The Celestial Gate by Avital Dicker (red white royal blue txt) 📗

“Yes,” God sighed, “it took a very long time to straighten that awful mess out. So many people were killed for no good reason. Just because some charlatans claimed, without any justification whatsoever, that they represented me. Which wasn’t true, of course.” He sat down on a chair with a back embroidered with stars; merry rays of sun played hide-and-go-seek with the moon on the armrest.

“Ah! Now it comes back to me,” said God, taking Rae’s hand in His. “Here is your planet,” he said, opening his other hand in which a hexagonal star lay trembling.

“Forgive me, Rae,” He said softly. “I’ve been paying attention to planet Earth and have neglected you.” Rae burst into tears of joy, filling the floor with blue tears.

God carefully moved the star to an angel by His side. Some angels in blue overalls stepped up and started to arrange new vegetation on it. There were fruit trees, wheat fields, and many vegetable beds.

“What do you say?” God smiled warmly at Rae. “I think this will solve the starvation problem, don’t you?” Rae blushed all over her body and gave God a fierce embrace.

“Ready to go home now?” God asked, and Rae nodded, auras of purple light pulsing around her head.

A purple boy, his color very similar to Rae’s, flew toward them on transparent wings. He hovered a few inches in the air, holding a hand out in an invitation to Rae.

Rae turned around to look at the gang, her long eyelashes bright with tears. She didn’t want to leave any of them, but she’d achieved her goal and her quest here was complete.

Anise understood her perfectly. She walked up to Rae and kissed her beautiful purple cheek. “I’ll always be right here,” Rae whispered, holding a long finger over Anise’s heart. “Besides, just in case, whistle if you need me.” She gave a sly wink and placed something in Anise’s hand. Anise looked down and saw a red whistle. Smiling broadly, she shoved it into her pocket.

Rae waved goodbye, spread her wings, and held her hand out to the purple boy.

“Goodbye, you nuisance,” Yam waved back. When all was said and done, Yam had grown quite fond of Rae, despite her flightiness, and was sorry to see her leave.

Anise looked at Rae and the boy holding one another and giggling. With an elegant lift of their wings, the two took off in perfect harmony and were quickly lost from view.

God, still looking in their direction, smiled. “Forgive me for boasting, but I created them,” He said proudly. “I think that went well. And now, it’s your turn.”

Yam turned around and looked deep into Anise’s eyes where he saw the beginning of it all, the reason for it all.

“You know my answer,” God smile.

That’s the problem right there, thought Anise. No, she wasn’t going to let Him confuse her. Before He had a chance to go on, she burst out, “The problem is that, here, I know it all. The information is available and the answers are clear. But when I get to Earth, I forget everything. So what’s the point of all this knowledge? Like rats in a maze, we humans keep coming back to the same point of hatred and darkness without ever making any progress.”

“Now, now. Let’s make some order here,” God said patiently. “Let’s begin with the fact that not everything I created came out exactly right and perfect. I’ll be the first to say so. To borrow human concepts, I too was once young and inexperienced,” He said, then stopped in thoughtful silence. Then He resumed, “But, I have to admit that I always thought that the glorious human race, which succeeded so rapidly in inventing medicine and aviation, even reaching the moon, would have figured out the answer long ago because it really is quite simple.”

“I don’t understand a thing,” said Anise, confused.

God rearranged Himself in the armchair, pulling His legs up to sit cross-legged. “My dear, you don’t, in fact, forget everything. You simply have to agree to remember,” He explained.

“But I do forget,” Anise insisted. “I spend a lifetime only to understand what I knew in the first place. And sometimes I spend an entire lifetime without ever understanding,” she said, and with a painful jolt of memory thought of the incarnation in which she was born a criminal and spent most of her life in a maximum-security prison.

God, still looking thoughtful, said nothing. Then He spoke. “Look, Anise, when a soul comes into the world, it knows everything. All one has to do is agree to connect with this vast knowledge. And that is the choice every human has to make,” He said.

Mor felt that God was trying to wiggle out of an answer. He overcame his shyness and confusion at being in His presence and spoke up. “That’s not exactly the way things are. People die for no reason and the world is full of suffering and sickness and hunger and injustice.”

Now God changed his shape several times in rapid succession. Finally, wearing the face of a Sumo wrestler, he sat down in the chair satisfied. “Excellent point, Mor,” He said. “Look, you said there’s hunger on Earth. But if you look at it more closely, you’ll see that the hunger is manmade.” Now He became a cloud again. “I’m not to blame for starvation. I provide planet Earth with enough – more than enough – food for all human beings. As far as I’m concerned, there is no reason for any human being on Earth to go hungry. The problem lies in people or, more precisely, the way they decide to allocate their resources.

“I don’t understand,” Mor said in frustration.

“It’s all right,” God answered patiently. “I’ll explain. Let’s say there are twenty bananas on a banana plant and there are twenty people. That means there are enough bananas for everyone, right?” He asked and Mor nodded in agreement. “Now imagine that one person picks ten bananas, OK?”

“So…?” Mor asked.

“So, this person with the