Disposable God

The apostasy that happened after the Votans arrival on Earth left the strongest of Atheist aghast and appalled according to the writings of twenty thirteen. The people furthest from God couldn't believe how fast the righteous right fled from their religious beliefs. Bible burnings became so prevalent that the news media stopped filming them. Entire towns burned stacks of Bibles because their God became obsolete in the realization of new beings arriving to Earth. When the arks entered the Earth's atmosphere, most of Christians thought they could find solace in the words of the Bible, but the majority of them didn't find anything. There wasn't a scripture that explained the arrival of the Votans. They wrestled daily with the words of God and the alien ships above their heads; but at the end of the day, many of them rejected the words in the Bible. The Christians overwhelmed the churches, but none of God's houses could give them peace of mind. The words of the pious preachers seemed phony and trite. For so long, man thought he was the only sentient being in the universe, the sole architect of technology; and when the ships entered Earth's atmosphere, the righteous threw away their religion, their God, their very way of life. The Christ became disposable, an idea used to trick an individual out of his wealth. When the Votans came, Earth had a mass apostasy-not even the Satanists held on to their religious beliefs. With each tardigrade movement of the ships across the open blue sky, man's belief in a God evaporated. By the time the assassination of the Votan UN member happened, the majority of humans had decathected from religion in the belief that their God was false.

I sat in Clancy's old hovel of a home a shipping container above the jail, and read through some antiquated newspaper clippings that dated back to twenty thirteen-the year of the Votan's arrival. The dust formed on everything in sight because nobody had been in his hovel for nearly a month. I wiped some of the dust off an old, army green footlocker to see what was inside of it, and found the stash of newspaper clippings. He took great care in the way he kept them in a binder wrapped in plastic covers. The paper was old, but still in good condition. Some corners looked tattered, but they weren't as flimsy as I would have thought.

Some old food lay on a small end table next to his recliner that had some insidious looking mole on it. I put on some plastic gloves that I got from the Doc, removed the rotten food, and wiped down the table with some bleach water. I used the bleach water in order to scrub the jail-house floors when we had a bleeder in the jail. The Doc told me a million times to keep the bleach water on hand because new diseases popped up every day, and many of the people on the fringes of society weren't practicing cleanliness.

Clancy had some old pictures of his family glued to the wall in a small room in the back of his house. Amazingly, he was actually young once without the creases in his face. I had never seen an old picture of him in my life, and it was actually refreshing to know he was young once. He actually wore a smile in many of his old pictures that he took before the war. The war had changed him though. Every day, he wrestled with his feelings about losing his family in the Tulsa battle, and often apologized when he felt his feelings interfered with his work. He lost all of his family, and now all he had was the shrine. A pair of his military dog tags hanged off a nail hammered into the wall. According to his dog tags, he had a severe peanut allergy, and that was a shock too because he ate them all the time. I guess that wasn't that big of deal because everybody knew the terraforming not only changed the planet, but every creature on the planet. He kept a group picture from his old unit that had all his buddies in it. On the back of the picture, he scribbled the words, "Screw God!" It was an old picture with tattered sides, but Clancy must have kept it close to his heart. He had the word deceased written by the names of most of the guys in the picture. I went ahead and wrote deceased by Clancy's face just to keep it updated. I found some of the nonsense written about them funny-even though nothing was truly funny when put in the right perspective. I never knew Clancy joked about anything, but war had the unfortunate ability to change a person into a bitter man. Nothing but heartache, lost dreams, and death existed in that small room, but I collected all of his stuff, and stored it in the basement of the mayor's office. Some day somebody somewhere would want to make a museum about Defiance's beginnings, and Clancy would have to be frontpage news. I locked up Clancy's old domicile for the last time, and remembered when he threw me a birthday party last year. Kenya made the cake. Amanda sang the Happy Birthday song. We had a good time. He was a good man, and I'll miss him a lot.

I don't know if God-the Earthbound God-existed because I had never been exposed to him as a kid. The Votans arrived on Earth prior to my birth, and my parents perished at the hands of a murderous gang of hoodlums when I was only four years old. I won't elaborate more on the early demise of my parents because I don't remember all the events that took place. But when I think back to those tumultuous times, I remembered the gang kidnapping, abusing, and nearly starving me to death. It wasn't until I found Iroza-an Irathient marauder searching through wreckage from the Arkfall-that my life took a turn for the better. When I say life was better, I mean I had a family that fed me, that talked to me, and that raised me. But at the same time, they had faults that didn't mesh with my life now. During my upbringing, we did what we had to do in order to survive. Irocuz was a ruthless man in the Badlands, and he didn't hesitate to kill another man for booty.

