Bearded, Robed, Absent
This is probably not the most representative excerpt for a book that has been described as “a hilarious, action-packed look at the apocalypse that combines a touching tale of friendship, a thrilling war story, and an all out kung-fu infused mission to save the world.” But it’s an intriguing passage nonetheless. 
[pg 261] Most people, when they pray, have a notion of where the words are going. They have in mind God the Bearded, God the Robed, God the Absent father sitting on a cloud going through his postbag. My prayer is in a blank envelope, left sitting at a bus stop. Anyone who is interested can pick it up and open it. Anyone, in fact, who wants to be God—to me, at least—can slip their thumb between the flap and the body of the envelope and crack the seal, and discover my one, solemn wish: Dear Lord, I want to go home. All they have to do, to get into my personal pantheon, is deliver the appropriate miracle. In the meantime, though, I’m working on the basis that the letter will sit there and get brushed off the back of the bench and into the gutter, and then a rainstorm will wash it into the sewer system where it will get sodden and mouldy, and the ink will fade and the paper turn to sludge, and my prayer will just fade away, unread, as they mostly seem to do.
—The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway (Vintage, $15.95) IN STOCK
