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From an insurance perspective, acts of God are those severe natural disasters which no party could expect to be reasonably prepared for, therefore making no-one liable for any injuries or losses sustained. Think earthquakes, floods or tidal waves, most contracts will have exclusions written into them explaining that in the event of an act of God, personal injury compensation cannot be claimed for the destruction wrought.
Anyway, it was a recent episode involving my brother which led me to thinking about an altogether different "act of God".
My brother is a reclusive and enigmatic type. So elusive is he to the rest of the family that very few of us are able to get hold of him more than two or three times a year. I, for some reason, perhaps because I used to clean his football boots and help him collude in cover stories for his nocturnal escapades - I still don't know what he used to get up to - am the exception; he makes himself available to receive my calls five or six times a year.
Just last week, at the wounded and maudlin prompting of my mother, I was encouraged to get hold of him, just to "check that he is alright. I do worry you know. Why doesn't he call me?"
So, not expecting to have him actually answer my call, I called. Imagine my surprise when I was connected after only a single ring.
Imagine my double surprise, when I heard not the voice of my brother but a deep-breathing, salivating and practically psychopathic silence.
"Hello, Charlie. Charlie, are you there?" I said.
The reply was timed so as to be perfectly arresting, "I am in the graveyard. Charlie may or may not be here."
Confused, I answered, "Charlie. Charlie, is that you?"
The hate-filled voice replied, "I am God, although you may know me as the devil."
I probably should have rung-off at this point, but there was something almost hypnotic about the voice, and such was my confusion that I hung on and in a perverse English kind of a way attempted to converse with this stranger while retaining impeccable manners.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you," I said. "It's just that I'm wondering if you know where Charlie is. You see, I need to get hold of him. I'm his brother, you may have heard of me. Our mother hasn't spoken with him this year and is beginning to get concerned."
"Charlie is my worst enemy," the voice said. At which point I could swear I could smell sulphur.
"Right," I said. "Is this a practical joke. Because, if it is, I'm sorry but I think it's lasted its course. Is Charlie there or not?"
Perhaps it was the plaintiveness and impatience of my tone, but the voice did not take kindly to this appeal.
"Here I am in the stinking, rotting graveyard, unable to see my way out or know if I am Devil or God and you suggest I might be joking."
At this point his voice rose to a terrifying disembodied squall as if some long sleeping beast had been disturbed and now rose in vapours from the bowels of the earth. "I spit on you, and your mother, and your brother. I have suffered and will not suffer, I am going to "
Finally, woken from the spell that had kept me suspended from hanging up, I ended the call. Immediately, I got to work trying to find my brother.
The next morning, I managed to reach him at work and recounted the conversation I'd been subjected to the previous night.
"Oh," he told me laughing. "Has he done it to you too? I've spoken to him as well. So have a few other people. Someone smashed into my parked car last week. Stupidly, I'd left my phone in it. It was stolen. Because I want to keep the number for my new phone, it's still connected. I'm just waiting for insurance company to process my accident claim."
Thankfully, as Charlie had not been in car at the time of the accident, there was no need to make a personal injury compensation claim. However, I did wonder whether if his insurance company had known that it was caused by an act of "God", or quite possibly the Devil, they would have refused to pay up.
