It was the brightest day of my life when I stumbled upon my little god. 

It was late into the twilight of the evening. I had left not long before for a calm walk, one to ease me into sleep before going to bed, skirting the outer trees of the forest behind my home. The full moon was out, shining through the leaves of the canopies, casting a silver glow on the open field to my side. I walked calmly, silently, taking in the quietude of the sleeping world, cleansing my mind of any thoughts. It wasn’t quite a routine for me, but I had done such walks before. I knew how far I would go out before turning back and making my way home. It was towards the farthest point in my path, when I was supposed to be turning back, that I heard the gentle crying.

When I heard it, I stopped immediately and looked around me. The crying stood out so vividly among the soothing melodies of the night. It did not sound like any kind of animal; I knew right away that it was human. A soft, gentle cry, like that of a lonely baby looking for a warm embrace.

Immediately, I knew that I had to find this child. I listened around me carefully, and determined that the sound was coming from a little into the forest. Without hesitation and with careful step, I placed my feet among the fallen branches that lined the brim of the woods, lifting myself amidst the trees.

Making careful that my dress didn’t catch on any stray branches, I waded closer to the place the crying was coming from. After only a couple steps, I approached a small glade between the trees. Peeking around one of the trunks, I saw a baby lying on the grass, wrapped in a small blanket. Its lips matched with the cries that echoed around the forest. I entered the glade, but the infant, only freshly born, didn’t see me. I walked up to it, leaning over to gently pick it up into my arms.

That is how I found him. Around me there was little else, not another living soul was in sight. It was just the two of us, alone in the forest at night. I knew I had no other choice, so, carrying his little body, I brought the two of us back home.

At home, I lit the light above the kitchen table, placing him on its surface. Under the light, I saw that his skin was dark, and that from right under his cotton blanket stuck out what looked to be a piece of wood. I pulled the wood out, inspecting it in my hand. It resembled a small, carved cylinder, about the length of my finger and the width of a daisy’s stem. 

The wood appeared solid, though it had a thin line in the middle that wrapped around it. It gave me the idea to pull the wooden piece from both ends, and indeed, the thin line was a point of separation, and the top of the rod slid off, revealing the centre of the cylinder. Inside the little tube there was a rolled up piece of paper. I took it out and unrolled it, showing what looked to be a message written in fine letters in black ink. Bringing it up to the light, I gave it a closer look.

Greetings, human,

In the multiplicities of heaven, we have run out of cradles. This is a new god, born only moments ago. His antecedent has passed, and we require his services as soon as possible. We cannot raise him due to our lack of space. Briefly, we require your assistance in raising this young god, so that one day he may help us rule in the heavens.

He will grow quickly; he will not burden you for long. To raise him, follow your heart.

The heavenly authorities apologise for the inconvenience.

The note surprised me. A god? Here? On my kitchen table?

I put the note aside, giving the baby another look. From head to toe, he looked like a normal baby. Could it be? Was the note correct?

He had stopped crying since I put him on the table. I looked the baby in his dewy eyes. To me, he seemed divine. I reasoned that I should at least entertain the possibility, lest I dismiss it and stir trouble in the heavens.

I lifted the baby from the kitchen table and took him to my bed. I placed him next to where I would lie, and moved away to change into my nightgown. Once I had put on the thin layer of white fabric, I heard the rumblings of groans coming from behind me. The baby started crying.

The tears were more forceful this time. When I skipped up to the child, I realised for the first time since I’d carried him home that he might be hungry. Immediately, I felt helpless. What do you feed a god? I asked myself. I did not know. I considered perhaps my own breast, but of course I hadn’t borne recently, I wasn’t ready to feed. In a panic, I turned to the shelf of holy scriptures I kept above my bed. Surely they would contain the advice I was looking for?

