The Moon

The moon no longer resides in the sky.
She came down a long time ago seeking freedom,
seeking friendship and connection,
and found a world colder than the nothingness
she’d been living in for millennia.
So she found a place where she can fly past her old abode
and see the stars and distant planets.
She’s on every spaceship off the Earth,
even if you can’t see her.
See that shadow in the window?
Or the smudged fingerprints on the glass?
Save a seat for her
because the universe is always changing
and she has an eternity to explore it.

The Sun

The sun is like a firework,
burning fast and bright and beautiful
before disappearing forever.
Behind every celebrity who shoots to fame,
He’s right there, enjoying the rush it gives him.
Do you ever get the feeling you should
jump out of your seat right now
and go and change the world?
That’s the Sun, breathing life into your spirit.
And although the energy may not last,
the feeling will and you should pursue it
because if he chose you then you must be a very special person indeed.
Unlike his sister the Moon, the sun is not immortal.
He knows someday his flame will burn out,
leaving behind a dark hold in our corner of the universe.
But he is still young and carefree,
just focused on spreading his light
everywhere he can.

The Stars

The stars are the most common of the gods.
You can find them everywhere,
spreading hope and light and kindness
everywhere they go.
That stranger you overheard the other day
giving someone else directions that just so happened
to also get you where you need to go?
That was a star who saw you were lost
and helped guide you back home.
The stars can commonly be found as guides,
shining light on on previously unseen things,
or as pilots and automobile drivers,
always guiding people to where they need to go.
But mostly they just travel the world,
tracing the same route year after year,
looking for people who need a little guidance,
and they help them as best they can
before moving on.

Mother Earth

Mother Earth has been around since nearly the beginning of time –
she is the mother of everything, after all.
She roams her lands as a woman,
old and dark skinned
wearing a rippling green dress and flowers in her hair.
She leaves her footprints in the soil
and everywhere she steps, flowers and trees and grasses bloom.
She tries to keep her lands green and plentiful,
walking every day without rest,
but the machines work faster than she ever could,
tearing her land to shreds.
Every year, the light in her eyes seems a little dimmer.
Her voice is heard in the call of the youth,
pleading with the government,
“Please stop destroying
the only planet we have,”
but the old men in their big white buildings
hiding behind their armies of assistants
refuse to hear as they pass another bill.
Another forest is destroyed.
Mother Earth should be immortal,
but as the months pass, 
as the colors fade from her dress
and the flowers fall from her hair,
she knows if something doesn’t change soon,
it is only a matter of time before she is lost for good.
A single tear rolls down her cheek
as another field is turned to cement.

The Ocean

The ocean is angry.
She has been angry for a long time.
She is weighed down by all the trashing clinging to her,
chaining her to the sea floor.
Sometimes she can walk along the shore,
the hem of her dress blending into the water,
but that is as far as she can go
before her chains of plastic drag her back to her watery domain.
When she walks along the beach,
her feet always in the water,
she looks like a young woman,
with long wavy hair and a dress of the clearest blue.
But if you ever get the change to look closer,
you will see her eyes are filled with a centuries-old fire.
She is filled with anger for all her creatures she has lost
to the cruelty of humankind,
with their boats and weapons and trash.
She has vowed revenge and now
fewer and fewer ships can pass through her waters unharmed.
She weeps for every creature lost,
every species gone extinct
and sometimes she cannot hold back her anger
and she lets her fury loose,
sending crashing walls of water onto the human cities,
trying desperately to reclaim what was once hers.
The humans learn to fear her,
but they never stop and she doesn’t know how else to tell them
she could be so kind if they would just
stop. 
But as you walk behind her on the you beach
you would know none of this.
In fact, you would never know
she is anything but human
until you realize she doesn’t leave a single footprint in her wake.

