Gretel was Gottlieb’s most troubling patient. She was clairvoyant. She was also, he feared, quite mad. He paused in the midst of jotting a note in her file. Capping his fountain pen and setting it on the desk, alongside the blotter, gained his scattered thoughts a few seconds to catch up with her. “I beg your pardon?” “If He is omniscient and infallible, then surely He would see the moment and manner of His own passing. Knowing this, and being infallible, He could prevent it. Yet to do so would imply His prescience was imperfect. While not doing so would mean He is not eternal.” She sighed. Gottlieb said, “The death of God is a metaphor. It isn’t meant as a literal, corporeal death. It represents the overthrow of God through modern man’s diminished need for external sources of wisdom.” Nietzsche was required reading at the farm. But only the approved works, of course. Gretel frowned and turned her gaze to the open window. The wool of her peasant dress rasped across the wires draped over her shoulder.
