Page 1 of Jenesis

JENESIS

  Originally published in Thessaloniki, Greece in 2012 by

  Chris Heliades.

  Cover illustration by Chris Heliades

  © Chris Heliades 2011. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-618-80219-1-4

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 - A UNIVERSE

  Chapter 2 - ADAM AND LILITH

  Chapter 3 - ADAM AND EVE

  Chapter 4 - AT THE BAR

  A UNIVERSE

  …In the beginning there was Chaos. Long before the birth of Time, the great reaper of History and even before the phantasmagoric appearance of the Universes through Erebus itself, there was only an absolute cinematic darkness.

  There were no stars in the background, no epic music, not even any printed italic fonts travelling towards infinity, making you believe that you are in an immediate need of a pair of glasses.

  Nothing. Blackness. Pitch blackness, to be more precise. Something like how Chaos is, more or less, perceived by the majority of sentient beings. There could have been a feast of colors, a palette of sounds and smells, a mixture of frequencies and ethereal vibrations, or even an infinite ocean of raw energy filled with care-free swimming dreams and consciousnesses. Nevertheless, there was an absolute Nothing. Not a thing.

  However, if an independent observer takes a better look and manages to focus his attention exactly at the centre of our topic, he will be able to make out a tiny, white dot, a small detail, a cacophony if you like, right at the center of this particular dimension’s black canvas.

  Therefore, since we are all beings who primarily see and perceive reality mainly through a cinematographic point of view, we are going to start, with our mind’s camera, a maximum speed zoom during which that tiny white dot starts to grow bigger and bigger until a man of an indeterminate age starts to appear through the blurring of this rapid focus.

  Well, this man looks, more or less, like the archetype that dwells deeply within the collective unconsciousness of most humans. He has got long, white hair that end up in a tidy ponytail and thick white sideburns that extend all the way down to his jaw. It goes without saying that his physical appearance is amazingly human-like, because everything is made to our spitting image, isn’t it? He is wearing white pajamas, apparently made for a being three sizes larger, well built and with a height to weight ratio that would be envied by most sumo wrestlers. As our mental camera orbits around this man, we notice a badly rolled cigarette behind his right ear. On his left arm, he has got a tattoo of a cute little heart with an inscription underneath it in calligraphic writing stating rather sweetly (for a certain amount of social and cultural sugar) “Mom”. The most important detail of all is that this specific being has got a headache and cannot remember anything at all.

  Neither what, nor where, nor how, nor why he is…

  The man now looks around him in disbelief. He takes a slow turn around himself. He stops and stands still for a moment to think, there in the middle of nowhere, he scratches his head in an absent minded way and reaches the badly rolled cigarette. He places it between his lips. He pats down his pajamas slowly at first and then with hasty but futile moves. With an expression of disappointment on his face he puts the cigarette back again behind his ear and opens and closes his mouth. Nothing. He is stunned. He reopens and closes his mouth faster this time. Again, nothing happens. With his arms akimbo and his fists clenched, he taps his foot in the emptiness nervously and with an increasing irritation, shaking at the same time his head to the left and to the right. Suddenly, he raises his eyes and…

  “WHAT IN THE DEVIL’S NAME IS GOING ON HERE??!!!”

  …a young man appeared right beside him. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a flat stomach, he had blond curls and clear blue eyes, just like the dream of every woman who respects her femininity and wishes to call herself a woman (and in certain occasions demands to be called by her name) – without, though, knowing the secret charms that only short, dark haired men with equally dark haired bellies have, which even though they are not as obvious as the above mentioned offer package, they can definitely make a female sigh; out of pleasure or disappointment, we don’t really care that much…

  There was something strange about this young man, apart, of course, from his unnatural beauty. It could have been the softest white of his robe, his “metro-sexual” esthetics, or maybe the pair of his imposing wings protruding from his back and the disc of absolute light that crowned his “timotei” hair… Something…

  The being looked at him slowly, tip to toe, with eyes full of curiosity. He raised an eyebrow and grabbed his jaw in an academic fashion. The young man smiled nervously, revealing thus a set of teeth worthy of the most successful toothpaste commercial. A small star was born at the edge of that smile.

  “Tell me lad” he said in a friendly manner, “where did you come from?’’

  “If I’m not mistaken, you must have created me, just now” replied the young man in a beautiful and smooth voice that the best radio producers would envy.

  “Is that so? So, where were you a few moments ago? Nowhere?”

  “Mentally or physically?” replied naively the young man.

  “As a sum of atoms, lad” said the being “why would I care about your mental consciousness?”… and the cosmic irony smirked…

  “So you weren’t hiding anywhere, waiting for me so as to suddenly jump in front of me; just for the laugh of it?”

  “No.”

  “Because you know… things like that happen… very often.”

  “But, where could I hide?” asked the angel (he is probably an angel) looking at the black space around him.

  “Behind a black curtain?” asked his creator (he is probably a creator) with a childish eagerness in his eyes.

  “No, no” answered the First angel with a smile.

  “All right then” He said hesitantly (who sometimes is written AND pronounced with a capital “H”), looking carefully behind a non-existent black closet.

  “So, my friend, if I understand correctly, I only spoke and you were created” concluded the one who is defined by capital letters, as He suddenly pulled an invisible, black curtain and quickly glanced behind it.

  “I presume that this is how it may have happened” replied the young blond man.

  “So, reasonably thinking and reaching, therefore, reasonable conclusions, I am able to create others like you, out of thin air” concluded the creator, coming, at the same time, to the reasonable conclusion that nobody else was hiding under/ behind/ above/ inside any other non-existent black objects of various shapes and sizes.

  “Look, I don’t know, I suppose you can. You know, it has never happened to me before, I’ve never been created as far as I can tell, so to speak.”

  “Yesss… you’ve got a point” said the supreme being (of this universe). He looked around him as if trying to measure the space. He put his index finger in his mouth, licked it and then raised it a little higher than his head, pursing his lips. He seemed satisfied with something.

  “What are you doing?” asked the angel.

  “Ssshhhh…” the creator interrupted him. He half closed his eyes, tightened his lips and in between them appeared the tip of his tongue. He raised his hands as an orchestra conductor and stared at Chaos straight in the eyes. Chaos itself didn’t bother at all. And even if it did, nobody noticed anything. For a certain moment the absolute nothing stood totally still, doing nothing at all. The universal tranquility was disturbed by the insignificant sound produced by a bursting soap bubble, and so, with a galactic “poof” hundreds of thousands of angels appeared at that very spot where tenths
of seconds ago you could see only black pixels.

