A Dialogue With God

I was walking through a yellow field one cloudy, summer day when I was approached by a man claiming to be god. He didn’t look like god, for he lacked a big white beard and robes or any resemblance to Morgan Freeman. He looked more like a hobo. The traditional train-living variety complete with hunched back, a big coat, torn beanie, and red handkerchief tied around a stick to hold his belongings.
He addressed me, “Could you spare some change?”
“Sorry, I don’t have any,” I answered before walking past him.
“Well, that’s a lie.”
I was a little peeved that he would assume I’d simply refused him any charity so I turned around and asked, “Now how can you be sure of that?”
“Because I’m god.”
“Oh, really? Well, that’s a lie.”
“No, it’s not. I know because I’m god,” the hobo retorted with a six-toothed grin.
Never having been a fan of circular logic, and having nothing else planned for the day, I decided to debate this surprisingly intelligible homeless man, “So you’re saying you’re god because you know you’re god?”
“Yes.”
“Then what’s to stop me from saying I am god?”
“Because you know you’re not. And so do I. On account of being god, you know.”
“I got that. So if you know everything, why did you even ask me for change? Wouldn’t you know that I wouldn’t give you any?”
“Yes, I knew. I also know that you actually have thirty-seven cents in change.”
“Then why would you ask for it? Besides I have...” I fished through my pockets and counted through the coins, “Sixty-four cents in change.”
“See, you were lying.”
“Yes, I’ll admit that. But you we’re wrong.”
“Not really. I purposefully told you a wrong number, knowing that you’d try to prove me wrong. May I have it?”
“Why would god need money?”
“Because I want to get by while still blending in with society.”
“Then why not make your own?”
“That’d be counterfeiting. I’d rather not break the law.”
That baffled me, “You follow the laws of man? As god, wouldn’t your law be ultimate?”
“It would, but I haven’t made any laws.”
“What do you mean? What about the ten commandments?”
“Those are from an ancient storybook written by men. The ten commandments are man’s laws.”
“Then what about the physical laws of the universe. Gravity and light and whatnot?”
“Those things came about on their own.”
I paused to try and formulate my next question but was interrupted by the stranger, “You want to know just what it is I do?”
“Um, yes. I suppose,” I said while ignoring my suspicion that he knew what I was going to ask.
“I don’t do much of anything, really. I have the ability to, but I choose not to.”
“Wh-”
“Why? Because despite popular belief, I didn’t make this universe. It made me. And I don’t feel comfortable messing around with it.”
“Please don’t answer me before I ask the question. It’s rude. I think...”
“Not a problem. Most people aren’t comfortable with it.”
“Yeah, thanks. So apparently you’re all-knowing?”
“Yes and no.”
“Then why are you afraid to change the universe? Wouldn’t you know how it’d turn out?”
“That’s where the ‘no’ applies.”
“... um, explain.”
“It’s a long answer. You’re going to be tired of standing in a few moments, so you should sit down now.”
I somewhat reluctantly took a seat on a wide tree stump.
He began, “Let’s start with time. Most beings believe time is linear because that is how they perceive it,” he used his stick to draw an arrow in a patch of dirt.
“So time’s not linear?”
“Once again, yes and no. Time is, as you have heard various smart people claim, curved. So curved in fact, that it winds back in on it self, making a circle. But it only circles one way. ”
Next to the arrow, he drew a circle that didn’t quite close, with an arrow pointing back to the beginning of the line, “You see, time is linear in that in travels in one direction. But since it comes back in on itself, it’s constantly repeating itself. There is essentially no beginning and no end to time. It’s simply rounds in on itself over and over again.”
Intrigued, I asked “Is there a reason behind this?”
“Of course. You’re familiar with the big bang theory?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that theory is correct. It’s just a bit unfinished. All the matter of the universe was compacted into one incredibly small ball that exploded under the pressure, creating the very spread out universe we have about us today. For simplicities sake, we’ll refer to the big bang as the beginning, even though there is no beginning or end. But this of course leaves the question of where the compacted universe ball came from.
