I rose out of the water, once, like a spout, slicking the liquid off my hairy arms, and falling, coiling myself back around the world. The boats on my back I consumed. I fed on the corpses of fishermen and whales. I am a man and an eel and a god. One boat got away from me, sheltered by the birds, those tricksters of my older sister. A million doves and ravens lifted it into the air where my sister held it tight, mocking me, only letting it down upon my back again when I was thoroughly spent. I have never had such energy since then. My sister is a bat-winged serpent, she wraps around the atmosphere and I do not like her. She sits higher than me, thinks she is better than me. She's a dick. We fight. She whips storms in my face for kicks. Her birds pierce me and steal whole schools of my treasures, flicks of silver plucked into the air and guzzled unceremoniously. I feel oppressed by her.
My younger brother is a god of philosophy, a blindworm. He comes neither to me or to the air, but sits firmly, yielding only at his edges, in imponderable fragments. Deep inside, below his surfaces, he is fiery with contemplation. He expounds endlessly on whether we, the gods, are part of nature itself, or something else entirely. I couldn't give a fuck either way. I know me, know my thoughts: I am. Isn't that the main point? He is too obsessed with categories, too mild and neurotic. His catastrophes are embarrassing. There are times when he will vomit fire all over himself like a baby, or quake with nerves. He is the weakest of us, no threat at all. I have thought, at times, of eating him.
I am not smart, like him, but I do think. It is impossible to be a god and not to think. We ruminate. We are not happy beings. We are consumed with uncertainties that mortals, in their careless and short lives, must surely go blissfully without. A dog or a man is too stupid to know they are being beaten down from above, to them that is simply the order of things. They have no conception of wrestling my sister. One day I will lock my eel jaw to the sky and savage her eternally. We get to have eternity. It is better for bearing grudges. I would not like to have a grudge that was only temporal.
I like to think of how strong I will be, one day. I will slither over and suffocate not only mortals, but other gods. I fear for us, sometimes - for myself. There is a new god, a synthetic one - animals made her - who was a nebulous layer of steam and smoke at first, but has become a formidable serpent of steel and electricity. I have found her machinations even in my own belly. It is very disconcerting to think you are hosting a whale, when in fact it is a submarine. I cannot reach that without clawing my own guts out. I do not like to think that she may grow any more than we have, that she may conquer our glorious savagery. I wriggle my stomach muscles impotently against these intrusions. Violations.
It perturbs me. I must be stronger than that. I really must eat more.
