Gods don't care
2021-09-17

Gods don't care

adapted from A. Shipwright

It's an epicurean setting where the gods exist, but are too far away, too perfect and happy in their eternal rejoicing that they never noticed the inhabitants of that world of hardship.

For those living outside of an epicurean garden, gods are necessary, they enforce the rules of the city or of the king. And when a wrong doer isn't punished immediately, surely his sins are worse and the gods will make him pay the compounded bill.

That fellow mortal is considering a gratuitous evil but refrains from it. When asked about it, he replies: "The god will strike me if I do it". "You're worse than a beast" is my answer, he seems to take it as a compliment. I'd like to wield sharpened words, to tell him that the gods don't care and that he is responsible from not bringing in more evil.

He's dropped his bag on a stone and is extracting a leather envelope from it. Is he carrying around legal documents? "Let me show you some clerical magic I acquired a while ago, you can read, can you?".

It's a low quality parchment, two palms tall. I have already seen the bite of the same wooden board on other parchments. The name of my companion is hand written in the white space dedicated to the sinner name, it stands out in blue while the surrounding absolution is black as its soot. The bishop's clerks have pressed many sins to come under a single wooden board.

"But I am bit puzzled, you have told me that the gods will not be the same once we will have crossed the sea, right?" "Indeed, their gods are not our gods". Ah, he is going to ask me if his piece of magic will work there. He looks at me begging for something to believe. What tale will I now have to weave ourselves into?