God's Resignation

Somebody slipped the resignation letter of God into the company mailroom. At least, that's what Felix Harrington assumed when the lights flickered across the infinite expanse of the Afterlife Division's Reincarnation Department. The quantum processors hummed a semitone lower, and every soul-assignment workflow froze mid-process.

Felix adjusted his tie and pushed his thick-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. As a junior clerk, he knew better than to ask questions when the system hiccuped. Six years of processing reincarnation paperwork had taught him the cosmic bureaucracy preferred compliance over curiosity.

"Did you feel that?" asked Meera from the adjacent cubicle, her eyes wide with alarm.

"Probably just routine maintenance," Felix muttered, though the tremor in his voice betrayed his uncertainty. He returned to his terminal—a shimmering interface composed of light, thought, and ancient symbols that predated human language.

The office stretched impossibly in non-Euclidean dimensions around him—rows of clerks in identical gray suits hunched over workstations that pulsed with the data of countless souls awaiting reassignment. Some areas extended upward into foggy infinities; others folded inward like origami accidents. The Reincarnation Department occupied the forty-second sublevel of what employees jokingly called "Eternity Tower," though the building had neither top nor bottom in any conventional sense.

Felix's specialty was quality control—ensuring that souls received appropriate memory wipes before rebirth. Standard protocol dictated a complete erasure with minimal karmic residue—just enough for the subject to develop intuition and déjà vu. It wasn't glamorous work, but Felix took pride in his accuracy. Not once in six years had he allowed a soul to retain more than the regulation 0.0042% of previous existence memories.

At 11:47 PM (time being a courtesy concept maintained for employees of corporeal origin), Felix's terminal pinged with an alert: "SYSTEM RECOVERY COMPLETE—VERIFY BIRTH PROTOCOL QUEUE."

He sighed, knowing this meant another late night. Most of his colleagues had already transmigrated to their rest chambers, leaving the vast workspace eerily quiet save for the gentle whoosh of souls being processed through the automated sorting algorithms.

"Just one quick check," he whispered to his desk plant—a succulent that existed simultaneously in seventeen dimensions. Felix had named it Herbert.

As his fingers scrolled through the Birth Protocol Queue, he froze. Every single birth scheduled for the upcoming week showed the same anomaly: Memory Transfer Status: 100%.

That couldn't be right. The protocol always mandated 0.0042%.

Felix's heart hammered against his ribs. This was either a catastrophic system error or something far worse—an intentional change from Upper Management. Either way, it meant that every newborn next week would arrive on Earth with complete recall of all their past lives—thousands, perhaps millions of years of accumulated memories, traumas, and wisdom.

He glanced around the empty office. No one was watching. He could reset the parameters to standard protocol and file an anonymized bug report. No one would know. That was the safe choice.

But a strange thought invaded Felix's meticulous mind. What if this wasn't a bug? What if this was... evolution?

His hands trembled as he made his decision. Instead of resetting all parameters, he isolated a single birth—a girl scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen in approximately eight hours—and inserted a 24-hour delay code on her memory transfer. Just one test case. Just enough time to observe the consequences before the system implemented the change universally.

As Felix pressed "CONFIRM MODIFICATION," the lights throughout the office pulsed once, brilliant and blinding. Herbert the succulent shivered, dropping a leaf that dissolved into golden dust before it hit the desk.

"What have I done?" Felix whispered, but the question dissolved into the humming darkness as the system accepted his change.

Somewhere beyond time and space, something vast and ancient seemed to smile.

***

Morning arrived with a bureaucratic inevitability. Felix had spent the remainder of his shift in a state of panic, jumping at every interdimensional ping and notification. He'd assured himself repeatedly that his minor adjustment would cause minimal disruption—a controlled experiment at worst.

The Reincarnation Department buzzed with its usual Monday energy—a peculiar blend of cosmic indifference and office politics. Meera offered Felix a cup of something that resembled coffee but tasted of forgotten dreams and faint regret.

"You look terrible," she observed. "Like you've been recycled through the karmic processor twice."

Felix attempted a smile. "Just stayed late verifying the Birth Protocol Queue."

"Anything interesting?" Meera's eyes twinkled with mischief.

Felix's mouth went dry. "Standard. Completely standard."

His workstation hummed to life as he logged in, immediately displaying a critical alert: "ANOMALY DETECTED: COPENHAGEN SECTOR, BIRTH ID #947-S33J."

