The God Election
by Ian Watson
At midnight on the final day of the electoral campaign, Jehovah annihilated the human race. Jehovah had done this once before, by flood--apart from Noah and his wife and his family and their zoo--but this time was more final. Jehovah used simultaneous global strokes.
Annihilation meant that us assembled Gods could count souls, to determine how many votes each of us had. I am Dawk, the God of Militant Atheists, biased in no God's favor, thus I was the scrutineer.
Militant Atheists do have a religion thanks to their fervent belief in no Gods. Mere agnostics and milquetoast atheists don't qualify due to lack of sufficient enthusiasm--those people are "spoiled ballot," their lives a total waste of time. Same with babies.
As the deity of crusading unbelievers, I'd gained a following in recent years, enough to rate as a minor Power. Obviously none of the other Gods wanted me to become major! The Primaries began in the Middle East at the time of the Crusades, with much subsequent campaigning, and neither Allah nor JesusDad took kindly to me accumulating followers.
Us Gods exist in eternity, otherwise known as the Overworld, consequently the gang of Zeus and Apollo and Aphrodite and their classical kin still had something going for them. They could always hope for a revival, as happened unexpectedly with Thor and his team. Who could have imagined the Nordic countries reverting to Paganism? Personally I blame Marvel Comics. A revival in even a minor region of a world of 9 billion people counts quite well compared with the original constituency of only 500 million souls.
I remember chatting in the Overworld to a shrunken Zeus when I was scarcely a toddler resembling a homunculus. Zeus had an edge in also being Jupiter, even if his famous thunderbolts had diminished to farts.
"My boy," squeaked Zeus, "passionate disbelief in me is unnecessary these days."
JesusFather had certainly benefited by passionate disbelief in Greek and Roman Gods. Did Zeus feel threatened by the emergence of an explicitly atheist Godlet in the shape of myself?
"Perhaps you could simply disregard me?" Zeus went on. "Pay no attention? Look the other way?"
Looking the other way across the Elysian Fields brought my gaze upon Zarathustra, quite close by. Old Zarathustra rejoiced in a revival thanks to Nietzsche, and also to the movie 2001. Much of Humankind knew Zarathustra's name, even if Mister Z wasn't actually a God but a prophet, thus having little chance of winning the election to become Overgod of the next celestial cycle. The... bergott.
A prophet, indeed, of the God Mazda--who still had maybe 170,000 adherents, which isn't many. Mostly, Mazda survived on Earth as an automobile. Mister Z was a supporter of mine, due to Nietzsche's useful campaign slogan, "God is dead." Campaigns are about slogans.
Location, location, location! Thus far I've only mentioned, in a vague way, the Elysian Fields. Which is very Graeco-Roman.
How can I best describe the Overworld? That's to say, for human beings who only possess a few sense organs such as eyes and ears and noses.
Disregarding for the moment that all human beings have now been annihilated by Jehovah! A narrative requires a target audience. Do I narrate in vain, wasting my sweetness on the desert air?
In the Overworld items may be nearby or far away in space or time. Items may be related or non-related. Items may shrink or expand. Depending upon how much you concentrate. Time passes but at the same time it's still present. We can't go backwards but we can go upside-down, as it were--is that clear? And a reason why I'm addressing you extinct creatures is that your worship had a shaping influence upon us Gods. You influenced our thoughts and our sense of being, in English and Arabic and whatnot, rather than in what you might call Angel-talk. Although we're no angels--angels only exist in the minds of Jehovah and JesusDad and Allah.
I'd better go upside-down to explain. After the cork popped out of Nothing and ticktocktime began, us Beings of the Beginning looked around, just as soon as we'd collected ourselves together. And lo, we'd better wait a few billy years for creatures to whom we'd be Gods--lesser beings with countable souls, alias psyches.
Well, it took us a few billy years to find any worlds of beings with evolving souls! Or at least potentially so. Needles in haystacks! Radiation and plasma everywhere, exploding stars thus new stars being born in a billy galaxies spawning quadrillies of new worlds little and large--but planets with persons, where precisely?
Bacteria don't believe, microbes don't magnify our names.
