The old gods
died quietly
No apocalypse
Just eviction notices
nailed to the doors
of abandoned heavens
Their temples
became storage units
for obsolete miracles
Their prophets
sold souvenir maps
to countries
that no longer existed
Then came
the New God Emperor
not from the stars
or from the sea
He emerged from
a committee meeting
that lasted four years
and ended with prayer
Most fell
to their knees
before learning
his name
The kneeling was
the important part
His priests
wore smiles
sharp enough
to cut a throat
His saints
carried photos
and called them
scriptures
The sycophants prospered
Their gardens bloomed
with imported sunlight
Their children
inherited
entire horizons
Their lies
were promoted
to official history
Meanwhile
the Wicker Man
remained untouched
No need
for that anymore
The village itself
was set on fire
street by street
thought by thought
The flames
were called unity
The smoke
was called progress
The ashes
were called consensus
And anyone
who refused
to bend the knee
was offered
a generous choice:
Confess or
become kindling
Soon
even language
surrendered
Questions
became crimes
Doubt
became disease
Memory
became contraband
The word why
was buried
without ceremony
The New God Emperor
accepted all sacrifices:
Poets
Heretics
Children
who laughed
at the wrong moment
Old men
who remembered
different skies
Their names
vanished
into furnaces
disguised as
ministries
Yet the Emperor
never appeared
angry
Only disappointed
as if reality itself
had failed to
appreciate
his generosity
And each night
beneath a moon
stamped
with his likeness
millions prayed
for permission
to keep praying
While somewhere
in the ruins
of a forgotten cathedral
a single rat
dragged away
a fragment of
the first resistance:
THOU SHALT NOT KNEEL
Then disappeared
into the dark
with the last
surviving piece
of sanity