Bogleech.com's 2019 Horror Write-off:

In My Image

Submitted by Jac R B

They say god made people in its image. I often find myself asking what that means, usually someone just says that 'God made us like him'. That never really answered my question, but i didnt press further.

I say that because i think i figured it out. God made people so they too could make things. To create is divine as they say.

I remember my first flirts with the art of creation, back in the days of my sandbox. My mom and dad were pretty busy parents, not that i blamed them, so they let me be as i played in the back yard. It was a child's paradise.

Between the tall wooden fences was the dense foliage and stones in the garden, perfect for finding bugs, lizards, turtles and whatever else. But chief among all was my true kingdom, my kingdom of Dust, the sandbox. It was here that i made my thoughts physical. If i wished for a castle i built it. If i wished for a lake i made it. If i wished for people

I made them too.

"Playing in God's domain is wrong" they always say, but to make is human nature. I made my people as i pleased, i dug down until i hit that cold, wet dirt, and i mixed it with sand. I made their little bodies with sticks and mud, and when they were ready i told them they were mine and they were to stand.

And so they did.

I never understood why mom and dad didnt like it, they always wanted to pretend it wasnt happening, but it was, i was an artist.

Maybe it was something about my people, how they moaned in their little muffled voices at us. How they pretended to speak to each other. Maybe it was how i would give or take limbs as i pleased, always quiet as i worked.
i wondered what they must think of me, if they even could.

I remember watching them moan and crawl to me as it began to rain once.

The mud and sand washed from the sticks that held them up, they crawled to me as if for shelter or protection. I held out my hands to shield them. This seemed to give them peace, even if they still melted away. I felt nothing.

I still think of those days in my sandbox, making my little men in my image. But i still wonder what it means for me. If I am made in God's image to make, and I made them in my image, why did they make nothing?

If they are in my image, what does that say of me?