The Touch of God
by Bogi Beykov
RE: How did it go?!
To: Bruce the Pope
Your Holiness Pope Bruce IV,
Apologies for the delay in my response but we were absolutely
overwhelmed here! I can finally rest now and with utmost (but
not-overindulging) pleasure write to inform you of our progress and the
unexpected blessings we received upon our first visit to this unusual
planet.
I carried a heavy heart back into our Vatican ship a few hours ago,
knowing that in a few moments I will be light years away from the
friends, I made over the last few weeks. A separation, however, only
limited to the physical world, not capable of severing the bonds of
brotherly love we established so eagerly.
And as I am waiting here in orbit for our warp drive to warm up, I use
the opportunity to share with You my thoughts, while they are still
fresh.
Looking backwards, I can’t help but blush in shame of all the ignorance
and prejudice I brought with me when first arriving on Onanek. After
all we had no idea what to expect. What kind of perverted function
where we supposed to serve these aliens? Was this to be the first
mission of space martyrdom in the Church’s history? Or was it merely a
part of some hellish spectacle of mockery?
Our own fellow humans had long lost interest in the Church. They care
about things like VR cryptocurrencies, deep learning techniques for
deep diving, low-pressure gambling on high altitudes and whatever next
trend their neighbor boasts about. Even Rome of the 22nd century is
nothing but a big cemetery of dead churches, housing bats and
long-forgotten ideals. We have regional Netflix content on Pluto now,
yet St. Peter’s Basilica was almost empty last Christmas. Quite
frankly, if it wasn’t for cancer being still around, no one would
probably be hopeless enough to turn to God these days.
So maybe it was desperation that lead us to look for believers so
far away from our Parish. But at least we were politely invited. And
this was not merely the first invitation we received from the Onanekees
but the first time they had ever proactively initiated contact with any
alien civilization in their known history. And they decided to reach
out to the Vatican of all places and invite “priests and any God
experts available”. Quite the request, I must admit.
I remember when you got in touch with me, Holy Father. I was just
finishing lasering out some weeds from the roof of the Basilica of St.
John Lateran.
“We have to investigate, Luigi,” I heard your brainwaves echoing
through my nano-sim implant, “this might be an opportunity for us. We
can sell them Bibles, open a church on Onanek. God knows what. I might
even be able to quit my day job. 3D printing names on these plastic
cups in Starbucks all day long is killing me! When has the Catholic
church been so desperate as to have the Pope supplement his income with
a real job? I mean, the only contact I have with adolescent boys these
days is when I play Fortnite!”
You were just being realistic and painfully honest as usual. Thank
God the Church still owned enough property so we could afford buying
this old spaceship from Amazon.
And even though I had a clear understanding of the importance of my
mission, I was still fearful. After all it was the Catholic Church that
was most deeply disturbed by the findings of the first NASA mission to
the Helix Nebula five years ago.
We always assumed that if intelligent life existed somewhere in space,
intelligent life, technologically advanced enough to observe other
life, then inevitably they would want to make contact. If Darwin was
right and Adam and Eve were once covered in fur and living on a tree,
then even though we got off the tree and genetically modify ourselves
now to be less hairy, we haven’t changed that much. Just the way our
ancestors would now and then steal a glance of a thick enough branch
and reach out to grab it as a means of moving forward, so too we rely
on our inquisitive sight to target, assign value and supply our growth
with direction. It is this endless search of value that leads us to
bravely explore the unknown and constantly venture into new
possibilities. Even such as placing the new iPhone camera on a drone,
flying around the phone, because there is no more space for it on the
device itself. And what more valuable than intelligent life in the
endless emptiness of space? For the potential benefit of trading
information and materials, finding new resources or our own protection
by virtue of knowing of the other guys’ existence. Even feeding our
curiosity would have been a worthy reason to say “Hello”, let alone for
all the social and cultural benefits it would entail.