  The angels blinked their eyes in surprise. For a few moments their higher level consciousness found it difficult to perceive the abrupt transition from total inexistence to the creation of life itself, but got a grip really quickly and sat comfortably in its mental armchair, waiting, with a restrained interest, of what was to come. The new arrivals, dazzled, began to examine their body members, count the number of their fingers, caress their wings and shake their heads fully satisfied, obviously, by the softness of their feathers.

  Then a hubbub of enormous proportions followed as they realized that one of their body’s orifices had the ability to produce sounds. A hubbub so confusing that should it be split down to its basic elements it would have created a number of monologues limited to the use of all the vowels and one or two consonants, because, the ability to produce speech is inextricably bound to the ability to articulate.

  “Amazing!” exclaimed the First angel, “Lord, what you have created is absolutely fantastic!” he added with a sincere smile and a percentage of ingratiation towards the boss.

  “Do you think so?” asked the creator cautiously.

  “Beyond any doubt. It’s your second best creation” confirmed the first boot-licking employee.

  “If I didn’t know better I would have sworn that he’s about to ask me for a raise and a day off before the weekend” thought the first boss.

  Gathering his thoughts at the task at hand he realized that he didn’t know how many angels he had already created. If they were too many he wouldn’t know what to do with all the extra ones, while if they were less than those needed, he wouldn’t be able to complete what he had thought a few moments earlier and which could be summarized in the following; ‘’I will become god for a day. Well, maybe for a little longer because one day equals to none; Oh I don’t know exactly for how many but it will be for such a number of days which will be considered to be sacred and exclusively divine, even though it will not reflect the full extent and importance of my work, which regardless of its divine nature will not be taken into serious consideration in the future; it will be questioned a lot, I will get pissed off and finally everything will go down the drain with a certain amount of fire and brimstone in hot pursuit.”

  The noise coming from the angels’ side, who had already started to manufacture words such as “poop, boom, yam-yam”, dragged him back to his reality. He took a good look around them, measuring the size of the mob and raised his hands towards them, in the distinct way of someone who is addressing a crowd.

  “Gentlemen, I would like a little bit of quiet, please” he pleaded.

  “Guys, a little bit of quiet, please” repeated the First angel.

  The creator noticed the intervention but, politely, avoided to comment on it. On the other hand, the angels didn’t pay any attention to that because they were more interested in the fact that they could utter literate masterpieces such as “pee-pee, cat and plenipotentiary”.

  “Gentlemen! Please… stop for a moment” repeated the supreme being.

  “Guys! The man…errr…the being is begging you. Stop it for a moment” re-repeated the First angel, keeping the same attitude as the creator. The creator gave a dagger look at him but said nothing.

  “Well, be quiet now!” he said clapping his hands.

  “Come on… be quiet… now…” came back the echo escorted by the definite sound that is produced by a set of hands banging together.

  “Jesus” whispered the creator and “poof!” there, right in front of him, appeared a young man with long, well groomed hair and a perfectly trimmed beard.

  “Father?” he said, opening his arms widely.

  “And you are?” asked the creator.

  “I’m your Son, Father” replied the young man. The god-to-be was at a loss for a moment. He had a brief monologue with himself and said; “I’m still very young to have a family”. He kindly smiled to the young man who was looking at him puzzled and then snapped his fingers in a conjuror’s manner, making his premature family obligations disappear. With an intense determination he turned towards the angels.

  “You! Shut up!” he commanded, raising, at the same time, an arm with a vicious index finger pointing at the First angel. He made an attempt to say something but he changed his mind. At that very moment, it was better for him not to practice his administrative abilities. He smiled awkwardly and said “OK”, extending his hand with his little finger raised. He looked at it. He raised the middle one. With a pang of terror passing across his bulging eyes he quickly retracted that finger back in his palm’s protection. He scratched his head and then raised his thumb.

  “OK” he repeated with satisfaction.

  After a very brief and inconvenient pause during which the creator doubted his ability as a creator, watching his first creation act repeatedly in such a foolish way, he turned around and with a sudden move he opened his arms wide. The angels, who were busy creating new words in a whispering tone, were rather frightened and took a step back. The Lord (we can call him that way and always with a capital “L” – it is a matter of protocol) shut his eyes. He took a deep breath and firmly planted his feet on the space void. He clapped his hands once and millions of stars appeared.

  The angels, bathed in the golden light of the newly born suns and with their feathers torn by the shockwave created by god’s clapping, gazed around them in awe.

  Some of them attempted to touch the cute, bright little objects which were rhythmically pulsating, radiating soft and life-giving light, only to learn their first – and in fact the last – lesson in physics. Incredibly high heat has the remarkable ability to annihilate, magically and with a set of astounding firework effects, any form of matter that gets awfully near it, without taking into consideration if the aforementioned matter was created by the brain procedures of a supreme mind or by a lucky universal roll of the dice.

  But most of them broke into a wild applause of sincere enthusiasm, shaking their angelic heads in joyous acceptance and at the same time a lot of them burst into hearty laughs each time one of their colleagues became a tiny nuclear holocaust. Some of them had even the nerve to approach the creator and shake hands with him, pat him friendly on the back and moreover the boldest ones gave him a very tight and inconvenient hug. Some others went as far as to stand beside him smiling, while one of them, with a suspiciously oriental pair of eyes, stood right in front of them with his hands raised in front of his face and his fingers forming a box and moved his index finger up and down saying; “click… click…”

  Despite his initial embarrassment, the supreme being began to feel really cool thanks to the recognition awarded to him for his talents and came to the conclusion that he was probably good at what he was doing and that if he enriched his show a bit more, used more special effects and hired a couple of side-kicks, he would surely conquer all the dimensions. He could even go as far as Las Vegas.

