“Dad, are you sure it’s time? It’s… 1996. They’ve had a solid decade to deal with HIV and they still haven’t gotten over dehumanizing people who contract a virus. Don’t you remember last time? I barely got past the “forgiveness” and self-righteousness parts before they killed me. I don’t want to go down again if they’re just going to crucify me the moment I say something about basic human dignity.”
God couldn’t help but let loose a jovial, friendly laugh. 14 billion years they’d been watching this universe evolve together, parent and child, filled themselves with every attribute that humans confusedly imitated and bickered about.
“Jesus, don’t be so pessimistic. They are more ready than you believe. Don’t you remember the whole story from last time? Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten”
Of course she did. It may have been nearly two millennia in the local timestream, but for the immortals, the memory was as fresh as if it had happened hours ago. It was so fresh, Jesus thought silently, that she hadn’t even had time for a nap, or a proper shower in her true form. She could still smell the testosterone from that wretched earthly body as though it still polluted her immortal form, splendid and complex. And she knew what God meant.
“Well I guess some of those guys weren’t so bad, but they fucking nailed me to a piece of wood! And all I did was…”
“Challenge their fundamental conceptions about how they should interact. They didn’t kill you because you weren’t married, or because of that hairy John fellow you seemed so fascinated with. It was about what you said.”
“And they couldn’t handle it! I mean really, they’d had the Mosaic instructions for what, 1500 years at that point? They still couldn’t grasp how those rules were supposed to work. I mean, all I said was that you could distill it down to ‘love’ and that seemed just too much to handle. Now you really think is the time to get them to actually… get it? Most of them don’t even remember me anyway.”
“Yes, and that’s the point. Look at them. The ones who think they remember you are the ones who get it the most mixed up. You did good work back then, and I am so proud of what you said and how. Some of them seemed to get it, for a little while. But they did the same thing the Hebrews did, in the end; they got so fixated on rules and definitions that they forgot the very basics. Daughter, it’s not just that they’re ready – it’s that they are so desperately due for it. Just… be yourself. It’s time.”
“But they’ll kill me again.”
“And you’ll come back again, and maybe you’ll have to go again tomorrow. But they need you. It’s time to go.”
—
Thank me for modern technology, God mused. Now that humans had figured out in vitro fertilization, he wouldn’t have to deal with the weird rape implications of going after a young heterosexual virgin. It was so simple this time. When Ellen saw the listing in the sperm donor catalogue, it took no divine act to convince her to select the sample.
“Oh, look at this one! It says he’s Jewish, a rabbi with a successful small business, and he retired early to go run a nature conservancy. No genetic diseases, sterling resume, type O negative blood, and he wouldn’t even accept payment for the sample. Cynthia, we just have to go with this one.”
Cynthia agreed. “If it’s got to be a man, I don’t think we can do much better than that. Did he leave any contact information?”
Kathy re-scanned the listing. “It doesn’t say. I don’t think we have to worry about that.”
So it was decided, and the sample was thawed, prepared, and inserted into Cynthia’s fallopian tube. It seemed almost miraculous that the pregnancy was entirely without complication… and nine months later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby… boy? The doctor seemed hesitant. “Congratulations, you’re the proud mothers of… hmm.” The baby was intersex, and although it was unambiguous in his mind, the doctor wondered whether he should seek Legal’s help before proceeding forward. This technique was still fairly new, and he hoped to god that this wasn’t going to look like malpractice. “Kathy, I don’t know whether there’s a problem, but I’m afraid I can’t quite tell you your child’s sex right now.” But Kathy and Cynthia didn’t seem to care.
“She’s beautiful. Thank you doctor!”
And he was thankful as well. He realized that at 1 in 1000, every doctor was bound to see an intersex baby at some point. He had always dreaded that moment, the fear, the social stigma. But perhaps a lesbian couple who’d grown up in the Cold War were about the best possible parents for such a moment.
Little Batya turned out to be one of the healthiest children that it was ever his privilege to care for. She – the parents had agreed to let her choose once she was able to speak – was brilliant, healthy, and beautiful, although in an unusual way. And what a mind! She started speaking at 10 months, and by age 5 was already reading at a middle school level. But the mothers were a bit frightened of what kindergarten might hold. The world had just gone through the World Trade Center attack, and America seemed to be at the brink of losing the battle for social justice in favor of fear and terror.
They didn’t know what to expect. But they soon realized they needn’t worry. Batya was such a charmer, and even though she seemed a bit boyish at times, nobody ever seemed to question the clothing and pronouns that they let her wear. When she was 12, she suddenly developed a strange interest in politics. Her mothers were slightly worried: she didn’t seem to have a cutthroat bone in her body. But when Hillary lost to a black man from the midwest, there were no tears; it was as though she could instantly get behind the next best thing. “It’s okay mommies, just because we don’t get a woman in charge this year doesn’t mean hope is lost. I think a black man might just about all they’re ready for… but by the time I’m old enough, I bet they’ll even be ready for an intersex woman to run for president.”
And sure enough, she wasn’t far off. At 16, Batya left for Barnard College, excited at the prospect of adulthood. It was that first night when she had the dream.
“Hello Daughter. Do you remember me?”
The voice was familiar and simultanously strange. Completely inhuman, yet somehow human. The face before her glowed like nothing on earth, just slightly brighter than the sun. Yet it didn’t burn her eyes… all… wait, seven of them? The creature before her was some strange hybrid of animals, with wings, talons, and eyes in places that somehow made sense in this apparition but didn’t quite conform to three dimensional rendering. And she was different too, more complex, more … dimensional. Instantly she remembered. This was her true form.
