Vision of undetermined origin

I admit he was a mysterious man. Just how he sat there, his muscles relaxing into the embrace of the shapeless fauteuille. I had to admit I was intrigued. I was intrigued by the thin smile that always surrounded his face, as if I were always about to say something ingenious or he had found something that could amaze him forever. And I mean forever.

Of course I did not believe he was God. If that were the case, I would never had agreed to meet him here on this second date. The truth is, I wasn't even sure whether the man in front of me was sane. He probably was not. But he was the most charming, amiable fellow who wore his good looks without that abundant pride and superiority I had come to despise in the predecessors who had sat at that table for some time or another. He was a character out of a fairy tale, unaware of his beauty and intrigue. Except of course, for the detail that he was God.

Of all the beings he could have impersonated, why did it have to be God? I could foresee that, despite his charm and general loveliness, this would be a problem. Frankly I have had a difficult relationship with God. I have experienced that I could not count on him when I needed him before. I used to talk to him, but he said nothing. We used to play hide-and-seek; I went searching, but he had hidden too well. I read books about him, but they seemed just like stories and make-believe. So I ended up resenting him for it, I told him, If you are benevolent, then why are there earthquakes? Why is there suffering? Why is there death? And that one time, I did not mind his silence. I don't think that any response would have been good enough. 

All of that was on my mind while I ordered coffee and smiled at a man who was nearly perfect and yet so far removed from my reality. 

'You still don't believe in me, do you?' he observed. 

'Leave it be,' I suggested, wanting to hold on to what little there was left of the possibility. 

'But I need you,' he continued, 'to believe.' His eyes were trembling with emotion as he asked for a devotion I could not give him. 

'Why do you insist on being God?'

'Does it insult you?' he asked, timidly. 'What did you expect me to look like?' 

'Get it together, man,' I said, getting up, just as the coffees arrived. The waitress looked ominously at us, the bill already in her hand as she nearly slammed it on the table. 

'But I am,' he said, weakly. 'Why does nobody believe me?' 

'Pray you're not,' I told him, as I reached for my wallet. 'If you are, I don't think you're real.' 

I handed the money to the waitress, who walked out on us without a word. 'You're welcome, by the way,' I commented sweetly, and turned to face the flagrant imposter. But the chair in front of me was empty. There was no desperate man with a sugared disposition and a flair of nobility in front of me. There were only two cups of coffee. 

Everything had gotten very quiet. I could feel their eyes on me as I turned around, the room spinning, my hands clenched together as I asked: 'Where did he go?' 

Dead silence followed. After a while, the waitress announced, half-whispering: 'Beats me.' 

'Are you alright?' a voice asked. I did not seem able to see where it was coming from, because my heartbeat had started hammering the rhythm of Chopin's Minute Waltz, and everything seemed to have gone a faint red hue. 

'Where did he go?' I repeated, in the direction of the voice. 

'We don't know,' someone else offered, with a tone of disinterest. 

'How should we know?' another tuned in.

'But who?' a third one asked. 

'God,' I said. 'I think he left me.'