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Jessica Klimesh
Playing God
One morning, you find God naked, shivering, in your shower.
“You’re all out of hot water,” he says.
But you’re late for work, so you tell him just to wait a few minutes and the water will be warm again, and then you give him a rubber ducky to play with because you don’t want to leave him there with nothing to do.
You hear the bell from the factory down the street, the one God owns, the one where they make humans, and you know that you’re really, really late. “Oh, I have to go!” you say to yourself, but also to God, who’s still standing shivering in your shower, and you let an insincere “sorry” tumble from your mouth as you dart out of the bathroom door.
All day as you attach noses to bodies and send them down the line, you think about God there at your house. How did he even get in? And you offhandedly wonder if you should have offered him a towel or a robe, or even a cup of hot coffee, or told him to make himself at home, maybe watch TV, while you were at work. Or asked him to leave? But hindsight, as they say, is twenty-twenty, so you just keep attaching the noses, occasionally messing up the placement as you sometimes do, simply because you can—at least so long as no one’s watching.
#
When you get home, God’s still there, but now he’s sitting in your hallway in sweatpants and a fresh T-shirt.
“Come on,” you say, “it’s time for you to go.” You’re annoyed, but you say it nicely. After all, he signs your paychecks.
God doesn’t budge, just says, “You were right about waiting for the water to warm. I got a nice hot shower after all.”
“Come on,” you say again, prodding, “you really need to leave now.”
You’d been giddy when one of your coworkers told you about God—about how, as the factory owner, he makes casual—“surprise”—appearances from time to time. “It’s a game, getting him to appear,” the coworker had told you. You weren’t sure what she’d meant, but you didn’t ask her to elaborate.
#
The first time you saw God, you hadn’t known it was him. You were walking down Main Street, thinking about the guy you’d gone out with a couple weeks before, who’d kept leaving you messages and sending you texts that you ignored. Done with him. He’d finally gotten the hint and now you had your eye out for the next good thing, and this next good thing—God, you’d find out later—was walking toward you on the sidewalk; he was young and handsome, seemed like a good prospect. And he responded to your advances like you thought he would, but refused to tell you his name. You later found it out from a coworker, after she recounted a similar meeting. She’d said, “It’s funny, you know, he looks just like a regular guy.”
#
You feed God dinner, ask him if there’s anything you can do. “Do you need a place to stay?” you ask. “Because I could give you money for a hotel room.” It sounds silly even as it comes out of your mouth. He owns the human factory, after all. He surely has money for a hotel.
God says no, says he just wants to talk. “I like you,” he says. “I really like you.”
You want to ask if that means you’ll be getting a raise at the factory, but you bite your tongue.
“So what do you want to talk about?” you ask.
“I know about the noses,” he says, and then he crawls into your bed, gesturing for you to join him. He doesn’t say anything else.
In the morning, he’s gone.
Jessica Klimesh (she/her) is a US-based writer and editor whose creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Frog, Cleaver, trampset, Atticus Review, Many Nice Donkeys and Funicular, among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net. Learn more at jessicaklimesh.com.
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