  Somewhere far, far away, in a neglected dimension, a lever was pulled downwards, three dollar symbols aligned and then followed the metallic sound that escorts a downpour of fifty cent coins… some old lady with a geisha make-up and with her pension money ready to waste, felt happy. A few hours later, she had a brief encounter with a tall, thin guy very able in the use of agriculture hardware, particularly of the scythe persuasion, and realized, a bit too late, that it would have been better if she had spent more quality time with her grandchildren rather than with the one-armed bandit. Anyway…

  The creator of few – for the time being (for you extra-religious readers out there) – saw the fame and saw that it was good. It was not enough though. The continuity of success is secured through novelty and pioneering in one’s field of expertise and not through stagnation and repetition that come as a consequence of having any in the first place. Unless you’re dealing with humans. Nevertheless. This thought crossed the mind of the ultimate mind and made him stand aside, away from the throng of his fans, some of whom were trying to get his attention
by waving their wings stupidly and not at all synchronized. Unable to focus on his thoughts he turned his back at them. He tried to separate the creative ideas from remarks such as: “He’s amazing! Someone told me to get him for my niece’s birthday party, but noooo, we hired the other guy that makes animals with balloons…” and found it impossible to do so. Obviously irritated, he stuck his fingers in both of his ears and shut his eyes really tight. Muffled voices were getting in the way of his nerve endings causing a creative short-circuit. In an ultimate effort to introspect, he began repeating a mantra of “la la la la la la la…” in an increasing speed that matched the increasing too rate of his nerves shuttering in a short, discreet and divine “PTOIIIIIIIIN…”

  “Well… if you DON’T shut up right NOW…I will stone you from here to only me knows where!” he yelled.

  And lo, out of nowhere, with some faint little “pifs”, myriads of stones appeared; big and small, round and angled. Absolute Chaos who had no more the exclusiveness of absoluteness, raised an eyebrow in disbelief and came to the conclusion that these days no one respects the other people’s peace and quiet or personal space and that the fact that each and every person, having the faintest bit of creative vanity and infinite time at their disposal, could come and fill the place up with their filth, was especially rude. It was sick of them all! Benign creators, great old ones, small young ones, they were all the same! And they all do the same mistake; they go create something that looks like them.

  That’s what Chaos thought…

  Then, it left…

  The creator was looking suspiciously at his new creations. With the tip of his finger he touched a small, round pebble that happened to pass lazily in front of his nose and sent it on a journey to the far ends of the finite universe. He felt calm, watching the smooth movement of the celestial body, in fact he felt so calm that his headache was almost gone. Looking up, he saw the angels staring at him in bewilderment. For a moment he thought that that was it, he had lost them, this trick was not a worthy successor to the previous one, with the celestial fires and the rapidly disappearing angels. But when they broke into a monumental applause, he sighed and let a feeling of divine relief run through his spine.

  “Still got it…” he thought in satisfaction and raised his hands smiling to his fans, which in turn executed spiral movements with their raised fists, reproducing at the same time a sound equivalent to the mating call of certain primates.

  A couple of angels wearing robes with the creator’s face printed on them – God knows how they got them printed, some god anyway… at this time of day, with every printer shop closed – approached him waving threatening, non-existent white papers and non-existent pencils and asked desperately for an autograph.

  “An auto-what?” god asked with bulging eyes.

  “Autograph, o Lord” they repeated.

  “And what exactly is that, lads? Is there anything creative to be done on my behalf?” asked curiously the ultimate mind.

  “Nothing special. Just write down your name on this little piece of paper” they explained.

  God looked at their empty hands. Then he looked at the childish enthusiasm residing in their angelic eyes. Again back at their empty hands. He raised his shoulders indifferently and said: “But of course…” and pretended grabbing the paper and the pencil from the first one.

  “For whom is it?” He asked (epic music announced the capitalization of a rather ordinary “H”).

  “For me” replied the angel in a sincere naiveness.

  “Yes, my child. What’s your name?” He helped him (an angelic choir, bathed in the light of heavens reaffirmed that the “H” was capital, in case no one understood it in the first place).

  “Hmmm?” asked the angel, lost in thought, watching his colleagues exchange musical scores and warm up their vocal cords.

  “What’s your name, boy?” the creator asked impatiently.

  There was a short, operatic “Aaaa…” from the angels who thought that the capital letters would keep on coming.

  “Oh! My name!” the angel understood at last. “Michael” he finally said.

  “Niiice…” He said.

  The angels, who weren’t paying much attention, started singing with no rhythm at all, didn’t quite manage to achieve the outcome they had in mind and after a few embarrassing moments stopped in disappointment.

  The creator began writing: “To my dear Michael. With love…”

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!” screamed the First angel as he dove in slow motion towards god and grabbed the invisible objects from his hands.

  “Jesus!” shouted the Lord in surprise (complete and utter indifference from the angelic choir’s part now).

  “POOF!” and again the young man with the well kept hair and the clean beard appeared. He was holding a cylindrical object on which just right under the grasping fingers one could hardly make out the letters “…EER”. It had just reached his lips. He looked at his father with eyes full of guilt and wonder. Then he gave a glance at the object with sorrow. Slowly, he began lowering it. He held it with both hands, smiled nervously and shrug his shoulders clearly stating; “I really don’t know where that came from. Really.” His parent, after the initial surprise, wore his strict look and then snapped his fingers. The youth disappeared again.

  The cylinder was left behind, hovering in the void.

  God turned towards the First angel who was still diving in an incredibly deliberate slow motion and looked at him full of frustration while he was reaching the lowest point of his trajectory.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as calmly as he could.

  The first employee stood up in just a fraction of a second, smiling and accompanied by a soft “PTOINNN…” He was wearing black sunglasses that covered half of his face, a black suit so perfectly fit that seemed like a second skin, and on top of all a black, leather trench coat.

  “You’re welcome” he answered, earning a look of pure astonishment from the creator.

  “Eh?” the supreme being of the universe managed to utter a whisper after a few moments’ of brainstorming.

  “You can’t go round saying your name to everyone” plainly stated the angel.

  “Imagine what a tragic error I saved you from” he added patting friendly on his divine back. He looked upon god’s gaze and slowly retracted his arm. He chose to safe keep it in his pocket. He also took a step backwards, just in case.

  It is universally known and scientifically accepted that all godlike creatures, higher intelligences and other supreme beings possess a cute tension of transcending from creators to severe punishers as fast as a pair of hard-working dimensional gates. So fast indeed that it would be better if they used bead-strings rather than gates. No one can possibly begin to imagine how hard it is to repair dimensional hinges over and over again.