“This is where gravity comes into play. Gravity is the force that gives objects a pull on other objects in direct proportion to the object’s size and it’s proximity to other objects. Gravitational pull is never reduced to nothing; it just becomes inconsequential when objects are spaced far enough apart that another force pushing on said object overrides the pull of gravity. Like how a spaceship escapes the force of earth’s gravitational pull by having more force from the push from the rockets.”
“So the universe really is run by the force?” I joked, “I guess Uncle Ben was right.”
The man smirked, “I can do without the Star Wars references.”
“Okay, sorry. Go on.”
“As I was saying, gravitational pull never dies, it just becomes too weak to notice it. Keep that in mind as I go back to the big bang. When the bang occurred it pushed everything out with a massive blast of energy. So massive, in fact, that everything in the universe is still being pushed away from the area of the blast, despite that gravity want to pull it all in on itself. The popular belief is that this latent energy will continue pushing all the matter in the universe until everything is so dispersed that nothing can form and the universe, as a whole, will die. This is true. The universe will die. But, it will be reborn.”
“Like your son.”
“If you choose to believe that fairy tale, then yes.”
“I do.”
“I’ve noticed a lot of people have. Anyway, the nothingness that the mass and energy of the universe has dispersed through is not only infinite but round. As you know, the vast majority of space is empty. The universe is merely our name for the all the matter that has spread its way through this nothingness. So long after everything has dispersed and died, it will begin to come back in on itself again as it rounds through the nothingness.”
“But if the nothingness is infinite, wouldn’t it take an infinite amount of time for everything to round it?”
“Yeah. What’s your point?”
“Well, that means it’s never gonna happen. There is no rebirth.”
“Ah, but you misunderstand infinity.”
I’d found a flaw in his theory, “No, I don’t. Infinity means endless, unreachable. If something is infinitely big, you’d need an infinite amount of time to traverse it.”
He pointed at his circle in the dirt and retorted, “But we do have an infinite amount of time. And as we close in on infinity, all the mass from before is near each other again, pulling into each other because of the force of gravity. And just as the infinite circle of time comes back to where it started, the universe is once again pulled into on incredibly small fist of mass and energy. Before too long, it explodes in the big bang, in exactly the same way it did before, causing everything to happen the same way it did during the last eternity; successfully repeating time. I was created during the big bang and when the ball is formed yet again, the mass and energy that I’m made up of will be reabsorbed and I’ll be re-birthed with the rest of the universe. So yes, I do know everything but only because I’ve been around to witness everything. I don’t know what will happen if I alter the cycle in any way. So I go about each eternity just as I did the one before.”
“So you’re saying that eternity as we perceive it is merely one cycle of time?”
“Yes.”
I took off my cap and scratched my head before getting up from the stump and conceding, “I suppose it makes just as much sense as anything. Um, here. You can have the change,” I held out my handful of recycled mass to him.
“Thank you,” he said as he clenched the change into a fist and shoved it into a pocket.
As he turned and started to walk away, I called out to him, “So we’ve had this conversation before? And you knew we would and you knew exactly how it would go?”
Without turning around, he answered, “Yes. I actually look forward to this conversation, too. It’s one of the few times I get to explain myself to someone. Most beings won’t listen to a person ramble on about being god,” he laughed as he hoisted his stick and red handkerchief over his shoulder.
There was no final goodbye as I watched him walk out of sight. It didn’t seem necessary, knowing that we’d see each other again in one eternity.

Limited Albums: Billion Dollar Babies

The sick and dead
raped sweet Mary Ann.
The landslide
elected Mr. Guy,
Mr. Dollar
raped the freezin’ babies.
No more generation:
Mary
elected
unfinished things.

Limited Albums: Live Wire/Blues Power [Live]

Please, stomp me out, love.
Please, love me
at night.
Please, power me.
At sunrise,
stomp out.