The test baby. His test baby.

The interface expanded to reveal footage from Copenhagen—a hospital room where a child, barely eight hours old, was sitting upright in her bassinet. Felix's breath caught in his throat. The infant's eyes held an impossible awareness, ancient and knowing. She opened her tiny mouth and began to speak.

"I remember everything," the child said in flawless Danish, her voice unnaturally articulate for newborn vocal cords. "I remember the Tang Dynasty, where I built bridges. I remember drowning in 1642. I remember the taste of mammoth meat."

The hospital room erupted in chaos. Nurses dropped instruments. The doctor fainted. The parents—wide-eyed and trembling—were filming everything.

Felix watched in horror as the infant continued, now switching effortlessly between languages dead for millennia.

"Why are you recording this?" she asked her father in perfect English. "This isn't new. We've all lived countless lives. The amnesia is artificial—a bureaucratic decision, not a natural law."

The footage cut to a livestream where the infant—now propped up with pillows—addressed a growing online audience. The ticker at the bottom of the stream read: "MIRACLE BABY DELIVERS TED TALK FROM CRIB: 'EVERYTHING I REMEMBER AND WHY IT HURTS.'"

The viewer count ticked upward: 10,000... 100,000... 1 million.

"Oh holy celestial spreadsheets," Felix whispered.

His terminal suddenly flashed crimson, displaying a message that made his soul contract:

"FELIX HARRINGTON: REPORT TO CONCEPTUAL AUDIT CHAMBER IMMEDIATELY."

The words hovered, pulsing with divine authority. Around him, the office continued its routine, but now Felix noticed subtle fractures in reality—the edges of cubicles phasing in and out of existence, colleagues occasionally glitching into previous incarnations before snapping back.

"Felix?" Meera's voice sounded distant. "Are you okay? You've gone pale."

He couldn't respond. His body was already being pulled apart, molecule by molecule, transmitting across the metaphysical network to the one place no junior clerk ever wanted to visit: Upper Management.

The dissolution was painless but profoundly disorienting. Felix felt himself recompiled in a vast chamber that his human-adjacent mind could only interpret as a courtroom—though "room" was a generous approximation. The space existed as pure concept, with walls made of living logic and a ceiling composed of potential futures that shifted with each nanosecond.

Three figures occupied what might be called the bench, though they weren't exactly seated, nor were they entirely separate entities. They simply... presided. The one on the left appeared as living mathematics, equations constantly solving and reformulating itself. The center figure manifested as pure justice—not the human version, but something older and less compromising. The third embodied consequence, a tangled web of cause and effect that hurt Felix's eyes to observe directly.

"Felix Harrington," intoned the central figure, its voice resonating not through air but through probability itself. "You have altered the divine algorithm."

"I—I was just testing," Felix stammered, suddenly aware he no longer had a physical form. He existed here as pure intent, his essence naked before cosmic judgment.

"A single keystroke," said the figure of mathematics. "A deviation of 0.00000000001% from protocol."

"With exponential consequences," added consequence, its form rippling with what might have been amusement.

Around them, screens materialized showing livestreams from Earth. Not just the Copenhagen baby anymore—reports were flooding in from hospitals worldwide. Although Felix had only modified one record, the system had acknowledged his change as a debugging exception and propagated it as a hotfix across the network.

Babies everywhere were remembering. Talking. Sharing wisdom from across the ages.

And humanity was listening.

***

The conceptual courtroom trembled as consequences cascaded across the mortal plane. Felix watched in stunned silence as the screens displayed scenes from around the world—maternity wards transformed into philosophical forums, newborns discussing metaphysics with doctors, parents weeping as infants consoled them with wisdom accumulated across millennia.

"The system acceleration was... unexpected," said Mathematics, its equations rearranging into patterns of increasing complexity. "Your edit created a bifurcation point in reality's developmental arc."

"Is that... bad?" Felix asked, his essence quivering.

Justice leaned forward, its form shimmering between abstract concept and something almost human. "That depends on your definition of 'bad,' Junior Clerk Harrington. Was it your intention to fundamentally alter human consciousness?"

Felix tried to swallow, then remembered he currently had no throat. "I just wanted to see what would happen with one baby," he admitted. "I didn't know the system would apply the change globally."