I rushed the holy books into the kitchen light. I flicked through the pages, scanning as quickly as I could for any kind of words that might relate to my issue. The scriptures illuminated a lot of things: the inconceivable ways in which the world was created, in what portions to divide land when passing it down a lineage, in what manner to torment women; but they all failed to mention what a god was supposed to eat. Defeated, I slammed the covers of the last book shut. What was I supposed to do?

I returned to the baby in my bed, whose tears had provided a painful diegesis to my hurried reading. Looking at him, I remembered the wooden cylinder he was holding when I brought him in, the note it contained. I realised then that of all the holy scriptures I owned, if any were true, then the note I found with this divine child was the most likely to carry a real message from the heavens. I returned to the kitchen, finding the note and reading it carefully. I scrutinised each word of the painfully uninformative note. After many successive rereads, my eyes fell on the only part that even attempted to give advice.

…To raise him, follow your heart…

I placed my left hand on my chest, locating the beating beneath it.

Perhaps, I wondered. If the gods ordained it…

I put the note back down, memorising it well by now, and returned to the baby. It was still crying, but had tired itself enough with its own tears that its cries were forced and weak. Sitting beside him, I picked him up and placed him on my lap. Putting my finger under one strap of my nightgown, I slipped it off, dropping it to reveal my breast. I brought the child to my nipple, which looked no different than it had the night before. I prayed that this would work, or else I would be completely lost.

In a sharp jolt of pain that took my tired body by surprise, the baby latched on. I gasped and looked down at him, watching his cheeks pulsing, suckling feverishly. I smiled, letting out a light laugh. It worked, I thought. I had interpreted the words literally, and that seemed to work.

The night of his arrival was calm once he was fed, and I awoke the following morning as if from a dream. It was such a strange night, I thought, lifting myself only to find the child still sleeping by my side, real and material as no dream could bring. I was surprised, but not shocked. His tired little limbs tucked under the blanket, his sombre face; I was soothed by his very presence. At that moment I knew for certain.

‘You will grow to be a great god,’ I whispered to him, quietly enough not to stir him from his sleep.

As the note promised, the child grew rapidly. Within only the first few days, I noticed he had grown slightly larger. It seemed as though every time I looked away and looked back at him, he was different. At first, this surprised me, being a little difficult to keep track of. But the real surprise came one week after the night I found him. 

I was breastfeeding him on my lap as I usually did. When I pulled him away from me, we took a moment to look one another in the eyes. Over the short amount of time, I fell slightly in love with his little shiny gems. I allowed myself to get lost in them, delighting in the moments of quietude we enjoyed together.

‘Momma?’

The words came from the lips of the one-week-old child. At first I was utterly shocked, but could not subdue that the words sung my heart. I wished to hold him tight, bring him close to me, but I held back.

‘No, I am not your home,’ I told him. ‘Your home is in the heavens.’

But the child did not seem to understand. He continued to look at me with a smile.

After his first words there flew out many more. Within another week he was walking, talking, and, in a storm of events I was struggling to handle, already old enough to go to school. I felt dazed, whiplashed, lost and uncertain on what to do. Only two weeks ago he was a little bundle of miracles whom I found by divine incident on a walk by the woods, and now he was old enough to speak and to walk. It was all happening so quickly, but I understood that I still could not predict how everything would develop. I chose to send him to school, hoping that it was the best thing to do for my little god.

The moments without him, waiting for him to come home from school, were some of the scariest. I had spent my time with him devotedly the past two weeks, never letting him out of my sight, and now he was gone for more moments than I could withstand. The seconds, minutes and hours without him drew on, and the instant I heard the ringing of the doorbell, I dropped my cleaned pots and pans and sprinted to open the door.

I found him on the other side and I swung in to embrace him. When I stepped back to welcome him home, I could see that he wore a neutral, almost upset expression. He walked past me into the house, finding his way into the kitchen.

I followed him and found him sitting at the kitchen table. Stunned at finding him this way, I didn’t know how to respond. In a nervous panic, I turned to the stove.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ I said with a meek smile. 

I placed the plate of food in front of him. He looked at it, then at me with a forced expression of gratitude. When he lifted his spoon and turned to his food, his sadness returned.

