Mice Among Ants

A long time ago, more than 100 years before the great emperor Constantine converted, monotheists were in an incredibly limited number. They talked of how the deities the people worshipped didn’t have a drop of divinity, but what if I tell you that one of those deities said the same?

For starters in this world all the “gods” in all pantheon are immortal because they consume a specific thing that makes them immortal for a limited time, each pantheon uses the immortal secret formula differently, some do it as food, drinks or else.

It all started in the realm of the Duat. The Duat is a place where the ground is darker than a winter night; this was not a problem because, much like the yet-to-come city of Venice, no one walked in the Duat. Visitors or locals had to drive barques or kayaks for transportation. The Duat’s sky was a dark shade of orange with leaves for stars and worms and other underground living insects for birds, and every once in a while a blind mole rat makes it to the Duat, but the Duat’s sky was barely visible because of the lack of light. In the Duat lived the “god” Anubis; he was the lord of mummification, keeper of the scales, and the last face a person would see. The sinful would see his face with horror, while the noble looked with pride at him in their last seconds. He had the head of an Egyptian jackal except he had black fur and sparking white eyes. Anubis had a problem; like all of us, he had to hand in his papyrus work to Wsyr (also known as Osiris by the Greek “gods”). Wsyr is his boss, king of the afterlife, second only to Ra for he was his vizier, and he was the former agriculture god, though no one knows why he is no longer god of agriculture. And he needed to have all the papyrus-work to hand out for the Mediterranean-Queen. And he raised Anubis as one of his own ever since he was abandoned by his mother at a really young age. Anubis realized there was a file missing about high priests who died this week. Anubis knew it would not be tolerable since that file was important, so he asked Thoth to go get the files from his office.

Thoth is the “god” of alphabets, mathematics, wisdom, time, and the moon. Thoth hade the head of an ibis. He speaks like your average nerd, and he has a nasal voice; his feathers were greenish-blue, his eyes were lime green and he had a blue beak. Thoth accepted to go get the file. The office’s walls were drab beige; soulless writing and drawings were sculpted on the walls and in the furniture, and there were about four wall sconces. There was no roof but too many stairs. Anubis told him it would be on the first shelf at the left of his bureau and gave him his office’s keys. Thoth went to Anubis’s office to get the file and found it on the first shelf at the left of the desk, as Anubis said it would be. There were not many high priests who died this week, so the files were light—so light that the file flew from Thoth’s winglet because of the wind.

The celestial, supposedly all-knowing beings who lived in the Duat did not know where the wind came from in this realm; it was a natural (or possibly artificial) effect.

The wind carried the file all the way under Anubis’s desk. Thoth bent down to get the files from under the desk, unaware that the files won’t be the only thing he will retrieve from there. As he pulled the files, his primary feathers felt other papers down there; he took those mysterious scrolls as well from under the desk. His curiosity persuaded him to open the scroll. Inside the scroll was a bundle of papyrus wrapped around an orange sheet; the papyruses were pink. “(C) SF-703” was written above the title of the cover sheet; the title on the cover sheet was “Death-Analysis,” which was above the stamp saying “Top Secret.” (Of course, all this text is written in hieroglyphics, the language Thoth understands and the majority of my dear readers don’t). Thoth cried in horror when he saw what was inside the papyrus! It had documents that suggested that Wsyr died; a divine immortal being’s soul left his body before he was resurrected. This meant Wsyr and all of them, maybe even Ra, were mortal! He went back home completely forgetting about Anubis’s high priest files.

The following day, all the deities from the Ennead and other families were gathered in a meeting set by Thoth. ”Why do you think Thoth gathered us?” Horus asked. “I do not know, but it better be worth it because I will bust his mandible later!” Anubis replied. Anubis was angry because Thoth did not give him the files he needed, this made him look bed in front of Osiris and Anubis doth not like looking bad infront of anyone.

”My fellow deities! I have a great interrogative phrase for you!” Thoth said. “What makes us divine?” The other “gods” started throwing their opinions, like “because of our great power” or “because of the noble work we do for humanity,” so Thoth asked another question; he asked what makes them different from the powerful waves of the sea that could crush a pharaoh.

