How Big is God's Dick?
Grower or a shower?
The garage smelled like stale PBR and weed. Kevin said it was a wicked strain called “Event Horizon OG”. The jar was white with a black label. No cartoons. No slogans. Just a warning: Temporary adjustments to local causality. Kevin grinned at the font.
Leo didn’t touch the stuff. He sat on a milk crate holding a drumstick. Mack and Kevin were forty minutes into a riff they called “Dopest Opus.” It ground like teeth on a cold pipe. He’d given up trying to keep time about two minutes in.
“That’s not it,” Kevin said. He adjusted a knob on his Marshall stack. It was one of those newer, solid state models.“It needs to be lower. Like, subterranean.”
“My bass is already tuned to Z dude,” Mack laughed. He took a hit from the bong. The smoke didn’t rise. It settled into the rug in perfect, frozen cubes.
His foot hovered over his pedal board. “Watch this.”
He tapped the switch on pedal called Earthquaker. The lights flickered.
Mack hit the low string. The note was so low it barely qualified as sound. Just pressure. Subsonic weight pressing down on everything. Water bottles vibrated on the concrete. Windows buzzed. Leo’s molars chattered against each other. His chest cavity resonated. He tasted metal.
The air thickened. The space between atoms filled with dense, wet static.
Then Steve appeared by the water heater.
One second, the space next to it was empty. The next, a vertical line of static zapped the air. He stepped out of the flicker like he was exiting a slow elevator.
“Whoa,” Kevin said. He didn’t stop strumming. His pupils had eaten his irises.
Steve wore a beige short-sleeve button-down. A blue lanyard hung around his neck with a blurred ID card. He held a digital tablet and a stylus. He looked at his watch and muttered something about the 5:15 express.
Mack blinked. Squinted at the space where Steve had appeared. Then grinned. “Duuude. Is that the new singer? You bring a mic, man?
Steve didn’t look at the band. He tapped his stylus against the screen with a practiced, rhythmic annoyance.
“DQA,” Steve said. His voice had the flat, exhausted tone of a man who spent his life in a cubicle.
The band just stared at him.
“Divine Quality Assurance,” Steve paused. “You’ve triggered a Level 4 Frequency Breach—”
“You bet I did,” Mack said with a grin, clutching his bass like an axe.
Steve clearly was annoyed. “I have a ticket open for an Unauthorized Reality Query.”
“Query?” Kevin laughed. A thin line of blood started to leak from his left nostril. “Hell yeah. We got questions. Biiiggg ones. Right Mack? Cosmological shit.”
Steve sighed. He looked at the Marshall stack and then back at his tablet. “It’s always the stoner bands. You guys hit that one specific sub-harmonic while taking a toke and think you’ve discovered the secrets of the universe. It’s just bad wiring, kid.”
“Don’t,” Leo said. He stood up dropping his stick on the ground. His pulse hammered against the back of his throat. “Guys, this dude is legit.”
“I have to process the inquiry,” Steve said. He looked at Mack. “What is the nature of the data request? Keep it brief. If I stay past five, I have to fill out an overtime justification form and my manager is a prick.”
Mack grinned.
“Alright, Steve. Tell us the truth. The scale of the big guy. The creator. You know. How big is God’s dick?“
Kevin chuckled. Leo’s jaw dropped.
Steve stopped tapping. “That’s the query? You want a physical measurement of the divine source?”
“It’s a legit question,” Mack said.
“It’s really not—”
“Genesis 1:27,” Kevin interrupted. He was still playing, fingers moving on autopilot. Blood was dripping from his nose now. “’So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.’” He grinned. “If we’re made in his image, bro, then that image has a dick.”
Steve looked at Kevin with something between respect and despair. “You’re citing scripture to me.”
“Sunday school, baby.” He fist bumped Mack.
“Hell yea. Gonna record this for the album,” Kevin whispered.
Steve sighed. “Fine. You’re technically correct. Which is the worst kind of correct.”
Steve clicked a box and shook his head. “Let’s talk scale. You’re thinking in three dimensions. That’s your first mistake. You’re trying to measure the infinite using a ruler made of meat. It’s like a termite trying to calculate the internet.”
Steve reached into a briefcase that hadn’t been there a second ago. He pulled out a tape measure made of white, pulsing light. He pulled the tab. The sound of the tape extending was the sound of a thousand glass windows shattering at once.
“Look at the line,” Steve said.
Mack looked. His head tilted back. His jaw unhinged. A wet pop echoed in the garage as his mandible touched his chest. He wasn’t screaming. He was making a clicking sound in the back of his throat. His eyes started to leak a clear, viscous fluid.
“You see?” Steve said. He pointed at the tape of light like he was showing a homeowner a crack in their foundation. “If we use the Planck length as a baseline, the ratio is...well, you don’t have a word for the number of zeros. Imagine every grain of sand on every planet in every galaxy. Now imagine each grain is a universe. Now imagine those universes are just the follicles on the shaft. The creator must be larger than the creation. It’s a matter of bureaucratic necessity. Otherwise, the paperwork doesn’t balance.”
Kevin was still trying to play guitar. His fingers had merged with the strings. His ears were venting a fine, pink mist.
“Sick,” Kevin whispered. A glob of grey matter slid out of his ear and hit the concrete with a soft plip.
Leo backed away. He hit the garage door. It felt like paper. He looked at his friends. They weren’t people anymore. They were biological sponges soaking up too much data. Their bodies were failing to contain the numbers Steve was showing them.
Steve retracted the tape. The light vanished. Mack and Kevin slumped forward. They didn’t fall. They turned into two puddles of grey and red probability on the garage floor.
Steve checked a final box on his tablet.
“At least they didn’t make a Big Bang joke.” He looked at Leo. “You didn’t partake?”
Leo shook his head. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“But you’re the drummer right?”
Leo nodded.
“Huh. That’s a first. Saves me from more paperwork.”
Steve took a step then paused. “Mind if I take the rest of that weed?”
Leo nodded again.
Steve placed the jar in his suitcase and walked toward the laundry room. He didn’t open the door. He just wasn’t there when he reached it.
Leo stood in the silence. The only sound was the hum of the cheap Marshall amp, still waiting for a chord that would never come.
👍 Like this story?
It’s part of my short story collection, Farrago: Volume 1. Purchase the short story collection here:
That was fun!
I really wanted to capture a Bill and Ted meets Dogma vibe. Some might find the subject blasphemous but I couldn't help finding humor in the bureaucracy of it all.