Body of God

It was 10:42 pm when god fell from the sky. The night became bright, like midday, and for the longest of minutes, a dense silence washed upon the world as if the world was holding its breath.

Delivered from the clouds, a bulk in the shape of a man tumbled across the air, towards the earth and into the side of a moist cliff. In the wake of his descend, streaks of black, and color, and shine were woven onto the sky, a river of weightless ink gravid with stars.

At 10:57 pm, night had not yet returned and I found myself standing in the middle of the street, the taste of beans still fresh in my mouth and my left hand painfully clenching a fork. I don’t remember getting out of the house, but I do remember looking down at the shore, following the cosmic trail to the site of the fall. I couldn’t see anything clearly. The world was much too bright.

What do you take when you are going to meet god? I took a film camera and three oranges. One for the road, two for god. I wore clean white clothes and shaved the fluff off my chin. I brought a notebook to take notes, and a bible, just in case. The shore was a 20-minute bike ride away. Less, if I rushed, less if there was no traffic. On a normal day, there wouldn’t have been any traffic. On a normal day, it would’ve been dark.

The street was full of cars, and bikes, and people on foot. Some were running toward god, many ran away from him. On my way down, I dodged a family of four and my neighbor and my cousin, and the lady that went to church suspiciously often. I dodged my middle school teacher and a woman holding two cats. I dodged my boss and his wife and the boyfriend that one day stopped returning my calls. I dodged a small, brown, shaggy dog and I crashed against a man. A heavyset man standing still on the sidewalk, looking down at the shore with a face full of tears. The front wheel of my bike was bent unusable. The man did not seem to notice.

A sudden feeling of inadequacy overcame me. My clothes were soiled and I had crushed two of the three oranges under the side of my back. My camera was cracked and my notebook was sticky-wet. The bible was sticky-wet. Ruined. It was brand new.

In a spell of anger, I threw my damp bag to the feet of the heavyset man and cursed him and his mother and his future and his past. He did not seem to notice. I tried to push him and he did not seem to notice. I looked around. The street was two rivers flowing against each other. People running up, people running down, and in the midst of them, people standing still—like rocks, like mountains.

I felt a kinship with the heavyset man, and with the people running up and down. At that moment, under the mid-night bright, we all shared the same thought. We were all thinking of god.

The way to the ocean feels longer on foot. My side hurt and my leg, and I was thirsty and regretting not salvaging the one orange I did not crush. It seemed improper for my body to ache during such a journey. I was walking toward god. What is hunger in the face of the divine? What is pain? And as if on cue, my body ached harder—a constellation of pricklings and throbs flashed through my skin, and I thought about food, and sex, and money, and drugs and all the pleasurable, earthly things. Was this a test? I started to walk faster as vices, own and borrowed, flickered behind my eyes. I was no longer thinking of god, I could not quell my body, I could not quiet my mind. Had I failed? Had I failed the test?

As I turned on the street that led to the shore my eyes followed the luminous ink to the blur that was his body. He was 1.000, maybe 2.000 steps away. I did not care. There was a calm and a quiet, and my mind returned to god. There were others around me, they, too, walking slowly towards the figure by the rocky cliff. The chaos of the streets had faded into a lull, and it was bright, and it was warm, and the ocean stood still. Above us, there was no sun.

You could only take him in parts. The tip of a finger, the bend of a knee, a slight, diminutive patch of iridescent skin. When you tried to make sense of his form, your vision blurred, the world started to spin and a bout of violent nausea burned its way across your throat. As you unstitched yourself, a vision of impossible geometries overtook your body. You could see them behind your eyelids, you could feel them beneath your bones. By the time you were returned to the world, you would be on the floor, looking away from god.

40 years have passed since god fell from the sky. Around the site of the fall it has not rained, it has never become night, and the ocean remains still. The town around the fall is a desert, or a shrine. Too bright and too quiet for life.

The body of god cannot be moved, it turns out. He is bound to the rocks and the sea much like light is bound to fire. The streak of brilliant dark has not decayed nor lost its luster, and even decades after, the insinuation of his form upon your memory is enough to make you tumble and embitter the back of your mouth.

It is said that everyone should visit the body of god at least once. Many do, and those who do often find the trip spiritual and transforming. Honestly, it’s not even that expensive, especially if you book your flight off-season. I recommend September. You’ll avoid the crowds.