by Bryan Hinojosa
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\nThere\u2019s not much in space; it\u2019s a vacuum.\u00a0 You could travel all day and all night and never encounter anything worthwhile in space.\u00a0 And the reason for this sorry state of affairs is the fact that when God was creating everything, He didn\u2019t bother to put anything out in space.\u00a0 He never even considered the possibility that humans could make it that far, and who can blame Him?\u00a0 If He had actually thought that humans would one day leave the planet, He probably would have put something out there, made it a bit more interesting.\u00a0 So God, other than some planets and stars and things, pretty much left space empty.<\/p>\n
He never really gave any thought about humans in space until, after a few ages of Man had passed, great empires began to assemble.\u00a0 And in the cities of the empires, great towering structures began ascending into the sky.\u00a0 And God saw it and said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWow.\u00a0 Look at that.\u00a0 With their trigonometry and soil mechanics and metallurgy and such, these humans can do anything.\u00a0 Imagine the messes they\u2019ll stir up.\u201d\u00a0 He paused and surveyed their greatest creations: pyramids and mausoleums, statues and lighthouses.\u00a0 \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t possibly be able to\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He paused.\u00a0 \u201cWouldn\u2019t that be crazy if these humans made it off the planet?\u00a0\u00a0 It is possible, now that I think about it.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t that be something?\u00a0 Wow.\u201d<\/p>\n
After He had thought it over for a while, God decided that He should do something in the event of a human leaving the planet, something to mark such a grand and singular occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I think that if someone actually gets off that planet, I\u2019ll make the first one up a god.\u00a0 Not nearly as great as Me, of course, but I\u2019ll give him all sorts of powers.\u00a0 I\u2019ll even give him his own plane of existence to play around with.\u201d\u00a0 After devising the contest, God made His pronouncement: \u201cWhosoever is the first to leave the earth and enter space shall be made a god, like unto Me.\u201d\u00a0 Humans never actually heard the pronouncement, but each and every one was inspired by it.\u00a0 And since that time, even though they were unaware of God\u2019s actual edict, humans have always sought to reach the heavens.<\/p>\n
And so the humans built and built, ever upward, inventing all types of odd devices to ascend to the heights: monoliths, trebuchets, kites, aeromobiles, gyrocopters, but, for the time being, God took little notice.\u00a0 When a young scientist in Europe launched a rocket that scratched the boundaries of space, however, God began to watch a bit closer.\u00a0\u00a0 It would only be a short time from then that God would reward the winner of His millennia-old competition.
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\nLaika was a frisky, carefree husky mix that had roamed the streets of Moscow until she was picked up by a Russian aeronautical engineer.\u00a0 When the scientist caught the cheerful mutt, Laika was more concerned with the man\u2019s sausage than with his motives.\u00a0 She was not even that upset when he caged her, seeing as how he had fed her and all.\u00a0 Some of the girls back at the lab, all of whom loved the sweet husky, named her Kudryavka\u2014Little Curly\u2014but most people just called her Laika\u2014Barker\u2014even though she herself was unaware of such things as names.<\/p>\n
Laika remained caged up in the lab for several months, but she was growing fat off of human-food and didn\u2019t really mind all that much.\u00a0 Even though Laika was sad at night when everyone left, she still enjoyed her time at the lab.\u00a0 And Laika loved it in the morning, when first the janitors, then the beloved lab girls, and finally the scientists would file in for the day.\u00a0 Laika was always so excited to see each and every one.\u00a0 She was walked regularly and fed well and her health was a prime concern of the scientists there.<\/p>\n
Laika would come to learn that the scientists were building another, far more elaborate cage, a cabin almost, for her.\u00a0 They placed her inside the cabin several times during its construction process, to see if she would fit.\u00a0 And although it restricted her movements much more than her cage, Laika soon discovered that the cabin featured a time-release food and water dispensing machine and became very excited at feeding times.<\/p>\n
