Ray carefully chipped away the remaining dirt around the tablet he was excavating and blew the dust from its surface. He looked around, noticed Bob, and kept looking.
Bob would have done. Really, he would have. He was an archaeologist. He was fluent in Koine Greek. He was the nearest person to Ray. But Ray kept looking.
“Mr. Watson!” Ray shouted, “Come here, I want to see you!” Frank Watson stood from the pile of stones he was bonking with his hammer. As he passed by Bob, Bob pretended to trip him up by sticking out his foot. Frank knew enough to just let it go, otherwise, Bob would be at it the rest of the day.
Three weeks ago, Bob made a joke when Ray peed in the port-a-potty instead of on the ground like a real man. Never mind that it was unsanitary, it was strictly against the rules of the trade. Don’t pee where you dig. Bob had referred to Ray as Mrs. Raymond ever since.
It’s the kind of guy he was. Unpleasant, unfunny, and unable to see it.
Bob looked upset that his joke hadn’t paid off. “C’mon,” he squealed, “where’s your sense of humor? No one can take a joke these days, sheesh!” He kicked his leg out in staccato bursts to show how funny it had been in case anyone had missed it.
Frank knelt down by Ray and looked at the tablet. “Greek,” he said, sounding pleased. “Looks like Koine to me,” he said, his voice going up in pitch. ”Good god, Ray, it’s a prayer to Hestor!”
Frank was excited. He’d spent his entire professional life hunting for a god only he seemed to believe was there. There were hints in the historical record. Parchment torn in just the right place to obscure a name. Pot shards with a figure no one could quite identify. Most frustratingly, a scroll which happened to clearly describe the god Frank had spent 40 years looking for but was left ambiguous by the fact that the author’s cat had spilled ink on the scroll. Of course, the cat had then stepped all over the scroll, blotting out any mention of the deity being described.
Most of his colleagues wrote all of this up to Frank being a crackpot, a fame hunter, and a very popular fan fiction writer.
In Search of the Lost God, Frank’s magnum opus, had sold well in the right circles. Amazon recommended tin foil hats to those who had also purchased Frank’s book but that was no fault of his own. He really did have quite rigorous academic methods, it’s just that he had really bad luck.
Until today, it seemed.
Ray nudged Frank and asked again, “But who is Hestor?”
Frank pointed at the tablet and read aloud, “O! Hestor, maker of mighty works, please grant us this day our prayer, undo the wickedness laid at our dog’s ass.” No, Frank paused, “Sorry, undo the wickedness laid at our feet. In your name, we.. prostrate ourselves and beg your aid.”
Frank looked at Ray. Ray, who’d read Frank’s book, looked back at Frank.
Ray whistled. “We’ve found him. By god, we’ve found him.”
Have you ever been walking down the street and felt like your phone had vibrated in your pocket but, when you pull it out, there were no notifications? Hestor could have sworn his phone had just gone off. It had been so long since it had, sadly, that any time he had that sensation, he just let it go. There was just no way. That ship had sailed. He tried to ignore it and focus on his game of pickleball against Ahuramazda. A game he was losing badly.
Frank could barely contain his excitement. “Ray, look, I want this to be real more than anyone in the world, but we should hold off on celebrating.” He turned and called to Bob. “Bob, I think we might have something here, can you come check on my translation?”
“But look,” Ray said, pointing at the pictograph accompanying the text. It looked exactly like the pictograph from all the mysterious pot shards they'd found. It was almost assuredly Hestor, Frank’s lost and now-named god.
“I know,” Frank whispered, “I just can’t afford to have my hopes dashed again.”
Just weeks before his infamous book was released, Frank announced the discovery of a similar tablet, which he thought might vindicate his unpopular belief in a lost god.
It turned out to be a recipe for falafel that had been written by a chef who was very bad at spelling.
Frank wasn’t keen to live through that chapter of his life again.
Bob walked over, still salty over his failed “jokes”. He looked at the tablet and started reading, “First mash the chickpeas and form them into balls.” He stopped because he couldn’t contain his laughter.
Frank did his best to humor him, “Very funny, Bob, can you tell me what it really says, please?”
Bob stopped laughing. He picked up the tablet and read out more or less what Frank had read. “This isn’t anything good,” Bob said. “It’s the same old, same old.”
“But what does the pictograph look like?” Ray asked, barely able to contain himself.
Hestor called a time-out. “Ahuramazda, I’m so sorry, I just have to check this really quick,” he said between deep, haggard breaths. He scurried off the court to look at his phone. It displayed a latitude and longitude that was square in the middle of his old stomping grounds. Could this actually be a prayer? For him?
“Hey, guys!” he shouted over to his friends, “I really need to take this prayer! Ahura, I want a rematch, buddy! I won’t take it easy on you next time! Isis, looking good, babe! Odin, next Wednesday, yeah?!”
His friends ignored him.
Hestor poofed out of there as fast as godly possible.
“Hey! Thank you so much for calling me,” he said solidifying next to an astonished Ray, Frank, and Bob. “What can I do for you?”
Ray, Frank, and Bob looked dumbstruck.
“Anything,” Hestor said, overpromising, “Anything at all. Really! I’m in your debt on this one.”
Frank, Ray, and Bob looked on, clearly still overwhelmed by the sudden presence of a god.
“I miss that look,” Hestor said, “ I really should have been doing in-person calls the whole time.” He made a little gesture that said, so, what can I do for you and then said, “So, what can I do for you?”
Frank spoke first. “You’re real? Like for real real?”
“Of course I’m real,” Hestor said, a little put off.
“And you can grant us any wish we want?” Bob asked.
“Prayer...” Hestor said, “I can answer your prayers. Wishes are for genies. If you want a wish, there’s a lamp buried 20 feet down.”
Ray thought of his dying mother.
Frank thought of his reputation briefly then thought of world hunger and a host of other larger issues, somewhat guiltily.
Bob spoke first. “Mighty Hestor, make it so I’m funny again.”
Hestor gritted his teeth, “Oh, sorry, that’s not really in my wheelhouse.”
Frank took a breath. “I thought you said you could answer any prayer?”
Hestor shrugged and explained, “Yeah, you got me. I might have been overly excited that you called me.”
“But,” Ray spurted out, “It says right here that you’re a maker of mighty works! What can you do?”
“Let me see that,” Hestor huffed while bending over to read the tablet. Bob turned it so he could read it. “Dear Hestor, answer my prayer! My neighbor is a real dog’s ass. Smite him, oh maker of petty works!”
“Forgive me, “ Frank said, “I’ve studied this language for forty years, that is not what it says.”
Hestor smiled and said, “Try me. Ask anything.” He paused and reframed it. “Ask me anything… but ask it petty.”
Bob laughed and said, “Even your lost god thinks you’re an idiot!”
Before Frank could answer, Ray spoke up. “O! Mighty Hestor, Bob is a dog’s ass. Smite him, oh maker of petty works!”
Hestor smiled.
Bob poofed off to nothingness and Hestor returned to the pickleball court. A small detail had been lost in the drama of a god showing himself, and that was that Bob had been holding the tablet when he poofed. It fell to the ground and broke in just such a way to obscure Hestor’s name.
Frank decided to live off the revenue of his crank pot book and never published Hestor’s name. It would be too much of a risk to let a species as petty as humanity access to such a god. He also decided to never cross Ray, who for his part, immediately started digging for the genie lamp below his feet.