I strolled nervously around the other side of the table. Approaching the chair opposite him, I placed my hands on its back, leaning on it without pulling it out.

‘Is everything alright?’ I asked.

The little god stopped with his spoon in the air, right before his mouth. He dropped it back into the plate and he looked at me.

‘Momma,’ he said with a sunken voice, ‘am I a just god?’

The question caught me off guard. I looked at him in surprise and confusion.

‘What do you mean, honey?’ I asked. I wasn’t sure I knew how to answer such a question. 

‘I pushed a boy at school today,’ he said, his voice laden with guilt. 

This alarmed me, sending me into a brief panic in my mind. My little god, pushing another boy? It made no sense. I saw his perfect little face, his guilty eyes. I quelled my alarm as best as I could, turning to the saddened boy in front of me.

‘Why did you do that?’ I asked, attempting to hide my concern.

‘He was laughing at me, saying I’m not a god,’ he told me. ‘I got upset because I am a god, and he didn’t believe me. He made me feel…’

He trailed off, getting lost in his sadness. Watching him fall away from me so sparked something within me, and without hesitation I finally pulled out the chair, seating myself before him. I extended my hands to cup one of his.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ I said, without a clue of what I was going to say next. The words came out of me from a place that knew no reason. ‘You are a just god. Even gods can be hurt, and that boy hurt you.’

His eyes lifted from the plate and looked at my own. They did not become happy, but some of the sadness was swept from them. He looked at me with patient attentiveness.

I squeezed his hand in mine, showing a faint, understanding smile.

‘But just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you should hurt others,’ I told him. ‘Even gods need to learn that.’

Finally, to my relief, through the miasma of concern he flashed a humble smile. This propelled me to my own happiness, squeezing him tighter and smiling wider.

‘Okay?’ I asked.

‘Okay,’ he nodded, the corners of his lips spreading wider in reassurance.

I gave him one last, long squeeze, then slipped my hand away.

‘Now eat your food before it gets cold,’ I told him in playful admonition. ‘A full belly will help you stay strong the next time that boy says you’re not a god. You’ll stand tall and show him he’s wrong.’

He grinned, and went back to eating his food.

His time at school didn’t last very long. With his rapid growth, it was only a matter of days until he outgrew his classmates. It was an odd sight for everyone, a teenage boy walking among children. The other parents voiced their discomfort at having somebody so much older in a class with people that were not his peers. They all agreed that it wasn’t right, and after not so long, there was a motion to expel the overmature student from the school altogether. After only a week of being in school, he was gone from it. Despite some quiet protests, the class threw a party for him on his last day.

When he came back from school, I received him with open arms. But again, much like the day he first went, when I opened the door to greet him, he was upset. He stormed in past me, not even saying hello. 

I ran after him to find him. This time, I had at least some comfort knowing that this was not a new fight: I had fought it a week before, and I had won. It may not be easy, but at least they would not be uncharted waters, I thought. I found him sitting in his room on a sofa in the corner. An expression of anger was uglily distorting his beautiful face. I walked up to him gently.

‘Honey…’

‘I hate you,’ he spurted out.

His words shocked me, paralysing me in place, cutting me like an intangible knife I could not disarm. I hate you? I choked on a single syllable of disbelief. He hates me? Ultimately, I was able to get out a single word.

‘What?’

‘I hate you and the rest of this shithole world,’ he said. He turned more away from me so that I couldn’t see his face. ‘I shouldn’t be here anyway. I’m a god. I should be in the heavens, controlling everything. Not here. Not among flimsy, shitty mortals.’

I stood with my mouth agape, completely clueless on what to do. I had never seen him like this before. The look that I saw on his face when I walked in the room was stuck in my mind. It was one I could only describe as a look of pure hatred. I had never seen such vile emotion from him before. What was this? Who was this person sitting before me?

