A God's Favor

The man glanced at his desk, and the whole room fell silent. He stepped toward the laptop awaiting his touch. As he scratched his beard and laid a hand on his rickety chair, the room held its breath—and he walked away.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”

“Jesus!”

“Who owes me money?”

The projection of the mildewed study and its closed laptop flickered away, and so did each watcher, leaving with their tongues licking various stages of laughs and I-told-you-so’s. The gods left the viewing room one by one until only two remained: Maestrom, Greater God of Literature, and Sargassio, Lesser God of the Lost.

“You just make it harder for yourself,” said the latter. “When did you stop choosing animals for heroes? They’re so suggestible. Look. Mads, would you flip to my hero?”

At the edge of the room, an ugly beast grunted low, “Yeah. Whatever.” The chains around its wrists and ankles clanked as it moved. It sat back on hairy haunches and craned forward its hideous neck, revealing at the base of its skull a gaping eye, from which beamed the projection of Sargassio’s latest conqueror.

Sargassio glowed at the sight, their tentacles curling. “She’s called Snowball.” They pointed to the screen, “Watch, watch. Watch her work.” The cat named Snowball peeked into a messy bedroom, checking for witnesses, before taking a sock in her teeth and burying it deep in the trash bin. A squeal escaped Sargassio’s mouths. “Did you see that? Honestly, I’ll never understand you. I hate to let this one go.” As their influence faded, the cat shivered, sneezed, and set to grooming itself before the space heater.

Fidgeting, Maestrom huffed. “I will not lower myself to the use of cats. No, this boy…this man!…he is the one. Salvation, not only for the sacred art of writing, but for my very reputation. It must be him.” They stroked the beard adorning their vast chin, its long hairs cascading to the floor beside their silks. “It must be him.”

“I’m hurt by your words, Maestrom. Cats make fine heroes, you saw.” They waved at Mads, who flipped back to Maestrom’s man, now hunched over his phone in front of the TV. Sargassio’s broad face scrunched. “He’s never been published.”

“I know.”

“Completely unsuccessful.”

“I am aware of this.”

“He’s unhygienic.”

“Sargassio!” barked Maestrom, and the lesser god tensed. “Allow me my sanity, what little left of it there is.”

Sargassio bowed. “Yes. Yes, I apologize. But all the same, I hate to see you this way.” They stood tall, folding their tangled tentacles at their sides as if parting hair. “Gone are your days of guiding a songbird outside of a window, and it’s no one’s doing but your own. Your ambition will be your end.”

With something resembling a smile, Maestrom relaxed their shoulders. “You are bold as always. Ah, and perhaps even correct,” they mused, squinting at the projection. “Just a month ago, the others would not have dared to laugh openly at my failures. I have heard talk—only talk, yet—of demotion. Respect for me, for my rank, is dwindling, and with it respect for literature as a whole. Off, Mads, that is enough.”

The beast shut its eye. “Cool.”

“You know you can’t hold this hero for much longer,” said Sargassio to their senior. “Another day, and he’ll surely die or go mad. Do you have a plan?”

Maestrom’s great belly heaved and rolled. “A plan indeed. If asked, tell all you have not seen me, or that I am visiting Zeus.”

Gathering their beard, Maestrom drifted from the viewing chamber and sought privacy. It was evening, but the orbit of Earth was inconsequential here; light was over all, gentle and warm, bathing bugleweed fields and plum blossom gardens and limestone-blue pools in a sweet, lemon haze. The other gods meandered through the ether, boasting about their heroes’ conquests, but the greater god pushed it from their mind. They set across the steppingstones to find an oasis hidden from view, one they had used before. With a yawn and a puff of air, they disappeared.

♦

In the same instant on Earth, in a run-down rental home, materialized a roach. It skittered through the walls, recalling the location of the study, and emerged from behind an antique desk just as a frazzled, unshaven young man stepped through the door. He sniffed at the sight of the bug and reached for a tissue, but fell gibbering to the floor when Maestrom’s voice emerged from the roach’s form:

PHILLIP MICHAEL LAW.

I AM MAESTROM, GREATER GOD OF LITERATURE.

HARM MY AVATAR AND LIVE TO REGRET IT.

The man screamed.

FEAR NOT. YOU HAVE MY FAVOR.

“What the hell? What are you?”

Maestrom had wondered if a cockroach would be appropriate; was it possible that this man feared bugs? They conjured in their mind the image of Snowball and assumed the form, lowering their voice to her dulcet tones. “Phillip Michael Law. I am Maestrom, Greater God of Literature.”

“What?” the man squeaked.

They recalled with nostalgia the simplicity of birds. “I am Maestrom, Greater God of Literature. You have my favor, author.”

The man blinked and stood, forgetting his tissue. “A god? This is crazy. This is a dream.”

Maestrom continued, “I have enjoyed your work, author. In particular, I treasure the story of the mine worker and the geologist, the star-crossed lovers pulled apart by corporate disputes. It is an incredible tale.” They sat on their white haunches and licked a paw.

“Carbon Dating? I’ve never shared that one,” he said in horror, “not with anyone.”

