god@vodka: A Novel

By Marcos Chomen

He was nothing, but wanted to know everything. After receiving a cryptic e-mail signed by God, he searched the world to find the truth.
Fortified with vodka and energy drink, sex, science, and rock and roll, technology and philosophy, he had the chance to discover who we are and where we came from. He was not ready for the answer...are you?”

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483538426

Book preview

3:22-24

0001

Have you ever stopped to look at the sky at night to see millions of stars, which are sometimes incredibly dense and seem to be an endless cloud? Can you not realize how amazing it is? This has made me think, and I’ve been spending a long time lying awake, trying to understand it, and, like so many other people, I am unable to explain or even conceive such a phenomenon.

We’re all so worried about how we’re going to make money, get to work, go out and have dinner, or go to the cinema, pay our bills, deal with family problems....And, in the end, you know, this is fine, because if you try to reply to this question, you’ll probably go crazy, or people will think you should be locked up. How can all this be so important in your life?

Well, I can’t explain everything, and I think this is a basic answer to the old question: What the fuck am I doing here?

After I die, I would like someone or something to ask the question: Can you tell me where all this ends? But I’ve never been religious, and even if I were, I still wouldn’t have an answer.

I’m the type of person who buys books by Stephen Hawking, or anything that appears on the newsstand about the mysteries of the universe: ETs, Bermuda Triangles, Conspiracy Theories, etc. Some say that they have managed to understand the universe in the way Hawking does, and others say that it has multiple dimensions and it is wrapped up in itself in a worm hole!

So, I believe that no one knows where it ends. As it all finishes, there is an end. But if it has an end, what is there after the end?

Did you remember the meeting?

Fuck. I’d forgotten. Well, another two-hour-long meeting with ten people to make plans which would never be carried out, as there are so many other problems to solve. But let’s get on with it. At least I was designing the plans. It would be worse for those who would have to say why they didn’t carry them out.

I had completely forgotten about the meeting as I was surfing the Web, looking for answers. I wanted to find an answer, but I didn’t know who or what to ask.

***

The meeting’s over, an hour longer than it should have been, affecting all my other appointments for the next three days. The only good thing is that time is relative. You know what? Fuck that.

I’m finally beginning to read my 250 e-mails from today. Yesterday’s 250 are still unopened, but, if nobody’s called, there’s nothing urgent. I don’t get many spams, but I notice one of them: God wants to talk to you.

I’m getting fed up with these evangelists. It must be another PowerPoint presentation with stupid pictures of waterfalls and little birds, with new age music telling you how you can help others, and, of course, give them money. Fucking nerve.

But funnily there is no PowerPoint attached, and the message is quite simple:

Do you want to know who you are? Why you are here? Where the Universe ends?

Best wishes,

God.

It must be a joke. But it doesn’t seem to be a spam. Strangely, the domain is universe.com. Would it be the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God? Arghhh...

It’s not a message about faith, help or anything stupid like that. Just those questions that I think about every day. OK, millions of people in the world ask the same questions, but I was getting obsessive, like OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Okay. Yes, I want to know, I replied.

I have to hand in an enormous number of reports on the weekly forecast, and it’s interesting to see how companies depend on crystal balls. You really have to have faith.

"Faith is a firm conviction that something is true, without any proof that it is true, through the absolute confidence we have in this someone or something."

Yes, forecast is a matter of faith, and there goes another one, completely revised, getting near the target I have to reach. You’ll always have to give a helping hand to faith. A mail is arriving.

I know that you’re not religious and that you don’t believe in God, but answer the question: What is the point all religions have in common?

Best wishes,

God

This was too much. It could only be a marketing mail from some evangelical church. They’re online. Evangelization on the Web, Cable TV, iPray.

I’ve never been religious. I’m the kind of person who is afraid of saying that they don’t believe in God, but I say so as I don’t believe, as a result of the many messages I got when I was a kid. I was in a religious, God-fearing family, who knelt to pray every night before going to bed. I don’t want to speak badly about religions, but all those who believe are just worried about themselves: I want to conquer the kingdom of heaven, or I want to have an infinite number of lovers in the kingdom of Allah, or I want to return in another body and blah blah blah. Selfishness? Individualism? Yes. After all, I want to do well.

I don’t believe, because believing makes no sense, and it’s not necessary. Yes, it does make sense to know what I’m doing here, as I’m here, living the here and now. Where will I go when I die? In my view, nowhere. I’ll be dead, won’t I? I want to be cremated, full stop.

I have so much work, and chatting with a lunatic doesn’t seem to be a good idea. But I wonder how they found me. I add [e-mail] to my social network.

But something strange happened. God is also in contact with all my contacts! Weird. Almost impossible, because as I said, I have thousands of contacts. Either this guy is a salesman who knows everyone or a very clever hacker. I logged in.

So, how did you do that? I asked.

Will you now reply to my question?

Tell me. Who are you? How did you find my e-mail? It couldn’t have been very difficult, as I give my card to anybody who may be a buyer. What do you want?

Are you ready to reply to my question?

Stubborn guy. Fuck work for the time being. I want to find out who this guy is. I haven’t the faintest idea what he’s trying to discover, but finding an answer is easy, whether it’s right or wrong. Google, what is the point all religions have in common?

0010

Mysticism and Syncretism,

by Leonardo Boff*

All things have their other side. Everything visible has its invisible part. To understand the other side of things, to surprise the invisible within the visible is to become aware that the visible is part of the invisible and part of mysticism.

What is mysticism? It derives from mystery. Mystery is not the limit of knowledge. It is knowledge beyond the limits. To know more and more, to enter into a deeper and deeper communion with someone or with the reality which surrounds us, to pass from one vision to another, to go beyond a horizon is to experience mystery. It is contained in all things and all people in the universe.

Mystery is not something frightening, like an endless abyss. It bursts