Agora kung Naki / Here and Now

Short story in English

He goes to the edge of the reservoir to meet the new god.

It is every Tuesday, at around 7pm (the earliest he has recorded is 6.23, the latest 8.15); usually, if he is feeling poetic, when the sun touches the trees behind the water’s edge, out where the mirage meets the horizon.

If not, if he is not feeling poetic, the god – he – They, he reminds himself, They want to be called Them – when the god is feeling…ready.

When They are feeling ready.

Always the reservoir. The “lake”, as the Town Council and the state would like him, and everyone else, to call it. Not the church (nor the mosque, nor the temple); are they all dead? is one of the first things he asks the new god – aiyah, you know lah, Jesus, and Buddha, and such, to which the new god replies, mirthfully, confusedly, a little belatedly, well…complicated lah. Not the stadium, or the sports complex – hold up. Why would you think the stadium, or the sports complex? They ask, and he cannot answer. Not the restaurant, or the club – ah, They say, understanding his prejudice several seconds before (or after? Time is a little strange around Them) he did, well, you need to think about what it means to be a –

“Little Eurasian man,” says the god. They are standing at the edge of the reservoir, and the edge of all the little Eurasian man has ever known; he doesn’t know why he comes back here, Tuesday after Tuesday.

Or rather, he pretends he doesn’t know.

He knows.