My confusion rumbled within me for a length of time I couldn’t count. I summoned the words that I needed to say, but I found no stability in them. I felt like each word I spoke could trip over itself, sending me into a disoriented panic.

‘Honey, I’m sorry that things had to go the way they did at school,’ I said. ‘I know it wasn’t fair, but we didn’t have a say…’

‘Fuck you for sending me to school in the first place.’

I felt the strike of the curse word like a blow to a soft point I had never known to exist, inflicting a new dimension of pain that debilitated me even further. It was like I wasn’t listening to the person I helped raise, but a stranger in my home who wanted to hurt me. Nonetheless, I could see that it was still him, the little god I knew. I had to push past the torrent of unease to reach the words I needed to say.

‘Honey, I’m sorry…’

‘You knew the way I am, you knew well what would happen, but you sent me anyway. You knew that I would grow up faster than the other kids, you knew that it wouldn’t be possible for me to stay there for very long, but you sent me anyway…’

His voice trailed off. Although I couldn’t see his face, I saw that his shoulders slumped, his posture falling slightly. 

‘I liked it there,’ he said. His voice was sunken with defeat. ‘And you gave me hope that I might stay.’

Hearing him talk like this broke my heart. Was he wrong? He was right, despite my doubts, I knew from the beginning how this would go. And yet, from the depths of my uncertainty, I knew I wanted him to be happy. A life of solitude on Earth, no matter how short, was a sad one to live. Apart from me, he had nobody else. I did not want him to be alone. I wanted him to feel loved, for everyone else to see him the way I saw him, and I thought that doing what I did would be a chance to give him that. But now, sunken by his words, I didn’t know what to think. Was it really wrong? Did I really do the right thing?

The uncertainty I had felt on the night I had found him on the edge of the forest never quite went away. I dispelled it, ushered it away to the back of my mind where it wouldn’t disturb me; but now, it came back with even greater force than I had known before. I felt lost, alienated in a room with the person sitting with his face away from me. It was just me and him; I was tied to him, and yet I felt like I had failed him. Until now, I had trusted the great gods in the heavens to give me the strength and knowledge I needed to raise one of their own, but now I felt like my trust had been misplaced. They must have been wrong, I thought. Who was I to raise a god? I had failed them, and I had failed him.

‘Honey…’

The words slipped from my mouth unexpectedly. From within the storm of thoughts and feelings that was raging in my mind, I had grasped onto an anchor point, and it kept me grounded. I knew that despite all the fears and doubts, all I really had was here and now. I was only a mortal, dealing with raising a heavenly supreme. All I could do was deal with what I was given. I chose to do what I could.

‘I’m sorry that you had to leave the school,’ I said. I walked up closer to him, sitting down next to him on the sofa. He didn’t turn to look at me. ‘I just want what’s best for you. I thought that maybe… maybe it would go differently. I thought that maybe you would go, and maybe this time you wouldn’t grow so quickly, or maybe… maybe everything would stay the same, and you would have fun in school. I wanted you to make friends, to be happy, to have others who loved you the way I love you…’

I fell silent, failing to find any more words to say. I waited for him to reply, at the very least with an angry retort, but he said nothing. I looked at him quietly, trying to imagine the face that was on the other side. His head fell slowly, and he lifted his hands to his face. I heard soft tears from beneath his palms.

I slid over closer to him, wrapping my arms around and hugging him from behind.

‘It’s okay,’ I whispered, gently resting my chin on his shoulder. He leant his head on mine.

‘Why am I like this?’ he asked through a stuffy nose.

I squeezed him tightly.

‘Because you are a god,’ I told him.

I never knew how much time I would have with my little god. He grew so quickly, I could barely keep up with the constant changes that were coming over him. Only a week after he left school, he was already an adult. Seeing him become so much so fast, I began to feel concerned about how much longer he needed before moving on to the heavens.