For millennia we fantasized about Aliens. How different would they be
from us? Grey-skinned with large bulging eyes, completely mechanical or
just looking like a poor person that creeps us out for no reason? We
were mentally stitching together Frankenstein monsters of any possible
permutation of animate and inanimate objects in various states of
matter to scare ourselves before bed or exhale a loud breath of
satisfaction with our ingenuity. But we never suspected how
fundamentally different aliens would really be. Not until the emergency
landing of the Malone X space shuttle on Onanek.
After taking substantial damage during a meteoroid shower and aimlessly
drifting through a spiderweb of cometary knots in the brightly
fluorescent gases of Helix for months, the desperate crew of Malone X
surprisingly picked up an Earth-like planet on their radars. With a
small adjustment they might have been pulled in by the planet’s
gravitational field. If only they had not murdered and eaten their
captain a week earlier out of starvation (and a little bit of
curiosity). Luckily one of the senior engineers then came up with the
idea to strategically blow up the backup engine and thus propel the
ship towards its destination. But the closer they got, the more
confusingly hopeless their situation became. The planet must have been
somewhere between two cold molecular pillars in a cloud of space dust,
with an uncanny resemblance to a growth of bushes. Only later did they
discover that it was no accident Onanek was obstructed by this space
thicket. The Onanekees had placed it there in the first place. The
cloud along with multiple layers of misleading holograms with large
signs pointing in the opposite direction and inviting potential
visitors to turn around at once. The astronauts had to ignore these
bizarre warnings with no shortage of panic because they simply couldn’t
change their course at this point. Nervously sipping bone broth made
from the captain’s femur, they watched as their luck finally turned and
they managed to miraculously land in one piece.
And how surprised must they have been seeing what I later saw myself –
aliens, living so far away from Earth, yet bearing a striking
resemblance to us. Being created in God’s image might not have been
such an exaggeration after all. Not only did they look like humans, but
they acted like us too. They drove the same hovering scooters and
parked them in any place their imagination allowed. Complained of
sharing too much personal data with their social media on said social
media. And occasionally, in their spare time, laid down naked on some
sand while simultaneously developing skin cancer. But while our
astronauts were almost intoxicated with their historic discovery and
implied importance by association, the aliens seemed to not care much
and demonstrated quite the annoyance with this extraplanetary visit.
There was something odd about the Onanekees. The more time the
astronauts spent with them, while finishing the repairs on their ship,
the more apparent these differences became.
It must have become clear first to Malone’s onboard Instagram manager -
Roberto Spavaldo. Roberto was frustrated after continuously failing at
his newly developed life goal of being the first human to have had an
interspecies love affair. He had no clue why his charms misfired on
this planet, especially considering, he had lost some weight on the
ship and spent a lot of time tanning whenever they passed close to a
star. His chemically regulated mood was now swinging violently, pushed
by his insecurities. The language must have been an issue too even
though Roberto was relying on other means such as pointing at various
body parts or drawing exaggerated holograms of his penis. Unable to
share this rising sexual frustration with his Instagram following, he
was forced to confide in his crew mates. It turned out they had all
similarly updated their life goals but to no avail as none of them were
able to share even the slightest moment of intimacy with an Onanekee.
The aliens seemed socially awkward to them and shied away from any
contact and on top of that didn’t demonstrate signs of affection
between each other either.
“So, we had no choice but to crack this mystery,” Suzanne Kuripu, the
onboard medic, shared later in her bestselling novel “Misunderstood and
Horny”.
After being wrongly accused of raping an attractive male Onanekee, she
narrowly escaped life in alien prison. In the book she bravely recalls
the research she was able to conduct while incarcerated before the
remaining astronauts, coincidentally also pursued by the police for
similar accusations, were able to break her free and eventually fly off
home.
