Once, in another time, in another place, there lived a man by the name of Bakkenda.  Bakkenda was no ordinary man, though—he was a miracle worker.  He performed such feats as you can hardly imagine, and among his repertoire were last-second rescues, death-defying acts, and even the healing of incurable diseases.

However, the one thing he could never overcome was his own pride, and so one day he set off on a journey to find the ultimate test of his powers.  He traveled at first by horse, and then by foot, and it wasn't for a year until he found his goal.

It was winter, when the Earth would not be shorn of its fleece for many a day to come, and when the birdsong had departed with its feathered masters for warmer climes and the bears had lumbered off to sleep.  Bakkenda stood before a silent shrine, head bowed in the cold, when he felt the weight of a gaze upon his shoulders, and he turned.  He turned, and beheld before him, once behind him, the strangest figure of a man both old and young at once.

The man spoke, and his voice housed the same conundrum of age and youth.  "Who are you that have been searching for me?"

"I am Bakkenda, the miracle worker."  He bowed.  "At your service."

"Ah, yes, the ability to make possible the impossible—I remember now.  What is it that you seek?"

"I seek audience with God."

"Well, He stands before you and would ask once more, what is your wish?"

"Had I believed you, I would answer this: I wish to test my powers to their fullest extent by completing the ultimate impossible task—I am here to kill God.  However, as I do not, I ask proof of your claim."

"Proof of my claim?  Kill...God??"  His voice, so disbelieving, dissolved into chuckles, which quickly broke down into gales of full-blown laughter.  Finally, wiping his eyes, he continued, "So, after that blasphemous request, how shall we continue?  What would convince you of my status?"  His eyes seemed stars, twinkling in the evening light.

Bakkenda only nodded acceptance as he spoke.  "You see, God can do anything He so desires, and so I would have you complete a series of tasks altogether impossible.  If you can complete them, then I can reasonably conclude that you are most likely God."

God, or the man claiming to be Him, raised an eyebrow.  "Most likely, is it?  Well, let's see what the tasks are, then."

"The first is to create life.  Anything will do, as long as it was not already living.  But it must be instant—both the conception and the realization of life at once."

The man bent down, scooping a bit of the snow into his palm.  He stood and smiled at Bakkenda, and as he smiled, the snow shifted, giving way to a leafy tendril that snaked its way over his arm, trailing off onto the ground while all along its length, white Morning Glory burst into full bloom.  "Does that satisfy your request?"

"Certainly.  The next task, though, concerns a shape of most curious property that I would have you construct."  And he knelt and drew a Penrose Triangle in the snow.

And God knelt with him, studied the image for a moment, then reached down and plucked the shape from its icy bed, handing the crystalline form to Bakkenda, who might have stood there an eternity in his contemplation of it had God not prompted him, "And your third task?"

"The third task..."  He paused, suddenly unsure of himself.  Was this really what he wanted?  Of course it was—this was all he had ever wanted, to know if his powers were true; to know if he could truly do the impossible.  And yet...no. He had come so far and he would not let his effort be in vain.  "The third task...is to kill yourself."

His hand was already in the air as though in the midst of some magic trick when he paused, of a sudden, a look of confusion in his eyes.  "To...kill...myself?"

The miracle worker nodded.  "Yes.  See, there are two ultimate truths connected to God: one, He is immortal; and two, He can do anything.  However, if God can do anything, He can kill Himself—but if He can kill Himself, then, well, He is not immortal and therefore is not God.  But if He is truly immortal, then He cannot kill Himself—but if He cannot kill Himself, then there is indeed something He cannot do, and thus, He is not God.  So in the end, there is no question.  Either you kill yourself, proving you are not immortal, or you don't, proving there is something that you cannot do, and either way proving you are not God."

Of course, he had discovered this paradox early on in his journey and spent the rest of it attempting to find an answer.  At long last, he had decided that God was indeed immortal, and that killing Himself was the one thing He could not do, for without a God presiding over the heavens, what would happen to our world?  But, foolishly enough, it never truly occurred to him that his task was to do that very thing—to kill a god.  Somehow he thought that with the confirmation of his powers, he would take God's place and rule from the stars, have whatever he wished, do whatever he wanted, or something to that effect at the very least.  But it was not to be.

With this newfound contradiction of his own existence, the confusion in God's eyes grew and grew until it finally blossomed into false understanding (for the man truly was God, whatever the miracle worker might say).  He realized, or, thought he realized, that he was not God, could not be God, and as this occurred to him, he glanced upon the Triangle and the Flowers, and he thought that since he was not God, he could not have created them, and, since he was God, his belief became reality, and the Triangle was revealed to be only another illusion that quickly melted back into snow, while the Flowers wilted and disappeared.  Then, looking around him in amazement, he whispered, "A dream, that's all this is.  Just...a dream."  And slowly, one by one, everything winked out of existence.

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A/N: Originally written August 2014; rewritten November 2015