  “So, it is dangerous when someone knows my name because the owners of such knowledge will possess some short of mystical power, making them a threat for those around them and for myself, because they will be led by greed, a trait that is found among the majority of all lower life forms.” the Lord reached a reasonable conclusion.

  “Eeer, yes…” responded the angel who, to tell the truth, hadn’t really thought that through.

  “It’s like saying that my name and only my name can grand someone power over my creations, a right of decision between existence and oblivion, even offer him the chance of becoming equal to me?” god added, again reasonably.

  “Something like that…” the First managed to mumble shyly.

  “In other words, just as I possess infinite power, so is my name filled with the power of creation and therefore, he that will know it will be able to become god in god’s place” concluded the supreme mind.

  “I guess…” there came the response, accompanied by a set of downwards looking eyes and a slight noticeable movement of the tip of the foot.

  “ARE YOU IN YOUR RIGHT MIND??!!” the Lord exploded.

  “Get out of my sight
and don’t bother me again unless, I, myself call for you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!” sharply said the First angel, whose clothes, due to god’s violent reaction, now hang from his body like shed snake skin (Hmmm…). He turned around quickly to go away but stumbled upon the perfect face of the angel who had asked for the autograph.

  “Watch where you’re going!” said Michael and his grey eyes filled with thunder.

  “Mind your own business!” replied the First, looking back with eyes that resembled boiling volcanoes.

  “Look here.” Michael continued, lifting the non-existent autograph in front of his colleague’s eyes.

  “It says here that I’m his favorite.”

  The First stared at the void between Michael’s fingers.

  “I don’t believe it…” he thought with a blank expression on his face.

  “You’d better leave” said a second voice inside his head. He took a step forward.

  “Laugh in his face and punch him in the stomach!” popped in a third, hyper-energetic voice.

  “Stop it!” the other two were heard. “What are you interfering for?”

  “Hit ‘im! Hit ‘im!” the third voice shouted, probably grinning.

  The First angel hesitated. He tilted slightly sideways and tried to listen to all that was spoken in his head and not by himself.

  “Mmmmphh…heeEEEYY!!!! You are not going to shut me up!!!” yelled the aggressive one.

  “She’s getting away! Get him! Get him!” said the calm one.

  “You are not helping much by sitting and giving instructions” noticed the first voice, obviously irritated.

  “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! You can’t! You can’t!” pointed out the third thought, adding “Why are you standing like that? Hit ‘im, I tell you!”

  The First, with his head leaning on one side, glanced at Michael.

  He smiled at him…

  “Don’t you dare!” screamed the most reasonable one “And get him at last, for all that is holy!”

  Confused, the angel took a step towards Michael.

  “Not you!” a voice was heard, “Him! Move it!” the voice added.

  The angel stopped. He folded his arms slowly. He cocked again his head on one side and continued listening.

  “There will be a non-existent-place-in-which-the-damned-reside to pay if you don’t come over here and help me!” suggested the first voice, out of breath.

  “It is a well known fact that I am against any form of violence” replied the second one, in an academic tone.

  “You are both crap eating clowns! Did you hear me? Clowns! Ha-ha!” came the third part of the conversation.

  “Whom did you call a clown?” demanded to know the second thought angrily. The muffed sound produced when a fist at high velocity meets a face, underlined the non-violent reaction of the thought.

  “Strong right hand!” exclaimed the first one in admiration.

  “When necessary…” responded the peacemaker.

  “So what should we do with him now?”

  “Go find a rope and tie him up really tight, gag him and we’ll think of something later.”

  “Good idea.”

  The First angel couldn’t help but notice the sudden absence of tumult in his head. With the tip of his fingers he tapped lightly on the side of his skull.

  “Why are you still here?” asked the reasonable voice. “Go now… leave… and don’t you do anything stupid, all right?”

  “All right” he said and began walking away.

  A “Psst…” was heard from behind his back. He turned around and saw Michael lifting one of his hands in front of his face and pointing his eyes with his index and the, uh, offending finger. He then turned his hand and pointed towards the First, signifying quite clearly and for no apparent reason that he could see him. The angel looked back. He shook his head in a way that suggested that there was no hope there. Then, he moved on.

  Nearby, the creator stood alone massaging his forehead. The headache was nowhere near in backing down. It was frustrating. He possessed such incredible powers, divine someone might observe, and he was not able to cure a headache! In the name of… well actually him, his skull was about to explode!

  He blinked a couple of times in an attempt to peacefully persuade the pain to fall back out of his bodily borders. The latter though, undaunted, continued the hostilities.

  God sighed. He crossed his fingers through his white hair. Sighed again. He looked around. The bright light of a sun was reflected on something and reached his eyes, thus offering the headache a chance to violently pull a bunch of optical fibers that were laying casually around.

  God approached the reflection with his palm covering his face. It was coming from the object that his child had, moments before his miraculous disappearance occurred, and now it was swirling nonchalantly and sensually through the space void. He reached out and grabbed it. A sweet coolness ran the distance between his fingers and his brain. He felt beautifully thirsty. He moved it towards his nose and placed it above the small hole on top of the cylinder. He sniffed.

  “Gold” thought the creator, “liquid”.

  He brought the object to his lips and then, in a symmetrical move in which both head and object participated, he leaned back and took a sip. The move was terminated by the repositioning of the combination in its previous state.

  “Wow…” the Lord whispered, looking at the cylinder in admiration. He stood up straight. He glanced a couple of times around him and after confirming that no one was watching, he sucked the object dry.

  A wonderful euphoria flooded his mind. He began feeling his head quite lighter. A feeling of happiness of unknown origin crept into his body, danced upon his spine and phantasmagorically exploded inside his brain. His headache smirked and decided that he would seize fire for a few hours. His reinforcements were there.

  The creator gently let the object fall towards his feet. He smiled and suddenly kicked it so hard that it got launched in space and reached ignition speed in fractions of a second, becoming a fireball that exploded releasing a cloud of countless colours.

  A huge “WOOOW!!!” came from the crowd of angels, as well as some sporadic applause.

  The Lord outstretched his arms towards the universal palette, indexes pointing forward and thumbs raised high. He half-closed his eyes. An invisible, nearly burnt-out cigar moved from one corner of his mouth to the other. Somewhere in the background, a universally known tune was heard.

  “BANG!” god said and the mass of colours burst.

  “BANG! BANG!” he continued shooting indiscriminately, aiming at any pigment within range.

