Man and God: A Conversation.

Man: Who is there?

Voice: It’s me, God.

Man: God? You must be kidding me. The guy people call God does not just walk into one’s room just like that. Whoever you are, get out of that alcove there. Let me see you clearly. You know I can’t walk. If you are a thief, come round in and steal whatever you want to steal, not that there is much to take here. I have nothing. I am a poor cripple (I have to use the awful word, it describes my state better).

Voice: Although I may have come like a thief in the night, I am genuinely God.

Man: Jesus then. I think it was Jesus who said he would come like a thief or something…

Voice: Hey, I am God!                

Man: Jesus’ Dad?

Voice: Look man, do not be flippant. Or I’ll strike you dead where you are! 
Man: Whoever you are, don’t you know that thing about hitting a man when he is down? That’s cowardly, I think. And if you are truly God, could you tell me what’s wrong in calling you Jesus’ dad? Or are you not that, God? I mean if you are the Christian god?

Voice: There is no such thing as a Christian god, I am the God of every religion.

Man: Even the god of Buddhism.

Voice: That too.

Man: But I understand Buddhism does not have anything like a god – I mean like the god of Christians. Anyway, I indeed think you sound like God. Such overarching confidence and ambition. So Lord God, what is it you want from me now? It’s not as if I just prayed to you or anything… I haven’t said a prayer since I left Sunday school fifty years ago.

Voice: It does not matter. You’re a prodigal son, a lost sheep, you will be brought back to the flock.

Man:  The flock? Me, a sheep? When did I lose the gift of baaing? But why am I even falling for this? God hiding behind my window and talking to me, telling me I am a sheep. I am not even Moses, or anyone like that, you know the Burning Bush and the whole Moses-climbing-the-mountain-to-get-the-ten-commandments shtick. Or am I… schizoid or something?

Voice: I do not need to prove to you that I am God. I am who I am.

Man: Wow! I really feel like laughing now. But this is not even funny. Now God what do you want from me, to cripple me more? I know you are capable of that, of such cruelty.

Voice: No. I have only come to ask you why you did – and still do – not believe in me. Even when I made you drunk and let you crash your car against a tree. I wanted to kill you outright then, so that you would be delivered to hell post-haste. But somehow you survived, and I said to myself: Fine, if he survives I may still have the chance to talk to him.

Man: Are you really certain you are god? Or am I dreaming, hallucinating? God should be able to do a simple thing like killing with certainty, not maiming. I mean if you really meant to kill me, why didn't you just do it. And then you made me drunk first.

Voice: No, I said that in error, that I made you drunk. I actually didn’t get you intoxicated. You became drunk by choice, you exercised your freewill in that way.

Man: Ah, freewill. I don’t want to go into that now. Or else God may find himself on a slippery slope, and who knows what will be at the bottom of the hill? And you have not told me what you want with me now.

Voice: I only want to tell you that you have a short time to live, I want to give you a last chance of repentance. Because you are certain to lose out when you die, when you discover that I am who I am. Remember Pascal’s wager?

Man: I’d rather lose the bet that I didn’t really take than believe that when I die I am going to meet a fairy godfather who has not exactly been a great benefactor to me - or to the majority of those who adopt him as their godfather. If you are that god or godfather that I may meet up there or wherever you are, I say it loud and clear now: Fuck you. 
Voice: You’re a stubborn twerp, a pigheaded fool. Okay let me give you a last chance of repentance. Run all the sins you have committed through your mind. Remember your many adulteries. You slept with the wives of two of your friends. Remember all your fornications, before and after you got married to that poor woman, remember the Jezebel woman you copulated with...

Man: Aren’t you too obsessed with sex, God? I seem to remember how your beloved, your chosen one, King David, slept with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah whom he killed. There was also Abishag the Shunamite, David’s companion in old age. And what’s that about Jezebel? Last time I checked, Jezebel was the wife of someone in your bible...Oh I remember, I met this foxy lady in a whorehouse in Antwerp, she called herself Jezebel. And there was one called Abishag for obvious reasons. By the way, I suspect you don’t really like women, they seem not to count for much. And God, in spite of all my ‘sins,’ I didn’t kill any woman’s husband, I only copulated with their wives. Ah, copulate, I like that word. Co-pu-late.

Voice: Now enough of this nonsense. I should finish the job I have come to do now.   

Man: Oh, job. What a job, killing people? And truly, enough farting around now, God or whatever your name is. Can you get yourself out of this room? I need to sleep. Get your ass out of here, in the shape of ectoplasm or whichever manner you wormed into this place. Really, if I could walk I would come round there and thwack your big godly head – it will be big, I believe, your head.

Voice: Then you would be thwacking your own head. It’s strange you cannot recognise your own voice.

Man: Pardon me?

The voice in the shadow materialises, incarnates. If the bedridden man hasn’t been always been of a strong heart, in spite of his disability, he would have had a fatal shock. But he can only watch with consternation as a figure emerges from behind the curtains. The image comes out into the lit room and quickly turns out to be the exact copy, albeit ambulant, of the man on the bed, not just an identical twin - he does not have a twin - it is himself. And the ‘cripple’ can’t remember ever being cloned. He blinks several times to see whether there is truly something, someone - it is his doppelganger all right, he can see. It approaches him smiling, reaching out his hand towards him.

‘You nearly swallowed the codswallop, didn’t you, that I was God?’