Small Gods

A careful arrangement of sticks had been constructed around them. Bits of thin wood shadowed some parts of the rocks. Small metal mirrors directed sunlight towards other areas. Paper cones at odd angles appeared to be funnelling the breeze to very precise points.

Brutha had never heard about the art of bonsai, and how it was applied to mountains.

‘They’re … very nice,’ he said uncertainly.

Nod, smile, pick up a small rock, smile, urge, urge.

‘Oh, I really couldn’t take—’

Urge, urge. Grin, nod.

Brutha took the tiny mountain. It had a strange, unreal heaviness — to his hand it felt like a pound or so, but in his head it weighed thousands of very, very small tons.

‘Uh. Thank you. Thank you very much.’

Nod, smile, push away politely.

‘It’s very … mountainous.’

Nod, grin.

‘That can’t really be snow on the top, can—’

‘Brutha!’

His head jerked up. But the voice had come from inside.

Oh, no, he thought wretchedly.

He pushed the little mountain back into Lu-Tze’s hands.

‘But, er, you keep it for me, yes?’

‘Brutha!’

All that was a dream, wasn’t it? Before I was important and talked to by deacons.

‘No, it wasn’t! Help me!’

The petitioners scattered as the eagle made a pass over the Place of Lamentation.

It wheeled, only a few feet above the ground, and perched on the statue of Great Om trampling the Infidel.

It was a magnificent bird, golden-brown and yellow-eyed, and it surveyed the crowds with blank disdain.

‘It’s a sign?’ said an old man with a wooden leg.

‘Yes! A sign!’ said a young woman next to him.

‘A sign!’

They gathered around the statue.

‘It’s a bugger,’ said a small and totally unheard voice from somewhere around their feet.

‘But what’s it a sign of?’ said an elderly man who had been camping out in the square for three days.

‘What do you mean, of? It’s a sign!’ said the wooden-legged man. ‘It don’t have to be a sign of anything. That’s a suspicious kind of question to ask, what’s it a sign of.’

‘Got to be a sign of something,’ said the elderly man. ‘That’s a referential wossname. A gerund. Could be a gerund.’

A skinny figure appeared at the edge of the group, moving surreptitiously yet with surprising speed. It was wearing the djeliba of the desert tribes, but around its neck was a tray on a strap. There was an ominous suggestion of sticky sweet things covered in dust.

‘It could be a messenger from the Great God himself,’ said the woman.

‘It’s a bloody eagle is what it is,’ said a resigned voice from somewhere among the ornamental bronze homicide at the base of the statue.

‘Dates? Figs? Sherbets? Holy relics? Nice fresh indulgences? Lizards? Onna stick?’^{15} said the man with the tray hopefully.

‘I thought when He appeared in the world it was as a swan or a bull,’ said the wooden-legged man.

‘Hah!’ said the unregarded voice of the tortoise.

‘Always wondered about that,’ said a young novice at the back of the crowd. ‘You know … well … swans? A bit … lacking in machismo, yes?’

‘May you be stoned to death for blasphemy!’ said the woman hotly. ‘The Great God hears every irreverent word you utter!’

‘Hah!’ from under the statue. And the man with the tray oiled forward a little further, saying, ‘Klatchian Delight? Honeyed wasps? Get them while they’re cold!’

‘It’s a point, though,’ said the elderly man, in a kind of boring, unstoppable voice. ‘I mean, there’s something very godly about an eagle. King of birds, am I right?’

‘It’s only a better-looking turkey,’ said the voice from under the statue. ‘Brain the size of a walnut.’

‘Very noble bird, the eagle. Intelligent, too,’ said the elderly man. ‘Interesting fact: eagles are the only birds to work out how to eat tortoises. You know? They pick them up, flying up very high, and drop them on to the rocks. Smashes them right open. Amazing.’

‘One day,’ said a dull voice from down below, ‘I’m going to be back on form again and you’re going to be very sorry you said that. For a very long time. I might even go so far as to make even more Time just for you to be sorry in. Or … no, I’ll make you a tortoise. See how you like it, eh? That rushing wind around y’shell, the ground getting bigger the whole time. That’d be an interesting fact!’

‘That sounds dreadful,’ said the woman, looking up at the eagle’s glare. ‘I wonder what passes through the poor little creature’s head when he’s dropped?’

‘His shell, madam,’ said the Great God Om, trying to squeeze himself even further under the bronze overhang.

The man with the tray was looking dejected. ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘Two bags of sugared dates for the price of one, how about it? And that’s cutting my own hand off.’

The woman glanced at the tray.

‘’Ere, there’s flies all over everything!’ she said.

‘Currants, madam.’

‘Why’d they just fly away, then?’ the woman demanded.

The man looked down. Then he looked back up into her face.

‘A miracle!’ he said, waving his hands dramatically. ‘The time of miracles is at hand!’

The eagle shifted uneasily.