Merrick traded his spray paint for posters. Find salvation, they read. Revel in the coming of God. He and his friends put them up all over town, all over their high school and the police station he’d just vandalized. Their first congregation was in Lester’s front yard (it was hardly a yard at all, just sparse grass and a sidewalk), with Merrick dressed in his best impression of a bishop. He’d thrown on some bedsheets, tied a loose napkin around his neck, and took to preaching from the porch steps. A modest few had turned up, mostly those disenfranchised kids who’d sit with him in the back of class—that was, of course, before he got suspended for defacing a bus.
“We have been blessed,” he began, “by a seed. The inklings of change have taken root in this shitwipe of a city, and it is us who’ve been tasked with its watering. This is the fetus of God. It is among us. It is gestating.”
The congregation took turns feeling it. One girl ran her hand along its veins and remarked how the pulse felt anxious. Another, perhaps unnerved by its resemblance to her own flesh, asked what exactly they were supposed to do. This started a murmur through the five or six gathered there, the bulk of them delinquents who’d never had much taste for conformity. Merrick thought about this for a moment; he didn’t have an answer. He hadn’t actually thought about that, about what it was they were “supposed” to do, or why they were supposed to do it. Eventually, he came back with a simple proclamation. “We’ll spread the word. Tell everyone we know. We’ll have the whole town—no, whole state, whole world clamoring here like some pilgrimage. That will—that’ll make it happy. I’m sure.”
So that’s what they did. The posters multiplied, crawling between passerby as hushed whispers and punctuating their gossip with the ever-subtle “so, have you heard about that cocoon?” One rather well-networked kid (well-networked, at least, in that their father did the news) got themselves a commercial on local airways, tuning into retirees’ morning slumps and the late night channel hopping of stoners. By the time their next congregation rolled around, Lester’s yard was quintupled in occupancy, to the point some were left straining their necks from the street. Merrick had never spoken in front of so many eyes—before now, he’d only dreamed of it.
“Good people,” he began, “it is an honor to have you here today. I am sure our god is just as pleased to see so many newcomers.
“What does it want?” a watcher asked.
“It wants what any god wants.
“World peace? Like, ending pain and stuff?”
Someone else laughed. “Might as well ask for ascension while you’re at it. Gods are for accountability, not action.”
Someone else spoke up and told that guy he was going to Hell. Merrick raised his hands for silence before more could join in, and a weightless sense bubbled up inside him when they listened.
“It wants to spread. A few dozen faithfuls aren’t good enough. It needs an army. A kingdom of its own.” He looked around at the crowd and breathed in their attention. “And an army needs a leader. A kingdom needs a king. Unless any of you have someone in mind,” he said, “I would happily be that.”
To Merrick’s ears, there were no objections. And so over the coming weeks, he ordered Lester’s house to be converted to a chapel, its walls carved and furniture rearranged, so that the cocoon may be visible from anywhere. When all was done, Merrick had a seat up front, blessing those who came to pray to the flesh-thing while staying far enough to save his nose the suffering. Some would ask it for guidance, some for clarity, some for favors not even delusion could grant. Merrick tried talking to it sometimes, too, when the chapel was empty and he was sure no one would see. He never did hear it answer—it shuttered when he touched it, retracting as if his hands alone had the static to jolt it awake. When the silence grew frustrating, he made up his own answers: “You are my vector,” he imagined it saying. “My will and yours are inseparable, and you shall see it carried out.”
He called himself Father of the Pupites. The Pupites themselves devoured the city, Morllane turned Mecca of the Western world, and as their ideology crossed county lines, more people flocked right back across to see the god cocoon themselves. Lester’s house (they were calling it the Temple now) could not contain them all. Merrick had his throne moved up to the roof, a spot that gave him viewing rights to his whole dominion—and extended that dominion to everything in view. He did not redirect people when they’d look up and cheer for him instead of the cocoon; rather, he took donations by the drove, buying robes and leathers to drape himself in. A prophet should look good, he figured, and imagined the cocoon would agree.
“I think we should have more events,” he divulged to it one evening. “Like a potluck or something. Something to build community. I like looking around and seeing my impact, you know? All the lives I’ve touched. Makes me feel…” he took pause, rummaging for the right word. He did find it—important—but opted for one less egotistical. “It makes me feel good.”
“And you should feel good. You are good. You’re great. Nobody can do what you do.” This is what he imagined the cocoon to say.
Then one night, as he divulged dreams of a reformed world, he heard it talk back.
It was a whisper, just barely distinguishable from the voice in his head. His heart leapt. He insisted it repeat itself, and it did:
“Am I…beautiful…yet?”
Merrick lost his words. It seemed the cocoon did too, going silent after its momentary lapse. He stood. In his eyes burned contempt, funnelled down at the fleshy mass like it had slighted him personally. He held that glare for some time, and in that time he said nothing; his brow alone spoke for him, bunched up with such animosity that the cocoon, blind as it was, blushed.
Merrick proposed they move their headquarters elsewhere. Somewhere larger, he argued, with space enough for new converts and (though he didn’t emphasize it quite as much) a room to call his personal sanctuary. To his followers, though, there was the glaring matter of the cocoon; they could not move it, and this caused quite the divide among them. What was a temple, they asked, without the object of its devotion? Merrick tried his best to placate them; “It remains in our hearts, even if we are physically distant. As long as we spread the word, our purpose is fulfilled. The core of Pupism is inside us.” When that didn’t work, he tried something more tangible. “It needs space to hatch. Some privacy. It will come to us when it’s ready.”
Unfortunately for Merrick, that was the day it began twitching. Someone noticed while praying, swinging to and fro from its tendon like a quickened womb. Word spread quickly through the encampment that their god was on its way. Within the hour, the Temple was swarmed with Pupites, crushing and climbing over each other to catch a glimpse for themselves. Merrick tried calling for silence atop his perch, but was lost to the chaos of it all. Not even the added gruffness of frustration reached them.
He mandated that any self-respecting Pupite would make a final tithe before the hatching—just to make sure they’d earned their spot on God’s good side, of course. He sat himself in the main parlor and welcomed them in by the droves. Merrick was a kind Father. Should anyone feel anxious about the coming of God, he was there to listen—provided they could pay. “Ten bucks for salvation,” the sign out front read.
These consultations were largely unremarkable. Offering reassurance, telling them their god had a plan and to have faith in whatever it was. It became almost a script for Merrick, recycling those same few generic phrases until each asker went away. There was one child, though, who came and dropped nine dollars in his fee jar. He rattled off a question before Merrick could count his fare.
“Do you believe God is coming?”
Merrick tipped his head with a puzzled sort of gaze. “That’s an awfully odd question. Do you not believe he’s coming?”
“Oh, I do. I know he is,” he said. “I’ve talked to him myself. But I’ve never seen you down there, talking to him. If I were a god, and you were my priest, I wouldn’t be very happy.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not a god, then, isn’t it?” He had finally sorted through the change. “You’re a buck short, kid. Cough it up.”
The boy stuffed his hands into his pockets and Merrick waited for a dollar. But his arms stayed glued. “I don’t like you very much, mister,” he said. “I think you’re a fraud. And I think, once he hatches, God’ll feel the same way.”
“A fraud?” He stopped himself short of lunging. “I am the realest thing you have. How do you know your god down there isn’t a fraud? You’ve never seen what’s inside. Maybe all this time you’ve been worshipping some loser kid who lost himself in the attention.”
Merrick watched him leave. He sunk back in his chair as he did, face growing from mild annoyance to something vaguely of concern.
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