Firstly, she found out that none of the aliens they had met during
their stay were born naturally. Onanekees were being grown in labs and
brought to life by the cold hands of medical robots. They were not
clones per se, but cleverly engineered from a random set of DNA to
simulate natural selection as much as possible. While we’ve had a fair
amount of lab kids and celebrity clones on Earth too, what was more
surprising to the astronauts was the reason why this was happening -
apparently the Onanekees had completely lost interest in having sexual
relations with each other. Historically they had always been slightly
grossed out by the concept until a few hundred or so years ago this
made them face an extinction level threat which fortunately was
resolved by advances in genetic engineering. But while they had no sex
with each other, they were far from being asexual creatures. And so,
Suzanne discovered first that the Onanekees had one universally shared,
globally spread and all-consuming passion - Masturbation.
It is difficult for me to even think of these things. I was a young man
once too and I remember the temptations Satan lay in front of me,
literally at my fingertips. It took me years of rigid practice in the
faith to be able to perceive celibacy as a gift and a useful tool
rather than my personal Golgotha.
So, I still recall the uneasiness I felt when first reading the
shocking reports from the returning crew. A planet of constantly
masturbating aliens. Aliens for whom masturbation was so much more than
just a pastime or physiological relief. The Onanekees had the habit of
pleasuring themselves for hours and hours, all day and all night. It
was later theorized that they generally did other activities such as
education, work or sports just as a boring way of allowing their sore
bodies to recover and accumulate sexual tension. Even the most
primitive pleasures for us such as eating and drinking were a nuisance
to them. A necessary means to an end for they were tools to refill
their bodies with carnal juices. Our astronauts began noticing that all
the jobs the aliens had were actually in fields supporting and
servicing their erotic obsession. There were for instance companies
manufacturing autobators - self-driving cars that would allow their
drivers to focus on masturbation. They were competing with the
masturcars, spreading through the market, which were cars that would
masturbate you while you drive them. Not to mention one of the biggest
employers on the Planet - all the producers of pipelines, pumping
stations and other elements of the masturbation waste disposal
infrastructure. This sexual self-abuse seemed to be running their
entire economy. New and improved ways of self-pleasure were fueling
their scientific advancements and shaping their culture and traditions.
Their arts and literature were also highly influenced by this focal
point of existence while any form of religion was unsurprisingly absent
from their society. In short, everything that wasn’t masturbation but
was somewhat necessary (meaning they might die without it, and that was
terrible since death would also mean no masturbation) was orbiting
around it and supporting it in every way possible.
The mystery of the Onanekees not being surprised by meeting
extraterrestrials started to explain itself too. While awaiting trial
Suzanne, getting better and better at understanding the alien language,
asked her cellmate Inka to let her in on their history. So, whenever
Inka was nice enough to take a short break from schlapping her
schmänkel, she shared as much as she knew. Apparently, a side effect of
this fixation on self-stimulation was a gradual desensitization. Not
only physical but psychological and emotional too, affecting the
population on a global scale. The Onanekees had, over time, masturbated
to just about anything. So, after a while regular pornography didn’t
work for them anymore. Irregular pornography - generally featuring a
variety of irregularly shaped performers, using irregular toys and
verbs - became a booming industry for a while. After that the Onanekees
dug deeper. Literally. They started masturbating to particularly deep
and attractive looking holes but also naturally occurring ones. Why
stop at caves though when you have other natural phenomena like
mountains, archipelagoes, lagoons etc. After a while they had millions
of TV channels constantly playing videos, streaming live from various
locations all over Onanek at different levels of magnification. One
could relieve himself to some juicy looking cabbage on one channel but
then after turning a special knob on the remote continue the exercise
while staring at a sexy wiggling caterpillar feeding on that same
cabbage, then turn again and watch in extasy the eggs of a wasp laid
inside said caterpillar hatch and so on almost down to a molecular
level. There were the more unusual meta masturbators too who would
masturbate to the idea of masturbation itself or the irony in what they
just did. But after hundreds of years that wasn’t enough either. They