One day, the scientists threw a party and all of the lab girls came and kissed her and hugged her goodbye and Laika was shipped off on a thirteen-hour train ride.\u00a0 When she arrived, she was allowed to rest, but early the next day, she was roused, fed, bathed and placed inside her cabin.\u00a0 Eventually, the small chamber was pressurized, and even though she would have been incapable of understanding an idea like air pressure, Laika was still aware that something was amiss and was apprehensive for some minutes.\u00a0 Suddenly, the cabin lurched upwards, quickly.\u00a0 Laika froze, then started barking.\u00a0 Things calmed down and Laika was even allowed a small snack before her journey.\u00a0\u00a0 After her treat, she dozed off for a bit.<\/p>\n
After everything had been calm for a while, the cabin exploded into a horrific roaring and Laika was pressed hard.\u00a0 She felt as if she were falling upward very fast through dry water.\u00a0 The feeling terrified Laika; she urinated; she passed out.<\/p>\n
When Laika awoke, she was floating.\u00a0 Even though she was harnessed tight, she panicked.\u00a0 Laika would have urinated again, but she was all dry inside.\u00a0 After some minutes, she became adjusted to the sensation of weightlessness, and even dozed for a bit.<\/p>\n
Laika was largely unaware of what was going on.\u00a0 She reacted to the cabin and the weightlessness much as she would react to a cage or a train ride.\u00a0 All Laika knew was that something was going on that she couldn\u2019t control.\u00a0 Had Laika some greater concept of the world around her, she might realize that she was floating in a realm unknown to all others except for one.<\/p>\n
When feeding time came around, Laika was exceedingly surprised to find that her water and kibble, when they were released, floated about the room.\u00a0\u00a0 Tracking down all the pieces of hovering dog food and wandering globules of water while she was harnessed kept Laika entertained for the better part of the rest of her life.\u00a0 For four days Laika gently floated in her harness in her cabin and tried to catch all of the drifting morsels.\u00a0 Soon, though, she was startled as her little cabin gave some strong jerks and then righted itself.<\/p>\n
Unknown to her, her ship had bounced off of the atmosphere, which rendered the thermal control system inoperative.\u00a0 Within minutes the interior of Laika\u2019s cabin had soared to over 500 degrees Celsius.\u00a0 Laika didn\u2019t live long enough to feel the cabin reach 500 degrees, but she was acutely aware that the temperature was rising fast.\u00a0 She began to panic.\u00a0 She urinated.\u00a0 She started barking, howling, imploring anyone, anything to come and help her.\u00a0 She was being killed; she could feel it.\u00a0 She yelped weakly.\u00a0 Her heart nearly burst with each diastole.\u00a0 The temperature of her blood began to rise; her brain started frying from the heat.\u00a0 It is unclear what gave up first, Laika\u2019s brain or her heart, but either way, she died in her super-heated cabin.<\/p>\n
And it was then that God appeared to Laika.
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\nPeople say that God created humans in His own image.\u00a0 That\u2019s completely wrong; it\u2019s almost the opposite, actually.\u00a0 Many humans have just assumed that God looks like them because it\u2019s a comforting thought.\u00a0 Other, more imaginative people still assumed the gods looked like humans, but threw on a dog\u2019s head or bird\u2019s wings or something, just to make things interesting.\u00a0 But Laika had only the loosest conception of self-image, which prompted God to appear to her in the form that most resembled the one authority figure that Laika felt strong emotions for: her mother.\u00a0 Of course, God looked a lot more glorious than Laika\u2019s mom, but the resemblance was striking.\u00a0 At that instant, when Laika\u2019s corporeal body expired, she saw a big, radiant husky approach her through the murk of death.<\/p>\n
God, through a haze of brilliant light and golden flame that emanated from His dogbody, spoke:<\/p>\n