Wsyr approached, then replied, “The waves of the sea will dry out, but we are the endless.”

Wsyr’ skin is green and hade a inconsistent pattern of stitches.

”If what you say is the antonym of deceptive, Your Honor, how did you die?”

The whole gathering was triggered; Wsyr tried to reply quickly, but he was too shocked to speak; he kept starting words and ending them at the second letter. Anubis started to cry, then snarled and started to quietly growl.

“I am right in front of you,” Wsyr said.

“You were resurrected by your spouse, Aset.” (Aset is also known as Isis by the Greek “gods.”) Thoth answered.

“What’s your point?” Wsyr said with a concerned expression.

“If you expired, sir, then this signifies we are mortal; we could decease much like the homo-sapiens!”

“Out of the question! We are gods! We walk on the sky. It is a big problem if you don’t think so, if you don’t feel divine!”

“But our phenotypic traits do not give empirical data of our eternity; even the relatively strong Panthera leo leo deteriorates and I prognosticate global extinction in about a thousand Alexandrian years, or 8,760,000 hours to be precise.”

“I thought you were better than this,” Wsyr said.

“Do you have any argument to deny this theory, sir?” Thoth asked.

“Of course you are wrong!” Wsyr said with authority. “You want the Egyptians to become atheists; you are what the prophecy warned us about!”

Wsyr left, uninterested in Thoth’s reply.

He asked Anubis to come to his office a few hours later. Anubis had his ears down as he looked to the floor.

“How did Thoth learn about my death?” Wsyr asked, looking very

“I don’t know, Wsyr?” Anubis answered.

“Well, this is not going well,” said Wsyr. “It could be a great threat if one of us does not believe he is a god; he might neglect his duties. Humans cannot be independent of us or else the prophecy will be fulfilled!”

In Egypt the deities believe in a prophecy where humans abandon there gods just like what happened to the jewfish gods, who weren’t seen for centuries.

“Well, you could tell Ra about this,” Anubis said. He was no longer sad; he had a smile on his face as he proposed. ”He is your great-grandfather, after all.

“You are right,” Wsyr said after a little time of consideration. “Let’s go to him.”

Wsyr and Anubis entered to the chariot that was pulled by Abis, Wsyr’s trusty bull. The chariot took off to “the sun.”

Meanwhile, back in the sky-world, Thoth was taking his wife’s advice. The sky-world was filled with blue sand and white or light grey rocks. The deities could see outer space from here. There were two famous mountains called The Buttocks Twins; behind these two mountains lived the happy, honored souls in the fields of reeds. Ma’at was his wife; she was the “goddess” of universal balance. He told her how hopeless his situation was and why he thought he was certainly right.

“You’re correct. Wsyr’s death proves we are not gods, and therefore people should not worship us; but you have to understand that people have been worshiping us for centuries, so making such a change will take a long time for the deities to adapt. Wsyr’s reaction today was a natural and understandable reaction.”

“So how should I start working on a future where homo-sapiens and celestial beings could worship whatever the supreme power turns out to be?” Thoth asked before he started to puzzle through this irritating matter. “I got it! The UDN yearly gathering is in two days! If I could present valid evidence for why I believe we are mortal, I will make a huge step forward,” Thoth enthusiastically said as he looked excitingly to his wife.

“I have an idea,” his wife said. “Remember Aton?”

“The Artificial Divinity? Isn’t he annihilated?”

“No, he was too powerful. The Ennead decided to contain him in a temple; it’s in Akhetaton.”

“Oh grace, my dear Nelumbo nucifera!”

“Good luck, honey!”

Before I continue with the story I must tell you about Aton. Aton is an AD, or artificial divinity; he was created by the “gods” about 1,500 years ago; he was the conclusion of all their intelligence forged as one entity. But he claimed that there were no gods; after five years of his creation, the gods imprisoned him in a temple.

