The Prayer Call

In an alternative reality, the concept of god was different. It was not faith-based as that civilization grew up with rationality. What are Gods doing in a reality of rationalists you may ask. Gods there, were pretty similar to the ones we have. In order to understand how Gods came into existence, we need to read about Neuvo, the first God.

When Neuvo proclaimed that he can make wonders happen, people around him laughed as required. But he eventually mastered the art of cosmic-fabric-fiddling and did godly stuff. He made people with disabilities walk, see, smell, and so on. So eventually, people from all over the world started pouring in to visit him. How many cases could he do? Whom did he prioritize? He treated the ones with the most pain or the ones who projected pain well. Through experience, His ability to solve issues scaled day by day from a few cases a day to at least a hundred a day. Which hundred among the thousands of cases caught his attention? The ones which melt his heart the most with their tears.

One day he made a prophecy that after he dies, he will be able to serve more cases every day as he mingles among the cosmic fabric itself. People killed him. He was 33 at that time. He had his hopes and love for his life. He had his crush and desire for the opposite gender. He had his plans and was pretty disappointed to die early. He did not answer thousands of prayers for days to come. Then people’s love and cry won his heart. He started answering the calls again now from anywhere the people wanted. His bandwidth increased substantially. He was able to communicate with thousands of people a day.

He as a male God had soft corners to the female prayers. The female voices usually get his attention easily. A female cry was even better. The male cry did not work and mostly made him cringe. He helped nevertheless as much as possible. How much effort did he need to put in order to fix one issue? It depends upon the complexity and familiarity of the issue. Let us see one example. A lady accused her neighbor of breaking in and stealing valuables. In such cases, Neuvo would need to get access to some past records. He then creates a profile for the accuser, accused, and relevant people. It takes immense focus and patience. It came easily to him as he was a dead man living literally in a soundless environment. When he gets to a judgment, he likes to talk to the guilty first. If the conversation goes south, he would think of alternatives. He once set a guilty’s house on fire. It took enormous effort from his side to do enormous things.

His success rate was about 80% in his cases with judgment. Once he tried to kill a guilty man and he had to end up giving up after a few attempts. He sent a snake while he was sleeping, the snake did bite but he got treated by a local village doctor. God gave him a heart attack, the same local doctor treated him again. God then tried to give him a huge loss in his business. But that man tackled that wisely. God realized that man has only his own backseat to save but God had lots of backseats to save. So God chose to move on.

Were people happy with a god to ask for help from? Things were certainly better even when his availability is always questionable. The wrongdoers had grown fear in their hearts. Whenever a wrong man dies, God comes forward and takes responsibility if it was his act. Sometimes the family members of the guilty-dead won't accept the reason. Sometimes they even have proved that the dead-guilty, in fact not guilty at all. Could God bring that man alive again? He can. It takes enormous energy to bring a dead man alive. It was cognitively almost impossible to do for him. If he did not have the time and resources to bring a non-guilty man alive, usually he asks for some time periods from the family members to bring him alive. He was an honest God. He could have just avoided taking responsibility in the first place, or kept himself from getting convinced with the proofs. But he always listens and accepts if the fault is his. The debt kept increasing.

The next man who attained this state was Muneo. He came from the same locality as Neuvo. Muneo researched the ways Neuvo learned the art of cosmic-fabric-fiddling and ended up becoming a god. He confirmed that he had access to the powers and immediately killed himself to mingle into the cosmic fabric. He revolutionalized the prayer system by introducing a prayer leaderboard. People can pray and get themselves to the top to get attended by Muneo. This technique was hugely appreciated by people all around the world as it was less messy and streamlined compared to Neuvo’s system.

Muneo had his past pains and preferences that influenced his judgment. His betrayal by his girlfriend created a long-lasting impression that women lie. He killed his girlfriend and expressed that to her family and surroundings. Muneo had low respect for women who talk with other men with their teeth showing. He brought rules to encourage discipline in women in their family lives. Most importantly Muneo was adamant in his beliefs. If he decides to kill a guilty, He will do it sooner or later. He won't get tired or bored while pursuing a target like Neuvo. Muneo was determined and just liked to be a god. He was also the one who introduced worshipping places. He liked to hear huge groups of people chanting his name together. He was certainly not a psychopath altogether. He was seen as a potential ruler who has strict beliefs. He introduced à la carte of types of worship with the associated prayer points.

