The room was dark if I recall. Not dark enough I couldn't see, mind you, but dark enough to be heavy in shadows. It was the dark of lovers, the dark of parties. It was a wonderful light for stealing a kiss; if any of the partygoers has any such thought on their minds. It was not a night for kissing. I wondered if it would ever be a night for kissing again.

In a lonely corner sat God. God incarnate in an eighteen-year-old boy. It was the Old Testament God--the God of Abraham, the God of Moses. It was the God of a chosen people, who favored the Israelites and none other. The same God that had send His Angel of Death to Egypt to butcher the firstborn of that land, the God that the Spanish Inquisition had worshiped. The God that was painted in Medieval Catholic Cathedrals with two swords protruding from His mouth, the great judge of mankind, without mercy or pity. I was sure that this 'man' was the same being that had rained sulfur and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. He would live by the sword, and we would die by it.

God sat in the room and it was still dark. He did not glow, He did not radiate light. He allowed the room to remain dark and not even a calm, comforting dark. It was a dark of desire and rejection, reminiscent of the grave. The more I thought about it the darker the room became. It was a choking dark, suffocating my faith.

He was divine, of that much I was sure. I had a faith in my knowledge, faith in myself. There was a quality about Him that made him godly, He was perfect--without blemish, flaw or error. He would walk with a confidence unfound in mortal men, never taking a false step, never looking behind Him if He heard a loud footstep. He was bereft of fear in an age when murderers walked the halls of high schools. He was able, muscular, but not noticeably so. His features were soft, yet unyielding. He looked like Michaelanelgo's David. He could do things with a faint look and a fainter smile that I could never do. He was adored by His peers and those that were His seniors and juniors. In face, everyone loved Him. Every girl I knew had at least a small, secret crush on Him.

How I hated Him. Did I not have social skills? Where my eyes not deep enough, my hands not tender enough? Perhaps my walk did hold a little fear, but my stance held pride for humanity and my eyes held passion. I thought I was attractive but with Him around no one would ever look twice in my direction. I would scream and shout, make a complete fool of myself, and once I stopped I would not be thought upon again.

It had been about a year I had spent in His company, it was probably only a heartbeat for Him, and I hadn't had a real conversation with Him yet. He was always just--around. No one would know who invited Him or how He got there. They weren't concerned with such unimportant details either. "He's cool, let Him be," my friends would tell me.

When He was around He would find Himself a comfortable, secluded place to sit and judge us. He wouldn't talk to us, wouldn't lower Himself to that. He would only speak if spoken to. Then only making polite conversation with His creations, never revealing any part of His master plan. Never telling anything that might give a glimmer of hope.

We were drinking that night, too. That night, like all there others, He sat in a dark corner and watched. He did not take part. He would come to the parties, but never take advantage of the 'entertainment' that was provided. He watched us as we poured that foul tasting liquid down our throats; watched as we grimaced at every drop then raised the glass anew. He remembered everything we did, I'm sure of it. We drank to excess. Control of our bodies and minds left us. We were all damned.

We cursed Him and His creations using His own name in the curse. We did not know we shared the room with Him, we didn't even believe He existed. We were damned for our ignorance, our ever-eager arrogance. He wouldn't stop us, wouldn't tell us it was wrong. As we killed ourselves, He didn't save us.

He didn't save my sister, either. She had died a week before in a car accident. Her wake, funeral and burial had all come and gone with relatives I didn't know I had and wouldn't see until someone else died, which may have been shortly. Looking at her in her coffin she didn't look dead, she looked as if she'd had never been alive. The golden waves of her hair had been maliciously placed to cover the gash in her forehead that had killed her. Her hair looked white, an unnatural white. They had told me it was from some sort of hair glue they used. I had told them that my sister had blonde hair, not white. They didn't understand.

Her white hair made her look washed out. Her face was powered up with this crap that made her flesh look like rotting porcelain. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a false position. It looked as if she was trying to protect herself, but my sister would never cross her arms, never retreat from anyone or anything. I told them that my sister didn't cross her arms, but they didn't understand that either. They just patted me on the head, the poor, grief-stricken boy.

Her hands held a white flower, adding to the all too pale effect of this morbid image. I cannot recall the name of those flowers, but I remember she once told me she hadn't liked them, they were too weak, able to be blown over in a stiff breeze. They were weak, she said, and she had no patience for weak things, only that which fought for life, life above all.

Her beautiful see green eyes had been closed, but she didn't look as if she was sleeping. She looked as if she longed to see, but her eyelids prevented light from reaching the inner depths of her mind. I couldn't think of my sister alive without the foreshadowing of her death. It was as if her light in my life had been dimmed. The manikin-like body made me wonder if my memories of her were real, if she had been real.

My mother had been in the car with her. She was in the hospital. I tried to visit her everyday but the visiting hours had been cut. The doctors told me she'd never be able to make her world-famous mashed potatoes again, if she ever did come out of that coma. Her hands had been getting colder and colder. I could feel my mother slipping away from me. I would have bad dreams at night that more relatives I didn't know would come and take my mother from me. I would tell them that the could not and they would simply pat my head, the poor, grief-stricken boy. It would wake me with a cold sweat and I've have to call the hospital.