Iroza, yet, took time out of her day every day, and gave thanks to the Irathient god, Irzu. She tried to shield me from all the bloodshed on the nightly runs, but I saw plenty. From a very early age, she taught me that Irzu had a special plan, a guide for all the lovers of the natural world. The Irathient god had one rule above all others: every creature played a role in the grand plan of nature. But my Father, he didn't have any use for a god in his life. He once told me that Irzu would make him pay for the lives he took, and he tried to change his ways as I grew older. He wanted to set a positive example for me.

It was Irzu that brought me to Defiance, and helped me understand my calling to become a lawkeeper. I wasn't the nicest person on the planet when I arrived to Defiance. My attitude wasn't the nicest in the world because I had the mannerisms of an Irathient warrior. Datak immediately associated me with a feral Irathient, but I didn't say anything when he said it. Clancy automatically thought I had been with a gang the whole time, and I just let him believe that. But even though I said a gang raised me, I always felt Datak knew the truth.

My Momma didn't want me to leave the business of pirating wreckage in the Badlands; but when I told her about the tugging feeling in my heart, she told me to follow it because it was Irzu calling me. She sat me down after I took the ritual to become a man, and told me that I would have to take a journey into the Badlands. She gave me a charge blade, a po-tech pistol, and a bit of food and water. I left out of the house with only the clothes on my back when I was only fourteen-years-old, and went into the Badlands in the hopes of becoming a man. The task was easy enough because all I had to do was spend a week on my own without dying. I remembered the days were well over one hundred degrees, and I found trees with a lot of shade in order to block the damaging rays of the sun. By the first day, I had run out of food. I took out my charge blade, whittled a stick into a spear, and killed a squirrel. It wasn't my first time eating wild squirrel cooked over an open flame. I didn't have any problems at all skinning that little rascal, cleaning out the guts, and sticking a stick through its body. The charge blade did most of the work for me. I roasted that rodent until the outside of it was charred black. I picked the meat off the little rodent until all I had was a bag of bones that sat in a pile next to my left foot. After I ran out of water, I knew I didn't have long before the Badlands took my life. I prayed to Irzu several times before I came up on a plethora of clean water. It ran down a large mountain into an underground cavern. All of the vegetation around the rivers was green and large. I saw some berries; but since my Momma never gave them to me, I didn't eat any of them. She told me a thousand times never to trust berries in the wilderness, so I went out looking for another squirrel, but I didn't find one.

On the third night, I guess I had traveled over fifteen miles from home, and I longed for my Momma. I knew she probably was worrying about me, but every child needed to take the journey into adulthood. I came up on a large volume of dense foliage, and I heard a noise that sounded like a wild animal. The leaves on many of the trees appeared to be almost tropical in nature, and some of them hanged a few inches from the ground. Many times it was hard to see if anything existed underneath the trees unless I pulled back the overhanging branches. They provided more than enough shade in the brutal sunlight that beat down the Badlands. Again, I heard something that sounded like a child's cry, but I wasn't sure what it was. Some of the strange animals sounded like small children until they ripped out a throat or tore a body into pieces. I pulled out my po-tech gun for protection, held it in the ready position, and searched the area for the strange noise. Honestly, I thought some kind of edible animal made the noises; but to my surprise, it was a sick Irath child, a girl. Her thick hair full of sweat, and her skin had bright red rashes. Under one of the thickest shade trees in the area, she lay on the ground in a blue blanket covered in the pox. Her parents had wrapped her in the blanket near the hybrid oak tree with a bit of water and some food. She shivered without any control because she had a severe fever. I pulled back the covers in order to see how badly she had the pox on her skin, and she had rashes everywhere. Bright reddish skin, crying in agony, and dehydrated, I didn't think the child had a chance of surviving. She was literally on her deathbed because of the pox. She had a severe case of the Chicken Pox, a fever, and hives all over her small body. Her face looked emaciated and she had the look of death in her eyes. She looked pallid without any strength to hold her head up to look at me. In due time, I expected that she would die under that oak tree, but part of me felt I could help her with the medicines that I carried in my bag. My Momma made sure I had the things she thought I'd need in the wilderness, and now I really did need them. Since many of the Iraths didn't trust inoculations, preventable diseases like the Chicken Pox wreaked havoc on them, and caused many beautiful Irathient kids to die needlessly. My Momma had given me some pain medicines that had the ability to reduce a fever, and I smashed up the medicine in some cool water, and forced her to drink it. The medicine wasn't aspirin, but something my Momma concocted that she learned how to make as a child. She had made me enough pills to last months. She didn't have the strength to struggle, but I do remembered the fear in her eyes. Her arms were so skinny that I prayed to Irzu as I tried to get her to drink the water. She laid her head back down on the ground with tears rolling down her face, and I gently placed some healing ointments on her rashy skin. She kind of looked at me, and tried to smile, but couldn't muster up enough strength to do so. Her thick orange hair looked woolfish, and unkempt.