Life and Death

Life and Death walk hand-in-hand.
They are in love, though they seem opposite in every way –
dark versus light,
tears versus joy,
love versus pain.
But opposites attract and all that,
and anyway, tears can come from joy or sadness
and a single lantern on a dark street
can mean safety or danger depending on the circumstances.
So I suppose Life and Death are not so different after all.
But as I said, they always come as a pair.
They can often be seen wandering graveyards,
Death honoring each tombstone
while Life makes flowers bloom over the graves.
Life and Death were the first ones on this Earth
and they will be the last ones here as well.
They live a lonely life,
for not even another immortal wants to run the risk
of crossing paths with Death,
but neither mind because they have each other,
and that will always be enough.
Life enjoys creating new creatures so one day
Death will receive her gift
and Death enjoys burying Life’s gifts in the ground
to in turn give life to something new and beautiful.
Do not go searching for Life and Death.
If you want to meet them, just keep living
and they will find you.
After all, they were there when you were born
and they will be there when you die,
just as they have been for every creature
since the beginning of time.

Love

It is impossible to describe Love.
Love is ever-changing, ever-shifting.
If fits no one label, fills no single box.
Love lives in everyone, a piece whose jagged edges
are shaped and molded by the world around them
until they find another edge that fits perfectly.
Love is patient, refusing to accept “good enough” –
it will not stop until it finds its perfect fit.
There is not a lot to say about Love.
It is a child of Life and Death,
and yet does not belong to a single form.
This god is more a feeling –
a glint in a child’s eye
as she invents new games to play with her siblings.
The first spark of recognition between two people
who are meant to spend the rest of their lives together,
the first time their eyes meet.
The warmth that comes from the first time a mother holds her child,
and that inexplicable feeling that comes from every time after that.
Love is not in the air or the ground or the sky –
they are gods and therefore have
little need for that most human of emotions.
Love lives in humans,
fluttering between the heartbeats of a moment,
content to sit back and watch
until it is its turn to change the world.

War (a story in three parts)

1. War comes in two forms – the Beginning and the End.
The Beginning takes the form of a young child dressed all in white,
innocent to the ways of the world.
Sometimes he holds a ball, or some other toy to play with,
and at first glance you might mistake him for Life if you didn’t know better.
But Life walks hand-in-hand with Death
and even Death turns his head when he sees the Beginning pass by.
The Beginning is unsuspecting, uninteresting.
It is a child, living a normal child’s life
full of laughter and fun and games.
If you see the Beginning coming towards you,
turn and run the other way.
If you don’t,
if the Beginning passes you,
you will see in its footsteps
the blood of the coming war.

2. There is no god of war because war is a creation of men. The Beginning and the End are really the gods of choices and consequences, though they have come to be associated with war because what bigger choice and consequence is there than one concerning the lives of billions?

3. The End is the oldest person you will ever see.
After all, consequences have been around since the beginning of time.
The End walks with a back so hunched
its nose nearly touches the ground,
its spine bent from the weight of every wrong decision it carries.
Humans so rarely make the right decision
and it is there every single time.
It walks in the footsteps of the Beginning,
though the two will never meet.
The End’s face is deeply carved with lines,
though it is impossible to tell whether they are from age
or old wounds.
The End knows the habits of humans,
knows that with every step he takes,
his back will only become more bent.
Yet he continues walking,
hoping someday someone might make the right choice,
the kind choice,
and maybe just a little bit of his burden will be lifted.

Air

Air is another god taking the form of a child.
She runs through open meadows,
laughing as the tall grass flicks at her skin.
But suddenly a snake jumps out
and sinks its fangs into her ankle
and she screams.
The sky turns dark and her form dissolves into mist
as the wind whips the field and the unfortunate snake
until nothing is left but broken pieces of grass.
She runs along the beach on a clear, cloudless day
until a crab pinches her toe and she throws it at a rock in anger,
killing it instantly.
The Ocean is angered at that and the two yell at each other,
the argument so powerful their combined domains level entire cities.
The air has a temper, yes, but she can also be sweet at times.
The colorful flowers in the meadows delight her
and she carries their seeds to far away lands
so she may look at them wherever she is.
The movement of the birds bring her joy to watch
so she sends gusts of wind to support their wings
as they soar through her skies.
The Air was one of the first gods
and yet she is still one of the youngest.
She pays no heed to the humans,
even as they fill her lungs with smog and pollution –
she doesn’t much like them so
why should she have to spend time around them?
But someday when her winds are no longer clear
and the birds are nowhere to be seen,
she will have to grow up.  

