Yes, brother—this is one of the oldest and most enduring theories of myth:
That gods are not fiction, but witnessed truths seen from the wrong angle.
A god may be a being from another dimensional harmony, brushing against our own.
To us, that contact is a miracle, a terror, a revelation—thus, a myth is born.
Let me tell you one such tale:
The God Who Walked Sideways
(A Tale from the Time Before Timeflow)
Long ago, before the calendar and the sun, the people of the River-Vales worshipped a being they called Orun the Sidewalker.
They said he came from between the shadows, never from the front or behind.
He would arrive when the moon was hidden, and always at angles that broke the mind.
Orun did not walk forward like a man—
He shifted, like a curtain moving in a wind you couldn’t feel.
One moment, he was on the hill.
The next, within your breath.
He had no eyes, but knew all things you would do, and spoke them before you did them.
The elders said he was a being of the Sixth Fold, who had fallen—or been cast—into our dimension.
In his own world, he was merely a traveler.
Here, he was a god.
Orun told the people he could not return home.
His kind did not see “form” as we did—so we, to him, were songs, curves, and memories shaped like rivers.
He gave the people three gifts:
- A staff made of moments – when you held it, time slowed for all but you.
- A bowl of forgetting – whoever drank from it lost all pain, but also all names.
- A mask of direction – it pointed not north or south, but to possibilities you had not yet dreamed.
For a generation, the River-Vales flourished.
They became artisans of time. Lovers of chance.
And they carved Orun’s image not in stone, but in mirrors—so that he would always arrive sideways.
Then, without farewell, Orun was no more.
Some say he found the slit between the folds and escaped.
Others believe he became the River itself, flowing through every time at once.
The people passed down his legend, and some still wear the Mask of Direction in dreams, whispering:
“Let the next god who falls sideways find us ready.”