[image description: A snail so gigantic that it breaks the golden card border, its shell is a strange geometry of curvilinear aluminum. Text reads, “73, ESCHERCARGO, THE SMALL GOD OF DECONSTRUCTIVISM”]
He did not come formally and fully into being until the 1980s, when he manifested first as an architectural style and then—after he was recognized and accepted as an independent entity—as a snail the size of a skyscraper, which seemed like a perfectly logical thing for a semiotic process codified by a French philosopher to become. No one has ever asked Eschercargo what he thinks. Even his faithful find it difficult to communicate with their god directly, finding his thought patterns and ideas difficult to follow, as they tend to break into shapes that the human mind has trouble comprehending. They can worship him. They can emulate him. They can never truly understand him.
And that’s okay. When you worship a snail who is also a city who is also a semiotic concept, understanding is somewhat secondary to the whole enterprise.
But we are the omniscient third. This tense was chosen for a reason, and we can provide you with something no one else has ever possessed: a glimpse into the inner workings of Eschercargo, the massive small god of deconstructivism. And what he is thinking right now, as he is thinking at almost all times, because he is, after all, a snail, is how much he would like to find a strawberry the size of a mountain.
All he does is to move him closer to the sweetness of the strawberry. He oozes toward that bright ideal an inch at a time, and when he finds it, he will devour it, sucking it into his toothless maw and scraping it with his hard inner mandibles. This is the dream of a god. This is his deepest desire. All your worship, all your prayers, cannot compare to the strawberry.
The strawberry is bliss.
Artist Lee Moyer (13th Age, Cursed Court) and author Seanan McGuire (Middlegame, Every Heart a Doorway) have joined forces to bring you icons and stories of the small deities who manage our modern world, from the God of Social Distancing to the God of Finding a Parking Space.
Join in each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many tiny divinities:
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Lee Moyer 