The Death of Vishnu

Even though he cannot feel the stone underneath. He raises one leg, then the other, mounting the stairs one by one, as if gravity still had a hold on him. This is the last flight he will mount before he becomes a god, he thinks, so he will perform the act as a human would. As an exorcism of his mortality, a farewell to his physical being.
    He can feel his expectation rising as he approaches the top. What will he find? Will there be a cluster of gods behind the terrace door? All gathered there already, monitoring each stair he ascends, waiting to celebrate his arrival in their midst? He hears them applaud as he mounts the final step. Is that Shiva taking off his crown and polishing it on his sleeve? Brahma placing it on Vishnu’s head and slapping him on the back? He feels an elephant trunk wrap around and lift his body high above the cheering gods—it is Ganesh, twirling him into the air. There are monkeys swiveling by their tails around the antennas, Hanuman swings from pole to pole in their midst. And that tune he hears above the clapping and the dancing—could that be Krishna, playing his solitary flute somewhere?
    Only one god does not take part in the festivity—Vishnu sees him all dressed in red and green, standing apart from the rest. The god nods gravely, and raises his mace in greeting, but Vishnu does not recognize him.
    But enough, he thinks, enough of these gods. Surely Lakshmi must be here in their midst as well. His eyes scan the crowd with excitement, impatience. Where is his Radha, he wonders, his Ambika, his Rukmini? His everlasting love, his eternal other half, who gives him sustenance, without whom he is not complete?
    One by one the divine bodies separate, and he sees her features emerge. Like the moon from behind parting clouds, like the stars after a rain. She walks towards him, her body wet from the Ganges, flowers garlanding her bosom, perfumes rising from her skin. She reaches all four of her hands out—he finds, magically, that he can take each one of hers in one of his own.
    He feels her fingers rub against his. Not the human sense of feeling, that he no longer possesses, but a deeper, more profound contact—what souls would experience when they caressed, were they composed of skin and flesh. Her arms draw his body close to hers, and the feeling spreads down his chest, his stomach, his groin, to wherever they make contact. Buds open and turn into fruit between them, rivulets of milk slide over their skin. He sees fields of mustard sprouting from the ground around, their yellow heads rising towards the sun. She touches her lips to his: he tastes the lushness of forests, the sweetness of springs. He looks into the face with which he has journeyed through so many lives—he is part of her, and she is part of him.
    His body enters hers. It is like the earth opening to admit him. He finds himself carried away, up snowy Himalayan slopes, through valleys of teak and pine, down streams of ice-clear water that surge into the Ganges. Onward and inward he plunges, his thoughts overcome by sensation, his feeling and emotion coalescing, until only a single knot of energy remains. Energy trapped between their bodies, energy that dances and crackles, like electricity arcing through a filament, like sun rays trapped in crystal. He feels himself pulled in further, feels the energy seal him in, his body becoming one with hers, united with a cohesion so strong it is painful. For an instant, he has a clear look at her face: lips together in a half-smile, dew adorning the corners of closed eyes. Then the explosion arrives, their bodies fly apart into stars, stars that streak through the heavens, and populate the furthest reaches of the universe.
    “In every life they live,” he hears his mother say, “in every avatar they assume, they will find each other and be united, again and again.”
    But he is still on the steps. His Lakshmi is up there somewhere, waiting to ignite with him, but only if he is a god, not if he is a man.
    God or man, god or man, the question strikes up in his mind with each step he takes. He has already been through this over and over again. All the magic of his ascent—what will possibly explain his powers if it turns out he is a man?
    Suddenly, an answer comes to him, an answer that stops him in midstep. What if he is dying? What if these new abilities are not powers, but symptoms—symptoms of death? What if he is climbing, not to immortality, but to nothingness? The steps