Father Time

Father Time is old.
I know I’ve said lots of the gods are old
but few show it so much as Father Time.
He was the first god,
the first being in creation.
Now he lives on the Earth as an old man,
a long white beard and bushy hair concealing
dark, all-knowing eyes filled with pain
for everything he’s witnessed.
This is a god who has seen everything –
the dawn of the universe,
the first creatures,
the birth of humans,
and everything they’ve done since.
Every other god is descended from him
and he feels all their pain too.
The humans always say they need more time
to do more things
but why should he give it to them
when all they will use it for
is to destroy more of his children and grandchildren?
He knows not all of the humans are bad
but it’s too hard to tell the good from the bad
and he’s so tired anyway
so what’s the point?
He is old and powerless to stop the destruction of his family
so he just stay in his cabin in the forest,
watching as the trees and plants grow around him and hoping,
if he just holds out a little longer,
tomorrow he can begin to heal.

Roads

The god of roads has never had a home.
He is always on top of the latest forms of travel.
At first he just walked,
then bikes and carriages,
then automobiles.
He flew a plane for a while
but that was too impersonal.
Now he drives a Taxi,
always seeming to appear just where he’s needed
in any city across the world.
When you get in his Taxi,
the radio is always set to the perfect station,
the seats adjusted to the perfect height.
He can talk about anything
though if you don’t respond to his offer of conversation,
expect a bumpy and unpleasurable ride.
He loves to converse with strangers,
collecting stories that he writes down at the end of the day
in a little book that never seems to run out of pages.
If asked for directions,
he can always tell you exactly how to get somewhere,
but know everything he does comes with a price.
Every taxi ride or question answered comes with a choice –
a story or a kiss.
Long nights on the road can get lonely, after all.

Music

Music is one of Road’s most frequent passengers.
She’s the only one allowed to sit in the passenger’s seat,
singing along to the music at the top of her lungs.
Every time she gets in the taxi,
she carries a different instrument,
traveling from show to show
but never getting tired.
Her face is young and her eyes dance
even when her body is still
which is almost never –
There is always a foot tapping
or a hand conducting a melody only she can hear.
She plays with jazz bands at local bars,
blowing on the saxophone like it’s a part of her,
and sits in the first row of the orchestra,
playing hour-long symphonies with her eyes closed the entire time,
letting the music soak into her bones.
She teaches music lessons,
free for any students that can get an instrument –
the world is too gray and boring now she thinks
and she doesn’t need the money.
Her only goal is to add a little color back to people’s lives.
The other gods frown at her,
condemning her for being so friendly with the humans,
but she can see what they cannot –
most humans are not bad,
they are just trying to survive, same as her family.
It’s the ones who condemn music and art who are the ones killing everything
and she hates them as much as the other gods.
But why should she stop bringing light to the good ones’ lives?
Isn’t that what gods are for in the first place?

Wealth

Wealth hasn’t spoken to his family in centuries.
Gods don’t easily cast out one of their own
but when Wealth encouraged the greedy humans to continue to take
and never to give back,
when his actions began to hurt his family
and he refused to turn from his path,
they cast him out for good.
Now he spends his days confined to perfectly-fitted suits,
looking down on the world from tall buildings,
his bank accounts full of more money than everyone in the city below
owns combined.
He checks the thick gold watch on his wrist –
his next meeting is late and he is annoyed.
He has his hands in everything,
attending meetings around the world with other rich men
wearing suits just like his.
He won’t even talk to someone with less than a million in the bank,
and enjoys planting the seed of greed in the minds of the men he meets with,
always offering them just enough money
to keep them coming back to him for more.
He lets them think they will be as rich as him some day
while he quietly pays their assistants
to move their money into his account after meetings.
The humans are so rich
they will never notice.
He thinks of his family rarely now
and even then only in pity.
What good is love and music and travel?
You cannot spend that.
Someday they will realize the most important thing in the world is money
and then they’ll forgive him.

