prompt: smudge, title: fair warning in misc. flash fiction

“Last we tried this, we went about it all wrong,” She told you from behind the desk in Her sleek minimalist office, “investing so much in one messiah to save you all at once, as much Myself as man, damned to ritual slaughter. Of course it didn’t stick. All my eggs in one basket, you’d say.”

“You’re, uhm, God?” you asked the stylishly-prim woman. “It’s a one-dimensional term for all that I Am but sure. Do keep up now.”

She was honey-blond, regally relaxed, you sat dumb-founded, unknowing how you even got in that office. Just a phone, a laptop and some incense burning off Her desk’s farthest corner. “Is that…” “Nag champa, yes, it’s my… Thing… of late. I have my moods like anyone.”

“Your mission not so grand, not nearly so singular, I’ll imbue you with the barest pinch of what I Am. You won’t be an offering, your burden instead as my eyes on the ground and to work what kindnesses you can along the way. Your tribulation the inhumanities you inflict upon each other, your salvation when you manage to show each other dignity and love.”

“So,” you fought to grasp, “how’d you father Christ if…” “Because you perceive me feminine?” She laughed kindly, “Little love, I made everything you know and everything you’ll never know in one twinkling, magic pregnancy is on a level of you telling your child you have her nose.” She smiled. “For all you know, I was Mary, allowed myself forgetfulness and the angels handled the rest.” She reached across the desk, tucked Her thumb and pulled it away.

“You’ll need to get over that mindset, anyway. Nearly every dichotomy you’ve ever learned is false, gender, race, most everything’s on a continuum, is a spectrum. Everything except for life and death. You’ll see that, now.”

She put that thumb into the ashes of the incense, wisped a gray smudge onto your hand. “This is all you get, make it count. You’ll remember all this but don’t expect anyone to believe you. No zealotry, no conversion, I’m not doing this for any of the fake distinctions. Just watch and help.”

At that point, you woke up screaming.

God hit Her intercom, “I’m telling all of them this, every one of them, in hope they finally turn it around. If not, another hard reset.” Satan replied in a voice a little like Kathleen Turner, “In that case, floods again?” “Nah,” God mused, “no, too soon.” “Maybe asteroids, like the dinosaurs?” “Sounds good,” She sighed, “give them another generation but prep it up, yes.”

That happened after you woke up, thinking no one else would believe, but I feel a need to let you know this too, in case it helps you with your new assignment and that faint stain of divinity you now bear. Over the ages, I’ve come to miss the damn dinosaurs. I fear if we go that route again, I’d come to miss you little monsters too. So. Fair warning.