Skip to content →

The Lightest God on Earth

The Lightest God on Earth is the name of a poem her grandmother wrote for her using a Chat AI. She keeps it with her and refers to it

This is a movie idea…

A young girl, Maria, 10, of indeterminate race, but we assume Aboriginal, has cancer (or the like). She is unlikely to live long. She takes proper medication, but also marijuana gummies.

She lives with her grandmother, who is dying, and knows that Maria will be in state custody when that happens.

Along with the poem she gives Maria a list of distant relatives and addresses, and suggests she goes and sees if any of them would look after her. They are scattered across Australia. The list is old, it has landline phone numbers etc.

Maria walks into town and Daniel pulls over in an old car, offers her a lift. They are cousins, probably not first cousins or ever actual cousins.

He is 30-ish and a simpleton. He has just broken out of a low-security prison. The car is stolen, he has no cash. Maria has no cash. The set out on a road trip, a lap of Australia, to visit the people on the list.

The entire trip is acheived without money. They steal food and fuel when need be. The transport is mostly a sequence of stolen old cars that are cool in their way, like old Holdens.

Maria questions out loud the meaning of life. She asks everyone she meets.

She goes for a walk along a desolate beach while Daniel goes on a side mission. She yells at the sky, saying if this is a simulation, please give me a sign, nobody else will know. Nothing happens but later they pass a car with license plate DA SIGN

They encounter a movie shoot (everything in this is rural…) and Maria gets roped into a bit part.

Everywhere they encounter animals alive and dead and roadkill. There are various interactions. Maria likes to follow animals and asks questions about their daily lives.

Everyone on the list is gone, one way or another.

The Lightest God on Earth

He is the lightest god on earth, And yet the heaviest in my heart. He is the wind that stirs the grass, And yet the earth that holds me fast.

He is the water in the stream, And yet the fire that warms my dream. He is the sun that shines so bright, And yet the darkness in my night.

He is the bird that sings so clear, And yet the silence in my ear. He is the flower that blooms so fair, And yet the pain that’s in my hair.

He is the love that makes me live, And yet the death that makes me give. He is the joy that fills my heart, And yet the sorrow that I part.

He is the light that shows the way, And yet the darkness that I stay. He is the god that I adore, And yet the god that I deplore.

He is the mystery of life, And yet the meaning of my strife. He is the god that I must find, And yet the god that I must bind.

Published in Writing