seemed to have exhausted and desecrated just about everything on their
own planet. A brief moment of panic ensued until a brave pioneer of
self-pleasuring - Manio Lupo - looked up into the sky and got excited
by all the stars out there. And with the limitless erotic potential of
an endless universe, a seemingly perfect eternal solution was
discovered. All of the smartest minds of Onanek combined began building
powerful telescopes and more and more advanced surveillance systems. In
the brief moments when they would lose their erections, they had time
to erect a few statues of Manio here and there too. New jobs were
created, new university degrees forged along with new branches of
organized erotic crime and new hashtags. Soon the Onanekees were able
not just to see the stars and the planets, orbiting them, but also the
creatures, inhabiting them. To their great dismay our astronauts
discovered the Onanekees had observed Earthlings for quite some time
and our channel was pretty popular too. Of course, they were only
watching medieval humans going around their Dark Age business because
of the hundreds of lightyears of distance but they were well aware of
our existence. So, they were of other intelligent species such as the
Purkams who were a completely gaseous life forms living inside the
intestines of large herbivorous animals, constantly producing gas. Or
the 01001000 01101001s who were the only known mechanical life forms
naturally developed under the unusual conditions on their home planet
who in turn created biological life to use as, for lack of a better
word, machines. Or the AEgirians, who were using their toilets entirely
too much.
Suzanne was even fortunate enough to obtain a small Alien TV
transmitter that her cellmate smuggled with her into jail. It allowed
access to their streaming service with the entire catalogue of millions
of channels. They broadcast it via their own version of a wireless
networking technology comparable to our own Wi-Pho-Fi - they were
similarly using encoded photons to transfer information at the speed of
light to any point on their planet as opposed to the much more limiting
radio waves or Li-Fi. The last things she did before leaving for Earth
was to place the TV transmitter in a secret location and then with the
help of the onboard AI reconfigure Malone X’s destroyed back-up warp
engine to serve as a mini wormhole. Too small for any living organism
to pass through but good enough to transmit the Alien TV photon signal
back to the other end of the wormhole, which was setup inside the ship.
Unbeknownst to her this single act of interplanetary piracy may have
very well saved Onanek. Because now thanks to her, our Earth
governments had access to Alien TV without having to forcefully extract
it from Onanek. The Onanekees, as far as we know, had not sacrificed
time from their masturbation schedule to bother creating any sort or
military or astral protection besides the space bushes they constructed
to hide behind. They didn’t even have spaceships to leave on. So, had
they had to protect their technology from us, their fate would surely
have been sealed. And while we know what the Onanekees used their
channels for, the only thing us humans have been rubbing while watching
them has been our hands. Five years later we are still drunk with the
potential power we would acquire if ever our secret space domination
plans, that fortunately don’t include Onanek for now, came to fruition.
And so, it seemed for a while that everyone had forgotten about Onanek
and its weird inhabitants. That is until we received the first email
from them. They first reached out to Perso Editore - a small publishing
house in Rome. No one responded. Their message was bouncing off various
servers being endlessly forwarded to the grandchildren of the deceased
owners. The publishing house had been out of business for a few years
since people were more used to downloading books directly to their
neural implants instead of buying physical copies. Then finally someone
read it, laughed a bit and thought of sharing what he believed to be a
joke with a priest, he knew. Then the priest laughed and forwarded the
email to his presbyterium. Eventually someone decided to actually write
back and a conversation sparked. And finally, the message reached even
You, Holy Father.
Now we know what exactly happened. Roberto Spavaldi had a rare instance
of a religious mother who had given him an old copy of a Bible printed
by Perso Editore. Ever since his mother’s passing, Roberto was carrying
the Bible with him on his missions through space. I remember being
surprised at first, that he would part with such a prized possession by
giving it to an Onanekee. It turns out he had a reason. He had met a
pretty girl on Onanek that he tried to seduce. In his desperation, he
resorted to trying to somehow or another pay or bribe her. So, he
offered the Bible to her and lied that it was a pornographic book,
highly valued among humans. While the girl took the Bible, by the time
his pants were down to his ankles, she had vanished.
