The Prison for Change

I slammed my hands into the wall of shadow, the fingers disappearing in the dark a few inches deep. No one knew how thick the barrier was, but it did its job, it kept us in. Like so many times before, I screamed out in anguish at my own helplessness. 

There were only three of us, each a deity over something new, or within the last few millennia of human existence. There were figures born into the world far more recently than my fellow cellmates. 

It was clear whoever had locked us away had immense power and wanted the world to forget about us, or in my case, never know me. The three of us had already spent nine days in this shadowy pocket of neither here nor there. The walls were made of creeping darkness and the ground as fluid as liquid. The flow of it felt as though it was holding us back from where we were meant to go, taking us deeper without us noticing. 

Before I was captured, I had still been unsure where my governance lied. Most figures understood when they appeared based on feelings within them, their yearning combined with their powers led to their names. Each name was in a language known to us at our start, but there were many names for each that the humans gave, even if they didn’t always get it right. Kigi was simply the god of knowledge, though humans often called him names like “All-knowing” and "Ultimate truth". The people had created him as they explored the world outside themselves. As the fascination of discovery and invention sparked after years of basic survival, Knowledge had been born, mightier than most. 

Sumab was the goddess of what she could only assume was empathy. The world had grown beyond challenges to the death and fending for oneself above all others. The loss of loved ones through famine and natural disasters had brought about a love for the stranger. She was neither human nor beast as her form shifted like light through the day. She cried with all pain she witnessed and also provided strength to those feeling great loss. She had come to center her power on helping others unite against greater threats such as bandits and drought. Her shift in the human focus infuriated the gods, Money and Power, who weakened with her existence. 

As I said, the truth of my becoming was not as easily defined. All I knew was what I felt, and that was far from understanding. As the human world evolved from societies based on dominance, like hyenas, to a carefully constructed group of people who worked together and trusted each other, the feeling of what I should be only grew murkier. The people who prayed to me were not quite sure what they prayed to either, but I felt their longing, a discomfort, a rejection even of existence itself. Some even felt such anguish, I went to Empathy in hopes she  would  take some of the pain. 

At first, I thought of myself as the child of Death. Unlike Death, who dealt in mercy for the physically ailing, I thought maybe I was meant to give the living their own right to death- give them the courage to end their suffering themselves, but I could not bring myself to grant it, my heart swelling like a shield over them despite their desire to change how they existed. 

After that, I started trying to decipher more clearly what it was they were asking of me, though they had no words to describe it yet. They were many in number, that I could not deny. I was born with this love for them for a reason, and I tried to send them comfort regardless of my understanding. 

Change was a scary thing for the other deities. The ancient ones were skilled in their work and despised the idea of having to adapt. But they could not stop us being born. It was the nature of this realm, we came to be because it was what the people needed. I say that, yet many humans often doubted us as well.

For millennia, my cellmates had spread their power, Knowledge and Empathy swept the world like a wildfire after their birth, people loved to know things and enjoyed giving for everyone. People learned how to care for the old and young and how to create societies that protected the ones who could not quite fend for themselves. they spared food to people who had known and they created ways to bring water to the fields. With their help, new deities were born: the goddess of peace; Arbeo, the goddess of community; Treci, the goddess of innovation; Lievan, there were many more, and also, me; Genar

I had come to ask Kigi what he thought of my existence when we were captured by an unknown force as frightful as War himself. But he was either working with someone else or a creature quite new to us was utilizing their power of shadow. 

The worst part of our imprisonment was the ability to see our home below us, Earth. Still we saw our prayers. Our followers’ day to day lives were crumbling. Faithfuls of Knowledge, Empathy and I alike met gruesome deaths for the things they strived for in life. Over and over again, we watched from our containment. I would rage and scream, Knowledge would say how he projected the world to change for the better soon and Empathy cried, her wispy form changing from creature to creature. 

“We will not be held for long, my child, for humans have been given the gift of history. They shall free us with their understanding and belief in a better world.” Knowledge said once more, confident they could break our bonds.

I could only hope rather than believe him. 

It was years upon years in that cell. 

I felt nearly void of any emotion as the world spun on its axis unawares and the turmoil continued. Knowledge was quieter after the first century. He had spent many days predicting how this could have happened and plotting an escape using techniques the humans had learned collectively over time. But no human had faced what we were facing. The fasmic walls and heavy counterflowing pool below our feet were wearing us down as if we wore chains of iron and were fastened in place, but there was no key to unshackle ourselves. I felt it very likely we would spend eternity  in our torture.

Over time, a figure started to shadow over the houses of loners and lurk in caves. From our seats in our prison, we watched as it infected the hearts of people simply passing by and sparked fury in the most common of men. Wisdom deemed this force Unknown. 

Unknown was the god of things people did not understand and so feared. He gained form that was even visible to the humans themselves on occasion, a feat that showed great power. They built large steeples in his honor and cried out “One True God, Our Father” when he was near. The stories written in that time were of him and not much else, and his presence often justified horrendous acts. Philosophers who sought to understand, medicine women who dared to deliver children and use herbs to heal, even other much older faiths were looked at with trepidation and eventually stomped out of existence. 

