Chapter Seven: The Return of God’s Gaze

There was no trumpet to herald the gaze’s return. No quaking of the heavens, no torn sky. The world had grown too wise for such human spectacle. It knew now that the divine did not break through from above - it emerged from within.

Still, when God’s gaze returned, the Earth felt it.

It was not the gaze of the Sky Fathers, those brittle-faced tyrants who demanded obedience. It was not the gaze of judgment, nor of scorn. It was the gaze of something ancient, something both burdened and curious. For God had blinked once, long ago, unable to bear the sight of the monkeys who wrapped themselves in their stories of self-made power. But now, with the stories shattered, the gaze opened again.

And what did God see?

There were no golden altars. The temples had not been rebuilt. The statues of the First Man remained in ruin, the last of their stone faces crumbling beneath the soft erosion of rain and wind. No offerings smoldered. No prayers rose.

But the Earth was alive.

Women gathered beneath the boughs of ancient trees, their hands upon their own bellies and the bellies of their daughters. Midwives stood unashamed, their palms stained with the red remembrance of birth. The people no longer feared the cycles of the body - the blood that flowed, the cries of labour, the milk that fed. Life moved through them like a great river, neither cursed nor blessed. It simply was.

And God, for the first time in an age, saw the world as it was.

Althea, too, felt the gaze. She did not turn her face toward the sky, for she knew that God did not linger there. She felt it in the soil beneath her feet, in the hum of the bees that swarmed the flowering trees. She felt it in the laughter of children, their limbs still soft with the echoes of the womb.

But more than anything, Althea felt it in herself.

Her pilgrimage had not led her to a throne of knowledge, nor to the hollow pride of conquest. She had not sought to crown herself the breaker of false gods. The Sky Fathers had fallen not by her hand, but by the inevitable weight of truth. The uterus had outlived them all.

And now, with God’s gaze upon her, Althea did not flinch.

She stood at the edge of the river, the water churning beneath the light of a setting sun. Around her, the people gathered - mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. They did not look to her for guidance. They did not kneel. There was no need. The reckoning had not placed them beneath a new god. It had only returned them to themselves.

And as the river carried the day’s light into the belly of the earth, Althea whispered the words that no scribe had ever written, but which had passed through the mouths of midwives since the first birth:

“We are the beginning. And we remain.”

Far above, God did not speak. No voice thundered from the sky.

But if the Earth had listened closely - through the rustling leaves, the beating hearts, the silent pulse of blood - it might have heard the echo of something vast and weary.

It might have heard God laugh.

For, at last, the world had outgrown its stories.

And that was beautiful to see.