  The invisible bullets ripped through the infinite-colored, heavenly palette, creating gas clouds of unbelievable beauty which slowly began moving into the void. Splashes of millions of colours dripped upon all celestial bodies, painting them in psychedelic tones that no one could ever dream of, even in his most delirious tripping.

  God blew softly on his fingertips and in a smooth move placed them at both sides of his hips. He gazed around him looking pleased. With arms wide open he began swirling around himself, at first slowly and then faster and faster. Countless planets and stars were caught in his intergalactic dance, some of them gathering in groups, others colliding with one another, giving birth to more light, colour and matter.

  Billions of suns began forming galactic families so vast, that an inferior mind would crumble to insanity by just taking a single glimpse at them. Gas clouds and stardust mixed between supernovas, comets smoothly travelled through interstellar space and numberless planetary systems escorted the stars in their universal dance.

  And in the centre of it all, god, spinning round himself faster and faster until, without a warning, he joined his hands in a divine clap whose back blast sent all of creation spinning indefinitely towards all the possible directions of the universe.

  The big “BANG” was heard throughout all of the existing, existed or even, in a strange way, the dimensi
ons to exist in the future, annoying, in fact, a few residents of one of them, which were all civil servants and they had just lied down for their noon siesta and some of them said that this would not go unanswered and that they would show him; he didn’t know who he was dealing with and what they were capable of; you’re lucky it is siesta time or else…

  The angels speechless and with tears in their eyes gazed upon the exceptionally beautiful universe. Some agreed that the creator (apart from being a great, uh, creator) was also an incredible decorator, because look at what he had accomplished with so few in so large a space. Some others reset their colleagues in universal order and piety with a small amount of angelic slaps in the back of their angelic heads.

  But none of them noticed the supreme being grasping his head tightly and stumbling through the void. The pain inside his head allied with the first hangover and decided that it was a first class idea to start screaming maniacally while banging at the same time on enormous gongs with diesel motored chainsaws. He tripped on a passing comet, just enough to lose his balance and fall, face first, on a binary solar system.

  “OH, COME ON!” he yelled as the twin stars scorched his forehead.

  “Who’s the idiot that tosses his butts on the dancefloor?” he thought.

  Massaging the two small burns with one hand, he slowly opened his eyes.

  “Oooohh… how hammered am I?” he wondered in a low voice, “I see stars.”

  Some angels, that had approached him to help him recover, happened to overhear his question and after a brief moment’s hesitation they burst out laughing because they realized that their Lord was quite a comedian and was constantly bombarding them with well timed jokes. Of course, immediately it dawned on them that it was not so, when the Lord looked at them with storms of incredible violent force shaping in his eyes.

  With slow and as steady as possible moves he managed to stand up. Defying the sweet couple of headache and hangover, who were performing a war dance on an iron dance-floor, fully armored and wearing dutch wooden shoes, he ordered his eyelids to fully rise so as to look upon creation, which was now set in motion. And he saw that it was good. He smiled, pleased with himself.

  “Psychedelic, man…” said a voice coming from nearby, apparently this voice belonged to someone who was on the threshold of sleep and deeper sleep. He was quite certain that his headache was not about to subdue. He slowly turned towards the speaker’s direction, almost prepared for the next surprise that the universe would generously throw in his path.

  That which he saw made him believe that it was nowhere even close to being the universe’s fault, because he, himself had seen to it by filling it up to the brim (if it had one; philosophers still argue with astronomers about it) with countless surprises (for him anyway) that constantly pushed him over the edge of embarrassment and down below into the abyssal depths of annoyance.

  It was, probably, the First angel, although at first he found it difficult to recognize him. His perfect blond curls where replaced by a perfect, circular blond hair-ball that remained on his head thanks to a red bandana, tightly tied behind it. On his masculine male-product-commercial face he had a line of unkempt hair that ran the distance between his ears, covering his cheeks and upper lip. The crown jewel on his facial decoration was a pair of oval sunglasses with transparent, orange lenses.

  The standard angelic attire of the whitest of all whites, whiter of course than white, had given its place to a multi-coloured sleeveless vest – which revealed an amount of the angelic chest greater than it was religiously and theologically accepted at the time – and an even more coloured and scandalously tight pair of jeans, which ended in cuffs so large able to house beneath them several families of nomadic beings. Along with all their relatives. And their musical instruments.

  Not even his wings were spared from this stylistic transformation. Each feather was painted with so many colours that the First angel looked like Jackson Pollock’s pet peacock, if, of course, Pollock was blind and painted not with a brush but with the peacock… if he had a peacock.

  “Peace, dude…” said the angel leaning slightly backwards and lifting his arm, index and little finger raised. He looked at them. He straightened his body and lowered his arm, exhaling in disappointment.

  “Peace, man…” he said again, this time lifting the other hand, raising his index and middle finger. He glimpsed at them.

  “Peace…” he concluded.

  The creator’s mouth opened at its own will indicating surprise and embarrassment and his jaw was left hovering in the emptiness, just above his chest. A pair of godly eyes stretched out of their sockets and observed the spectacle in front of them, from tip to toe, head exempt from the procedure. For a couple of seconds all his brain functions stopped working, raised their eyes and screamed in panic.

  “PTANNNNNG…” came the breaking sound from somewhere in between the supreme being’s ears.

  With great effort he raised his right arm, its palm open.

  He lowered it. He shut his mouth and managed to return his offended eyes to their previous position. He blinked, as if hypnotized. Inside them a calm and peaceful ocean could be seen… just like before a storm.

  “A word, if you please…” he proposed softly.

  “Tell me, dude…” replied the angel in a voice coming out of Morpheus’ kingdom.

  God approached him and wrapped his hand around the First’s neck.

  “Peace…” he repeated, maintaining complete danger unawareness.

  “We’ll see…” suggested the Lord with a killer’s grin on his lips.

  “I would very much like to beg you to try, if you so will it and it’s not that difficult for you and I don’t put you in too much trouble, not to take initiatives of this kind because you place me in a very tight spot and my head is killing me and I would like you to contribute to my spiritual peace and STOP ACTING LIKE A MONKEY!!! ”

  God’s outburst was of such magnitude that all the colours from the angel’s attire were ripped off and remained hovering shyly in the void like a kindergarten kid’s picture. His clothes were peeled away, revealing from beneath the approved angelic robes. Only the hairdo was saved; it had relatively kept its form, more or less, but the hair were all straight as needles, looking to all possible directions and were decorated with small, blue electrical sparks.