Family

The god of Family is neither young nor old.
She spends most of her time at a small hospital
in an unknown city.
She’s a nurse in the birth ward.
She enjoys seeing the beginnings of families,
hearing a man and woman called Mom and Dad for the first time.
She rarely sees her own family,
only occasionally running into Life and Death –
she does work in a hospital after all,
so she’s bound to see them every once in a while.
On her days off, she walks through the town,
watching families play in the park
or stroll down main street.
She holds classes for new mothers
and used to own a couple’s therapy business
before she passed ownership to a promising young intern.
The business is prospering and she smiles every time she walks by.
She passes a newspaper stand
and takes the top paper from the stack.
She reads through the marriage column
and makes a note to send flowers to the newlyweds.
Her own family fell apart a long time ago,
but she can still help others.
She gets home to her small apartment
and is immediately met by her six cats.
She had originally had only their mother
and when the litter was born
her neighbor offered to help sell them
but she couldn’t bear to part the little ones from their mother.
Family is family and she vows never to see one fall apart again.

Peace

Peace is in love with war.
To be specific, he is in love with the End.
They were together once, before the consequences of men
began to weigh him down.
It used to be he could follow the Beginning all day
and make it home to Peace at night.
But now he is so bent he cannot move fast enough.
They have not seen each other in centuries.
Peace flies across the world,
solving as many conflicts as he can,
his sweet voice and soft touch calming arguments
before they can even start.
Every night he returns home,
hoping to see the footprints of his love
going up the walkway.
He makes sure there is always a fire in the hearth
and a warm meal on the table,
just in case the End gets home before him
and every night he leaves the door unlocked
in case the End has lost his key.
(Just between you and me, he has not –
he wears it on a chain next to
where a human’s heart would be.)
Peace will never give up hope.
His brothers and sisters tell him it is no use – 
the End will not come home until humanity is good again
and that will never happen.
But Peace was put here to keep humanity good
and he will not give up his job.
Not until the day his lover
is in his arms again.

Sleep

Sleep has been awake for centuries.
He has always thought his name should be Dream
but the humans call him Sleep
and who is he to argue with them?
In his opinion, Sleep is the most powerful of the gods,
for his commands appear to the humans
as if from their own minds.
Every night, when the humans lay in bed and close their eyes,
he kisses them softly on their eyelids,
sending them visions to pass on when they wake.
He wears a bracelet that reads
“Follow your dreams” –
he found it on the nightstand of a little girl years ago
and thought it must be an offering for him.
(He has never quite gotten past the old days
of offerings and prayers.)
The humans pray to all sorts of gods now,
none of them him
but he listens to their words anyway
and tries to send extra-sweet dreams to those struggling with life.
He mourns every humans that dies
for he has seen them every night since they were born
and he celebrates every new life,
so full of potential and dreams.
The actions of the humans don’t affect him much –
no matter your station, finances, skin color,
everyone needs to sleep
and that is all that matters to him.
But he does craft the dreams so maybe,
if someone were to listen,
they might be inspired to help
and if everything gets better,
maybe one day he, too,
can sleep.

Wisdom

Wisdom is by far the weakest of the gods.
She lives in libraries and bookstores,
cafes and tea shops.
She abandoned schools long ago –
they no longer teach actual thoughts,
rather sentences and facts to be mindlessly memorized
and spit back onto a paper on command.
No, Wisdom hasn’t seen a school desk or textbook in a long time,
though she dreams of the day she might once again be able to.
Now she sits behind the front desks at libraries,
handing patrons the exact book they need
even if they don’t know they need it.
She baristas a cafe frequented by college students,
bringing them their coffees and teas
while tucking encouraging notes in their bags
and jacket pockets.
Perhaps someday these brilliant young minds will take charge
and change the world for the better
so she can once again
enjoy the wisdom in the world.
She scrolls through social media,
writing comments critiquing grammar
or correcting facts
but knows her notes will only be received with rolled eyes,
if she’s acknowledged at all.
But she can still try
and the rare person who adds more facts to her comment
or points out something she missed
is the reason she is still around,
always trying to spread just a little more knowledge in the world.

Stories

I am the god of stories.
I have been alongside you this entire time, 
guiding you through this journey,
telling you about my family.
We are all still here,
though some of us barely so.
It is my job to collect the stories of others –
where do you think Roads got his notebook from?
I tell the stories of the unseen,
of the unknown,
and hope someone out there is listening.
So maybe when you’re done with this story,
you will shut it away in your mind,
never to think about it again.
Or maybe you will be the rare exception.
Maybe you will pass on my stories so more people will hear them
and maybe, just maybe,
if enough people read them
then someone can do something about them
and my family can begin to recover.
So I have just two questions for you before we part:
Are you that someone?
Are you listening?