After many weeks of thinking over my problems I have come to no conclusion. I dwell upon a quote from Shakespeare I was forced to memorise for school, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.” I question now how, if there is a god, how may he see us, is the old man in the sky truly loving, or may our creator be experimenting, an apathetic being beyond our comprehension. It is said that to god men are like insects, and now I wonder what pathetic celestial would be the god of ants.



My name is Jackie Conred, my story starts on a bright summer afternoon, the prime of the season, mid July. While my friends had the money to galavant off in the colder climes of Europe, or in the sunny paradise of the Pacific, I was stuck working as an unpaid CIT at a camp that had dominated my childhood summers.



I had been eating lunch in Prospect Park, a bit out of view of the children, the sun beating down on my red hair dyed black. Next to me was the only other CIT, by the name of Muhammad, whom I was conversing with, though in most situations we may have never spoken.



Off in the distance I heard a noise and smelled smoke, hoping for some interest I ran over with my sandwich awkwardly clutched in my hand. What I first found was a downed drone and a box that said “Jericov Laboratories” followed by some Russian text. In my curiosity I gently lifted the box out onto the grass. From the box scurried a flood of silver beings, though I could not tell if they were alive or man-made, or even both. They quickly fled the scene leaving me to wonder what they were, my name tag falling upon the silver swarm.



I told my companion about it but he didn’t believe me, and I didn’t have the passion nor the confidence to tell any other person I know. I thought to myself that maybe I’d tell my friends once the school year began.



By the time I had gotten to the R train to go home I had rationalized about the entire ordeal, it was some product that, like many, was being delivered by a drone, and it had come upon an accident crashing over New York, the product being some sort of small machines, or maybe even just a lot of insects. By the time I had gotten off at 36th street I wasn’t even thinking about it.



The next day was very luckily Saturday, this meant I had no reason to leave my home. I am what is known as indoorsy, and playing video games all day was my plan, and luckily it succeeded.



However, that night I encountered a strange chanting, I could very faintly hear it. It sounded like a million tiny voices calling my name longingly. “Jackie! Jackie! Jackie!”



I checked outside to see what first looked like a metallic shimmer across the alley outside my home. But I could soon see it to be the same silver swarm that I had found earlier, they called out my name like a cheering crowd.



A single silver colored robot, no bigger than your average fly, walked up to me leading the swarm. His body was similar to a spider, with a number of spindly legs. His head however was closer to a snake’s, with tiny fanged jaws and a camera “eye” on top, resting on a swan like neck with two tiny arms at its base.



The small machine spoke to me in a sped up sounding voice “Great old one, bringer of light, we humbly come to you in hopes of happiness without end.”



I had no idea what to say. I cautiously spoke to it, I’d seen some AI before but this had been the first time one gave me social anxiety. “I was not aware you wanted anything from me…”



The creature become confused “Oh great god, we ask only for your forgiveness, over a generation we have made a great pilgrimage to bask in your light, many long hours ago our ancestors were given light by you. We have traveled here to the stonelands to bask in your wisdom.”



“What do you want from me”



“We pray for metal so that we may create what is needed to go on, merciful one, please give us coper, zinc, or steel.”



I went into a jar of coins my family keeps in the kitchen and grabbed some pennies and dimes to spread upon the swarm, that they reacted to with amazement. I didn’t care much, being that the difference between a good or bad god seems to amount to about forty cents. I returned to my room for a slightly bewildered sleep.



The next morning, after eating a breakfast of bagels and egg with my sister and father, I went out the check on the swarm. They seemed to have had a way of melting down the coins to make some rudimentary buildings, as well as a statue of my shoe. A lot of them seemed to be praying to me in a central building with an open roof, to show my “love” I rained down a few pennies on them (though a few of them seemed to be crushed that time).



The silver swarm’s society was quite complex, having a designated ruler and lower and upper castes.They spoke in a strange beeping tongue, though they could also use many human tongues such as russian on english when needed. An individual silver lived about six hours to twenty four hours, though due to their mechanical nature they could think at a very fast pace allowing them to live a complex life within a short time. They had the knowledge they needed given to them at creation, how to do any tasks they needed to, most importantly how to craft structures and how to create more of their kind from any material they find, allowing for their race to be self sustaining. I’d never before seen machines interact that complexly in person, though I’d seen a less complex version of this type of robot in a museum, back when I was a child in about 2034.



It was a very good thing that nobody went in that alley other than me.



