God Is Dead Read Online Free

cow took half a step forward, staggered back, and died on its feet. For a moment it remained standing. Then it began to collapse with terrible slowness, as if it remembered gravity but did not agree with it. The front legs folded at the knee, and the rear end listed to one side, dragging the rest of the body down into the dust.
    In an instant flies swarmed around its mouth and eyes. The girl stared at the carcass with the stunned indifference of a catatonic. Over the chanting of the women in the food queue and the giggling of the boys rose a high, steady sound, a single note of distilled grief which God knew came from the girl, but even as she threw herself down and wrapped her arms around the dead animal her face remained still and expressionless.
    The giggling and chanting and splashing and clapping went on and on. God felt with certainty and relief that he, too, was dying.
    â€œSora,” Powell said. The smile was gone; he peered into God’s face with concern. “You should lie down. Thomas will be here soon.”
    God allowed himself to be led back into the tent by the Secret Service agents. They eased him onto the cot and draped another blanket over him.
    Powell’s telephone rang from within his rumpled suit. “I want you to find someone from the medical tent,” he told an agent as he searched his pockets for the phone. “Get them in here as soon as possible.”
    Powell lifted the phone to his ear and turned away. “Yes,” he said. There was a pause. “Well I’m afraid you can’t fire me. Because I quit.”

    â€œI must be dumb as a brick,” Powell said. He’d left the tent to avoid upsetting Sora and now strode angrily and without direction through the camp, shouting into the telephone, trailed by a Secret Service agent and a steadily growing crowd of Dinka admirers. “Because I actually thought your stupid ass might be capable of seeing that in this instance the right thing to do is also the smart thing to do, politically speaking.”
    Pause.
    â€œI said stupid ass. ”
    Pause.
    â€œSmart politically because if you got behind what I’m doing here people would see a president transcending the rhetoric of diplomacy and acting for once. Doing something good, no matter how small.”
    Pause.
    â€œDon’t give me delicate and complicated. What am I, some bright-eyed Georgetown undergrad, gonna change the world? It’s only delicate and complicated because we make it delicate and complicated.”
    Pause.
    â€œWhat happened to me? You want to know what happened to me?”
    Pause.
    â€œAll right. Let me give you a hypothetical. Pay attention, because there will be a quiz at the end.”
    Pause.
    â€œLet’s say you’re a black kid growing up in the Bronx. Imagine it’s the hottest summer you’ve seen in your eight years, and the war’s over and everyone in the neighborhood has lost their job because all the white men have come back from Europe and the Pacific looking for work themselves. And so everyone’s packed in on everyone else, every day, in the heat. Then say someone’s had enough and they pick up a rock and break a window. Who knows why? Maybe they’re anarchists; maybe they’re union agitators; maybe they’re just bored. For a week after that you smell tear gas every morning when you wake up. A third of the buildings on your block burn to the ground.
    â€œNow imagine your mother, who saw much worse than this where she’s from and maybe isn’t as worried as she should be, sends you to the store. She sends you with an older boy named Keith who lives in your building. Keith is fourteen and supposed to keep you out of trouble. Except there’s nothing but a scorched foundation where the store used to be, so you have to walk sixteen blocks north, all the way to Cab’s Grocery. On your way back the milk and oranges are getting heavy and Keith wants to take a shortcut.