Inside the Blazing Forest

You knew the disembodied voices came from machines and not thin air. So what? Why couldn't God speak through the Cloud in the quiet hours of solitude when only microphones heard you weep?

Yet what the voices ordered was an atrocity, and you were grieving and angry but still a good man. You found people who could trace such things and paid them what was left of your savings. This was only enough for half a suspicion, interesting enough that they did the rest of the work for free.

They found no other miracle than the infinite creativity of human duplicity. You were relieved: better God's silence than an awful command.

At night, though, a dark question slithered through your mind. Why couldn't God speak through the CIA?

The voice sounded like yours, but you couldn't tell where it came from.