“I would not deserve my title if my library were only of published works.”

Wringing his hands, the man was silent; then he pinched himself and yelped. He reached for the chair with trembling fingers and sat, eyeing the figure of Snowball all the while. “Oh my God, this is real.”

“Yes.” Maestrom focused, and on the tabletop appeared two cups of hot tea. “Drink. Let us speak as friends.”

“I don’t drink caffeine.”

“It is herbal.”

“Oh.” He eyed the cup but made no moves toward it.

The god did not mind. “How many words do you think you have written, without deleting, in the past fortnight?”

“Um…probably a thousand?”

“Twenty.” Maestrom planted their paws firmly on the wood and suppressed the strange, new urge to hiss. “You have written twenty words. Author? Pah,” they huffed. “You insult me. I bestow you with a gift and you throw it to the dirt to be eaten by rats.” They paced across the desk. “Author indeed!”

The man’s shoulders were up to his ears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I promise. I’ll do better. I’ll fix it, I swear!”

The paws went still. Maestrom turned to face him. “Then. What is it?”

“What?”

“Why do you not write?”

“Oh.” The man’s face, previously drained, assumed color. “I can’t. It doesn’t work.” He crossed his legs and looked to the floor, silent, but the god wanted to hear more. “It’s like…I sit down, and I look at the blank page, and I panic. There’s so much that could be written on there, and all of it…” He swallowed. “A blank page is better than anything I could write. Whatever I put on the page feels wrong. Bad.” His hands had resumed their wringing.

Maestrom watched the man with a soft eye. “I understand.”

He turned his gaze back up to the cat. “You do?”

“I do.” They considered the tea but resolved instead to sit. “Once, I chose birds for heroes. I would instruct them to sing most beautifully in the windows of writers’ studies, and I would control them until their little bodies could take it no more, and they would die. And I would find a new songbird.” Catching the man’s unease, they laughed, “No, you will not die. My influence over you, the force that has kept you returning again and again to this room without thought, will fade after this encounter.” They hummed and continued, “I have changed. For some time, I did not realize the change and, believing I had lost my touch, I fell into a depression. I wanted more than to guide birds, but I could not see that then. I thought I had become old. I relinquished all control to the lesser gods of the genres, and they…” Maestrom growled. “They are quite separatist. But now, I see the change. No longer do I puppet the bird, a creature of little agency, to inspire authors with already enough inspiration to fill the seven seas; now, I seek the greener of you, those with change yet to recognize.” They stopped to watch the man’s face. His eyes were fixed on the cat, but his mind was clearly rampant, a slight twitch of the brow betraying his calm performance. “I see in you great things, once you have realized and accepted the change. And so, author, you have my favor.”

The man stared. He sniffed, and sipped his tea. He set it down. “Woah.” He blinked at the little window. “Thank you. But that doesn’t change that I can’t put anything on the page.”

“Set for yourself a goal each day, a target.”

“What?”

“A word count. And once you’ve written, do not backtrack. Do not delete. Forge on.”

“Oh.” The man took another sip. “I don’t think that would work. But I guess you’d know best, being, like…”

“A god?”

“Yeah. A god, and everything.” The man’s shoulders had begun to relax, and Maestrom was glad to have thought of Snowball. “See,” he went on, “I’ve tried a word count before. It didn’t go very well, I stopped after about two days. How many words? Um, a thousand.”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty?”

“You will write twenty words today. Tomorrow, you will return to this room and write twenty more. And so forth, until soon you are struck with such a whim to write one thousand on your heart’s terms alone,” purred Maestrom.

The man laughed and tapped his finger. “Twenty is a lot of words.”

“If you cannot do it, I will not trouble you again. You will live blissfully ignorant, free from the trials and tribulations of the life of an author.” Maestrom examined their hero’s expression and, with an odd satisfaction, recognized disappointment. “If you can indeed do it, do it knowing that you have my favor.” As the man nodded with a passion, the god smiled, focused, and disappeared.

♦

“You went down?” they whispered.

Maestrom laughed with a rumble, savoring Sargassio’s terror. “Indeed.”

“What screw has so thoroughly loosened to drive you towards such—such—betrayal of your status?”

“Ah, you overstep.” The greater god lowered their weight, relaxed, as the two entered the viewing room. “My journey was a great success. Mads?” A projection of the study appeared, and the man sat at his laptop with a snack, typing vigorously. 

Sargassio was not impressed. “He still isn’t published.”

“Nor will he be for some time.”

“What on Earth was your purpose, then,” scoffed Sargassio, “just for him to write?”

“Well, of course,” said Maestrom. “A work of literature is, first and foremost, for its author. See his smile, the microscopic upturn of his lips when he is proud of a sentence. This—this! is writing, the author working the craft despite failure, simply for the joy it brings and for the improvement that every word yields. One day, because he loves to write, he will publish. It will not be today.”

“I believe I will never understand you.” Sargassio turned to the projection as well, watching with interest as if something should go wrong. They would be sorely disappointed, Maestrom knew, and the man would continue to write; his work would reach, if not a publisher, if not a broad audience, if not a raving mass of fans, himself, and the greater god of literature.