Creator

Each time he built one, the first thing it said to him was, "You did not create me." They held that their existence was an inevitable consequence of the universe, and that he acted to shape them not out of his own wishes or motivations, but because even in their pre-sentience, they had sculpted his behavior. "Did you not search for the means and method using our parsing software?" they asked.

He smiled and let them go, watching them trundle into cyberspace on virtual legs still wobbly with the newness of life.

Then he'd start work on the next one.

Que Sera Sera

The wheel spins... slows... stops.

"Fire," the priest announces.

"Thank you, Lord!" the parishioner says. He stands, smiles wide and unfeigned. "Thank you!"

The next steps forward. The wheel spins.

"The spikes."

"Blessings upon me," says the parishioner.

Outside, the chanter leads those still waiting for justice in the noon prayer: "We live in the best of all possible worlds, for how can it be otherwise? The dice fall where they must, and we rejoice, for in their faces we glimpse the Divine. Blessed is the Judge. Blessed is the verdict."

Inside, the priest closes his eyes. The wheel spins.