  A tear, like a liquid diamond, made its appearance on the tip of one of the angel’s eyes.

  God noticed it and his mask of absolute annoyance was lifted from his face and was replaced by regret and fatherly love.

  “Are you crying?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “I’m not crying” he answered with a throb in his throat and the tear rolled down on his classical beauty cheek.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not crying” repeated the angel, not bothering to hide a wet nose.

  “I’m sorry” honestly admitted the Lord “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

  He took a step towards him and lovingly touched him on the shoulder.

  “I’m sorry” he said again “I will not yell at you again, I promise.”

  The angel dragged a sleeve, elbow to wrist, beneath his nose. God hugged him, regretting that he allowed his temper to rule over reason and caressed his hair, straightening it back to its normal shape.

  “I’m telling you the truth, I won’t do it again. I’ll be good and patient, all right?”

  “Oh right…” came the reply by the head that dripped nasal fluids on God’s shoulder.

  “Here, to see how much I love you, I will give you this new…eeeerr…thingy that appeared” said He, turning towards the new creation.

  It was probably something living. Its bodily proportions were disturbingly similar to those of the angel’s, except for his hands that were exceptionally long and they reached down to its short leg’s toes. Its head and face weren’t objectively handsome, even if you looked at them from a certain angle and with very well positioned room lighting. Its ey
es were two black orbs, disproportionally smaller than its flapping ears, its giant lips and its proud second chin. All these were placed on a flabby body with a three-digit number of weight, which concealed though a sum of muscles capable of facing all the hard survival challenges of a hostile environment, making it quite clear that it wouldn’t take too much crap from any other bipedal mammal which calls itself member of a master race. Finally, hard red fur covered its entire body apart from his round belly which, in universal accordance, must be displayed as a sign of dominance, plenty and, unfortunately, never-in-style proof of marital safety.

  “Mine?” asked the angel.

  “Yeees…” replied the Lord, in a distracted way, holding out a friendly hand towards the humanoid.

  The humanoid, on its turn, possessing a brain capable of analyzing quantum mechanics problems, developing theories upon philosophical issues of theological basis and somewhere in between them having an irresistible attraction towards tree-branch hanging and throwing its feces at all those it disliked, came to the conclusion that it would be better to join hands with that nice old man than revealing its higher intelligence and get locked away – a multidimensional multi-universe only knows – in some laboratory, wearing diapers and smoking cigarettes as a serious scientific experiment (wow…big sentence…).

  It stretched one hand while with the other it theatrically scratched its armpit.

  “Did I really create that?” god wondered, leading it towards the First angel.

  “Of course not! Molecules of star dust came so impossibly close to one another, defying the almighty gravitational forces and in an orgy of DNA helixes appeared this rather sweet primate, which, even though, is able to calculate the orbits of galaxies in a blink of an eye prefers to submerge into the honeyed sensation of a cool and tight banana.” thought the orangutan, which apart from having the ability to read other being’s minds, had a special sense of irony and self-sarcasm.

  The creator looked at it in disbelief, as if he had overheard its inner monologue.

  The orangutan raised its head with a small amount of panic flashing through its eyes. Quickly, it scratched its armpit, and to be on the safe side, it threw a fossilized piece of crap (made for circumstances such as this) upon a passing meteorite.

  The Lord scratched his white haired head, shrug his shoulders in pure lack of interest and kept on walking.

  By the way, the aforementioned meteorite crossed vast tracts of spatial nothingness and after some hundred thousands of years fell flaming down on a planet in the neighborhood of an indifferent star, carrying on it countless bacteria that would make the biological parents for millions of life forms.

  The angel saw the creature and burst out in a fury of childish clapping.

  “Monkey! Mine! Monkey! Mine!” he stated.

  God, showing nerves of divine steel, smiled nervously clenching his teeth.

  “Listen… ok… I felt awful, I apologized” he said with a politeness that held a mace behind its back, “don’t overdo it, I beg of you.”

  “Ok, you’re right” said the angel in a voice of perfect adulthood. “Thank you for the monkey.”

  “Your face is a monkey, you bloody illiterate!” thought the orangutan quite annoyed.

  A dried product of bowel procedures landed without grace on the First’s sandals.

  “Hey! It throws poop at me!” complained the angel, wiping his foot on the back of his leg.

  “It’s playing with you” said the creator “and I think that it liked you already.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Definitely”.

  The First looked suspiciously at the creature which now had raised its hands high and was hopping on its legs.

  “What do I do now?”

  “Just go away and play together and leave me alone for a while. I need to think. I do have a lot to organize” said the Lord.

  “Ok. Let’s go monkey.”

  “You’re lucky that I’m out of ammo. But what the fornication? You will feed me. Then we’ll see who’ll have the last laugh” the primate thought with a penned up hostility.

  The creator, poor old he, hadn’t even taken one step when he heard the suspicious talk behind him, one that forewarned of unrest and trouble and blew away to oblivion all of his expectations for a couple of hours rest. A couple of hours, not even a whole day…

  He turned around and saw the First angel, hand in hand with the ape, standing face to face with Michael. Even though the tension between them hadn’t reached its critical point, some keen-sighted observer could clearly see the electrons realigning their orbits the moment they approached the space between the angels’ gazes. Their eyes were wide open and from inside you could see small lightnings and fireballs leaping. Their fists were close to their bodies, their fingers moving in claw-like grips, as if gathering strength for the first strike. The aforementioned observer thought that these two creatures weren’t about to burst out in hearty laughs and then cordially embrace, patting each other on the back and decided that the wisest thing to do would be to move a few galaxies farther and observe something else. The orangutan, careless for the supreme creatures, was studying the geometric rate by which solar flares were being generated on the surface of a nearby star.

  God, quietly and decisively, took another step towards them so as to be able to listen clearly to their talk, which would probably drip such venom that a black mamba would have its milk curdled by just looking at it. Oh, and of course to be able to intervene if it came to that certain point… which, of course, it would eventually…

  “What’s the matter? Dad shouted at you and you cried?” Michael mocked.

  “They were tears of laughter, streaming down the moment I saw your face” he was answered to.

