Cain

by José Saramago

If I fail, I will have lost only the steps I took from there to here and the words I said to him,

the angel said, Ah, they’ve gone, safe journey.

Oh, I’ve had enough of all this nonsense about the lord’s ways being inscrutable, answered cain, god should be as clear and transparent as a pane of glass and not go wasting his energies on creating an atmosphere of constant terror and fear, god, in short, does not love us,

Joy, he asked himself, for cain there can never be any joy, cain is the man who killed his brother, cain is the man born to witness the unspeakable, cain is the man who hates god.