Whether the aliens had tried to abuse our Holy Book, I have no way of
knowing. But they had surely read it. Because even in our
communication, leading up to our arrival, they had demonstrated quite
the knowledge of the subject already. But in order to have done that,
they must have decoded and translated Italian first. And then
eventually learned it well enough to contact us and be able to converse
with me quite freely upon my visit. Whether it was driven by their
desires, perhaps trying to uncover some secret information hidden in
our language that would inspire their sexual fantasies, I don’t know.
But either way it was their planetary leader and not any ordinary
civilian who contacted us so the book must have reached their highest
levels of government and attracted major attention.
When we landed on Onanek, I was slightly reluctant to shake hands with
their appointed Ambassador who welcomed me and my brothers Emmanuelle
and Domenico. But then I remember studying the lives of our early
Christian saints who would leave the comfort of their homes to go to
remote islands, used as quarantine stations for plague victims,
disregarding the near certainty of contamination, to bring the word of
God to those who seemed abandoned even by Him. So, I smiled and
proceeded to greet him and then the large delegation of officials who
were anxiously waiting for us. As they drove us to our next location in
a spacious translucent carriage, I was even more perplexed to see the
huge crowds of cheering Onanekees spread out endlessly on both sides of
the ultrasonic street tubes.
“We are all very excited to meet you,” explained slowly but very much
understandably in Italian Laiga - a pretty young lady, appointed to be
our translator. It has been a long time since a woman felt excited to
see me, but I tried not to think of what that might lead her to do
privately later. “You must be tired. First we will go to your new home
and you can rest there as long as you wish.”
“That’s very generous of you, thank you. Thank God our journey wasn’t
very strenuous anyway,” I responded purely out of politeness.
“Perfect! Then we can take you directly to our President who is waiting
in his office with representatives of the media from the entire planet.”
Before I could respond, she turned around to the driver who seemed to
be even more thrilled by this new development and immediately
accelerated.
“Excuse me, Laiga, but can you please explain what this is all about?
Why did you invite us here?” I decided to clarify this as despite the
high speed we were moving at now, I was still able to feel my two Earth
brothers, vigorously trembling in fear on the other seat.
“Ah, this was very important to us. We need to know everything we can
about your God and how he can help us. We haven’t been too...righteous,
Father, and we need help.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Could it be that after being
exposed to the Bible, these aliens have developed morality? Is it
possible that religion is not intricately connected to tradition,
embedded in culture and merely an extrapolation of the guidelines, we
have established over millions of years of social evolution which in
turn have been growing on top of the mountain of biologically
predetermined instincts, filtered by natural selection? In other words,
could religion function out of context and instill the same values in
an environment as alien as this one? I was about to find out. By the
time we reached the presidential palace, my head was throbbing with
questions. We were warmly welcomed but hastily lead inside. There was a
palpable feeling of some unusual, dare I say God-fearing, tension in
the air.
President Slark Tuove was a short bald Onanek with nervous ticks,
accompanying every second breath he took. I suspect that the function
of the planetary commander had been just a formality before. Therefore,
certain leadership qualities were not required, expected or sought
after in the election process. But considering the newly discovered
importance of hosting a Vatican delegation for the potential benefit of
their entire species must have added quite the pressure onto his narrow
shoulders. I had a feeling he would make a good priest.