The steeples filled with worshipers that despised those that did not fear him the way they did. Over the thousands of years he would rule the world, his people would kill other people in the hopes of making sure all of Unknown’s powers were understood. His growth came rapidly because of the absence of Knowledge. It was hard for people to find answers when the god who had them was quite unable to respond to queries. A few men and women found the truths of the world, or came closer than ever to new discoveries, but many of them were killed in their endeavors. Learning became synonymous with destroying Unknown. 

It was another day in my prison, the walls had closed in to the point where there was not length enough to rest on one's back without having to lean our hooves or feet against the other shadow. Knowledge assumed this meant the cell had eventual power to crush us and hide our essence from the world forever. He even worried the barrier would push us into a negative space, another universe, with such force that our bits would be scattered among the stars. 

I had been in an apathetic state for nearly 500 years, drained of feeling and tired of trying, when Community ran by us swift as the wind. She was jovial, more jovial than any other instance in her short life. When Unknown had risen to the top, she spent much of her time trying to tie some bonds among the many churches that splintered off into sects, but those bonds crumbled easily. They were not strong enough to hold anyone together, not when Unknown had all their fear and trust at once. Her communities grew smaller as the world filled up with more followers of Unknown. 

She had passed so closely, closer than any human or deity alike had ever come to our banishment corner.  I almost felt she knew I was watching from this pocket where I could neither be heard nor seen by anyone else. 

Along her path were two young people, both in clothes that Unknown would rather they not wear; one in a patched wool dress, one in the casual dress of a breeches of a farm boy. They ran hand in hand catching each other if one fell. Guards of some ruler or council or whatever the oppressors were calling themselves in those days were following with loud shouts. Unknown was also close behind, licking his lips in hunger. Whatever these children had done, it caused a great amount of worry in the men chasing them. Worry was what Unknown craved. Worry was a step from fear and fear was a step from desperation and even anger, it led a man to slaughter over and over again. 

I felt a prayer reach into me, it was from the two that were, at that moment, cornered against a building and some vegetable carts. Community was dancing frantically, weaving as fast as her legs would, connection. The people who watched from their windows gripped their skirts and work aprons and they felt in their hearts they could sit still no longer. It had been the young herb worker and then the two boys who loved each other, it had been the old maid who lost her mind at 72 and there had been many, many more unjustifiable killings of people they loved. 

As a guard raised his staff, a young farmhand intercepted with nothing but a pitchfork. He pushed ferociously back against the staff until it flung from his hands. The other guards were enraged as much as Unknown and went to charge. The Villagers rose up and held back their arms, taking their weapons and turning them against them. “Don’t ever come back” they jeered. 

I watched with a jitter in my hands that grew into my heart. 

Community now had thread after thread of connections established. She was red in the face with glee as the guards backed down and the farmers and seamstresses and shepherds all gathered around the two children and helped them to their feet. 

Each one had a father, a father who had previously worshipped Unknown. Each one now had a hand from Love on their shoulder. She smiled as the fathers looked deep into their children's eyes, and then took turns to declare, “This is my son!” and next, “This is my daughter! And I defy anyone that calls her otherwise”

The feeling those two children felt was evident on their faces and it reached me like a lightning bolt. 

Whether Unknown was weakened by the act of that day or Love and Community had made something stronger, the shadow prison suddenly chasmed and then eroded away in the wind. My body was roaring with an energy so intense and full of light that I felt I was a star coming down to Earth, my home. When I touched the ground, the villagers turned to me with awe. I realized they could see me. 

I knew what I had to do, before I fully understood how.

Never before had I known what I was created to do, but in this moment it was clear. I was here for the people like these children. The ones society would rather kill than try to understand. That day, it had been Community and Love that had saved them, but I could ask forgiveness for abandoning them for so long by granting them a gift. 

With a touch, I created their bodies exactly as they imagined they should be, down to the size of the big toe. The girl and the boy, the son and the daughter, looked at me in their new forms, I blessed them to grow into adult as they wished.

And then I must have become invisible to the human eye once more. For the villagers blinked and looked about me to see if I was still hiding around as I stood directly in front of them. When they gave up, they cried tears of joy and danced through the night around the blessed two.

I was never again able to change a body in an instant the way I did then. As Unknown raged heavily upon the world for many more centuries, I stuck with my job, which was protecting the transgender people of the world and fighting the hatred they faced. Together, Knowledge and I found new ways to help my people. He instilled ideas into well meaning doctors. Meanwhile, Community devoted much of her time each day to helping my people find each other. Whatever their gender, she danced until they were in numbers and could at least have each other. 

Love and Empathy also agreed to help. They made  time to ensure these people could be loved and understood, to undo the work that Unknown had done to harm them. With this Empathy also gained trust in my people, spreading their power over to  intersecting peoples affected by Unknown. 

I was Genar, A nameless god among the people in my world, but I began to understand better what my purpose was. I was joyful to be born to them. When they were happy, I was at my strongest. For that reason, I decided my human name would be Euphoria. 

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