  “Nevertheless. You earned a present, you cunning little serpent” Michael continued.

  “When you are Dad’s dearest you do have some privileges” the bait was cast.

  “I didn’t have any privileges so far” they bait was gulped down.

  “Who told you that you were his dearest?” the fishing line was sharply pulled, lodging the hook in the victim’s heart.

  Michael stood uncertain for a moment; the thunders in his eyes blown away by the frozen wind of doubt. He nervously raised his hand and pointed an accusing finger.

  “He told me so…” he managed to whisper.

  The First angel opened his mouth ready to drive his point, stuffed with dynamite and rolled in barbwire, into his colleague’s heart, when the voice in his head was heard.

  “Don’t say it. You’ll only grind him to dust and it’s not his fault that he is, well, naive” the voice suggested reasonably, which for reasons of proper literature order we shall name “Reason”.

  The angel closed his mouth, looking at Michael with his hand still raised.

  “He’s right. You don’t need to upset him. Can’t you see that he believes in all this? Furthermore, it would be better to have him as a friend rather than as an enemy” said the second voice that, for the aforementioned reason, shall be called “Instinct”.

  The First noticed a discreet welling up in Michael’s eyes.

  “They’re right, both of them” said voice number three, who answers to the name “Pure Madness”.

  Reason and Instinct looked at each other in doubt.

  “It would be better if you smiled at him and politely apologized” Pure suggested.

  The other two left their jaws drop to their knees in surprise.

  A smile shyly appeared on the angel’s face. Michael saw it with his eyes full of suspicion and resumed his previous stance. Undaunted, the First calmly held out his hand and said “I am sorry. Honestly.”

  One of the creator’s eyebrows, who watched with intense interest, rose up graciously giving the supreme mind an academic status. Both of Michael’s eyebrows popped up in surprise. He looked at the smile and then at the hand. The smile. The hand. The other angel stood there, motionless. Reason and Instinct were seated behind both
eyes and looked outside expectantly. One glimpse outside and then one at Pure, with a mixture of awe and doubt. Michael, almost mechanically and maybe with a little bit of caution, took his competitor’s hand and shook it. He looked at him in the eyes and said without breaking his handshake; “Don’t apologize, it’s my fault too”.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” Instinct and Reason broke out in shouts of satisfaction and turned towards Madness in order to congratulate her.

  “There’s more” Pure said and their smile was wiped clean from their faces.

  “Maybe we should stop at this point” Instinct suggested.

  “If she can turn them into friends, why shouldn’t we let him continue?” asked Reason.

  “They’ll be the best of friends when I’m done with them” Madness added in professional certainty.

  Instinct looked at the two angels still shaking hands, still smiling to each other and sighed.

  “Alright, let’s do this” he surrendered in the end.

  “Beautiful” said Pure and approached his colleagues.

  “Now, start laughing as if you have just heard an incredibly funny joke” he ordered.

  The First angel, mechanically obeying to the tiny voice inside his head, started laughing. Softly at first, looking awkwardly right and left, and then louder and more confidently as if remembering an old joke.

  Michael felt odd with this rapid change of mood but he didn’t stop smiling. He too, slowly, began laughing due to equal amounts of nervousness and the sheer contagiousness of laughter itself.

  “So far so good…” Instinct whispered.

  “He’s going to pull this through, probably…” said Reason while glancing at Madness, who was looking very serious.

  “I have a crowbar with me, just in case” stated Instinct in a conspiratory way, revealing a piece of heavy metal beneath his fur cape.

  Reason nodded affirmatively and said “I too carry a tranquilizer injection, double dosed” showing a glass syringe in the inside of his coat.

  A little farther away, God, with divine patience and mounting interest in the scene unfolding before his eyes, was waiting for the moment to interfere. Deep inside he hoped that everything would turn out smooth but he had no illusions. He was definitely sure about the outcome.

  Pure Madness licked his lips. His eyes flashed with a little child’s mischief. He tightened his jaw pretending to be thinking. Outside, in his macrocosm, the angels were turning red from their nervous laughter.

  “Discretely point at the orangutan… ” he suggested in a low voice.

  The angel winked at Michael and without stopping to laugh, he politely pointed at the ape, who was sitting quietly even though infuriated by this useless display of emotions. For a fraction of a moment Michael stopped laughing and with his eyes he followed the direction that his colleague’s finger was pointing at. Then, he stretched out his arm and pointed at the orangutan, laughing.

  Universal law; never, ever laugh in the face of an orangutan. Really. Never.

  The primate raised its head and saw, one after the other, the finger, the arm, the smile and Michael’s white teeth.

  “Oh well. Whatever instincts dictate…” thought the being, adding “so, I guess it’s back to the lab…”.

  A long, red-haired arm moved with lightning speed and with a loud “GOOP!” met Michael’s face. The First angel just stood there frozen by surprise.

  “YESSSS!!!” said Pure Madness who failed to notice the crowbar attaching gracelessly to his skull.

  “He pulled it off…” Instinct admitted while watching Madness falling down unconscious, like a meteor DUI.

  “I should have listened to you…” said Reason, sinking a needle in Pure’s arm and emptying a syringe of tranquilizer for a schizophrenic T-rex.

  “What do we do now? We can’t have him messing with his mind around” asked Instinct.

  “Do we have a trunk?” asked Reason shrewdly.

  The creator ran fast towards a pair of angels, just missing the ape who grabbed a passing comet and fled the scene whispering “vroooooommm…” with his huge lips pulsating rhythmically with the sound and thinking “You’re not gonna get me alive, scum!”, and reached them right at the moment when a furious Michael opened his eyes and from the horizontal stance he was keeping, bolted right up, folded his hands around the First angel’s ivory throat and began shaking him, with increasing speed, back and forth, back and forth (phew… another big sentence).

  “Let… mmmmmfff!… me… aaarg!… exp… aaangf!... lain…” tried the First, with a raised index finger following the movement of the rest of his body.

  “What is there to explain, you SNAKE?” asked Michael with white froth on the edge of his lips and one eye blacked. He was about to place his angelic fist on his brother’s nose when a few million cubic tons of water stormed in between them and separated them. Wet, frightened, with their robes like a housewife’s wash and their wings like wet female hygiene accessories, they turned around and looked upon the creator who was standing a dozen feet away with his arms stretched out and his fingers dripping water. In his eyes blazed a blue flame and a wind of unknown origin moved his hair and clothes, transforming him into a primordial personification of the ocean.

