Cults. The world has been plagued with cults since all the gods arrived.

Minor gods to be sure--certainly nothing like the big G God of the Judeo-Christian tradition--gods of the harvest, of the sky, of the hunt, and so on. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. Unlike, however, the aforementioned big G God, these gods, regardless of how minor they might be, do deliver on their promises.

Let me give you an example. In the Pacific, a self-proclaimed goddess of the ocean destroyed all the Japanese whalers that dared leave port. This happened to the glee of Greenpeace, until she sank them where they sat with all hands aboard. This goddess, with her unpronounceable name, didn't need their help and resented them for the imposition.

These gods arrived after being cast out of wherever it was they came from. No one knows for certain...the few statements they have made on record are like riddles with no discernible answers. They simply had to leave...immediately.

They arrived all at once and began to find homes here among us--taking up residence wherever their own particular specialty would lead them. And, like many of us, they found themselves migrating to cities. Plenty of souls there, most of them in dire need of something, anything, to believe in.

One particular instance that springs to mind is an alleyway in the middle of Manhattan. It is the particular residence of a self-proclaimed god of both waste and bounty. This god's name is Chxraditt, and he, according to his single priest, takes many forms...though none have ever been seen by anyone but his single clergyman. A former Catholic priest, this man now calls himself Father Robinia.

Robinia is a wiry, thin man with pale, yellow skin and sunken eyes. On his person at all times is a butcher knife, tucked into his belt. He uses this to carve the offering for those who cannot easily take of it themselves. He gave up his priestly blacks for a blue workman's coverall. He is probably the most psychotic man I've ever had the misfortune of meeting.

I believe it's time for full disclosure. I was, for the briefest of periods, an acolyte of Robinia's. Once a month, the faithful, those devoted to Chxraditt, come to his alleyway and are provided with their communion. It is through this miracle that they know it's simply not Robinia pulling a running joke on them.

When I first arrived, I had not seen the miracle for myself. In fact, I was hoping to be a part of the miracle, for I had learned of the ceremony and of the god who dwelt in the alleyway and I wanted to belong to him. The circumstances for how one becomes so far gone that one can be drawn to such a thing are of no consequence, but I fear some of you may be, on some level, nodding your heads as you read this. Some of us simply want to be led. Some of us simply need to be.

So it was that I sat down to write down The Gospel of Chxraditt, which Robinia claimed was being fed to him by the god himself. I had no reason to doubt this. From time to time, followers of the god would arrive with offerings of food or money, which they would place by the refrigerator box that Robinia now called home, there at the mouth of the alleyway. They would never disturb the priest if he was dictating to me, but they would spare a glance of admiration for me. Jealousy? Perhaps. I was doing the work of a god, after all, while they were--what? Going back to a cubicle? A desk? A phone?

When the night came for the next manifestation of the god, for the miracle to be made known to the faithful, I stood by Robinia's side as the mouth of the alleyway filled with people. There must have been fifty of us there when the clouds parted and the full moon was revealed, signaling the time of the service. All sorts of people were there: homeless men; men who had come from some office job, still in ties; a college student in glasses bearing a backpack; two women dressed in nurses' garb; and so on.

Robinia began to speak.

"Faithful," he said to the small congregation, "we gather here in the temple of our god and ask for his blessing, for his communion, for his presence among us. There is nothing wasted in the eyes of the faithful. Where others see refuse, the god sees bounty. Wonderful, rich bounty. For the faithful, there is always a place set at the table of Chxraditt. And always, there is a feast at hand."

"A feast at hand," we all responded softly.

"Speak his name, children," Robinia urged gently. "All you need do is call upon him and he will come among us."

And we did. All of his saying his name...first in unison, then the voices breaking up in different rhythms, different pitches. A cacophony of intonations of the god's name, until the din devolved into something that sounded like the chittering of insects...nothing human at all.

At that point, something in the darkness of the alley stirred. Stirred, and began to move.

Some of the faithful had seen this phenomenon before. I was a new acolyte and thus had never seen how the god manifested itself. So I braced myself for what might appear.

Whatever I had imagined, it paled in comparison to what shambled forth: an apparent golem, comprised entirely of discarded food. Rivers of wretched pasta streamed from its shoulders down its arms to its half-eaten sausage fingers. A maggot-ridden steak swam in its chest alongside pie crusts, pallid beans and at least two apple cores. All of this undulated as it walked, making slick sounds as its rancid legs moved together, beneath the nearly white broccoli stalk that formed its parody of a sexual organ.

"Behold," Robinia said as the thing was revealed in full. "The god sees only plenty. Only a feast. Only ever a feast for the faithful."

"A feast for the faithful," the congregation responded.

"Now," the priest said, "eat. For that is his body."

And then, we all felt it. All of us. A hunger that sapped every inch of our being. That made us feel weak, weak to the point of nausea. Any idea that we could be repulsed by the creature before us...

No.

No, I won't lie to you. There was no compulsion. There was no will other than our own that called us forward to partake of the god's surrogate flesh. I barely held myself back, per Robinia's instructions--the clergy always eats last in the house of Chxraditt, I was told, for there's never any rush as there is always plenty. As a result, I could watch as the throng of people did everything they could not to rush up to the god of leavings to eat their fill.

I watched as they reached in and took hold of bits of the god's offering to them. It didn't matter what it was--all was edible in the sight of the god--so whether it was fresh or foul, they ate. I watched a man in a tie extract from the neck of the creature an overcooked kabob, which he turned away to consume at his leisure. The nurses worked free a grey cantaloupe, which they broke and shared between each other. Some chewed their communion free directly from the creature. The college student, in his state of ecstasy, pulled a dead cat from the depths of the thing's bowels, and then, I am grateful to say, did his business with it behind a dumpster.

I stood and watched, filled with the spirit of the moment, of the glory of the god, and watched as its representative here on earth was ingested by the faithful. It was only after a minute or two that I saw that my initial impression...had been wrong. I had thought the god's avatar to be animated rubbish, but no, there was a foundation to its existence. As the surface layer of refuse was eaten away, I saw beneath something that I wish I could say was enough to break me free of the grip of the spiritual fervor I felt.

It was part of a man's arm. The golem was a man, covered in the offering of the god of waste and bounty. The skin was a waxy grey in the moonlight, and when part of the face was revealed, the eyes were cold, and dead, and staring forward in horror. The acolytes of Chxraditt become his servants and their final service is to step forward bearing his feast. Somehow I knew this--though I cannot tell you how. Just as I cannot tell you how I knew that though dead, he was being given full awareness of the orgy of consumption taking place around him. Another testament to the god's power, no doubt.

And no, as I said: this was not what broke me from the spell and made me understand that I wanted no part of this. No further part, at least. It was not what made me realize I did not wish to be part of this communion service and send my elbow streaking into Robinia's face when I felt his knife's blade at my throat. Truth be told, it was when the man's nose shattered under my blow that I truly woke up and found myself able to run. I ran from the alleyway, from the island, and far from any semblance of that god or its followers, to safety...or at least as much safety as any of us have these days.

No, it was the look of ecstasy on the faces of the congregation as they began to tear off bits of the dead acolyte with their teeth that made me move. And the look of frozen undead horror and awareness on his face--the look that was a portrait of man who would give his soul to be able to scream.

"Nothing wasted," I remember Robinia said as he went to cut my throat, before I stopped him. In my dreams, sometimes, I don't succeed. He manages to open me right there, and I sit up in bed covered in a hot sweat. "Nothing wasted at all," his voice says. It's only when I could swear he's in the room with me that I scream aloud. And that doesn't happen. Not too often at least.