The Godhead

The Curator is pleased to admit you for an eighteenth viewing.

You will come in out of the cold to the door of a great temple, the seat of a living god, on the last night when the idol is unveiled and the worship sealed and the name enthroned among the gods, all gold sanctuary and warm lamplight and the idol raised on its throne and the rows of votive lamps lit and the priesthood's low chant of it is a god, worship it, where every soul who could not bear to be the one no one would ever pray to is worshipped at last. There is a throne kept for you in the warm inner sanctum, a name already on the god-roll and a whole devout priesthood bowed close before your idol, and the shutting of the temple around you, and a congregation that has learned by heart the one god it could not do without. One reminder, with our compliments: the way off is real, and this time it asks whether you can let your name be struck from the god-roll, your idol unmade and thrown down, and walk out prayed to by no one, with no one at your side, to an ending that is wholly your own, mortal and your own.