While Muneo was getting more and more powerful and popular among the people. The third human named Kitaria attained that cosmic-fabric-fiddling power. Kitaria became the first female god and hence the war of gods began. Muneo set the worshipping place of Kitaria in the fire. He created a constant rainfall and a flood onto the country where Kitaria and her followers lived. Kitaria’s followers asked her to sacrifice herself into the cosmic reality to gain more power. But she trained more and more people to attain the cosmic-fiddling power. After a great deal of effort, She was able to produce two other people with the power. The trio sacrificed themselves into a fire in a gruesome manner and entered the cosmic realm.

The Trio could not find any means in the cosmic realm to fight Muneo. They could not even make him feel some pain. Muneo too was clueless about what to do with the Trio and their hatred towards his hatred towards women. It seemed complicated. Neuvo welcomed them with a warm heart and refused to help them to defeat Muneo. But he gave them valuable information that any God lives in the prayers of the followers. When there is no follower in the world praying onto a God, The god loses its necessity and vanishes away. On the other hand, the strength of a god is proportional to the number and the intensity of the prayers he/she gets. The Trio thanked the first god and devised a plan.

The initial idea was to wipe out Muneo’s followers. But they are aware that they are naive in the business and Muneo can get supremely cruel in wiping out the Trio’s followers as he was very experienced in doing that. They badly needed more subscribers from the world. So, the Trio decided to work hard to do good things for their followers. They brought prosperity to society but asked the followers to share and spread more all over the world. Muneo felt a bit relieved that Kitaria and her team did not bother him but had a keen eye on their actions. He was well aware that Kitaria and co may work on bringing up an army to wipe his followers. Muneo decided to go diplomatic with the Trio. He relaxed some harsh laws on women. He allowed women to talk with other men with their teeth shown. Things looked like in good shape. After all, the existence of gods was making the world a better place.

The neutral communities around the world were seen as free real estate by Muneo and the trio. The typical word around goes like this, a group of men approaches a community, Tells about their god, Displays a set of proofs. Muneo always shows a thunder and lightning effect in those demonstrations. The signature move of the Trio is that they laugh from the skies. Neuvo always almost stayed in the comfort of his followers' emotional prayers.

The Trio had their differences, but they wanted to stick to each other because they had their insecurities surviving alone as a god in an unknown cosmic realm. They had their upper hand in the percentage of followers compared to Neuvo and Muneo in the earth. They had a difference in opinions on whether to proceed to go ahead and destroy Muneo. They even debate a lot about morality while punishing someone. They had their priorities to which prayers to be answered first. Above all, Whether we should ban anyone else to enter the cosmic realm as there is always a threat that another psychopath may enter anytime.

The five gods arranged a meeting. Kitaria thanked Muneo for his change in personality. Neuvo too was having a good time enjoying the company with people after a long time. Neuvo generated the frequency that creates a boozy effect on everyone. Muneo enjoyed that too. Neuvo appreciated Muneo on how he could stay focussed for prolonged periods of time while dealing with cases. Muneo appreciated Neuvo for being the first man to discover the way to enter the cosmic realm. He confessed the pain in his heart about his girlfriend and how becoming a god helped him with his anxiety problems. He asked forgiveness from the ladies for the atrocities he committed towards women including burning his girlfriend alive through a lightning bolt on a perfectly sunny day. Neuvo created delicious lamb curry and rice using specific cosmic frequencies. The ladies loved it. They asked Neuvo for more dishes and enjoyed them together. It was a great fun period of time for all five of them. They decided to do it more often to relax the work pressure involved in their day job. Neuvo helped them with the tips on staying hippy on top of all the pressure.

Kitaria wanted to marry Neuvo and expressed her thoughts to the two. But the other two wanted to marry him too. The three debated over that for a while and left that for another day. After a quick nap, Kitaria found the other two missing and knew they both married Neuvo. The disappointed Kitaria went to meet them. Neuvo and his wives were celebrating in full flow. After all, Neuvo had invented new ways to get worldly pleasures in the comfort of sitting in the otherwise boring cosmic realm.

Muneo was there too inhaling a weird frequency. He expressed his wish to marry Kitaria. Kitaria said she would marry him only if Muneo brings his girlfriend back to life and let her live her full life happily without getting killed in a convenient lightning strike. She knew it would give her enough time to come up with other ideas to skip Muneo or for worse to change her mind to marry Muneo. Unhappy Muneo agreed to the deal. Neuvo raised a morality question that should the earthly family culture be maintained in this cosmic life? Should there be families and restrictions? Should there be limits for the Gods themselves? He had actually already learned that Kitaria wanted to marry him from one of his wives. Muneo and Kitaria rejected the idea. The wives of Neuvo stared at their husband with deathly cosmic rays.

Muneo spent his focus on bringing his girlfriend to life. He facilitated her marriage with a good man she liked. She thanked Muneo for everything, but he never replied to any of her prayers or compliments.