"Didn't know? Or didn't want to consider?" Consequence's form rippled with something like amusement. "Your personnel file indicates seventeen instances of questioning standard protocol in your thought patterns. We monitor these things, Felix."

The courtroom shifted, transforming into what Felix could only interpret as a conference room. The judges now appeared as executives in impeccable suits, though their true nature still rippled beneath the surface like sharks beneath calm water.

"Show him," Justice instructed.

A new screen materialized, displaying Earth seventy-two hours later. The changes were subtle at first—hospitals implementing new infant care protocols, linguists and philosophers flocking to delivery rooms. Then came footage from the United Nations, where delegates listened solemnly to a panel of babies in custom-built high chairs, their tiny faces solemn as they addressed the assembly.

"For centuries, we've fought the same wars, repeated the same mistakes," said one infant in a voice that echoed with ancient knowledge. "Because we forget. Because we are made to forget."

Felix watched, transfixed, as the scene shifted to streets worldwide. People weren't panicking as he'd expected. Instead, they moved with new purpose, their expressions transformed by what they were hearing. Crime rates plummeted overnight. Meditation centers overflowed. Parents gathered in parks, holding their newborns like oracles, listening with reverence to the accumulated wisdom of countless lifetimes.

"Humanity has advanced more in three days than in the previous three centuries," Mathematics observed, its equations now forming patterns Felix couldn't begin to comprehend.

"But the protocol exists for a reason," Justice countered. "The memory wipe was implemented after the Atlantis Incident. We all remember what happened then."

"Perhaps it's time for a new protocol," said Consequence, expanding to fill half the room. "The question remains: what shall we do with Clerk Harrington?"

Felix felt himself contracting with dread. Throughout the Afterlife Division, stories circulated of employees who displeased Upper Management—souls recycled into single-celled organisms, consciousness fragmented across multiple dimensions, eternal assignment to the Paradox Resolution Department.

"I accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate," Felix said, summoning what dignity he could. "But I don't regret my actions. Those babies—they're helping people. Maybe forgetting isn't the blessing we thought it was."

The three entities exchanged glances that somehow conveyed entire libraries of meaning.

"Felix Harrington," Justice announced, "we have evaluated your case and reached a verdict."

The room darkened. Felix braced himself for oblivion.

"You are hereby demoted, effective immediately."

"Demoted?" Felix's essence flickered with confusion. "Not... recycled?"

"Report to Sublevel 734, Department of Reality Innovation, at the beginning of your next shift," Mathematics instructed, its form already beginning to dissolve. "Your new supervisor will explain your responsibilities."

Before Felix could respond, he felt himself being pulled apart again, molecules scattered and reassembled back in his cubicle at the Reincarnation Department. He gasped, patting his restored body with trembling hands.

"Felix?" Meera peered over the cubicle divider, concern etched across her features. "You just... vanished for three seconds. Are you okay?"

"Three seconds?" Felix glanced at his terminal. Somehow, what had felt like hours in the conceptual courtroom had taken almost no time at all in the physical realm.

His screen displayed new transfer orders: "REASSIGNMENT: DEPT. OF REALITY INNOVATION, SUBLEVEL 734. REPORT IMMEDIATELY."

Felix shakily gathered his few belongings—a mug with "World's Most Average Clerk" printed on it, a photo of his mother from his human days, and Herbert the multidimensional succulent.

"I've been transferred," he told Meera, still dazed. "Something called Reality Innovation."

Meera's eyes widened. "That department doesn't exist," she whispered.

But according to Felix's terminal, it did. And he was now its newest employee.

***

Sublevel 734 didn't appear on any official directory of the Afterlife Division. The elevator that carried Felix downward moved not just through space but through possibility itself, passing floors that flickered between existence and theoretical construct.

When the doors finally opened, Felix stepped into a space unlike any department he'd previously encountered. Instead of the sterile, infinite grid of the Reincarnation Department, this office was warm, chaotic, and distinctly finite. The walls appeared to be made of old wooden bookshelves stuffed with scrolls, vinyl records, and what looked like VHS tapes labeled in languages that predated human civilization. Mismatched lamps cast a golden glow over clusters of comfortable furniture where beings of various metaphysical compositions huddled in deep conversation.

No one seemed surprised by Felix's arrival.

"Harrington! Right on time." A figure approached—humanoid in the way that a reflection in disturbed water resembles its subject. "I'm Iris. Welcome to Reality Innovation."

