James Huckaby…

The man who became the Waiting God was like most men, mostly foolish and sometimes wise. His dreams and problems were as simple and complex as most men’s. After a tiring day of doing much that at the end seemed like nothing at all, he leaned on a balcony overlooking a vast grassland.

A thousand significant and insignificant thoughts crossed his mind before he took any notice of them, and the one thought he did notice was a brilliant light in his mind. “If there have been gods of thunder and of grain and of wine and of the stars surely there is a patron for a simple man like myself. Not that the Almighty isn’t enough, but he isn’t that exclusive. Sometimes you need some more specialized deities,” he thought, as though God and the saints and the spirits were just community clubs and organizations.

Settling himself down he mused further: “It seems that my type of fellow doesn’t do anything but wait on others day and night. I wait for my carpool to take me to work. I wait in line to get my groceries. I stand for hours waiting on my wife to finish shopping at the mall while she tries on a hundred things she doesn’t buy. There must be a god for this sort of thing. Or perhaps a patron saint, but a god would be more impressive.”

So the man researched and asked around and could find no suitable God of Waiting for his liking. Finally, leaning on the same balcony that he began at, he declared, “It seems that I will have to do the job myself.” Thus saying that he waited for some divine sign to acknowledge him as the Waiting God. He waited for an hour and the sign did not come. He waited a day and the sign did not come. Seeking to become the patron of those who wait, the lack of any sign was to him a test of his resolve. So he waited another day, and another, and finally he died from thirst and stubbornness.

As the Devil dragged the man to his place in Hell, he mocked the man, calling him the Waiting God.

So there in Hell, he sits smiling with the pleasure that at the end some supernatural power had acknowledged him as the Waiting God… but not for any length of time because Hell is very uncomfortable.