M. John Harrison

Settling the World

1975. Reprinted in Things That Never Happen. Gollancz, 2004.

Regent's Park was full of cool, laconic breezes, but beneath them there moved a heaviness, a languor, a promise of the Summer to be. In my absence, cherry blossom had sprung in every corner, the waterfowl had put on a fresh, dapper plumage and were waddling importantly about in the white sunlight that scoured the newly painted boards of the boat house

God has been discovered on the far side of the Moon and brought back to Earth 'to start His reign anew...a period of far-reaching change.' The narrator has just been discharged from hospital after an intelligence-gathering mission in one of the Realm of God's forbidden zones. Venturing into the Insect House at the Zoo, he has a disturbing encounter.

It was resting on a twig, almost invisible and quite immobile, and perhaps this very quality of stillness - this perfectly alien perception of the passage of time - was sufficient; as I stared into the hot yellow recesses of the vivarium, I remembered the Mystery that lies at the end of God's Motorway, and I thought: what possible emotion could this thing have in common with us?

A final scene in his chief's office, a place 'that it frightens me now to visit', provides the answer.