"I read a story once about one of these parochial gods, somewhere south.
There was a stone bridge, with iron railings, over a small and inconsequential river. Like this one. And after a time the young people began to leave locked padlocks dangling from the railings, as young people do.
And after a time the story began to spread that there was a god of love dwelling in the bridge. And if you both went down to the river at dusk, and you both leant over the side to fix a padlock to the railings...well, if your love was untrue, the Lady of Linked Hearts would know.
And you’d feel a sudden stabbing in your hand and look down to see the padlock locked over your own palm, and then as the weight pulled you down another lock, clamping through your cheek and mouth, rendering you unable to speak, and another lock, and another, slicing unstoppably through bone and flesh, iron chains and padlocks dragging you down and over the side to a slow and choking death beneath the river’s surface.
And your date would cry and mourn your death, but they’d probably be OK in the end, because this was the proof of it: your love for them was never true.
They could try again. Bring others to the bridge. And if you passed the Lady of Linked Heart’s trial, you were free to marry with confidence that you’d found what you were looking for; the real deal.
The problem with gods is, the more people who know the story, the worse it gets. You know how there are some couples that renew their vows every couple of years?
Like spinning the chamber and holding the gun back up to your head. Over and over again.
Anyway, eventually the authorities got wind of it, they sealed off the bridge and sent a couple of experimental theologists down with a bag of cats, and soon enough it became very clear that the bridge had no method to its sacrifices other than its own hunger. It was just feeding as it pleased.
Love eats us all."[1]
