Thirteen Roses Book Two: After: A Paranormal Zombie Saga by Michael Cairns Page B

that knowledge. What would be the point, when you wouldn't believe it anyway?'
    'Imagine I believe everything. Imagine I've thrown my logic out the window and am now ready to accept that what you say it true. You're an angel, your boss is God and there is a heaven and hell—'  
    'I never said that. I've never said the word God. He, as he is recognised today, is an entirely human construct and despite what you may have heard, belief does not create, not in that way. Every single person in the world could believe in the same deity and he still wouldn't exist, not as some omnipotent, prayer-worthy being.'
    'How come,' Alex replied, 'if everything else is true, he isn't? How can you just screw with the rules like that?'
    'First of all, there are no rules. Remember that, because everyone wants rules and when they find out there aren't any, they bitch and moan as if some mystical being let them down. Second of all, God was a joke made up a long time ago by a bunch of angry old men who used it to beat a population into submission. That so many people still believe in him is the biggest joke of all.'
    He took a deep breath. The night was climbing down the mountain around them and creeping over the path, hiding where his feet wanted to tread and obscuring the hills. Now he saw only spindly trees and shadows. It felt like home, his real home. Despite the dark, he could still feel Alex's eyes upon him.  
    'It's all about perspective. You struggle to believe in the Father because you see him as this mystical figure in the clouds, just like the joke says. He isn't. Yes, he and I have a different energetic footprint, but we exist just as you do. We have our own world and way of life. The human condition is to view everything through a prism of your own experiences. You believe, whether you think so or not, that when you aren't in the room, nobody's talking, unless it's about you—'
    'That's not true. Philosophers have been exploring that for centuries, since ancient Greece even.'
    'They have, but do you think what a bunch of hairy old men think makes a blind bit of difference to David the adulterer, or Bayleigh the sandwich shop owner, or Alex, the budding scientist with a bit too much ambition? Normal people with normal lives couldn't give a toss about philosophy. Their lives revolve around them. God and religion is created to serve them, as much as they might serve it instead.'
    'I don't believe you. I'm sorry, but you're just wrong. What about the people who don't believe, like me? Religion has no power over me.'
    'You worship something else, and perhaps something with more clearly defined evidence to support its existence. But you still let it hold sway over your life.' Luke paused. 'But your original question was about other worlds.'
    Alex grunted but didn't reply. Was he having a sulk? Luke was hoping for a more challenging argument. Had the scientist noticed his own choice of words? Not 'you're wrong' or 'your argument is flawed' but 'I don't believe you.' Luke smiled.  
    They were nearly at the shrine and the hill rose before them. He set off up the steep incline, hearing Alex puff along beside him. Eventually he scientist spoke again, voice smaller this time. 'What are the other worlds?'
    Luke chuckled. 'Just what I said. Other places, some like this, others entirely different. Where they are similar is they all carry life. Where I live is the centre of all this and where the Father lives is above that, staring down on all his subjects.' He didn't bother to keep the sneer from his voice.  
    'So the Father is God, right?'
    'That depends upon how you define God. Do you mean the Christian god, or Mohammad, or Buddah, or someone else? Because whichever of those you choose, you would be both right and wrong. There is a Father, who stands 'above' everything and makes choices we only see the repercussions from millennia later. Beneath him lies every religious, mystical or mythical being you can imagine, buried beneath a city's worth