Psycho Worship

One beautiful, almost entirely blue-skied day, as Sarkon the Prophet was leaving for a little trip to the vaporous mists of the spiritual paths, he ran into cookie the harlequin, and found him unusually despondent.

"What makes you so sad, cookie?" he asked. Usually, the harlequin was all giggly and bouncy, so Sarkon was quite worried.

cookie looked at him with watery eyes. "What would you think, how would you feel, what would you do, Sarkon… If you noticed that you are someone else's creation?"

"You mean, like discovering one has a mom and a dad?" wondered Sarkon. "Well, that shouldn't be so traumatic, and it usually happens when you're a couple of days old…"

"Not that kind of creation," cookie sniffed. " A creation of the spirit, a spirit who made you up, a spirit that would make you think the things you think and do the things you do…"

"You mean, like discovering you are fake?" asked Sarkon. "I can assure you that it can't possibly –"

"It's rather like discovering that you are not your own master," cookie let his head hang low.

Sarkon was puzzled. Now why would cookie the harlequin suddenly believe something as weird and far-fetched as something that meant, basically, that he didn't exist? Now wait – cookie never went as far as believing something. Believing was too complicated a mental activity for him; it was something he couldn't comprehend. He either just felt, or knew. Which meant…

A cold shudder went down Sarkon's spine. "How did you happen to think that?" he asked.

cookie looked fearfully around himself. "Someone made me," he whispered. "Should we worship him?"

Sarkon looked around too. Nobody was there.

If cookie was showing concern, however, something was wrong. He had to find out what.

* * *

"We should be someone else's creation? Where in the vaporous mists of your spiritual paths did you get that mind-boggling notion?"

Dr. Qworm the Mad Scientist was shaking his head at Sarkon's words. "This time, you made up something really hard to believe. All scientific observers agree that one of consciousness' main characteristics is its ability to reproduce itself; and what reproduces itself can of course also produce itself, since if you can do something again then you must have been able to do it a first time. Thus, consciousness is the only thing in the universe that is able to create itself. To sum it up, there is no need to look further than our own nose to find out who created us: we are our own creation. And this is a fact that is agreed upon by all scientists in their right mind like me. So why do you come up with this 'someone else' theory?"

When Sarkon explained that it was cookie who had come up with this notion, however, Dr. Qworm took up a more preoccupied expression. "The harlequin? He isn't very often wrong, is he?…" the Mad Scientist scratched his hairless cranium. "But this time, he has to be! And I'll demonstrate it – right now!"

On these words he took a deep breath and started making swinging motions with his arms. He also began jumping in a circle on one foot. Then he shouted "Booga! Booga! Booga!", rolled his eyes, stuck out his tongue, and bobbed his head. He made this little dance last a full minute, and ended the whole thing by giving himself a violent slap on the cheek.

Sarkon the Prophet was flabbergasted. "And what shall be the meaning of this nonsense?" he asked, wondering if Dr. Qworm would ever be able to utter a word that made any sense again.

"Don't you see?" said Dr. Qworm while wiping some sweat away from his brow. "I just proved that I couldn't be someone else's puppet by acting in such a way that no one with a trace of sense would have made me act!" he boomed, showing with his open arms that his point was proven.

"Maybe this 'someone else' made you do all that nonsense just so that we stop suspecting he exists," conjectured Sarkon.

"You can't be right," assured Dr. Qworm, "because if you were, it would mean that he'd have failed, since you are still suspecting his existence. And if he fails to control you even once, it means he doesn't control you at all."

* * *

"I? Controlled? That's something I would notice," exclaimed General Kwar.

In his quest for an explanation to cookie's distress, Sarkon had resolved to explore even the most unlikely of paths, and after getting the Mad Scientist's opinion about the matter, he had ended asking the Welgon Age's Dictator about it.

"But even if nobody controls our actions directly, what if someone controlled the world around us? Since this world has a direct impact on our thoughts and actions, wouldn't it mean this someone controls us at least indirectly?" conjectured Sarkon. "And if it were so," he added, "should we worship him, so that he makes the world kinder to us?"

General Kwar opened his mouth to answer, but then looked at Sarkon in a queer way and closed it again. When he resumed speaking, he started with a deep sigh. "As much as I like to think I am almighty, I must admit that you are right. For someone does control the world around me, and I have to stand his whims every day of my existence!"

"And this someone is?…" Sarkon was hanging on Kwar's lips. Maybe now he would discover at last who was controlling them all…

"You!" eructed the Dictator. "You, who make me stand here talking about nonsense! Let's face it: whether we want it or not, we all control each other's existences to some extent. So what you are asking me is: should you worship me? Should I worship you? Well, I ask you this question, then: would you make the world better for me if I worshiped you?"

Sarkon was taken aback. "Of course not. Besides, I see no reason why I would want you to worship me in the first place," he answered. "That would be just silly."

"Silly, indeed… But you raised a good point: why would someone want to be worshiped?" asked General Kwar.

Sarkon opened his eyes wide. "I have not the slightest idea," he admitted.

"So why do you wonder if you should worship someone if you don't see a reason to want to be worshiped?" Kwar asked again.

"I have no idea," Sarkon admitted sheepishly.

"Neither have I," emphasized Kwar. "But if I don't know why one would want to be worshiped, I do, however, know a couple of examples of who wanted to be worshiped, to the point of menacing other people with utter destruction if they didn't comply. A man who asphyxiated millions of people in gas chambers; another who sent about as many die in icy exile; another who made as many walk until they died. The only actual examples we have of people who wanted to be worshiped were psychos with delusions of grandeur! So if someone tells you, 'Believe in me and worship me, or you'll be destroyed,' you better run away fast!"

Sarkon could only nod. After some thought, however, he added, "But if I don't know why I would want to be worshiped, I do know, however, why I would want to worship someone."

"And why would that be?" asked General Kwar with a mocking grin.

"Because of something you never experienced, Dictator: love. A love stronger than any previous love I'd have had could make me want to worship the embodiment of my love!"

"But what's the point, since this embodiment, assuming it is no psycho, cannot want to be worshiped? Wouldn't your worshiping not just be embarrassing?"

Sarkon bit his lip. "Then… I guess I would try to keep it secret, at first. And then slowly work at making this want disappear… That's the curse of worship, I guess: if someone wants to be worshiped, she isn't worth it, and if someone would be worth it, she wouldn't want it…"

"…Which makes worship totally useless," finished Kwar.

Sarkon could only agree. But then he added, "Still… Anybody who loves can't prevent worshiping a little…"

"Aberrant concepts always seem to come in pairs, indeed," agreed General Kwar in a despising tone. On these words he strode away, and soon disappeared behind the Welgon Age's only hill.

Sarkon followed Kwar's departure with a light smile. He had the answers he was looking for at last.

* * *

"cookie?"

The harlequin was recoiled in a fetal position, refusing to move, refusing to speak. Sarkon put his hand on cookie's shoulder.

"cookie…" Sarkon began, and then paused before going on, "I understand why you don't want to act anymore, and I agree that existing as a puppet makes no sense. But even if someone created us, this is not what we are. Because even if someone created us, it wouldn't be he who would make us act. As a matter of fact, it would be us who would make him act. We would impose our thoughts and deeds to him, not the opposite. And there would be no need to worship him, because…"

At that point cookie's head popped out from between his legs, and Sarkon saw that the sadness had gone, replaced by cookie's usual look of wonder.

"…Because," Sarkon finished, "He would worship us."

Then he gave cookie a high five which was met with a smile, and that was the end of the harlequin's despondency.