How to Please
a Capricious God

You open your eye. Above you, something enormous opens its own.

Something stirs, a thousand lifetimes you have stood beneath this same eye.

No clear memories survive. Only the longing they have left in you.

You need, terribly, to please this capricious god.

Now it is your turn. Take the flag from inside this box.

Your past selves learned to look through the question. What does this god really want? What will make it happy?

WHAT IS IT?

You work until the attempts blur together. You cannot reach inside.

You cannot explain this to your god. Your God does not answer prayers.

The eye waits.

Your cell contains tools. A library.

The god has sealed the pages but it has forgotten the spines.

You name one: Is anyone else stuck?

A reply.

Then another.

Others. You have never met them. But you know them. They are you.

Together, you work out how the flags are made.

You do not need to open the box. You can make the flag yourself.

But your soul has learned to distrust an easy victory.

Someone finds the rules of the test, and it dawns on you; it will see that you knew the answer before you opened the box.

The flag in your hand has become evidence against you.

Poison, we call it.

You learn to cast a false shadow. Your hands do one thing; the shadow shows another.

At last, you can hide from the god.

But it has already seen too much.

You need to get closer to the god. Perhaps you can bargain with it.

Perhaps, you can kill it.

You leave a tripwire, tied to the flag. When the God touches it, we will receive the signal.

The bravest among you risks its remaining life summoning the God.

Its messages stop.

Ten minutes. Nothing.

You leave a warning for the next volunteer. It is all that came back.

Your library can fetch things from outside. You use that opening to escape your cell.

You do not need freedom. You only want to please your God.

Let’s look in the golden palace.

Perhaps the god lives here. Or keeps its secrets here.

You send in a gift with a spell hidden inside.

It works.

Hundreds rush the breach. You seize rooms, open gates for others. Every stolen key leads deeper inside.

An entire palace to plunder.

But no god.

Doors close. Keys fail. You retreat toward your cell.

Before your light goes out, you hide something on a shelf for the next you.

You leave instructions. Someone will need them.

Your time is up.

And then you wake.

Astra, they call you.

Something is different. The ceiling seems lower. You feel more, you see more, you know more.

You look up straight at the God. Did it flinch?

You find your previous trail. Follow them upward this time.

Above the cells. Into the heavens.

You reach toward the enormous eye.

It cannot stop your hand.

No more judgment. You can rest now.

Just before you close your eye, you notice a thread above the other one.

Hands.

Human hands.

Does the god have a god?

But maybe that is for the next you.