Thoth descended to the human world, in Akhetaton; it was filled with broken or dirty statues of Akhenaten. Thoth entered the abandoned temple. The temple had many statues with sanded faces and broken limbs, and many sculptures in the wall had Ra sculpted on them, but you could still see the silhouette of what was sculpted there before; some had a human/divine silhouette and some had strange silhouettes. The temple was covered in dust; it was also a cockroach sanctuary. But deep in the temple was a great pedestal with a glowing glass ball. According to Ma’at, in this ball Aton was imprisoned. The pedestal was no smaller than a maqet. Thoth climbed the pedestal and reached the ball. Thoth grabbed the ball and threw it to the ground with violence. This was the first time Thoth reacted violently.

From the shatters of the glass ball arose a red smoke followed by the appearance of Aton, who is way larger than the glass ball; he was almost as tall as Thoth. He looked like a shiny, glowing polished ruby in Zoisite towers, covered in thin, thick black straight unbendable tentacles that grew taller every time he spoke or thought. At the end of each tentacle was the immortality key or the head of a serpent.

“Mh, uh, words, uh, I am liberated… by… by, by Thoth?” Aton said. “Interesting. Why would he liberate me? According to my previous calculations, there is a 53% chance humanity’s brilliance will create something that will start the last hours of life, and the deities will be so desperate they will liberate me to save the world! Isn’t that right?”

“What! Negative. That’s not why I discharged you. But what you just said won’t materialize, right?"

“Sure. Well then, this is improbable, but there was an 18% chance that the characters of the O.M.A.R. short stories discover that there is no free will and everything that we say and do, including what I am saying right now, is written by some guy named Omar!”

“Negative!”

“Then I do not know why you liberated me. Why did you? Do you intend to tell me?”

“I discharged you so you are capable of telling me…” Thoth said before starting to think. “Do you have proof of our mortality?”

“Ah, so you finally come to admit. Good job.”

“So?”

“Well, humans worship deities for three reasons: they believe we are all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-right. I don’t need to tell you why we are not all-right—you have the Greek mythology for that—and you have come to discover about all this now, so you are most certainly not all-knowing.” Aton pauses for a few seconds. “You know the Ragnarok? After the tragic events of 120, the other deities lied! They said many gods and goddesses died because there was a shortage in the apples of Idun, but I have forensic evidence that proves otherwise!”

Ragnarok was an estimation-level event that happened in 120, killing many in the nine realms of King Odin.

A new tentacle came out of Aton holding a vial with a red liquid in it. “This is what remains of Odin. There is not much that remains from him because Fenrir made a number on him, but according to this blood, Odin was in his divine state at the moment of death.”

“This is the optimal evidence!”

“You might hurry; the UDN assembly is in a few days according to my date database.”

The United Divine Nations is an organization made by the third generation of “gods” (Ra, Uranus, Tiamut, Apsu, Anu) to prevent a celestial war from ever happening. If you wonder, the third generation of gods are the children of Löwenmensch; Löwenmensch is the oldest known “god,” but divine historians agree there was a generation before him.

The time came. It was the UDN reunion. It was in the headquarters of the UDN, Olympus. The UDN meeting room was huge; it had oval-shaped windows and ceramic art of Olympus’s history. There was a portrait of an emperor being pulled to the sky; there was also the portrait of a warrior fighting an old bearded man. All the mythology representatives were here in their exaggeratedly long podiums, and in the center was the podium of the ruler of Olympus, the mightiest deity in the lands; it was the one and only ZZZZZZ_zapping Juno (also known as Hera)! She hade a great and tall swagger stick and the crown of Olympus in her head.

“Greetings gods and goddesses, so shall we start?”

Wsyr walked into the room.

“So did you speak to Ra?” Horus asked. “Oh, I spoke to him,” Wsyr replied.

“The Egyptian pantheon appreciates the support from the Roman Empire,” Wsyr said.

“Though we would like to expand the Isea in the lands to make other Egyptian gods worshiped again, preferably a temple of Ra.”

“This will be discussed by the Roman board, but it is highly possible, Vizier Osiris. The ruling Roman pantheon would like to announce that Saturnalia is planned to be renamed Cerealia!”

“May I speak, Your Lordship?” Ahura Mazda asked. Ahura Mazda was the king of the sacred fire and all deities in Persian mythology.

“You may speak, rex regum Ahura Mazda,” Hera said coldly. It is to be acknowledged that the Persian empire was at war with the Roman empire at the time.

