Episode 08
Era C
So. I think a lot of it started when a few people cut down a tree to prove I didn't exist.
Let's be honest: what did they expect? That I'd get angry at the tree? Bark at my believers? One has a little more experience than that.
You should know who's talking. I'm one of six. The others will come up; I have to phone them later anyway. I'm the one who counts his years in lifetimes, and you know life's gone bad when you count your years in lifetimes. It changes how you perceive time itself. Everything becomes a mesh of you and your life, and nothing in it brings any excitement, which where I come from is, per se, a good thing.
A blink can take two lifetimes. Or five.
In that time, I think I caught a glimpse of the tree.
The first time I heard about any of it was when I saw the video of our saviour. Or a version of it.
I'd wondered why they hadn't played for so long. Then it was simply there, on the way, in the car, and I was, naturally, shocked, and I had an accident.
Naturally we wanted to intervene. But long contracts, and a protection; if that were simple to understand it wouldn't have been so bad, and it wasn't simple, and it was.
To my knowledge we were in Hares' area, and it was Medusa's co-op. Noreen's, and Gomorrah's reign of horror. So: we make a paradise for our children, the way we so often do.
Mortals, as a rule, do not reach the realm of the gods. It's as good as impossible. Not even these self-appointed semi-gods manage it.
For the case that one does, there is of course a protocol. It's got a bit old. No ordinary mortal has come for millions of years, so nobody's dusted it.
And God, was that a stroke of luck. Thanks to him we recognised our mistakes, and we became aware how fragile we actually are.
It's not unusual for images of us to be spread around. We don't mind that. But when the trust in us is badly exploited through it, we act.
Actually we'd had all of this before, at home, with the animals, and we can always deal with that. But not when the whole world wants to become superheroes at once and rule it. So we churn out further worlds, and shrink, to make a peaceful life possible, and we re-created the thirteenth planet. The serpent-bearer.
In hindsight we should have invested more and created new. But we didn't know we were being watched.
These vultures probably thought it was a free buffet.
Normally it isn't easy to start a fight with a god. But these beasts were tough. We commissioned the Centuries to watch over these areas, the detention territories, where we'd been quartered, and we hoped for a bit of relaxation.
After the first escalation in era B, we rang in era C, and commissioned the Centauris to make peace with the visitors, and gave them the imperial dragon as a sign of friendship.
We can't communicate with mortals directly. So, for the peaceful life of our children, we send a medium as a point of contact. Think of it as customer support and the social media officer, at once, in one person.
Yes, you could say I didn't take the freshest, or the most refined, or the best-looking. But it was going to be touching Hares' finger; you don't take out the silverware for that.
Now I'd had a viewing.
And yes, I shake a thing like that out of my sleeve and then forget it? With this many projects?
Well. After all the tumult, after era B, there was of course the problem that we'd delivered two too many, and it hadn't shown up in our numbers.
That angered the worlds. What else was it going to do.
So Xentura founded itself, and Oentura. I don't even know what they fell out over. I was glad it wasn't three. The eggs are expensive; expensive in total, I mean; I'll have to phone my five siblings about it.
Anyway, Oentura left the place relatively quickly and lined up in our ranks beside us and helped us modernise. The Oentura were a fairly industrious people, who quickly took on our likeness, which they can be proud of, and who got to try the new integration programme first. They understand it beautifully too: once you've got the long waiting time behind you, you're glad to be through. And on their return they promised always to behave, and we're sure of that.
As their master's examination they created the Grimm. A small, voracious creature with an energy-charged personality. Whoever has a Grimm shall want for nothing.
Anyway. With us everything's super, and our next project is called Zentura, that much I'll say now; I've still got to get through all the control committees; and yes, Project Oasis is part of it.
Xoxo, Zorro. The first and last time, because that's too gay for me.
Someone new here, one line, then I'm gone.
If your Grimm runs wild again at three in the morning: banana in the mouth, and play the ukulele. Hundred per cent success.
Xoxo, Fanta.
*** Details only after thorough