Story #42 - Advantage: Bob

Advantage: Bob

Being God came with a number of distinct advantages, Bob was beginning to discover.

His first several experiments had been abysmal failures, but that was the expectation of research and the cost of progress. Through trial and error, hard work and just a bit of the midnight crazies, Bob had managed to not only create a stable bio-platform but one where the tiny inhabitants were evolving at a startling rate.

He had to laugh when on the seventh day, to an hour, he detected a number of sounds coming from the large container he kept his “universe” in. Of course, they weren't anything he could make out, anything he could change into an intelligible form – at first – but they were there.

And getting stronger.

Microscopes revealed cities, monuments and even the development of transportation methods within a few months and all the while he just kept listening, writing down notes, and waiting.

It came to him eventually – the one word that an entire sentence hinged on, the subject that he just couldn't get to agree with the verb or noun.

“Please help us,” they said, over and over, “God”.

Bob took a few weeks off at that point, a bit concerned that his faculties were failing. His relationship with both a disinterested wife and estranged daughter had become even worse during the course of his work and he was concerned that perhaps a complete mental breakdown had taken place.

Mexico was very nice – relaxing and distracting – and by the time he got back on the plane to come home, he was sure he'd just been imagining it all.

Of course, the scene in his lab revealed utter chaos. One of the planets in his Universe had discovered some sort of crude spaceflight and had begun wantonly attacking others nearby. Cries of pain and anger rose from many of the planets, begging for assistance from a being for which they had no proof.

What the hell, Bob thought, not like I'm doing anything else useful.

All it took was a pair of tweezers and the offending planet was gone, snapped out of existence – its ships suddenly without a home and its advance stopped. Of course, such an action also caused the entire system to become unstable as planets and stars rearranged themselves around what Bob had wrought. He didn't sleep for three days, but he managed to correct the damage he'd done.

The praise flooded in.

From then on he barely left the lab – meals were delivered and he slept in his office, always monitoring the progress of his various peoples, watching them grow and change as the weeks and months rolled by. He did everything he could for them, listened to every prayer he could find and gloried in the honor they paid him, the respect he knew was his rightful due.

Colleagues began to wander by, wondering just what on earth was going on but Bob shooed them away – the experiment was more than just a funded project, more than just a clever use of grant money. It was alive; they were alive, and he would not see them come to any harm.

Since he wasn't causing any real trouble the faculty left him alone - kept an eye on him - but left him alone. It was just as well with him – the demands of his people were growing increasingly complex and he was having trouble determining the best way to respond. Beyond simple survival now, factions and segments of intellectual vogue had sprung up, some claiming he was vengeful and aggressive, others that only peace and harmony would bring God's favor.

Those that disturbed him the most were the groups that argued he did not – could not – exist. It was ludicrous. Looking at all he'd done for the universe, the large and obvious marks and mistakes he'd made on and with civilization after civilization, person after person, how was it possible to conclude such a thing?

He listened more intently, focusing in on the words of the detractors.

Look at the facts, they said, has anyone actually seen this god? Or just “felt” his presence. Everything that you attribute to God, we attribute to natural phenomena. Everything can be explained.

Bob was angry. He considered a full-out extermination, but that really wasn't his style. He understood the atheists in the real world; they'd seen little enough of earth's God to make it a viable option, but how could his tiny peoples ever say such a thing? How could they abandon him?

He decided being magnanimous and accepting was the better, god-like course and tried to ignore the squawking of the non-believers, but it became increasingly difficult as the number of demands from his universe quickly ramped up. Population was growing across galaxies and every day it seemed that vast numbers of impossible or simply ludicrous prayers were coming his way.

Some wanted money, some wanted fame. Others felt they'd been slighted and wanted destruction, doom, or embarrassment to come to their enemies. The weak cried out for his help in every aspect of their lives and the strong used his name to destroy and pervert. His stomach turned.

It was a small thing that finally decided his path, a simple choice he wasn't even aware he was making. The universe had begun to bore him, to take up too much of his time and with too little reward. A new project called to him – a new idea had sprung up in his mind overnight – but the people of his universe simply wouldn't leave him alone. They simply wouldn't shut up.

A small MP3 player, two ear buds and a playlist later, Bob was happily at work on a new project, a better project, while the cries of the faithful fell on deaf ears. They had been forsaken, and couldn't figure out why.

Being God came with advantages.

- D