Rise of the False God

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