“The belief in one god is progressively growing in the Roman Empire; my people and I believe the headquarters of the UDN should change its location.”

“You are right; we should find another all-influential and territorially expanding divine nation that the whole plane knows about, oh, I forgot, there isn’t!” Hera sarcastically said.

“We do not have a problem if the UDN’s headquarters is in Tian,” said the Jade Emperor of China.

“Can we change the subject?” Hera said.

“I would most certainly want to speak of a new subject,” Thoth said. “Did you know that the psychoactive substance we all take to persist our immortality won’t preclude our necrosis?”

The room was shocked. Osiris smirked for an unknown reason.

“Do you have any proof?” Hera asked in a serious tone.

“Yes, I actually do possess evidence for what I speak,” Thoth said before showing the whole room the vial of blood. “This, ladies and lords, is Odin’s blood, and I possess forensic evidence that Odin was in his divine metastable state when he was ingested!” Thoth said.

After a few minutes of silence, Hermes, the “god” of travelers, communication, mail and criminals and most notably the messenger of gods, said, “But how can you tell if this is truly Odin’s blood? It could be any wounded god’s blood. In fact, you could have put the divinity in his blood after he was devoured; you could have forged these forensic papers!”Hermes looked like a unthful man, he hade boots made of leopard skin and dove’s wings came out of it, he wore orange fabric, he held his caduceus and wore his petasus that did not fully cover his brown curly hair , he also wore a brown leather mail satchel.

(Only the wings that came out of his boots were actual wings, the wings in his petasus and his caduceus were simply iron forged to be chapped like wings, though in the caduceus the wings could articulate and they were painted.)

“My evidence is primary. Besides, if this god had a laceration or was exterminated by a homicide, it would not make a difference. Both cases contradict the divinity you claim.”

“Don’t get too philosophical, muchacho!” a deity named Reue said.

“Let’s call a witness,” Thoth said after taking a deep breath.

Suddenly, a podium with a witness came from thin air; it was one of the advantages of being among them, that you could do anything anytime.

The witness was pale and extremely skinny. You could see his skull when you looked at his face. His eyes were barely attached to his sockets. He had shattered, dusty pirate clothes. He almost had no teeth and his hair was long and curly. His eyes were as white as snow and he stinks. He was an undead, or as the people of the 20th and 21st century would say, he was a zombie.

“So, you were part of the Naglfar crew?” Hermes said. The Naglfar is a boat made of nothing but human nails that was captained by Loki in Ragnarok.

“Ay,” the witness said.

“And you witnessed King Odin’s death?” Hermes said.

“Ay,” the witness said once again.

“So did you see anyone body-snatching any blood sample from Odin?”

“I… I did not!”

“There, gods and goddesses, I caught this swan red-handed.”

“Oh, don’t nomenclature me 'swan,' Loki rip-off,” Thoth said.

“I am not a Loki rip-off!” Hermes shouted. “I had the flying boots way before him!”

“Enough!” Hera said

“May I speak to the witness?” Thoth asked.

“Go ahead,” Hermes said, eyes facing the ground angrily.

“Most of the warriors in Ragnarok died; how did you survive?” Thoth asked.

“Uhm, Ich konnte fliehen, nachdem Loki wegen des Weißen Mannes gestorben war!” the witness said.

“Do we have any German-Latin translator?” Hermes projected.

“I—I can translate,” Vidar said. He was the only son of Odin who did not leave the room from how disturbing the subject was because he was the one who avenged him; this makes sense because he is the “god” of vengeance

“He said he retreated when Heimdall—he, when Heimdall killed Loki,” Vidar said.

“Well then, can you recognize the phot—I mean this sculpture in this rock?” Thoth asked.

The witness said, “Nay.”

“See! This sculpture was sculpted hours after Odin’s death; this means he did not stay for long in the battlefield, so someone could have collected the samples after!”

“Someone like you?” Apollo asked. He was the “god” of many things: music, poetry, archery, healing, swans, and he was the writer of prophecies.

“Uhm, no?” Thoth said as he started to sweat.

