It was some city workers who dredged up the face of God from the river. They didn’t know what they were looking at. A marblesque depiction of something, coated in thick layers of river grime, and embedded within the heap of detritus loaded onto the back of the barge. If it weren’t so large and heavy, it might have gone unnoticed.
They had it in a museum before the end of the month. They put pictures up on their socials and had journalists interview the curator about it. There wasn’t much to say beyond how curious it was. They suspected it was very old, possibly made by the earliest humans. But the craftsmanship was exquisite, and the archaeologists working on the project couldn’t quite rationalise how it fit in with artefacts of similar age, who were all far more primitive.
It might had been easily forgotten but for a few enthusiasts after the initial buzz died down. But then the city workers, who had been complaining of auditory hallucinations, irritability, and migraines, started becoming violent. Then it was the staff at the museum.
And by the time we figured it out, we’d already circulated the photos. People had searched them up when they’d heard about the city worker who killed his whole family and then himself. Rumours abound on the internet drove the fascination to see it.
There wasn’t even much of an attempt to pull the photos. What good does it do, once it’s out there? We’d all seen the face of God, and some locked box deep within our minds found its key.
Paddy Dobson
25th August 2022