“So that notable deeds should not perish with time, and be lost from the memory of future generations, I, seeing these many ills, and that the whole world encompassed by evil, waiting among the dead for death to come, have committed to writing what I have truly heard and examined; and so that the writing does not perish with the writer, or the work fail with the workman, I leave parchment for continuing the work, in case anyone should still be alive in the future and any son of Adam can escape this pestilence and continue the work thus begun.”
Prologue
Dear Reader,
It was once well known that we share our world with gods. These gods are colorful creatures who most often have humanity’s best interests at heart. It is both their desire to be worshiped by man and their duty to serve him. Their charge is no less than that of the watchmen of the natural world. They are the caretakers of the secret mechanisms of the universe and thus all its inhabitants who rely on them.
These mechanisms generally run unattended but from time to time can benefit from nudges into optimal working order. Given their benevolent nature these alignments most often benefit humanity. Any harm that befalls a worshiper harms the gods as well through loss of faith and worship. Thus the gods’ well being is our own, which has always made for easy alliance.
It is thought today that the mechanisms of the universe are controlled by those laws of physics both known and unknown to science—in fact this is partial truth. The universe will indeed proceed on its own course without divine intervention or human observance. Further, it will generally adhere to some predetermined if unknown rule set which may be considered to be the “laws of physics.” However, the results of this unattended universe are generally not useful or particularly conducive to life. Even with the altruistic intervention of the gods, the mechanisms of the universe are full of cruel inevitabilities. Thus the gods serve an important purpose: They make the good fortune that nurtures life a regular occurrence.
The Department of Mortal Intervention was established—in secret—in 1913 after it was found necessary to undertake an operation against a god the previous year. A need to monitor and intervene in the affairs of the divine was recognized as both necessary to national security and sovereignty.
Gods are real and they walk among us. In all probability you’ve seen a movie with a god, been cut off in traffic by a god, and, if you are lucky, perhaps a god has taken an interest in you at some point and turned fortune to your favor—or if you are unlucky—well—God knows what could happen?
I am the last of the Department of Mortal Intervention. My duty and honor is to share with you the secret history of the DMI. The stories of our triumphs and losses, our achievements and sorrows, and most importantly the names and deeds of our heroes and honored dead whose sacrifices stretch from this life to the next.
I have assembled this account through interviews with the parties involved when possible, through internal documents of the DMI, personal journals when available, historical records, and as a last resort, dramatic license. An artist has been employed to illustrate some happenings, items and entities which frankly, defy literary description.
I am sure you are very curious about gods. In the last century the DMI has learned quite a bit about gods, but more remains unknown than known. Shortly, you shall know the first of the three most important stories of the DMI and the GodWhackers. I hope you will enjoy reading them.
Let it never be said that we forgot our heroes.
Signed,
Alaistair Young
DMI historian 1971 to present
“It began of nothing and in nothing it ends.”
Chapter One
“Please come down?” A woman with a thick Hispanic accent begged.
A man in his mid 30’s was standing on a bench in the second floor of the Temecula Promenade mall. This bench was parked a comfortable two feet behind a chrome and glass barrier that overlooked an architectural oddity of the Temecula mall: a hole in the floor. A 10 meter hole gave the food court patrons below a view of the mall’s vaulted ceilings, which allowed the warm California sun to beam on its patrons and provide a sense of openness and light so critical to pleasant commerce. The mall was filled with ordinary people going about their lives and one miscreant on a bench. The man was muttering, pacing the length of the bench, arms flailing wildly. He was in the midst of a debate with a voice in his head—who was winning? Nobody could be sure. He looked to be homeless, certainly crazy and perhaps even dangerous.
Our man on the bench is one of California’s many lost souls. California is fundamentally broken and the states mental care facilitates were no exception. The shouting match the man was having with some presumably imagined entity was a heated one. The argument swung wildly, punctuated by pauses, breaks and shouting. It crescendoed with a flurry of yelling and arms thrashing about and then quieted down into what appeared to be capitulation. Some sort of accord had been reached with whomever, whatever he was arguing. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on the people below and addressed the food court from a bench overlooking the hole in the floor, “I have spoken to God, and he wants you to know…” But nobody heard him save for the plump female janitor who had asked him to come down. She was in tight black jeans and an orange shirt with the mall’s logo on the breast. She couldn’t decide if she should go get help or intervene somehow, so she did neither. Again, in a louder, clearer tone the man said “God wants you to know…”
The crowd as a whole hadn’t noticed him, and the few that did didn’t think much of the man. He wore a white bath robe over beach clothes which might have been expensive before dirt and holes overtook them. They could have been bought at this very mall, but he could no longer recall.
The man raised one foot from the bench and placed it on the railing revealing a tattered cork sandal. He seemed to be testing his weight against the handrail.
“Oh, please come down right now!” the janitor pleaded. This second invocation, much louder than the first, caught the attention of a few of the mall patrons in the food court below. Some of those in between face-fulls of on-stick hotdogs, terrible Chinese food and other similarly disgusting mall fare had seen the man make the transition from suburban background noise to possible source of amusement; which is the primary addiction of the suburbanite.
He braced himself against a nearby pole and hoisted his other foot onto the railing. There was now nothing between him and his flock below. The man spoke loudly and clearly this time, “I recently met God who asked me to tell you…”
The crowd took notice this time. A silence, the kind often contagious in moments like these, settled amongst the crowd. Corn dogs were placed in their paper boats, sodas ceased to be sipped, and eyes and attention were fixed upon this man. His voice was glorious and filled the food court,
The accord had been breached and the argument in his head was on again. “I can only do what one voice at a time says! First you tell me to do this; then you say don’t!”
Then abruptly as if nothing happened, the man continued “And most urgently—he demands the return of his Standard. Glorious is he to behold, the light of our world. Please spread God’s message to everyone who would hear it.”
He turned to the janitor, for the first time acknowledging her and said “I’m coming down now. To obey is better…” But he had a problem he hadn’t anticipated. His back was turned to the bench and to safety’s keeping. He needed to turn around somehow to step down.
“I don’t know how to get down” the man whimpered. As those words left his mouth, his sandals, which had long ago given away their tread to less noble causes, were forced to betray him. They lost their grip against the polished railing. The man slipped, falling into the food court below.
He tumbled in the air for what for him felt like an eternity. The entirety of his life spread out below him as he fell through time itself. Through each inch of free fall he experienced the highlights and sorrows of his life, the birth of his children, his wedding day, college debauchery, his first kiss, his first day of school, and finally, the newest in a long series of disappointments, his death.
His sandals felt horrible about this.
