Like America, I am not a religious person.
I'm Jewish, yes. But I'm also an atheist. Confused? I bet. Allow me to explain.
For me, Judaism is an expression of cultural heritage. I'm Jewish because I want to get in touch with my culture and my family history, and not because of any spiritual need.
This is not a spiritual story.
I'm only telling you this so you don't have any pre-conceived ideas of what you're about to read. It's not spiritual. It's an exploration of religion as a culture (sort of) and as a concept. It's an exploration of meeting your God and realizing he's not what you thought he was.
It was not my intention to offend. I apologize if I did.
Enjoy.
Imagine you're a little girl who believes in God.
He's the greatest thing. You look up to him. And you know he's real because his face is up there in the sky and everyone says so, anyway.
Imagine you live in a perfect world ruled over by your perfect God.
Imagine one day it all starts to fall apart. Holes appear in the fabric of reality and everyone says it's the end of the world.
Imagine that you start to think that if God really cared so much, maybe he'd fix it.
And you believe it so you're hopeful that you'll all survive, but that seed of doubt lingers.
Then the world doesn't end. The holes disappear. Imagine you smile like the sun as your doubts fade and you watch the holes shrink and shrink until they're gone.
Imagine tilting your head back towards God's face in the sky and getting ready to thank him but you're interrupted.
The world survived but your moms didn't.
You think if God were so great, maybe he would have saved the world and saved your moms.
So you run. You forget about God and home and you forget what love feels like.
Now imagine you meet God, except he's not God. He's an angsty teenager named Billy with stupid hair and more power than he knows how to control. He's an idiot, and he's a nerd, and he's your age, and he calls himself Wiccan.
And he has no idea what he means to you. You save his life (sort of) and he has no idea who you are.
Imagine you catch him looking at you sometimes, scanning you, taking you apart with his eyes and trying to understand who you are and where you came from.
Imagine you stumble into a world where his face is in the sky, just like it was throughout the entirety of your childhood.
Imagine it confuses him. Imagine it scares him. Imagine it scares you.
Imagine these things and you might have an idea of what it was like for America Chavez when she met Billy Kaplan.
This really, really wants to be a full story. There's a good chance I'll write a second chapter where America and Billy have a talk, but no promises.