The old man looked down the valley. Green pastures beside the village, golden corn fields, cozy homes, it had them all. It was his home. He had lived his life, this life, there. He had everything anybody would ever wish for; a beatiful family, a nice house down there, enough money to buy the whole village and a few more, and even good health. Yet he was sad, as he will be forever.

A tear slides slowly down his right cheek and flows into his white beard. He mourns ages past; times before he became what he is now. Yet, he had known what he would face when he made his decision, and now that he knows what he has lost he cannot go back. He remembers times when his name alone inspired men to do great deeds, even give their life for a cause dedicated to him. Justly so, for he had so commanded them. His will had marked the first breath of infants, had brought smiles to the faces of the weak. It was he who had punished the corrupt, he who had rewarded the faithful.

Then at one point he was bored. He lost interest in what he did, and so did his people. Their numbers dwindled as he grew more distant with every day that passed for them. Then he was so irked at his own inactivity that he had decided to become one of them.

He had started off as the least in their rankings and slowly, but surely, he rose. They found him a natural leader; he still retained a glimmer of his being, as a stone that glitters when wet. He was no longer bored, but sadness slowly replaced the emptness inside him with black void. He did many of the things they did, even some which none of them dared to do, but he started to realize what he had no more.

After all these years many people envied him his life, but they could never understand his sorrow, for none of them would ever beleive what he had been. Oh yes, some of them still beleived in what he had been; sometimes he still hears praises to the name he had once held. Much more often he heard his old name mocked, or his memory insulted. A part of him nursed anger at this, but he didn't really care. He is lost in his misery, and he will ever be. For one power he had retained, unthinking, he would live forever. For he had been god.

MZ - 15/6/00