After he welcomed us while doing all he could to avoid looking into our
eyes, he walked us into a huge conference room where a panel of leading
Onaneki scientists, philosophers, government officials and business
representatives were gathered lined up in rows. We were led to a podium
where we were to lecture them and answer their questions. They all had
notepads, calculating devices and other, less known to me, tools of
their trades prepared to assist them in cracking the Holy code. And so,
it all began. A series of presentations and discussions that all
together, including the short breaks for refreshments and the few times
we collapsed, warn out, lasted for almost seven days straight. The
class changed a few times, but the teachers remained the same. Laiga
was relentlessly by our side, catching every faint word flying out of
our mouths and translating it to her microphone. As it turns out, this
was also broadcast publicly, and billions watched. I always thought
myself to be quite the scholar of religion but if this was a test, I’m
sure I failed countless times during its grinding course. At moments I
couldn’t help but doubt my own knowledge and believes as the audience’s
questions started getting more and more challenging.
“According to 1 Timothy 2:12 and what St Paul advised us by saying, ‘I
do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she
must be silent,’ can women at least teach young children or animals
when no male is present?” someone asked.
“’Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only
to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.’ (1 Peter 2:18) Should we
reinstate slavery in order to follow these guidelines or is it pious
enough if we are cruel to colleagues at work?”
“’He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.’ (Psalm 137:9) Does it matter what kind of rocks?”
These and other similar questions were on our audience’s mind. The Old
Testament God who we try hard not to mention on Earth ever since we
rebranded the Cross and changed the official Church font ten years ago,
kept coming back. But it seemed that we were the only ones ashamed as
these questions were honest and powered mostly by a childish-like
curiosity. And after we addressed some of the most burning issues such
as the exact extend of religiously prescribed homophobia, what was the
difference between God and the creator of our current simulation and
the recommended extinction of witches in Exodus 22:18, we were hoarse,
abashed and debilitated. How much longer was this going to take?
I started getting worried of the consequences of this newly discovered
fascination with Christianity. Could they introduce reforms and pass
new laws supporting these ancient believes? Could this change their
very culture and impact the trajectory of their future development? Our
hosts seemed to desperately need our help in interpreting the word of
God and updating it to the present time. And whereas some topics like
racism, torture and genocide we tried to gently persuade them against,
on the topic of sexuality, which finally came up - we, the celibate,
sexually deprived and ambiguous catholic priests - for some reason felt
entirely confident.
It was day seven of our lecture and my beard was invading my face like
the Egyptian army the Red Sea, when brother Domenico, took the stand to
bravely address the elephant in the room.
“Well, of course masturbation is a terrible sin!” he announced, “God had not given us the gift of love for that reason.”
The room went silent. My ears started ringing with this eerie lack of
cheers, claps and thoughtful murmurs, I got used to. At this point the
Onanekees were of course familiar with the concept of Hell and all the
eternal pain our loving God was happy to deliver to his sinning
children. After a longer while, president Tuove exchanged a few hushed
comments with his chief advisors and announced via Laiga that a break
for deliberation would be necessary and we could retire to our rooms in
the meantime. At this point we were honestly too tired to fully
understand what had happened in those last few moments. I just blindly
followed our guides into my room until before I knew it, I disappeared
through a huge bed and into my dreams, far away from this palace with
its drainingly inquisitive people.
I must have slept for at least twenty hours. When I finally woke up I
had so much dried mucus in the corners of my eyes, I could build a
two-story raft. I checked on Domenico and Emmanuelle who were still
fast asleep in their rooms but with no visible signs of sperm on them
which I assumed meant no one had disturbed us in our rest. When I got
out of the shower, somehow breakfast was already waiting for me in the
room which despite of what I had read about the underdeveloped skills
of the local chefs, was surprisingly delicious and rich in protein. I
instinctively reached for the TV remote lying on the little table next
to my bed but then thought better of it. As I was finishing my coffee
and wondering how big of a sin it would be for me to fake a coma during
my next lecture, I heard a gentle knock on the door. It was Laiga,
polite and dutiful but with a new look of sadness about her.
“There is no agenda for today, Father, but I thought we could take a walk in the Palace’s Gardens.”
“Fresh air sounds great.”
