A QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY

I parted the clouds and looked down. Far below me lay a sunny land, a land whose fertility gave birth to its great beauty. There on a hillside was a stone hut, a hut in which an old man lay dying. I extended my vision into the hut and tried to will vitality into the old man. This task would have been easy in the days when I had untold numbers of worshipers but now I almost absorbed vitality from the man, something he could ill afford to lose.

Against the wall of the hut was a makeshift altar and, resting on a simple bit of cloth, was a poorly done statue of me, but one done with reverence and as meaningful as one of the giant statues that were made in Rome to my honor in the far past. The old man had found this statue buried in a field and had set it up and burned candles beside it regularly. I'm not sure if he realized what the statue represented but he recognized it as an object of worship and revered it. He was thus my last worshiper and a god must have worshipers to exist.

The old man struggled to breath, producing a rattling sound in his relaxing throat. I reached down a finger and touched his heart. It beat, hesitated, and beat again. Which beat would be the last? And when that last beat fluttered and that noble heart stopped, I, Apollo, would no longer be devine to humans and thus no longer exist. Their chains would be released. How I relish in the thought of being honored once more. I bowed my head as the old man and I awaited the end.