\u201cWow.\u00a0 I never saw this coming.\u00a0\u00a0 I never dreamed that they\u2019d send up a dog first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laika\u2019s reaction could be rendered thusly:<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are you?\u00a0 It\u2019s so good to see you! \u00a0Hooray!\u00a0 Here he is!\u00a0 Do you smell cheese?\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re here!\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad to see you!\u00a0 Do you have food?\u00a0 Hooray!\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re here!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUh\u2026 sure,\u201d God responded.\u00a0 He was in quite the quandary.\u00a0 He had given His Word.\u00a0 But should He actually<\/em> deify this dog?\u00a0 Omnipotence and another plane of existence might be considered a bit of a waste on a dog.\u00a0 What should He do?\u00a0 He looked at Laika.\u00a0 She was as excited as ever.\u00a0 Well, she should be, she\u2019s meeting God.\u00a0 Yet He wondered if she got this worked up over a mouse or a piece of bread.\u00a0 Probably more so.\u00a0 What was He going to do with this dog?<\/p>\n \u201cDaughter,\u201d He said to Laika, \u201cI am God.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYippee!\u00a0 It\u2019s so great to see you!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 Yes\u2026 I created all the world and everything in it, including you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHooray!\u00a0 Do you have food?\u00a0 It\u2019s so good to see you!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes\u2026 you\u2019ve already mentioned that.\u00a0 Anyway, now I\u2019m supposed to make you a god, or goddess I guess, and I\u2019m having second thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGreat!\u00a0 It\u2019s so good to see you!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWould you like to\u2026 become a goddess, daughter?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYippee!\u00a0 Let\u2019s play!\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re here!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have no idea what I\u2019m talking about, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just fantastic that you\u2019re here!\u00a0 I smell rain.\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad to see you!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m doing this,\u201d God said, \u201cbut a contest\u2019s a contest.\u201d<\/p>\n Then God, with His godly powers, willed Laika to become Her own goddess, in Her own realm. The dimension was made up of rolling plains, with many streams and a couple of copses of generic trees.\u00a0 Laikas ran about all over the place. Omnipresence allows for one to be in all places within one\u2019s realm; omniscience allows for one to know all things within one\u2019s realm.\u00a0 Yet, instead of processing all this info en masse, through one perspective, or perhaps because She was unable to process it, Laika had split Herself into many millions of Laikas, each of which ran around, performing a given Laika task.\u00a0 Each and every Laika, through all her different forms, was just as glorious and awesome as God was, when He appeared to Her.<\/p>\n There were many Laika hunters, which chased the many animals of Laika\u2019s own invention that ran all about.\u00a0 Some of the creatures possessed feline heads, some squirrel tails, others rabbit ears; there were even some winged creatures.\u00a0 The only things they had in common were that they were all furry, quick, and exploded in delicious blood whenever a Laika caught one.<\/p>\n In one field there were thousands of Laika mothers suckling thousands of Laika puppies on thousands on Laika teats.\u00a0 In another, quite disturbing field, thousands of Laikas were being rutted on by thousands of hearty, fertile mastiff studs.\u00a0 In another field, which at first was quite haunting and then quite dull, thousands of Laikas slept, and if one never heard the gentle humming caused by their snores, one might think it was the scene of a mass death.<\/p>\n When He entered Laika\u2019s realm, God was struck by the absence of color and overabundance of smells.\u00a0 The smallness of the place also surprised Him.\u00a0 Laika had limitless space to develop, yet She had only bothered to fashion about three square miles.\u00a0 He was quite displeased with the state of the dimension.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve given Her thousands of years to do something with this place.\u00a0 Hardly anything has been done at all.\u201d\u00a0 He looked at the ground.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s even dogshit everywhere!\u00a0 If She\u2019s too stupid to fashion Herself in such a manner as to negate the act of shitting, She could at least create something to clean it all up.\u00a0\u00a0 Why, there\u2019s not even a sun,\u201d He said as He glanced at the sky and noted the dull light that came from no discernible source.\u00a0 \u201cI will have to speak with Her.\u00a0\u00a0 Laika!\u201d<\/p>\n Laika had been largely unaware, or unconcerned, with God\u2019s presence until He spoke.\u00a0 At the sound of His voice, all action stopped and every Laika turned toward God, in one, solid motion.\u00a0 He was somewhat taken aback at the sight of millions of Laikas staring at Him, with their soft, brown, puppy-dog eyes.