I watched over the young girl until she fell asleep against the old tree, and then I went deeper in the thick forest in order to find something wild and meaty to eat. A squirrel or rabbit-or even a possum would do me good, but I wanted something meaty enough to feed the child in order for her to regain her strength. The chicken pox weighed heavy on any person's system, but it usually ravished an Irathient child's system for reasons that I didn't know. It was a warm summer day, and everything seemed quiet enough until I saw a rattle snake slithering through the grass. It moved at a fast pace, but I had a lot of experience hunting because of my adoptive father, Irocuz. I had eaten rattlesnake plenty of times on scavenger hunts with my family, and they loved the taste of rattlesnake meat. It was lean, white meat that almost melted in the mouth. The snake squirmed through the thick grass, and I tightened the grip on my spear. I felt the sweat swelling in my throwing hand, and I feared the weapon might fall to the ground. I didn't want to miss the shot because my stomach rumbled from little to no food. Honestly, I had only one opportunity to kill the snake; and if I missed, it would probably attack me. I took my spear, watched the snake with a keen eye, and then rammed the point through its head. I took out my charge blade, cut off its head, and placed it over my shoulder. I don't know why I felt pride in that victory because I had seen Irocuz kill snakes plenty of times. It was really nothing to it. When I walked back over to the young girl, the child had started to sweat profusely, and I knew then her fever had broken. I gutted the snake, started a fire, and cooked it for us to eat. It didn't take long for the fire to cook the snake just right, and the smell permeated throughout the entire area. I hadn't eaten rattlesnake in some time, but it was one of my favorite wild dishes. It tasted like chicken. I helped the young, Irathient child up, and fed her some of the rattlesnake meat. At first, she didn't seem to want any of the meat, but I insisted that she eat a little bit of it. The majority of Iraths didn't trust people of other races, especially humans. After I insisted she eat the snake, she finally grabbed it out of my hands with her weak grip. Stuffing a little bit of the meat in her mouth, she chewed slowly, but tried to eat it the best she could. I gave her another pill, and continued to put the healing ointment on her skin. So many Iraths died from preventable diseases like the Chicken Pox, and I feared for the girl's life.

"I'm not going to let you die," I said when I applied the medicine onto her skin. "You're going to be okay."

She drank the water from my flask over the next day, and I noticed her color returning. She sat up against the oak tree, and ate some more of the leftover rattlesnake, but she stayed reticent. Several times I spoke her native tongue, but she didn't respond until later in the day. She eventually looked up at me, and said in Irathient, "Ahiha." I didn't expect her to thank me for all the work I did because many of the people in the wilderness had lost their manners. But at the same time, she was left out here in the Badlands to die, and I didn't have the strength inside of me to let that happen.

After a few hours of leaning against the oak tree, the young child dozed off against the tree. I took my spear, walked back in the deep green foliage, and watched for any movement. I wanted to kill a possum or squirrel-or even a rabbit before the sunset. I didn't want to use my po-tech weapon with so many Hellbugs on the loose roaming the Badlands for food. The Badlands was a dangerous place, and everybody who grew up in the wilderness knew that. Anybody stepping into the Badlands had to have several methods of protection because many beast like the Hellbugs attacked in teams. I wandered deeper into the woods in order to find something to eat, and I saw a rabbit about thirty feet in front of me. It nibbled on some of the grass, but it didn't seem to noticed me watching it. Quietly, I raised my spear above my head, and watched the rabbit with a keen eye. It continued to chew on grass like it didn't know I was behind it, and I felt I had a good chance of killing it. When it paused for a second, I hurled the pointed staff at the creature, and it went through its head. I felt good about killing the creature in one shot, but I didn't want to make too much noise about it. Once I collected the rabbit, I tied it to my waist, and searched for some more food in the wilderness. I wanted to kill as many edible creatures as possible because the little girl needed the food for strength. When I approached a bush of berries, I wanted to pick some of the blackberries, and taste them, but my Momma told me a thousand times never eat the berries-even the edible ones. Some of the berries looked like other berries, but were toxic if eaten; and if none of the other animals were eating the berries, then that meant they weren't edible.

Angered, a wild dog stood approximately one hundred feet in front of me growling like he wanted my rabbit. I didn't know if the dog was alone or in a pack; and if I used my po-tech weapon against the wild beast, it would draw the attention of other dangerous creatures. I slowly backed away from the angry dog, but it inched closer to me. The way the dog growled at me made me nervous because I wasn't sure if I had the skills to kill an aggressive predator like the dog. When it started running towards me I said a little prayer to Irzu before I stuck my spear through the beast's chest, and it fell to the ground, dead.