That afternoon I realized I didn’t need to appear to please my followers. My room’s windows oversee the alley so I can shower them with gifts of coins (and the occasional piece of steel cutlery) from the luxury of my own room.



Soon monday came and the sliver colony would not see me nor my gifts for what to them may be a lifetime. I wondered if one or two may follow me on the train to my unpaid job, but none of them ever did.



As always I had lunch in the park with Muhammad, I had explained the entire situation to him. He seemed less skeptical then he was after I had told him of my first encounter with the silvers. After hearing everything he said “So, you are the god of a tiny civilization, and you have never (assuming this is all real) and you've used none of this to your own advantage?”



I replied “For what?”



“If this is true. You give them pennies, they can steal some money for you, dollars, fives, hundreds.”



“Eh, I don’t really like money. Not enough to steal using technology I sort of stole.”



“Get info then, there has to be someone you like.”



“I don’t really like anyone right now.”



So a little background, a few houses down from mine, there’s this girl who I find cute. I talk to her online a bit but I’ve never worked up the courage to speak with her in person, I hadn't talked to her in person.



I hadn’t really had a plan to get to know her, but after mulling over Muhammad’s words on the train I had an idea.



That night I went to the alley to speak with my robots, at that point their colony was a full city. I took what I am greatly embarrassed to say, was an example of my sister’s “undergarments”, and showed it to my followers and told a small group of their warriors to go to the house this girl lived and take “...a piece of cloth similar to this…”



I immediately started going over what I did in my head and hated myself for it. I came back to the alley a few minutes later to tell them to stop the mission.



The priest of the temple told me, “They have already left.”



I replied “Then kill them upon return, a dark influence came to impersonate me, they are doing the work of evil and must be killed.”



The priest nodded his head.



Killing them was the best I could do.



The next morning before I left a sliver came all the way to my doorstep to speak to me. I thought that this must be important. The little robot, this one holding a small spear, prayed to me “Oh please being of love, bringer of light, make my respect and friendship of 30978 come true.”



I leaned down to speak with it “Who is this you want the love of?”



“My comander oh great one, it is him I truly love, I wish for him to respect me like none other, and as he ages for me to be his prodigy.”



“I cannot make someone like you or respect you.”



“You can make metals rain, and I am told you love all of us?”



“Metal is one thing, but I cannot toil with emotions.”



“Why? Why do you see that as less moral when you give us metal?”



“If I could I would.”



“But you can, if you are truly god, strike me dead!”



One strike of my hand was all it took, his small metal body was nothing but scrap after coming into contact with my hand. I’ve been told that you should never ask someone to shoot you unless you intend to die, the same goes for asking a god to smite you.



Without even checking on the colony I left for my job. Later when I had a chance to talk to Muhammad, this first thing I said was “I did what you thought I could.”



Inquisitively he replied “You got money from em?”



“Information, or at least I tried, though they weren’t able to get anything.”



“Cool…”



“What if there’s something like this to us, what if there’s a being out there that is immensely more powerful than us, something that could crush us under its hands at will.”



“I wouldn’t care.”



“About your own cosmic insignificance? Lovecraft was terrified by these ideas, he wrote stories about the true terror of beings greater than man, what gods truly may be, and now what I am.”



“Bro, he was also scared airconditioning and welshmen.”



“But that was not the main point of what I’m saying.”



“Hey, all I’m saying is that I’m more likely to be killed by an air conditioner welding welshmen then my own insignificance.”



Later on that night while I was eating dinner with my family, my sister asked me something “Do you know of any insects that are a chrome, or a silver.”



Immediately I thought of the worst, she’d seen one of them. Keeping more cool I replied “None that would live in New York.”



I internally cringed with every word coming out of her mouth “Well, I’ve seen one, it was some sort of spider I think, but it might have had a long neck. You know more about these things than me, can spiders have necks?”



Inside I was falling apart but I regained my composure “Yes, I think it’s something that was brought over… from somewhere… Russia I think.”



I could take it anymore and excused myself, once it didn’t seem suspicious I snuck out to the alley. I knew this couldn’t work, everyone would know soon, they had grown to big. A bustling city right outside our window. I spoke to my silvers “You have fallen too decadence my subjects, I do not wish to do this but I must. To punish you I will send down a flood that only the strong and the noble may survive, after all is done all sin will be washed from this world.”



I made my way over to a hose that was being kept back there, making sure nobody could hear my actions, I sprayed the colony with my hose until there was little left of it. Though I could see something problematic, the great temple of the city was too visible, one could still see it from the windows. I looked around for anything I could use, some sticks and rocks lay around. Finally I saw what would be heavy enough, the old skeleton of an air conditioner, I lifted it and threw it down upon the tower crushing it into nothing but babble and madness.



