Picture it and write: The Balance

by joetwo

Hi there! Here is my offering for this week’s Picture it and write competition from Ermilia’s blog, here. Once again the picture is not mine I only use it for inspiration. Anyway, Enjoy!

The Balance

It isn’t what you’d think it would be, the immortality, the infinite power, they all don’t give as much freedom as you would expect. In fact I am so constrained in what I do that I might as well be in a prison, a cage of my own construction. All the worse because I know that I am in it, knowing that it is there for a purpose.

I am a god. I maintain the balance.

The old gods did not see as we did. They were arrogant in their power and tried to mould the world in their image. They failed. Creation struck back and the universe rebelled in upheaval. The world shifted constantly from stifling order to terrifying anarchy. No life was possible. In desperation we rebelled. The heavens filled with flame and we managed to drive the old gods out into the darkness. From then on we have stood watch, in case the old gods return, and to keep the world in equilibrium.

We gods maintain the balance.

The world is filled with injustice. We hear it in your prayers. Why is there war? Why disease? Why did that child have to die? Why did that evil man triumph? Why don’t you do anything? The answer is we do what we can. No more. We could banish all the evil in the world in a heartbeat, without even breaking a sweat. But it wouldn’t be finished there. The whole of creation, everything in the universe is built with two sides, good and evil, ying and yang. For there to be good in the universe there must be evil too in equal measure. Removing it now will only in bring it back  ten-fold, in ways too horrible to mention.

For the sake of the world, we maintain the balance.

Some of you think we are uncaring. You cannot be more wrong. With omniscience we see everything that goes on in the world, from infinite angles and down to the scale of tiniest parts imaginable. We see all the tears, hear all the cries and feel all the pain. We remember everything, in the finest detail and with absolute recall. Our hearts were used as a mould for yours but yours were imperfect in comparison. Our grief at the death of a single bird is a billion times greater than your mere mortal minds would ever be able to fathom. The total sum of our grief is beyond reckoning. This is why we also watch each other. In case one of us is tempted to give one more miracle, save one more person in need. For the temptation is there, always, kept in check only barely by the certain knowledge that a future far worse would come into being is we did what we wished.

We gods keep watch. To maintain the balance.

Often even I am overwhelmed, such is the vast mountains of sorrow that sweeps the world. On days like that I come to a mountain top, or a plain, or some deserted rock in the ocean, as far from man and his works as I can go and I let fly. I open a rent in the fabric of reality and summon all the energy I can. I twist it, shape it, and then throw it about in wild abandon. Into each thrust of infinite fury I vent all of my frustrations. Why do I let things happen? Why did they all die? How can it be that anything more than a token of good on our behalf will summon an evil greater than can be imagined? As my blazing bolts of divine power approach something in the real, be it rocks, stones, or the simplest blades of grass, I retrieve them back, sending them from whence they came, returning them to the abstract. Nothing is harmed, or even disturbed, for even that may tip things over. And then, my thirst for anger quenched, I return to my station, to continue the vigil.

The curse of the gods, the tyranny of the balance.