I dragged the limp, formerly ferocious beast back to my little camp site in order to clean it, and the Irathient child remained a sleep against the oak tree. I checked around the tree ensuring nothing pernicious like a snake crept into her blanket. She seemed okay, but I had to be sure. I skinned the dog with my charge blade, removed the innards, and slowly roasted the beast in the fire. It had a pleasant smell that I liked, and it woke the child up from her deep sleep. While the dog cooked, I took out the ointment, and tended to the girl's sores. It looked like they were slowly healing, and I had a good feeling that she was on her way to recovering from the pox. Unfortunately, I didn't know her parents or where they were located. Many of the Irathients were nothing more than pirates that stole and raided towns. Her parents could be all the way in Texas for all I knew.

The Irathient child sat up against the old oak, and tried to stand to her brittle feet, but stumbled against the tree. I didn't know what she was trying to do, but she didn't have the strength to stand on her own. Without my help, she stumbled to her feet again, and slowly walked into the deeper woods in order to relieve herself. I attended to the meat, and tried to keep her in my sights. There were plenty of wild animals lurking in the Badlands who would devour her without thinking about it. So, I watched her every movement as she squatted down in the distance. I heard a grunting in the wind, and at first I thought it was the little girl; but when I listened closely, I realized it was a Volge soldier. I had seen one once, and my father killed it with a charge blade, but he described their ways to me. I ran over to the little girl, grabbed her, and ran with her into the woods. I could see the soldier creeping over the hill, and at that point, I feared the monster would kill us. Worried, I placed my right hand over the child's mouth in the fear that she would scream when she saw the humongous beast. I pulled my po-tech pistol out of its holster, watched, and waited for the beast. It stopped approximately three yards in front of me, and then it spoke.

"I know you're there, boy," he said in a throaty voice. He had the deepest voice I had ever heard in my life.

I looked over at the little girl, and said, "Stay right here."

A look a fear stuck to her face, and she finally spoke. "Don't …"

"It'll be okay," I said with a smile on my face. How did I know that? I didn't. I just had an innate feeling about the moment. When I walked out into the open, the Volge soldier laughed.

"Irzu said that you'd be here," he said with a scowl on his face. Nearly seven feet tall, he looked massive compared to any humanoid creature I had ever seen. "You can call me Di-ank."

"What do you know about Irzu, Di-ank?" I asked.

"Not much. But I had a dream that you'd deliver him to me for protection," he said, "You and I have been chosen."

"I don't understand," I said in a brittle voice.

"Go," he said, "Your journey has only begun."

I ran into the woods, grabbed the little girl, and we scurried off into the wilderness. We walked deeper into the forest past several berry bushes, and ended up in a strange place. The entire time that we trampled through the thick woods I had that Volge soldier on my mind. I didn't know his name or anything about the mission he talked about on that day, but I believed him. After a few hours of walking, the little girl felt too tired to travel, and she wanted something to eat. All I had on me was my po-tech weapon and charge blade; and even if I came across something edible, I didn't know if firing the pistol was a good idea. Guns drew the attention of unwanted miscreants.

We came upon a small pond with the clearest water I had ever seen in my entire life. It was surrounded by some large rocks on either side of the body of water. I could see some massive fish swimming aggressively in the water, and I knew just one of them would make a good meal. I hovered over the pond for a few minutes in order to study the fish as they swam. When one of the fish swam past me, I stuck my hand into the water, and tried to capture the fish. I didn't have a chance of grabbing that slimy creature. I looked over at the little girl as she seemed a bit frustrated at my inaction. The night drew near, but I didn't have the skills needed to catch a fish by hand. I didn't want to fail in my mission of catching the fish because the little girl needed something to eat. Frustrated, I stood in the water, searched the bottom of the pond, and found a catfish hiding in a hole. I stuck my right index finger in the creature's mouth, and pulled it to the surface. The fish had to weigh more than ninety pounds, and provided more than enough meat for us to eat. The child had a big grin on her face when I brought the fish to our small camp area, and I slit its belly open. I didn't take long cleaning the fish, and it took approximately two hours for it to cook.

We ate a lot of the fish, but it was more meat than we could consume in one setting. The Irathient child dozed off in the middle of the grass, and I watched the stars for a few hours. I went to sleep against a jagged rock, but I didn't sleep long. Under the Badland stars, I felt it was far too dangerous sleeping without being on guard. Hellbugs crept in the middle of the night, and the possibility of one attacking was high. The snapping of twigs-my Momma-startled me. She had walked out of the thick woods early in the morning, and walked over to me.

"You've proven yourself," she said with a grin. Looking over at the child, she said, "She suffers from the pox."

"I gave her some medicine," I said with a soft voice.

Iroza walked over to the child, looked at her face, and then said, "It's working." She looked back at me with a grimace. "We'll take her with us."