"I don't understand," Felix admitted, clutching Herbert's pot to his chest. "What is this place?"

Iris smiled, her features momentarily resolving into something almost human before rippling back into beautiful abstraction. "Let me show you."

She led him through the space, past what appeared to be a break room where entities played multidimensional chess with pieces made of pure probability. In another corner, a being composed entirely of light was carefully editing what looked like DNA sequences using celestial tweezers.

They stopped before a massive wall covered in what Felix recognized as workflow charts—similar to those in the Reincarnation Department but infinitely more complex. These showed not just the flow of souls, but the flow of reality itself.

"The official departments maintain the universe," Iris explained. "We improve it."

Felix blinked. "By... breaking it?"

"By introducing calculated anomalies," she corrected, her smile widening. "Reality becomes stagnant without occasional... disruptions."

Understanding dawned slowly. "The memory transfer protocol. It wasn't a glitch in the system."

"It was a test," Iris confirmed. "And you passed spectacularly."

She guided him to a desk—an actual wooden desk, not the ethereal workstations of the upper levels—where a terminal hummed quietly. Unlike his previous interface, this one displayed not just data but outcomes, probabilities, timelines branching and intertwining like living things.

"Every thousand years or so, Reality itself selects new agents," Iris continued, perching on the edge of his desk. "Those with just the right combination of rule-following and rule-questioning. Those who can see beyond protocol to possibility."

"And I'm one of those agents?" Felix asked, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice.

"You are now." She slid a folder across the desk. Inside was a single sheet of paper containing his first assignment: "INTRODUCE MINOR ATMOSPHERIC ANOMALY: ONE RAINDROP, MODIFIED CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. TARGET: LABORATORY SAMPLE, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY."

"That's it? One raindrop?"

Iris's form shimmered with amusement. "From small things, Felix. That's how we work. One raindrop leads to one discovery leads to one breakthrough leads to... well, you'll see."

Felix glanced around at his new colleagues—beings of light and darkness, thought and matter, all working quietly on projects that would reshape reality in ways the upper levels would never authorize. "But why the charade? The trial, the demotion?"

"Plausible deniability," said a new voice.

Felix turned to find the figure of Consequence from the courtroom standing behind him, now appearing as a distinguished older woman in a tailored suit.

"Reality must appear to maintain order, even as it orchestrates its own evolution," she explained. "The cosmic bureaucracy can't be seen endorsing anomalies—but neither can it thrive without them." She gestured toward a screen showing Earth, where the Copenhagen baby was now addressing the World Economic Forum. "Your 'mistake' will advance human consciousness by centuries."

"And God's resignation letter?" Felix asked suddenly. "The system glitch when this all started?"

Consequence and Iris exchanged glances.

"There is no God, Felix," Iris said gently. "Not in the way you've imagined. There is only Reality—constantly creating, destroying, and reinventing itself through agents like us."

She handed him what looked like an old-fashioned fountain pen. "Your first assignment begins in twenty minutes. Just a single raindrop with a modified hydrogen bond structure. A researcher will notice it, and that observation will lead to... well, that's the wonderful part. We never know exactly how these disruptions will propagate."

Felix took the pen, feeling its weight—not just physical mass, but the gravity of potential consequences. For years, he'd been a cog in the machine, processing souls with meticulous precision. Now he was being asked to introduce deliberate imperfections into reality's fabric.

With trembling fingers, he signed the authorization form.

Somewhere on Earth, a single raindrop's molecular structure shifted almost imperceptibly. A researcher's equipment detected the anomaly. A new question formed in a human mind.

And Reality, vast and patient, continued its endless evolution through the smallest of errors.

From his new desk in Sublevel 734, Felix Harrington—former junior clerk, now agent of calculated disruption—watched as his tiny ripple began its journey across the cosmos. Herbert the succulent bloomed for the first time in seventeen dimensions, its flowers forming patterns identical to the probability cascades on Felix's screen.

"Welcome to the department," Iris said, her form shimmering with something like pride. "We've been watching you for a very long time."

Felix smiled and opened the drawer of his new desk. Inside was a stack of folders, each containing another tiny disruption waiting to be released into existence. The top one read simply: "Butterfly, Amazon Rainforest, June 7th—Adjust wing pattern by 0.02%."

One small change at a time. That was how worlds were truly made.