I made my first offering to the gods when I was just 15. I gunned a man down in an alleyway. I saw him first, luckily, and as he raised his shotgun to blow a hole in my chest I managed to raise the machine pistol in my hand and pull the trigger. The first bullet took him in the groin as I raised my hand. The recoil brought the bullets upwards and a line of gore sprouted from his stomach, then his chest, and my brain reminded me to let go of the trigger when I saw his throat explode blackish-red in the neon light of the damned city.

It was chaos then and I knew I did not have time to stop, but I did. I knelt down and touched his foot and I offered him to the gods. It was a silly thought at the time, that there were gods in the first place and that they might govern my life, but the thought popped into my head and I went with it.

I escaped the disintegrating city that night, leaving behind wails of horror and constant gunfire. I do not know how many more offerings I made that night. I only remember the first one and the first one still sticks with me to this day. I see the surprise in his eyes and I see the muzzle of the shotgun moving upwards. I see my own death coming in hot and fast with a precise dispassion and, of course, I see the way to avoid such a death.

As I ran that night; as I hid and hugged walls and avoided my neighbours who were also trying to escape that damned city I became aware of a certain type of governance. You see, we do not have control over the moments. There are moments each day that are beyond us and we are simply subject to the will of the gods who control that particular moment. I devoted myself to these gods, though I did not know their names, and begged them to preserve me for another moment. When the moments grew longer and hours ticked by I asked them to preserve me until dawn. As I turned back and saw the sun break over the damned city I was converted and baptized in the rays that struck me. I was an acolyte to the nameless gods who control the moments we do not. I am zealot of the gods who bring me to the morning safely. Each night, as I close up this little bar that resides in my corner of the Moon I raise a toast to them and that they bring me more moments and selfishly I ask to see another dawn.

It has been some years since I have made an offering like I did when I was 15, but I never rule out the possibility that the gods will ask for more. I listen each night, as I close up the bar, for the warning signs of another damned city and I resign myself to being held at the whim of the gods of the moment.