“Dad- mom- God? Are you… am I… I was on earth just now. Oh God, you sent me back didn’t you. That was me, that whole time? I’m… are you sure that it’s time?”
“You’ll do fine. Any questions?”
She remembered everything now. No questions remained. She awoke a teenager in a college dorm, and her mission began. Barnard was, frankly, easy. At 18, a sophomore, she came out as intersex, and nobody on campus seemed to bat an eye. But there was one problem. And it was, of course, the ones who should have known better. She laughed at the irony at who, exactly, started picketing her campaign presentation for senior class president: Campus Crusade for Christ. So she did what anyone who had really known her back then would expect her to do: she stepped down from the podium, walked off the stage and right past the security guard at the back, and grabbed the reluctant hand of the scared and angry sophomore in conservative clothes with an ironic “Not born that way” sign.
“Hi Hannah, I’m so glad that you’re here. I’ve been wanting for so long to talk to you.”
Hannah stared blankly.
“I’ve read your article in the student paper. I know what you’ve been saying about Jesus, and about me. But what if I told you that I and the father were one… and that ‘father’ might not really be the right word?”
To say the room fell silent would be a metaphorical stretch; the hall was already in hushed silence as over two thousand students and at least a hundred reporters had gathered to see what this rapidly rising star would have to say. But these words hit a familiar and uncomfortable place.
“You can’t possibly be saying…”
“I am.”
“Lies.” And tears. Hannah couldn’t hold them back. But she couldn’t hold her sign either. She began to break down, and Batya didn’t hold back from offering comfort and affection. Realizing what was happening only made it more difficult for Hannah to maintain her position… and she tried all the same. She pushed away. She screamed. Something, deep inside, in that part of her brain that lights up when she prays, the part where she “knows” that God is real – lit up! With a profound sense of comfort. Alien comfort. She didn’t understand. Batya was an abomination. Worse than an ambitious woman, worse then the unnatural bastard child of lesbians, this girl wasn’t even a real girl! Because everybody knew, the rumors had to be true.
“You … you can’t be. You’re not… you’re not natural! God made man and woman, he made two kinds, we have to be … we have to be that way!” But even as she said it she knew what came next.
“Hannah, you have to choose. You know that I was born this way. You have to decide for yourself. Did God make a mistake, or did God make me just as human as you?”
“He… God… but I just don’t understand.”
Hannah wasn’t the only one, though. There were other protesters present, outside of the doors of the auditorium – and in the silence of the room, the only sounds inside being the compassionate words of God’s intersex emissary and the muffled tears and gasps of a confused would-be priestess, the sounds from outside began to drift in. There was a sudden cracking sound, as a brick crashed through one of the few high glass windows – and a door was suddenly busted open. Five men entered, bearing signs, “God Hates Fags” and similar slogans. “We have as much a right to be here as anyone else!” they called out to the security guards as the plowed through. “That girl… that… abomination… should not be speaking here!”
But she was. All of this was familiar. But why was it happening so fast? She had to do something, and it looked as though she couldn’t keep on pretending. So she spoke.
“Stop. Stop! Listen to yourself.” Her words were compelling. Not rhetorically, but literally irresistible. The Westboro man found that his feet and his arms no longer moved as his brain commanded, and when he tried to speak there was no air in his lungs. No pain, no sensation of restraint… just absence of voice. He relaxed because he had no choice, and to his horror he could see that she was glowing. And she floated, as though on a cloud, back to the podium, and spoke. “I didn’t want to reveal this all in fullness today. But I’m afraid that I must say more than I had intended.” There were no television crews at this small campus function, but that wasn’t an issue in 2015. As the spectacle unfolded, 1000 iPhones shot into the air, and one and only one thing occupied Twitter, Facebook, and somehow Anderson Cooper had a Facetime session streaming into CNN.
“Beloved children, and I say that to all of you, for you are all my children… Today I have deemed you ready to know me as you were not ready to know me before. None of you were bodily present the last time that we had this conversation, and I’m afraid that some of the message my have been lost over time. But I did tell you, and I know that some of you have read it. Love each other. I need you to love without condition. There is nobody on this planet that I didn’t make without love. Even you, Mike, who threw a brick and wanted to kill me- I love you. And I have to let you know: This is who I am. I am a woman, first, but I am male as well. I want you all to finally know, what I’ve been trying to tell you for thousands of years. I am in everything. I created it all in my image. Male and female, I created you all to be like me. And you are beautiful and good… and it is time that everyone remembers that.”
For the first time in human history, there was actually a record for all to see of when God spoke. Of course, she didn’t stop there. She spoke for an hour, first in general terms, then to questions. It was reported that half of the Westboro crowd that had shown up to protest a student activity had dropped their signs and turned their t-shirts inside out in shame, but not all. And the commentators didn’t take long to chime in on the 24 hour stations. Hannity insisted that she was a blasphemous fraud and called for shame on the media for repeating her crazy claims. ISIS chimed in on Twitter that they would enhance and renew their attacks on the west. The political backlash was complicated to say the least. Colbert sought an interview but told the audience that he’d have to defer to the Pope for clarification. But Francis, perhaps unsurprisingly, was slow to judge, and politely requested an audience. She went to him, and while no one will ever know what really transpired behind those closed doors, nobody will ever forget the look on the cardinals’ faces when he emerged in a rainbow-patterned robe to replace the white – and delivered his most memorable speech, the one on equality.
It was about a week before they shot her. Nobody seemed particularly surprised. It was, after all, a very strange choice for her to visit Jerusalem without protection. President Clinton offered Air Force One to transport the body home. It was a moot offer, of course. When the escorts got to the morgue, there was nothing there.