Mr. Fon Parr – The Small God of Vulcanized Rubber

[image description: A pointy-eared fellow with a black bowl haircut is shown in profile against a starry background. He wears a rich blue shirt with a black band collar, gold bands at the wrist and a pointy gold chevron on their breast pocket. He holds his right hand up, his index finger covered in a prophylactic. Text reads, “7, Mr. Fon Parr ~ Small God of Vulcanized Rubber”]

Your mother worships at his altar. So, very likely, does your father, your doctor, and any grandparents you may have had at one time. It is by His grace that we are spared the trauma of unwanted pregnancy, the fear of fluid contact, the spread of disease. He has done as much to save and spread humanity as any other god, even those who specialize in pestilence and its prevention.

There are some who would call his good gifts sinful temptations, but they know not how much else He does for his faithful, how many barriers and seals would be impossible without Him. They would be lost without His aid, even if they never use the greatest of His gifts.

Those same gifts pass beyond him now, into realms beyond rubber, and one day He may be forgotten. But He does not mind. There are only so many calls to the celestial orgy one can receive, and only so many desperate prayers from teenagers terrified of breakage one can receive, before a long, long nap begins to feel like the greatest heaven any god has ever known.

But until He is fully and finally forgotten, Mr. Fon Parr will be there whenever he is needed, tearing the foil, passing the sacrament.

Yes, even to your mom.

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Artist Lee Moyer (The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, Starstruck) 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:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallgodseries/

Homepage: http://www.smallgodseries.com/

Ka Pohaku – The Small God of Small Rocks

[image description: Looking down onto a group of small smooth black stones. The largest is a round flattish stone in the middle of the frame that has a sweet wide face in the shallow debossed heptagon on its surface Text reads, “6, Ka Pohaku, The Small God of Small Rocks”]

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They are the god of getting wedged in the tread of your sneakers, of children’s pockets and New Age bookstores.  They are even the god of decorative necklaces filled with tiny water-polished stones and sold at a ridiculous markup to tourists.  Hey, it’s a living.

They are a god of secret histories, for every pebble was once sheltered in a mountain’s heart, or carried in the backbone of a glacier, or rose up from the center of the world with the slow pressure of gravity and time.  A mountain may live close enough to forever, from the perspective of the smaller, faster-living domains of other gods, but it lives forever in a single place, looking out across a single land, even if the country it belongs to shifts and changes.

Ka Pohaku does not envy the gods of mountains.  Those gods receive one version of the world, and they…they receive it all.

Every secret whispered to a skipping stone is theirs to keep.  Every story told by a small child on the verge of falling asleep, struggling to keep the bed monsters at bay.  Even the proposals of countless hopeful romantics, for what is a diamond if not a small rock?

Every god has two portfolios: that which is spoken, and that which is known. The people can call Ka Pohaku a god of rocks as much as they desire, but the god will always know the truth, and the truth they know is that really, when all is said and done, they are the god of something far finer and more rare.

They are the god of small secrets.

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Artist Lee Moyer (The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, Starstruck) 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:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallgodseries/

Homepage: http://www.smallgodseries.com/

Fishier Spooner – The Small God of Pentacle Torn

Everything is a religious symbol to someone.

When two sticks lain across each other can carry religious significance, you know the bar has been lowered. There’s another one—the bar. Some people find faith in a simple line. It’s like there are no standards whatsoever for what carries meaning to the faithful. Rabbits and eggs, trees and stars, anything can do the job.

Which means, technically, that every action is an act of religious desecration. Eating a sandwich? You have defiled a temple of Homeslice, small god of nourishment held between pieces of bread (or bread-like substance). Walking on the beach at low tide? Beware offending Silica, small god of sand.

Even the larger gods can be offended unintentionally. All know that declawing is an offense to Bast, but how many have considered that the removal of a dead bird from the kitchen floor might carry similar weight? We are all blaspheming every day of our lives, transgressing against gods both large and small, any of whom might decide to smite at any time, striking us down for our sins.

And that is where Fishier Spooner enters his domain. His tentacles were designed to grasp and rend, his rubbery skin created to absorb lightning strikes and static alike without showing any signs of damage. In his many arms are we forgiven, in his suckers are the broken things made more broken still, until the traces of the first crack are obliterated.

Without him, we would all be dead a thousand times over, and almost none shall know or speak his name.

He is resigned to that.

He is less okay with all the calamari.

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Artist Lee Moyer (The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, Starstruck) 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:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallgodseries/ Homepage: http://www.smallgodseries.com/