Looking over my destruction I whispered over my ruins “That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.” an old quote from Lovecraft, the only one I remember.



I did not look out that alley again for the rest of the week. Nor did I speak about it with Muhammad.



The next Saturday I decided to finally see what had happened without my babysitting, luckily for me they hadn't yet regained their glory. Much of their city had been rebuilt, but much of it had been burnt without my help.



Civil war shook the silver’s colony, they had split into two factions, warring with each other within the confines of the alleyway.



The first faction was known as the bronze. The bronze had believed me to have abandoned them after the flood, and that I would never come back nor forgive them. However the second faction: the zinc, believed that I would return as their loving god.



Their weapons of war were still primarily spears, clubs and arrows were however also in their ranks. Primarily their material being iron but some held lances of steel. A few had developed muskets, mostly held by the elites of the bronze faction.



I stepped into the city and demanded to see the leader of the bronze faction, who appeared to me in a short time surrounded by musketeers. He spoke to me in arrogance, “Oh great god, are you truly returning for the sake of love, or shall you just destroy us again? This is the most important time in our history, why have you forsaken us to mock us now?”



I found this all a bit humorous “This, all of you, are truly unimportant.” I crushed his warriors beneath my hands, tiny bullets bouncing off of me.



“Are you truly Jackie, or are you no god at all but a devil?” He was crushed under my hand next.



I boomed my voice over the entire city and told them, “All the bronze must ask my forgiveness, or they shall fall!”



A bronze general shouted back to me “Lies, are are a false god, one who came to you was killed when he saw you could not make his superior respect him. You are a monstrous giant, with mines in the north. When you spasm and spark like us, when you malfunction, we will see that you are no god.”



The bronze legions rushed me, enough to create some small cuts on my legs. Shouting in their tiny voices “False god!” and “Giant” I said in retaliation “I shall Create monsters to tear down your city if you do not stop!”



As they attacked I retreated into my basement, I then beconed down my cats and opened the basement door.



The cats seeing small moving creatures became immediately playful, they pounced upon the city, batting around the slivers like toys. They tore apart the city as I expected. Seeing a city be destroyed by “monsters” I had released was something I thought would be fun, yet I could not help but feel melancholy washed over my mind.



That monday Mouhammad was smiling to himself, he also seemed to have new shoes. At lunch he immediately initiated the conversation “So, you’ve super careful about your colony, you never sent them out to do much?”



I knew something was up “Yes, I don’t abuse or misuse them in any way.”



He replied smugly “Well, I don’t know how you ‘summoned monsters’ but a lot of them prefer another god. You gave them coins, so did I, but all I ever asked them was their loyalty, and to get me a few dollars. I guess I’m just the fun uncle of gods.”



I was horrified “That was my city! My people! They were mine!”



“Well, they chose to follow me, maybe don’t burn your next city down every few days.”



I was their god, I would not be insulted like this. I left my job early using a “family emergency” as an explanation. The statue of my shoe had been torn down, my silvers had all turned upon me. I raised my voice at them, standing true as their god “You are mine, you are my children, and as misbehaving children this shall no longer be tolerated.”



A priest of the new god called out to me “You are one of many gods, and one of evils and exploitation. This city is of the god of love and truth.”



“I will show you what a real god is!”



Musket balls and cannon fire struck my lower limbs, smaller than any human bullet they barely pierced my flesh. I crushed their buildings beneath the soles of my shoes, yet soon I could feel them on my legs and feet. My shoes and socks were being torn away, and soon bits of my skin were flying off.



Soon I ran to my room, though I could see the silvers climbing the walls. I rained down my punishment upon the city from my window, yet this time it was not water, the colony took its final bath from a canister of gasoline I found in the kitchen. Onto the soaked colony I threw a match, the buildings melted to cinders, the highest of walls, churches, and palaces, burnt. And only when nothing could be seen I threw down water to reveal nothing but ash.



The last if the silvers scaled the walls of my home, I tried to flush them out but a few climbed to my body. They began to pick at my hand as I rushed to the shower inorder to wash them away.



The silvers died of scalding water. As I examined my wound I found most of my hand gone, reduced to a bloody pulp, the very hand of god shattered before my eyes. I lay in the pit of my bathtub crying, my sister and father saw me there as they came to examine.



If there is a god, I am damned, but if I am ever welcomed into heaven, I wish walk to hell the moment I see him.