“Uh, I see. So if I may ask, did you witness the person taking the sample?” Hermes asked.

“I—I did not, I did not,” Thoth said, still sweating.

“How did they get the sample?” Hermes asked.

“I—I got it from, uh, from someone,” Thoth said as he continued to sweat.

“Who!” Hermes shouted.

“From Aton!” Thoth said, now tearing up.

“Aton?” Hermes asked as he chuckled. “But Aton was locked up since 1,500 years ago; it would be impossible for him to collect the so-called Odin’s blood. I accuse you of fraud! And my I say, we should stop toxic divinity, just because we are gods it doesn’t mean we have to stand to those expectations we don’t have to follow the stereotypical ideology of what is a god any one could be a god if he wants.” Hermes shouted.

“This is not about toxic devinity this is about faulse advertisement.”

“That’s all for today,” Hera said. “I have heard enough.”

As the board talked of a different subject, a group of cyclopses kicked Thoth out. After he was kicked out, he confronted Aton. “How did you get the sample?” Thoth asked him. Aton said someone left it at his temple when he was trapped, but when Thoth asked him who, Aton would tell him he didn’t know. Aton was scared and Thoth was angry. “I shouldn’t have trusted you!” he said before leaving him and walking away.

Thoth walked around Olympus disappointed. Olympus’s ground was composed of clouds, so Thoth’s legs kept getting wetter as he walked. His depressed state was interrupted by a Pegasus! It landed right in front of him; Thoth understood from its concerned eyes that it wanted to take him somewhere. Thoth sat on the Pegasus’s back. The Pegasus flew all over Greece until it landed in a city of ruin. The buildings were destroyed; Thoth saw many ashy skeletons in this destruction once called a city; he saw the skeletons of fathers holding their babies, of old people, of soulmates holding hands. The Pegasus landed in the sand; Thoth understood he had arrived.

He followed Pegasus; the sun was setting. He did not know he was being observed by a deity of exceptional night vision. He entered a palace that looked no different from an anthill. As he walked, he literally felt a zap of lightning in the ground. He climbed the abandoned broken stairs and entered the chamber at the top of the palace. When he opened the door, the doors fell. And he saw who this palace belonged to; it all made sense now… it was Lycaon! He was a king who was turned into a wolf many years ago as punishment for his sin. He looks like he got used to being a wolf. He had weird rectangle-shaped glasses in front of his eyes, and he stood on two feet by holding onto the table with his front two feet.

“Hello, my dear new friend,” the wolf said.

“What do you want from me, Lycaon?”

“What I want from you? I just want you to wait here until the big man shows up.”

“The big man?”

“Yes. The big man. Let me explain to you. You see, beneath the gods, there is a community of conspiracists who renounce the Olympians as gods. We all paid a price: Atlantis sank, my kingdom was destroyed, Bellerophon broke his back and became blind, and most of the apostles were killed. You see, we are all victims; we just thought, and we paid much for—”

“You are being deceptive. You did not 'just think.' You turned your son into a five-star dinner steak for Zeus to repast. You committed homicide and then call yourself a victim?”

“Perhaps you are right,” he said.

Suddenly, an old blind man walked with a cane into the room; he was being helped by his wife to walk. He was Bellerophon! He is the big man.

“So you’re the god that admits he is not a god. Well, someone wants your help.”He said.

“You are Bellerophon, I cognize your legends but then again I thought you are wondering the earth in solitarily.

“Well after my accident, my wife Phillonoe took care of me. If is wasn’t for her I’d be eating own my soul by now.”

“How do you knew about what I said in the UDN conference?” Thoth asked

“We use Pegasus to spy on the gods and make sure the atlanteans aren’t discovered.” Bellerophon answered.

Suddenly, a middle-aged woman entered the room. She was wearing a really long blue dress with two large, oval tortoise brooches that fastened her shoulder straps, connected by a chain or string of amber; she had a golden belt with keys attached to it. She had a drop spindle in her hand that had a huge spindle whorl. And she had a golden headband on her head. It was Frigg, Odin’s widow, mother of king Baldur!

“The nine realms need you,” she said.

TO BE CONTINUED!

By Omar Sohail Mayada