Seven days after leaving school, I was cooking in the house in the evening time. I was focussed on cleaning the countertop, watching the simmering soup, when I suddenly realised I couldn’t hear any other noise in the house. Even at the quietest, I could hear him rummaging around indoors, shuffling on the sofa as he read some book or other; but now, there was nothing. Only the simmering soup and the scrubbing of my brush.

I walked around to try to see what he was up to, but didn’t find him anywhere. I looked out the windows, scanning all around, when I finally caught a glimpse of him. He was standing behind the house on the open grass, looking out in the direction of the field. It was the field that was lined by the forest that I found him in.

I walked outside. Seeing him standing so still, looking outward into an infinite beyond, sent a wave of sorrow through my body.

‘Hey,’ I said, creeping up behind him.

He turned to look at me. A wide smile was on his handsome face.

‘Hey,’ he answered.

‘The soup will be ready in a moment,’ I said. 

His eyes looked deep into my own for a few silent seconds. They gripped the sorrow I felt and spoke to it. You are here, they said to it. I wanted to cry.

‘Momma,’ said his low, gentle voice.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s time for me to go.’

The tears slipped off my chin, streaking down my cheeks. The raging cataclysm inside my chest was crying for the world to stop. I wished for the universe to take back the steps that took me out here. I wanted to go back to cleaning, to watching the soup.

‘Okay,’ I said. The word was a choke, an unintelligible mumble. But he understood it.

I averted my eyes from his, finding them too difficult to meet. I took one step back to the house, then stopped. The shackles of necessity kept me in place.

‘You should have some soup before you go,’ I said. ‘For the journey.’

He smiled.

‘Of course,’ he said calmly.

We walked in silence back to the house. He took a seat at the kitchen table. I poured him a bowl of soup and placed it before him.

I sat down opposite him. I felt like there was so much to say, but just then, I couldn’t find a word. I sat in silence, watching him take in spoon after spoon. He ate quietly, without a sound, focussing on his soup. I felt like that moment could last forever.

The spoon clinked as it hit the bottom of the empty bowl. His eyes finally came up, finding mine. They were shining greatly, magnificently, splashed with some of the grandeur of the moment. They were the eyes of a god.

He stood up from the table, and I followed. Together, we walked back outside. We took some steps out, then both turned to the open field. The distant trees looked like brambles on a grave.

I looked at him again. My gaze was fixed on his face. It looked so lively, so beautiful. The cataclysm rumbled within me once again. He looked at me too.

‘Is this the last time I’ll see you?’ I asked him.

‘Of course not,’ he said, smiling, ‘I promise to send you the sun every morning. In its sunlight, I’ll put my embrace.’

In a blink of joy, I grinned happily at him. He grinned back. We turned towards each other. He opened his arms, wrapping them around me. My own arms climbed from my sides, and we clutched one another like we clinged a rope that could hold back time. When we let go, there was little happiness left in our expressions. Sadness had taken over, leaving only a glimmer.

‘I love you, momma,’ he said.

‘I love you too.’

He swept away his eyes before the sorrow could blind him, looking out to the field. With patient step, he started walking away. I stood still, fixed in place. My soul followed him as he went, but my body didn’t move. My eyes remained stuck on his head, unblinking. They hoped that he might look back again, that they might once more be blessed by the divine sight of his glorious smile. 

He walked farther and farther. In a heartbeat, he was down the field, a tiny shape only my heart could recognise. His silhouette moved steadily, like a distant shooting star. His mortal steps carried him to the edge of the forest, to the spot where I lifted my dress to stop it getting stuck on the branches. A careful, long step got him half way inside. He moved the rest of his body in, and he was gone.

When the scene was still for long enough, I went back inside, into the kitchen. There I found his empty bowl, the spoon he used still lying on the bottom. I brought my helpless body back to my seat, placing myself into it in a mute cry of agony. I looked at the bowl, past it, and imagined him on the other chair, eating from it slowly as he took his final sips. That is how I remember him, his ghost, still now.

Today, he helps rule the celestial bodies, moving heaven and earth, bringing us night and day. But to me, he will always be my little god.

19.VIII.2024