\u00a0 Because they were so ill-thought-out, all of Laika\u2019s chasing animals and studs disappeared with a poof when She ceased to pay attention to them.<\/p>\n Then the Laikas\u2019 world exploded with sound and action as every single Laika rushed forward to greet God, who they saw as their resplendent mother-goddess.\u00a0 He was overcome with the horde.\u00a0 He tried to speak to the mass, but His voice was overcome in the storm of barking Laikas:<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s here!\u00a0 Who are you? \u00a0I\u2019m so glad to see you!\u00a0 Play with me!\u00a0 It\u2019s great that you\u2019re here!\u00a0 Do you have food?\u00a0 Hazzah! \u00a0He\u2019s here! \u00a0Let\u2019s run!\u00a0 It\u2019s so great that you\u2019re here!\u201d and so on and so forth, but perhaps in an exponential form of the nonsense.<\/p>\n \u201cBack!\u00a0 Back!\u201d He thundered. \u00a0\u201cDown! Heel!\u201d<\/p>\n Yet it was useless.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t stop the throng, tails all wagging, tongues all lolling.\u00a0 And the puppy Laikas were worse than the rest.\u00a0 He stomped, He growled.\u00a0 Nothing worked.<\/p>\n God was taken aback.\u00a0 These millions of Laikas had become comfortable with Their many forms.\u00a0 Over the millennia, They had come to know this realm as well He knew His own.\u00a0 God was out of His element.\u00a0 Even though it was His Will and His Word that had allowed this plane of existence to come into being, it was now Laika\u2019s Will that fueled its existence.\u00a0 This was no longer God\u2019s country.\u00a0 It was the Laikaverse, and he was not the top dog here.<\/p>\n \u201cForget this,\u201d God said.\u00a0 He rent a hole in the Laikaverse, and zipped through it, back into His own realm.\u00a0 \u201cStupid dog,\u201d He muttered.\u00a0 \u201cWaste a dimension on a stupid dog.\u201d<\/p>\n And then God heard a little voice say to Him, \u201cWhere are We now?\u00a0 It smells interesting here!\u201d<\/p>\n God looked down.\u00a0 Standing next to Him was the most adorable little Laika puppy that anyone could ever imagine.<\/p>\n \u201cWow,\u201d said God.\u00a0 \u201cThis is not good.\u201d<\/p>\n The precious little Laika godpuppy looked, sniffed, heard\u2014sensed\u2014the universe, a small portion of which She recognized, and She was overwhelmed.\u00a0 The omniscient dog was bombarded by an unimaginable amount of stimuli and was, by Herself, in Her current form, unable to process it all.\u00a0 In response, the Laika puppy\u2019s consciousness fractured, splitting up into trillions of distinct perceptive entities, each willing into existence its own body to inhabit.\u00a0 These individual Laikas spread at thousands of times the speed of light.\u00a0 As fast as divine thought, the universe, our universe, the one our descendents will inhabit, became full of Laikas.\u00a0 On Earth, billions of Laikas burst into existence, destroying most of the living matter on the planet.\u00a0 Although some of those humans who were somewhat able to perceive what had happened thought that having creation overrun by cute dogs was not the worst way to go.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s how the world ends, for humans anyway.\u00a0 God is slowly but surely reclaiming the universe back for Himself, but it\u2019s worse than trying to exterminate roaches. by Bryan Hinojosa There\u2019s not much in space; it\u2019s a vacuum.\u00a0 You could travel all day and all night and never encounter anything worthwhile in space.\u00a0 And the reason for this sorry state of affairs is the fact that when … Continue reading
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\nGod ignored Laika and Her realm for a couple of millennia.\u00a0 He almost forgot about Her, actually.\u00a0 More ages of Man came and passed.\u00a0 Then one day, He recalled Laika and said, \u201cOh yeah.\u00a0 I made a dog into a god once.\u00a0 I wonder what ever happened to that crazy dog?\u201d\u00a0 He had given Her a dimension all Her own, to do with as She pleased.\u00a0 God now ventured towards that place.<\/p>\n
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\nBRYAN HINOJOSA<\/strong> learned early on that dreamers go unsalaried, and instead shot for the profession that he saw as the most similar: writer of Things That Are Never To Be. The efficacy of this current plan is yet to be assessed. He has attended school at Texas Tech U (in a desert) and the U of Louisiana @ Lafayette (in a swamp). Mr. Hinojosa suffers from allergies. He thinks it\u2019s clich\u00e9 to worship Bruce Lee, but damn, have you seen that guy? Mr. Hinojosa doesn\u2019t necessarily desire the end of the world, but would appreciate being able see it go down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"