dogeeseseegod

Y*H*V*H* constantly shifted the décor around its presence to reflect its subconscious. Since its subconscious was infinite, Ralph found the shifts disconcerting, compounded by the Lord of Heaven’s swirling atmosphere. “You summoned me, oh Boundless One.”

 

Y*H*V*H waved an illusory figment. “We need to alter a reality.”

 

“Lord?”

 

“The humans. Conscience nags and guardian angels are increasingly ineffective. They’re losing faith then ordering a frappe-latte-cappuccino.”

 

“I don’t believe there’s such a drink, Magnificent One.”

 

“There will be. We need to add a twist on that free will of theirs. I was manipulating a Texas Holdem tournament when the idea hit me.”

 

“Almighty One?”

 

“They need to have a little skin in the game. Literally. Think of it as bad habits getting zinged.”

 

“Ah, Most High, I believe the mammalian bipeds have legal systems in place.”

 

The décor swooshed into jagged granite. “Ralph, you’re not going to develop by telling the All-Knowing what he already knows. You’re my implementation angel. I envision a ten percent gotcha rate, using something akin to Hawthorne’s scarlet ‘A.” A ‘T’ for theft, perhaps, an ‘S’ for sloth, and so forth, characters specific to every language. I’ll leave the details to you.”

 

“I’m not sure they’ll understand this plague, Holiness.”

 

“That’s part of the fun. Eventually the real sinners will be covered in the alphabet. Spelling it out, as it were. Mini-miracles for short attention spans.”

 

“To understand is to obey, I Am That I Am.” 

 

*  *  *

 

Bill woke up with an itch. As he rubbed his eyes, he glimpsed a vivid blue welt on the back of his right hand. It was clearly an ‘S’ and hurt like the devil. He got up, went to the bathroom and applied first aid cream. It didn’t help. The smarting S seemed to gleam through the goop. 

 

He thought about calling in sick, but he’d been doing that lately for no good reason, and he was fond of what he did when he did it. He cleansed, clothed, and caffeinated and set off a little early for work, his right hand in a glove.

 

The Excelsior Think Tank where he toiled was housed in a slab of presumptuously post-modern architecture. The computers inside, human and artificial, made expensive predictions about looming disasters. 

 

At 8 am, only Mary Grace was already at work in their large, faux-collegial work space. She looked up from her screen, blinking. “Hello Bill. What’s with your hand?”

 

Bill waved the gloved member. “Just a burn. It’ll heal. What’re you working on?”

 

She shifted her chair to block her screen. “Oh, nothing special.”

 

Bill smiled. Mary Grace was so secretive that she had to be prodded to reveal the results of studies she’d been ordered to do. “That’s nice.” He sat at his desk, opened up Clarabelle, his server rack, and began a speed reading of the morning’s news. And frowned.

 

Over the last two weeks area urgent care offices had seen multiple irregularly shaped burns looking like letters—Gl’s and P’s, as well as S’s, A’s, Gr’s, L’s, and E’s. Bill suspected that many more brandings like his were probably also unreported.

 

Fear jacked up his blood pressure, and then ambition pumped it up further. If this anomaly was in fact a trend, and if he could forecast its development, and if, God willing, he could recommend adaptations to it, he was set.  He could create his own think tank and install it in an even more ostentatious building.

 

He turned his screen away from Mary Grace’s sight line and plunged into data that he would work on from home so the company had no claim on his results.

 

*  *  *

 

Ralph hesitated at G*d’s portal. It was from its inception neutered and not compelled by the urges and fears of binary species. But it did achieve a certain fullness when it performed its tasks well. And this chore was going sideways. 

 

Y*H*V*H was all seeing and all knowing, and progress reports were clearly unnecessary. Ralph had decided glacial ages ago that the master probably just enjoyed having company. With the angelic equivalent of a sigh, Ralph glissandoed through the portal.

 

“Most High, I must report unintended consequences.”

 

“Describe them.”

 

“The plague is, as indicated, random up to a specified maximum frequency of occurrence. The inflictions are occurring as designed, based on the seven deadly sins, letters and symbols in accordance with the thousands of languages. But the humans are gaming the system.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Many Catholics, and other religions as well, through guilt or pride, are committing the same sin over and over until they receive what they view as stigmata. When they confess this sin and receive absolution the marks still remain prominent, and they move on to the next category, on and on until they have all seven, as if they were merit badges.”

 

“And?”

 

“Many non-believing hedonists and devil worshippers are doing the same thing, but for a contradictory purpose. They use the brandings to show how evil, and therefore how interesting, they are. The miracles aren’t achieving the desired results.”

 

Ralph, if he could have, would have sworn that there was a trace of a smile in The Most High’s whirlwind. 

 

“You may need to apply a refinement.”

 

*  *  *

 

Bill was at an organization meeting for his new company when Mary Grace called. He’d needed to bring her in when the project became overwhelming and discovered that her paranoid proficiency had fit his needs well.

 

“Mary Grace, I’m in the middle…”

 

“Check your messages!”

 

“Hold on…It can’t be true.”

 

“It is. About a year after being scarred, the letters change into disgusting gargoyle caricatures of the person, and get increasingly gross with each letter received. Check under your glove.”

 

He did. An ugly, gnome-like Bill head leered back at him. He cringed, then realized something. “Even better. Individualized collectables. Millions of people will want to show these off.” 

 

A chortling draft of air blew past him.