We build the stories in our heads. We take words, and we give them power, and we look out through other eyes… — Neil Gaiman

“There are those who think it’s devil worship,” said Oliver. “And I think they are wrong. But then, one man’s god is another’s devil. Eh?”

“I suppose you must be looking forward to them sorting all this out,” he said. “Er. The Palestinian situation. The politics.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to Jerusalem,” she said. “The people come. The people believe. Then they kill each other, to prove that God loves them.”

“Well,” he said. “How would you fix it?”

She smiled her whitest smile. “Sometimes,” she said, “I think it would be best if it was bombed. If it was bombed back to a radioactive desert. Then who would want it? But then I think, they would come here and collect the radioactive dust that might contain atoms of the Dome of the Rock, or of the Temple, or a wall that Christ leaned against on his way to the Cross. People would fight over who owns a poisonous desert, if that desert was Jerusalem.

There’s no Hell to spite the sinners.

There’s no Heaven for the blessed. God is not what you imagine.