The Godz of Earth

I suppose I should begin by lettin you know who I am. Zebediah Thomas is my name, but many call me Rev Z. Been a preachin man fer yearz now. Kinda funny how that came about.

When money ran low and gamein and scammin were out, I’d listen for rumourz of war. If you stay low and keep quiet, the oddz aint too bad against you, so sometimez I take the chance.

Gotta backtrack a bit, pard...

There came a day when a manz word wuz no longer enuff, so you had to sign fer everything. Welp, bout the only sign most people knew wuz X. That didn’t seem too safe to me, so I got me my own sign.

Once a schoolmarm told me about this God feller who also called hizself Alpher Zed. I remember the name cuz the tail end of it soundz a bit like my name, Zeb. The marm said that wuz because they start with the same letter of the Alpher Bitz, which I spose this God dude maybe invented, seein how the first letter of it is Alpher and the last one is Zed. So she showed me the sign fer Zed, which happens to be Z. From then on, when everyone else wuz Xin, I was Zin.

Welp, ole Zed got me by fer years until I got kicked out of a bar sumairz... to this day I aint sure why. Onliest thing I ever heard about it wuz some big feller hollerin, "See the sign?" I nodded and he screamed, "Then get out!" I lit out, I figgered if he didn’t want anyone seein hiz sign he shouldn’t oughta left it out.

I holed up by the train station and started workin on a payback when some ole wineo hollered, "He wuz askin if ya read the sign."

I hollered back, "Like in Alpher Bitz?"

He nodded.

"Damn. Schoolmarmin again..."

When I had my fill of schoolmarmin I went lookin fer that bar, I sure wanted to read that sign. Turnz out, not long after I lit out it burned down. I’m bettin someone who could only see the sign got a mite angry at gettin kicked out.

There are timez I wish I never learned them Alpher Bitz, they kept gettin me into trouble. Like I said, I went lookin fer a war to make money on. Seemz a bunch of ole boyz were fightin something called the Silver War. Not sure why, I figgered the gold had run dry and the silver wuz most gone, too. People get a bit het up when it comez to money.

We’d been in the shit goin on a week when we got pinned down between two artillery unitz. The ballz kept flyin, blowin everything to piecez. I was holed up next to a young feller who kept calling fer this God dude to help him. I figgered he’d taken a hit so I bellied my way over to him.

"Steady, pard, where you been hit?"

"In the gut, you the chaplain?"

"Namez Zeb. Looks like you won’t see this night end, pard. Anythin I can do fer ya?"

He groaned out, "Read me my bible."

He handed me a worn book so I hunkered down next to him and read the whole damn thing. He died before I wuz halfway through, but it wuz kinda interstin so I just kept on readin.

Onliest thing worse than goin to war is leavin it... hardly ever seemz to be work available for a warrin man but war. I put my hand to a few thingz, but I soon tired of the hardscrabble life.