The party was for my sister. All my friends had loved her. It was her charming, light manner that had won them over, even if she was as "flighty as a sea gull." She understood them, and me as well. Understood us enough to laugh with us and feel our young, causeless anger. She was older than us, but that didn't stop her from driving us places before we got our licensees. She even bought us alcohol, the same that we were drinking that night. Drinking in her honor, in remembrance.

"To my sister," I would proclaim to the crowd, holding a half-full glass over my head.

"Here here!" would come their drunken exuberance as they all tipped their heads back. All but one.

He would not drink to her. It was a drink, just one drink. In a sip that would say to me He cared for my sister. He wouldn't drink at all, He never did. Never touched a drop, He was too good for it. He would watch us, sure, and judge us, but the way we drank was a sin and He wouldn't dare let sin touch those divine lips, cloud that divine judgement.

I remember it like it was yesterday, I was just drunk enough to be angry. He wouldn't drink, wouldn't toast to the sister He killed. The room was dark enough, the people drunk enough; I would have been the only one to notice. He was the supreme judge of all men, what did He have to fear? Who would know other than He and I? He didn't have to do it for me, but for my sister, to show He cared. My beautiful sister, struck down before her time like all of the first born of Egypt.

It was late into the evening that I became bold enough to approach Him. With a bottle in my right hand and a stained glass in my left I stumbled over to His corner. He looked at me, those steel gray eyes felt like a spear in my side, stealing my breath. I could almost see a sneer in those orbs of His. He didn't invite me to sit down but He didn't blink as I bent down next to Him.

"Hello," I said to Him. He said nothing in return, just gazed at me with those hard, unblinking eyes. "You haven't toasted all night."

"You're drunk." God spoke in a monotone. How quaint.

"I'm sober enough to realize you haven't taken a toast all night."

"You're drunk."

"You said that already. Here," I poured into the glass. "Toast to my sister."

"I don't drink."

"Toast to her health. She's dead, you know. Toast her good speed in the hereafter."

"I don't drink."

"Does she not have good speed in the hereafter?"

"I don't drink."

"I know, toast anyway."

"No."

No? What right did He have to say no? It was He that created her and He that had killed her. It was He that drove me to this party to drown my sorrows in a bottle. It was He that would damn me for my actions tonight. He had chosen this forum. he had ended her life and He wouldn't toast to her after her death. Was she damned as well? Would He damn her? Could He? That brilliantly yellow hair and those eyes as deep and green as the ocean. Could such a soul burn? Would He allow it? He had allowed such a soul to perish.

"Why not?" I asked Him thought damp eyes.

"I don't drink."

"Make an exception, for my sister," I pleaded. I never plead.

"No."

Again with that word. How I hate that word. I hate it as I hate Him. It is so simple, so absolute. So ... divine. No? He could not deny me.

"Toast!" I screamed.

Calmly He returned, "No."

Calmly He replied to me. Mockingly He replied to me. He laughed at my pain.

I took the glass in my hand and forcefully emptied it on His face. If He would not drink the liquid He would wear it. He would smell of it, His smell would cause the eyes of angels to water. Water as my eyes watered then.

He did not try to stop me. He was omniscient, He had to be. He was prepared for what I was going to do and He was not afraid. He was bereft of fear. He knew He was not damned. He was so sure of His salvation.

I rose and bringing the bottle behind my head and with all the force of my fear I brought it down upon His crown. The glass shattered instantly, spreading its sinful contents upon His brow, mixing with His blood.

Blood. Deep and rich, the color of old wine and the constancy of thin syrup. His lifeblood flowed from that wound. The color of an autumn sunset.

He didn't cry out.

I kicked Him. Maybe I hadn't hurt Him enough. If I hurt Him more He'd cry out. If I hurt Him more He'd beg for the mercy that He never showed me. I kicked Him again and He fell to the ground. I stuck out with my foot again and again, striking His head until it bent at an unnatural angle, all the while howling, "Toast! Why will you not toast?"

My friends stared at me with blank faces. They were strangers to me. None of them moved, they were a frozen tableau of men to whom the world had ceased to function.

The color of an autumn sunset. Deep and thick and red. Above all red. His blood slowly pooled around my feet, soaking into the carpet. My sisters hair was too perfect, she never combed it. I had to move it, they just didn't understand. Her forehead, even under that sickening white powder was the color of an autumn sunset.

I fell to my knees, there was no stopping the tears now. They flowed from me like a river. This boy, I had killed him. Stuck out with my own hand. I held his head close to my chest, sucking in breath between sobs. His scalp was cut, his hair matted and dark. His forehead held a deep slash, like my sister. Oh god, my beautiful sister. To remove that wound, what I wouldn't do. I loved this boy, who was all too mortal, who drug in ragged, faltering breaths.

My tears fell onto his forehead, skipping lightly around his wounds. I turned my head up, knowing I could make no sound loud enough for this injustice.

A blinding light flashed before my eyes. When it became dark I knew he was dead.

Maybe God did glow after all.