The two of them sat momentarily alone, in the green wooden rocking chairs on the porch of the old gods’ rest home. Silence settled gently about them, but a very peculiar silence indeed, one so vital that within it all probable sounds seemed ready to emerge. Yet even Zeus’ voice, thundering, made no sound that anyone human could hear, because it was sounding on the other side of silence. And in the same way, Christ and Zeus rocked contentedly in their godly dimension, invisibly, on the other side of light where no one, including Oversoul Seven, could ever find them.

“It’s always ever so much more peaceful after the visitors leave,” Hera exclaimed. She came out onto the porch and peered into the divine distance. “I see our own world is back, thank heavens.” She sat down and began to rock so that her orange taffeta gown went swish, swish, swish, with a sound that no one could hear, of course, but the gods.

“Just like the swish, swish, swish of Mohammed’s sword,” Christ said. He made the sign of the cross with wrinkled fingers, then sprang to his feet, his gray curls bobbing. “Well, the charade is over, at any rate,” he said, and then in a voice even louder than Zeus’, he shouted: “Alee alee in free! You can all come out now.”

As Christ spoke, a variety of developments happened simultaneously. Hera, Zeus, and Christ were instantly rejuvenated: The flush of a thousand births turned their skin from paper-brittle gray to an idealized, glowing texture impossible to describe. Christ stood as a young man, each hair on his head and beard a crisp, lively brown. Zeus, with new powerful thighs and black beard, was anywhere from sixty to a hundred, yet with such an ancient youthfulness that his vitality was literally of divine proportions. Hera was also magnificently old and young at once, a mother goddess of such stature that Christ called out ecstatically, “Hail, mother of God.”

“Why, bless you, my son,” Hera cried, laughing, and she turned into the Virgin Mother for him.

“It won’t make any difference that the charade is over,” Zeus shouted. “Whatever guise people put us in is deceptive, and I’m tired of playing roles. Where’s poor Mohammed? Someone should tell him he can put down that damn sword now. And poor Buddha; they are turning him into a mess of jelly, when you come right down to it.”

But Christ yelled boisterously, “What difference does it make? That doesn’t change us. But you’re right; let’s get about our godly business. These roles are hampering.”

This time, all together, Hera, Christ, and Zeus shouted, “Alee alee in free! You can all come out now.”