I wish I could see more of the unusual alien plants decorating the
gardens but just as indoors, many of them were covered by screens and
projectors for whenever the President’s guests, strolling around, would
feel like schärkkäikenen their schmünzels. I noticed Laiga was not as
inquisitive about religion as before and I found relief in discussing
other topics such as her regular job of a masturbation historian, her
hometown and upbringing by robot nannies. Then we reached a spacious
terrace from which we watched a beautiful view of the city in the
valley below. I admired the colossal telescopes, built all around as
far as my eyes could reach, towering over this world like mountains.
Many more were being built or orbiting around the planet as satellites
and casting their shadows here and there. On our way back, I noticed
there was no sign of the crowds that first greeted us. As a matter of
fact, very few Onanekees were anywhere to be seen around the gardens or
the palace.
“Laiga, where is everyone? Is it still too early?”
“It’s not that. Most of us are still mourning.”
“Did something happen on this date?”
“It is what Brother Domenico said the other day. Father, if we can’t
touch ourselves anymore, what are we to do? We are doomed here just as
well as in the afterlife.”
With her concerns finally exposed, Laiga broke into tears. I did my
best to console her. I repeated all the familiar words of reassurance I
was so used to recite when confronted with hopelessness, but my own
voice lacked conviction. I didn’t know what advice to give.
Nothing changed the next day and the day after that either. The
president needed more time and was nowhere to be seen. While Domenico
and Emmanuelle decided to remain in the palace and do some research in
the library, we were given access to, I went on an expedition around
the province in an attempt to learn more about the locals, with Laiga
accompanying me on my journey. The Onanekees I met were all
good-hearted and warm but desperately heartbroken. They had all picked
up Christianity and were now devastated by realizing what they had been
doing their whole lives was wrong in the eyes of God.
The Onanekees had studied the Bible expertly before we even arrived so
they all knew the story of Onan. And in that story, as we know, Onan
was not masturbating at all. Onan was a man given the task to help his
brother impregnate his wife by sleeping with her. Which was something
God approved. The part which God didn’t like was when Onan decided to
interrupt the act in the most crucial moment and ejaculate on the
floor, at which point God decided it would be best to immediately
murder Onan.
So, there was nothing in the Bible directly forbidding masturbation.
But it was our expert opinion, expressed by Father Domenico and then
broadcast to every Onanekee on the planet, that acted as an extension
of the word of God Himself and as such became the most cruel of
verdicts.
I continued my travel and kept witnessing all of the same sadness
around me. I slowly began to care about these people, more than I can
admit, and started sharing their pain as if it was mine. In one of the
smaller villages, I visited, I was asked to consecrate the grounds for
a new church. The location was beautiful - a lonely hill, covered in
colorful patches of forests, overlooking the surroundings. Attached,
you can find a couple of photos I took of the place. As I was passing
by while they were still finishing getting the location ready, I saw
the remains of what previously stood on that hill, still not completely
disposed of. Now decapitated and rolling in the dirt, it was the
likeness of their former national hero, Manio Lupo.
After another week of finding TVs switched off in every single town and
village I visited, a terrible realization finally dawned on me. How
could I not have thought about this before? If no one here is watching
TV, they will stop broadcasting too. And probably soon. But if that
happened, people on Earth would also stop receiving the signal and then
an attack on Onanek would be imminent. Previously disgusted by
Onanekees, I finally felt disgusted with myself and what me and my
brothers had done. We brought no harmful bacteria or earthly diseases
with us, but we infected these creatures just as effectively with our
religion. And they had no immunity for the catastrophic results...
I can feel the artificial gravity is being activated so we are almost ready to depart. I suppose I should get to the point.
After I returned to the palace, I was resolved to try and reverse
engineer what we caused these people. After I, as much as gently
touched upon the subject with Domenico and Emmanuelle, I was surprised
to find out they saw things completely differently.
“Can’t you see the potential of these aliens?”
