The God Is Dead
The end. Nietzsche said it. God is fucked. Or was it dead? Either way, the meaning pierced straight through my brain. It was a phrase that fit perfectly into my rotting, crumbling mind. All those fancy interpretations—philosophical contemplation, reflection of a chaotic era—none of that mattered. The only part I cared about was “God is dead.” When you strung the words together like that, they had this strangely delicate, bitter aftertaste.
Of course a god is omnipotent and omniscient. With a single gesture it flips heaven and earth, and with its name alone it swaps life for death. Furthermore, a god is immortal. It does not die. As a concept. As a premise. As a thesis. The very first logic that people crave, long for, and establish. But then it overturns that. It kills what cannot be killed.
In truth, the keyword “god” wasn’t even that important. I just wanted to focus on the word “dead.” There is nothing that does not die. Nothing that lasts forever. No, there is no concept that does not end. There is no conclusion that cannot be reached. Faith, too, is not eternal. It is not, and therefore it is not. That is why there is nothing that cannot die. Nothing that cannot be killed. Everything that lives dies, and even the concepts that are dead yet somehow alive—they all die in the end. Therefore, even a god dies. It must.
There is nothing that cannot be said to not exist. Isn’t that right?
The omniscient, omnipotent, immortal god eventually died by my hand. I overturned the concept, the thesis, the first logic, and did it anyway. So what about me? Why am I alive? Or was I dead? Why am I here, breathing, thinking, contemplating? How many times have I repeated these meaningless questions? For how long? And yet always so briefly.
Since the god was dead, I wanted to ask it. Well, since it was already dead I couldn’t ask, but if it died, couldn’t I just bring it back to life? A god is a god precisely because it is omnipotent. It is a god because it already knows the answer. So I simply had to ask the corpse that had lost its divinity.
“How did you die?”
[···.]
The god’s will answered the voice I had spoken aloud. In reality there was no answer, but a god has always been nothing more than a mirror for those who pray and wish. It doesn’t give answers or salvation. It simply reflects the image of me longing for an answer or salvation, and becomes intoxicated by it. What a meaningless yet meaningful paradox.
“No, I’m seriously asking. Weren’t gods supposed to never die? Weren’t they immortal? So how did you die? Come on, tell me. I really need an answer here.”
[···.]
A will expressed in periods. A question-and-answer marked with a full stop. I patted the shoulder of the body that had lost its answers and asked again.
“Yeah, is it embarrassing to say out loud? You’re a god, but you got your ass kicked and died by me, right? I won, didn’t I? So let’s have a conversation. I ask, you answer.”
[···.]
I took that as a yes. I asked the body lying beside me.
“Just a little tip for the victor. Or advice, know-how, anything. Suppose there’s someone who doesn’t die, like a god. They live far too long. They think far too long. And then they start wondering—wait, was I ever truly alive? Shouldn’t I die now? Imagine an immortal tormented by that question.”
[···.]
“When the hell does this end? How do you break the chain? How do you cut the spiral? Why can’t I stop thinking? Is the only way to finally become one of the dead?”
Mid-sentence, something I needed to do occurred to me.
“Ah, wait a sec. Let me check the gallery real quick~”
I leaned the divine corpse against my shoulder and opened the gallery where human intellect, instinct, and the swirling vortex of humanity gathered.
With a slight shift of my vision, lines of text floated up in the air. I stared at the gallery that had stopped updating over a century ago and held my breath with all my might.
“Huuuup!”
I held it until my eyeballs felt like they would pop out, until I was truly on the verge of death. Right before my body scattered into light and dust, I released my diaphragm.
“Pwah! Can’t hold it anymore!”
Whew. When I scrolled down through the posts, that was all I saw.
All of them were threads I had written. Next. Next. No matter how many times I refreshed, it was only my own posts continuing on. The Immortal Gallery that I used to open all the time. The place once overflowing with information and curses had now become nothing more than a dead gallery.
“Sigh… Back then it was at least a little lively. Guess everyone really kicked the bucket. No, not kicked the bucket—they became the dead. That’s it!”
Smack! I slapped my forehead and the word I couldn’t remember finally came to me. Ah, the dead. Yes, the dead. Right, right. I should check the gallery once in a while. Who knows when someone might drop by? Right?
Mid-thought, I realized something.
“So… it’s all over now, huh?”
I stared blankly down at the world. From the top of the Tower of Heaven, the highest point of this desolate world, the land faded by light and wind spread out below. A world surrounded by fog and the walls of a colossal waterfall. And beneath that, the ruined kingdom where desolation was wrapped in the guise of beauty. I looked down at the barren earth and kingdom where immortals flowed in at the very end.
A world with nothing left to protect. A land where every curse and shackle had boiled and settled, where it seemed no people remained. Yet sometimes beautiful scenery, adventures, and final endings waited there. As I gazed across every corner of that land, I looked down at the faint traces of memories and lives still connected.
From the peak of the ground that rose into the sky, I realized it.
“Now what?”
Huuuung. A dry wind blew past. It was the thought I had after killing the god of this land. I had believed something would change, but nothing did. I had simply absorbed the god’s ether and become more complete. Wait—what did “complete” even mean anymore? I no longer knew.
The wind tickled my cheek and hair. Suddenly a chill crept into my side. I leaned my head against the divine corpse resting on my shoulder.
“…The view here is nice. You were always looking at something like this?”
The scenery a god saw. It wasn’t all that special. And I realized that a god’s body cooled surprisingly quickly. So even gods had body heat. Then it hit me again.
Ah. It really is dead.
That’s… kind of enviable.