Good to Be God by Tibor Fischer Read Free Book Online Page A

struggling to form one big tooth, and they are covered in a delicate yellow film.
    It gives me a boost. I may have a persistent and embarrassing medical condition, but clothes cover it, and I still have a chance.
    No matter how unlikely, I’m still in the game.
    “I have my own business. My company produces high-end custom-made waterskis for the blingers and the jocks,” Napalm explains. “You’ve probably heard of us.”
    Love the us . Love the probably heard . Truth: I have a shed where I fiddle with fibreglass. Napalm selling anything is questionable. No one with a tan, athletic ability, success at any level would tolerate Napalm’s presence in the same room. Sixto is shuffling around, anxious that Napalm will scare me away.
    “Why isn’t the water boiling?” asks Napalm.
    “You haven’t plugged in the kettle,” I point out. Napalm was nowhere in sight when the good stuff was handed out. But he’s still game. I admire him for that. He’s fighting when there’s no hope. That takes uncommon courage.
    39

    TIBOR FISCHER
    The coffee, when Napalm has coaxed it into being, is terrible.
    I don’t know what he’s done wrong, but it’s undrinkable. I long for an opportunity to pour it down the drain but Napalm gives me his full attention.
    What galls me most about failure, is the amount of effort I’ve gone to to achieve it. I was given the manual. I followed the instructions. Shake hands firmly. Look people in the eye.
    Buy your round of drinks. Help with the washing-up. Tell the truth. Keep an eye on elderly neighbours. Remember birthdays.
    Be polite. Save your money. Don’t drink and drive. Recycle. It’s like getting a computer, following all the instructions, but the computer refuses to work. A computer you can at least shake, or kick around. Sadly you can’t do that with your existence.
    This reflection I banish as weakness. A wobble. Be unidirectional. Towards deification. You’re well ahead of Napalm.
    “Let me show you round the neighbourhood,” proposes Napalm. “Being the boss of the company, I can take time off whenever I want.” The old me would have politely agreed.
    “Thanks, no. I need an early night.”
    My room is completely bare and white. There’s an agreeable purity to it. A big white womb that will give birth to great things. However, Sixto may have been right about the bed. The floor is concrete and cold. A few blankets won’t do. But I want my base. I don’t want to waste money on a motel.
    I take an unhinged door from the corridor, some empty paint pots and create a makeshift bed. It’s much better than it sounds, though I lie awake for hours seeking sleep.
    But that’s nothing to do with the bed. I often journey through the night awake.
    Revenge passes the time. I think about how I paid taxes all my life, how my parents did too. Then when my mother was 40

    GOOD TO BE GOD
    ill, how nothing happened at the hospital. You pay tax, and you get nothing. No, that’s not true, you get shit. I ponder how my bosses didn’t like me taking time off to look after my mother.
    How that helped get me fired.
    I think about revenge. Pointless weakness. I strain to submerge the thought. Be unidirectional. But the rage bobs back up time and time again. My guts are fermenting. I fart rage. I can’t stop thinking about how I’d like to have half an hour with my former bosses and an iron bar. Revenge colonizes our thoughts. Stories on television, at the cinema, in books, they’re usually about revenge. Why so much about revenge? Because in reality it never comes to pass.
    I abandon consciousness wondering whom I would track down and kill first if civilization collapsed.
    G
    I wake up early, beaten. What am I doing here? Sleeping on a door, far from home, wanting to fool everyone that I’m God.
    I pray. I pray because there’s nothing else. I don’t pray for myself. I pray for everyone. I pray that God will set everything right. Save me, sure, but save everyone else. Why do we have to go