoming overly preachy when his God blotted out the sun, and Isaal Smithe hated being lectured. It was only by necessity that he had come so late during the day.

“Many years ago you told me, but I’ve since forgotten. What is it that you believe God to be?” the priest pointed up at the Godhead.

Isaal chewed on his lower lip, uncomfortable; he swallowed hard before answering.

“A vessel.”

“A vessel?”

He sighed.

“Five hundred years ago, man longed to join the stars in heaven, so he built the Godhead as a means of transportation. For some reason he gave up, but left the skeleton of his desires in the sky as a reminder. Many years later, men like you have forgotten and have taken to worshiping our creation as if it was our creator.”

The priest’s beady eyes watched him with an amused glint.

“And what do you believe that God is?” the priest asked facetiously.

Smithe laughed in spite of himself. “Something in between an ethereal force and an old man in the sky? It’s never explicitly stated, and no one living really knows. The only way we know he exists are the prophets he sent us many years ago.”

“So you believe the words of men who died thousands of years ago over the specter of God that sits above your head and casts a second night upon you daily?” The cleric said with a smirk, but there was a thin layer of malice under the surface.

Isaal said nothing.

“I could have you killed for spreading such heresy, you know.”

He ignored the empty threat.

“I heard something in the market today that made me think of you,” he told the priest, still looking out the grand window and up at the derelict spacecraft that sat in the sky. “I heard that the Godhead is getting closer every year to the earth, and will one day come crashing down upon us.”

The priest was silent, taking a long sip of his drink.

“I guess your way or mine, God will someday rain fury down upon our heads.”

Isaal Smithe made his way back down the mountainside, grateful for the sun that had begun to peek out from behind the Godhead.