On a private meetup, Kitaria laying her head on Muneo’s shoulders expressed her fear that some psychopath may end up figuring out the whole cosmic-fabric-fiddling thing and enter this realm anytime. She also added, On worse, the psycho may also end up reaching a further upper realm which will basically downgrade the happy five from god status or even destroy the whole world. That was a lot to take for Muneo who was lost in his own thoughts. ‘I am going back to earth.’ Muneo said.

‘When will you be back?’ Kitaria asked.

‘I don't know. I don't want to be here. I want my life back on earth.’

‘Why? Are you not happy here?’ Kitaria asked lifting his chin up.

‘I’m not.’

‘Even if I marry you?’ Muneo did not get surprised by that statement.

‘Come to earth and marry me.’

They both stayed silent. Muneo stood up and walked away. Kitaria followed.

‘Let us just stay here. We have all the facilities here. We will figure out how to have children and all and maybe that will be a wonderful life.’ Kitaria said stopping him holding his shoulders.

‘I’m done with this whole thing. I’m not answering their prayers anymore. They will come to you or Neuvo anytime with prayers. When they forget me, when the last follower moves out from me, I’m going to die forever. This is a never-ending toxic cycle.’

Muneo turned into a man again back losing all his powers. His girlfriend came to visit him with her husband and a kid. Muneo enjoyed looking at the kid. ‘He looks like you when you were a kid.’ Muneo told her and smiled at the kid. ‘I wish I can go back and start over again.’

Muneo was killed by an assassin sent by the relatives of the victim who got killed by an unjust punishment by Muneo, the god. The cosmic fabric did not allow Kitaria to bring him back as his death was set to a completely justified state. She cried aloud of her incompetence. Her cry was heard throughout the earth for days. The people from most parts of the earth were clueless about the noise that continued for days. She eventually got bored of crying. She got bored of living.

She went and stayed on the earth for some time. Nothing interesting happened. She returned back to the empty cosmic realm. She expected someone else to enter the cosmic realm. That may spice things up. She badly wanted someone powerful and mad enough like Nuveo who may want to destroy everything. No one entered at all. To add oil to the fire, Muneo said they were fortunate enough to use an opening to the cosmic real that opened for a brief time. She felt trapped.

She once got a nuisance call.

‘I want two bananas.’ the person said.

‘Bananas?’ she wondered.

‘Yes. Bananas. Two bananas. How much?’

‘This is what you ask your god for?’

‘I’m sorry Kitaria. I’m already in bed. I can’t go shopping now. It’d be great if it appears on my table right now. Two bananas.’

‘Go to a god darn shop and buy them yourself stupid.’ she yelled and disconnected.

The person did not bother to get up. Two bananas appeared on his table burning. He put away the fire and ate them.

Years passed. She spent her time mostly alone or sleeping. She attended calls that were easy and reasonable for her. Usually, happy birthday wishes from the sky. ‘Happy Birthday Sam’, ‘Happy Birthday Nobita’ she kept talking from the skies. People loved the service. They pray to her, gain prayer points, and ask her to wish them from the sky. From time to time she also meets Neuvo and family and has some good time. Neuvo figured out having babies in the cosmic world. She liked playing with the kids. The kids grew up as rogue and lazy gods. Sometimes they even use foul words while answering the calls. Sadly they were the gods the people of earth had gotten. One god kid was attending a prayer call while Kitaria arrived at the place for the weekend. She was done for the week with the wishes and some birthday songs too.

‘God, I have 112 prayer points. I want to pass all the exams.’ The random kid asked.

‘Exams? Nah. That's hard.’ The rouge god kid said.

‘What?’

‘It is hard for me to do than you actually studying and passing the exam man. I don't know how to do it. I have to refer to the documentation and learn this stuff. I cant help you. You are on your own. Thank you.’

‘But the menu says prayer points for passing exams is 100? I have 112.’

‘Which menu?’

‘THE MENU!!!’

‘Okay. See, you like shooting stars? I can make one in your region. It’ll be fun.’

‘A shooting star?’

‘Yes. Do you want it or not? I gotta go.’

‘But… How big of a shooting star can you make?’

‘I can make it big enough to make you all go extinct. But I will show you a reasonable one in the north sky right at 45 degrees from the horizon. You IN or OUT?’

‘Yea… but.. but.. how would people know that it was my prayer points that I spent for the shooting star? Can you make it appear and follow me to my friends?’

‘3.. 2.. 1.. It's on. Zrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!’ The god kid hung up the phone.

Kitaria laughed and pinched his cheeks. The kid who lost 112 prayer points for a shooting star came out running crying ‘My prayer points!!! My 112 hours of emotional prayers!!!’