“We can stay here, and they will treat us with respect and reverence forever!”
I felt their long-suppressed pride had risen up. A lust for power shone through their scared little eyes.
“The president is our ship, by the way,” I was improvising. “He wants to have a serious confession with all of us.”
“Now? Well let’s go, what are we waiting for?”
Our ship had been moved to a new landing space, built for it over the
last week, just outside of the palace. I lead them both inside and then
straight into one of the contamination chambers where I locked them in
with a master override code. I think they were swearing at me from
behind the sound-canceling glass, so I dimmed the lights, allowing them
to concentrate on prayers instead.
I got a hold of Laiga and with her marched towards the president’s office.
“We need to have another press conference. Immediately would be preferable.”
I only hoped that enough people would learn about this to tune in and
turn their screens back on. Two hours later the equipment was prepared.
President Tuove, his people, Laiga and the journalists who arrived all
looked at me with worried looks. What further bad news would I bring on
these devout people? I had no idea if my plan would work or terribly
misfire. I cleaned my throat. I adjusted my collar. I looked at Laiga
and faked a smile.
“I’ve gathered you all here in such short notice because I have something very important to share with you...”
Maybe I should introduce them to other religions so they can see there
is no single right or wrong way but an eternity of endlessly
multiplying ideas? But what if that leads to conflict like it did on
Earth?
“...You are good people here on this Planet. You believe in God, listen and respect Him and his messengers...”
Or I should explain atheism to them. They know science well enough.
They just don’t realize you can believe in it with just as much
pretentiousness as we do in God.
“...The truth is...I am here to tell you the truth, which is...”
No. I couldn’t confuse them even more. I guess I’ll just have to lie.
“...This was all a test and you passed it! God knows that you are
worthy now. Masturbation is not a sin so you can go on and masturbate
now as you used to.”
There was a silence of approximately three seconds, followed by an
uproar of verbalized dismay. Questions came flying again and I only
hoped this wouldn’t take a week because I would have to feed Domenico
and Emmanuelle at some point.
I explained that just like in the story of Abraham, God decided to
challenge Onanekees by making them sacrifice what was most precious.
But as masturbation is nothing more than administering pleasure out of
love for oneself, it was never prohibited by the Lord. Skeptical at
first, their expressions started shortly changing and I saw the clouds
of sadness, clearing their skies. Some of them took off too, I presume,
looking for a place to masturbate.
I left the palace happy to see new cheering crowds forming outside just
like the ones that first welcomed us. Maybe I managed to mitigate the
damage after all. It was time to leave now before I made things worse
again. I tried to find Laiga to say thank you again, but I couldn’t see
her in the rising celebration around.
I used this opportunity to sneak out and head for the ship. I was
silently crying as the main hatch closed. It was in the control room,
preparing to lift off, when I saw her.
“Please don’t kick me out, Father. I really want to see Earth.”
“Let me explain a couple of things to you first.”
I tried to sound strict with Laiga but secretly I was excited. I would
have a companion on my way back and Earth would get a lovely Ambassador
that would help humans see how wonderful her species is.
The Warp Drive is ready and engaged. I need to go.
But before I do, in closing, I want to tell You one more thing. I’ve
served our Lord for over twenty years. But even a hundred is not enough
to accumulate such knowledge as to pass judgment and condemn others
like I did. I will forever remain devoted to God, but I will no longer
work for the Church of Men.
I quit.
Yours respectfully,
Luigi
P.S. I will drop off the Vatican pass and all the keys on Monday by drone.
THE END
© 2019 Bogi Beykov
Bio: Bogi Beykov is half Polish and half Bulgarian, currently a
CCO of a support outsourcing company. Bogi's hobbies include standup
comedy, music and procrastination. Bogi lives in Barcelona and promise
to get back to writing on Monday. Bogi's work has been published in the
Scarlet Leaf Review and Alternative History Fiction.
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