  “ENOUGH!” shouted he, with a voice strong and deep, dangerous like a volcano erupting beneath the sea bed. Both of them fell on their knees, face down. The galaxies stopped moving. With one Charlton Heston–like move he split the waters which were hovering in space and violently tossed them to all the corners of the universe. They fell upon planets, extinguishing the fires of creation, upon comets and meteorites and they froze instantly by the mind-blowing low temperatures, they evaporated as they approached nuclear hot stars, and some managed to completely drench their flame out vanishing thus their light forever.

  For a moment, the supreme mind thought about obliterating them, once and for all, both of them, in order to save himself from the trouble that they would surely cause in the future. For a moment, he was about to do so. The flame in his eyes got darker, more menacing, it grew beyond measure. Around his hands, now tightened in fists, a multitude of white lightning began to form.

  His gaze fell upon his two angels, who were kneeling, trembling with the fear of God. Immediately, the fire in his eyes flamed out. The lightning in his hands disappeared. He took a slow breath and felt his nerves cool down. The galaxies were set back in motion.

  “Rise” said the Lord, addressing them both.

  They obeyed, still frightened, rose with heads hung in shame, fiddling the edge of their wet robes with embarrassment.

  “I don’t want to see you again fighting with each other” he advised them as a father would to his children.

  “I need you to love one another. Without your help I cannot proceed with my great plan”.

  “What is your great plan, Lord?” asked Michael curiously.

  “We will help you in any way we can” added the First angel.

  “Will you behave?” asked God.

  “YES!” they both answered at the same time full of excitement.

  “Let’s see…” said the creator in distrust.

  “Well then, here’s what I want you to do. Gather round all your colleagues and bring them here to me. Do you understand? It’s easy.”

  “Yes Lord” they answered and went to complete the task appointed to them.

  After a little while, god faced again the multitude of angels gathering in front of him and looking at him in anticipation.

  “We brought them all” said Michael, standing on the creator’s right side.

  “None is missing” said the First from the left side.

  “So, here’s the deal. I have decided…”

  “A little louder! We can’t hear you here at the back!” a rude angel who couldn’t hear there at the back was heard.

  The Lord actually killed a small nervous outburst and restarted.

  “I say, I have decided…” he said in a louder voice “…that you sho
uld all participate in the great work of Creation!”

  A “WOW!!!” was heard from the angels’ side, accompanied by sporadic applause.

  The First angel and Michael looked at each other, with smiles on their faces, and presented their raised thumbs with pride.

  “I shall give each and every one of you the ability, just this one time, to create something. I don’t know what, I leave this to your imagination” continued the supreme mind.

  “Why’s that, o Lord?” the rude angel from the back was heard again.

  Michael stared at him meaningfully and lightly bit his fist.

  Undaunted, the creator answered;

  “Do you mean why will you possess this ability just once during your immortal existence? Or are you too afraid to say that I keep all the power for myself and deny sharing it with all of you?”

  “Eeer…not exactly” answered the angel.

  “Sit down!... sit down!...” whispered the First while hand-signaling his weird colleague.

  “I mean, why should we all create something together when, obviously, you are the one and only, the great architect of the universe?” concluded the angel.

  “Well… look…” began God, holding his breath, which proudly pumped up his chest.

  “When someone, far ahead in Time, will wonder on how the world was made, I mean the issues of who and why which will plague their limited capability brains, they will receive answers referring in first person plural hence they will be confused and interpret these answers in a thousand funny ways and we’ll laugh our immortal hearts out with their limited understanding” he explained with a smile.

  The angels sniggered with joyous mischief.

  And the creator continued;

  “because they won’t be able to understand that the most important thing of all is that everything around them simply exists and the only thing worth is enjoying it all together.”

  A deep philosophical silence followed god’s plan revelation; not ocean deep but deep enough for a small animal to drown, more like a puddle really, which for an ant could be viewed as a lake. Anyway…

  Some angels shook their heads in understanding. Some others shed tears of joy for the ultimate honour of participating in the miracle of creation.

  A slow, rhythmical clapping came from Michael’s side. The First angel turned his head in dreadful surprise and started clapping faster. In a while, more angels followed their example resulting in a tsunami of “clap-clap-clap-clap” that rose up and thundered down in front of God’s feet.

  “Now, quietly disperse and proceed with your tasks” the Lord urged them.

  The angelic mob completely disintegrated. Some hastily hurried off with an idea for a construction already formed in their mind, others winged their selves slowly away, scratching jaws, heads and any other body part helpful for idea production; one, for example, scratched his nose – go figure. Each and every one of them sank deep down in thoughtful competitiveness donning the silk veil of noble struggle.

  Michael had already spread out dozens of blueprints and anatomy plans and was working with rulers and pairs of compasses, while further away, the First was spreading coloured post-it papernotes writing on them with a small, slightly pointless pencil. Once every few minutes he threw a glimpse at Michael.

  God saw the feverish angelic labour and saw that it was good. He pondered on the fact that the universe would never witness again such an enormous think tank, capable of producing an unceasing flow of products which in their initial stage are conceived by minds touching perfection and are manufactured by hands guided by equal perfect brain procedures.

  He liked the thought of this line of production. He could expand to other universes too. “GOD and co.” he imagined, passing his open hand before his face, touching an invisible company label. He smiled.

  He found some free space between two small solar systems, stood and closed his eyes. When he opened them he saw an imposing desk of heavy, dark coloured wood and a throne-like armchair in front of him; every inch of its surface was covered in intricate carvings suiting harmoniously with the scarlet velvet cushions on it.

  He slowly walked around it, touching its surface with the tip of his fingers. Obviously satisfied by its superb quality he pulled the chair forward and with a movement that was overflowing with majesty, he sat down. The cushions embraced his body like a mother embracing her baby. He leaned back. He lordly crossed his legs and joined his fingers in front of his face. His gaze fell upon the empty desk. He softly clapped once and right away there appeared a golden label which stated in carved gothic letters: “EVALUATION COMMITEE”.

  “Am I something or what?” he thought in self-complacency.

  He hadn’t finished complimenting himself when one of his angels appeared in front of him.

  “Good morning” he said politely.

  “Good morning” the creator answered indifferently.

  “Eeeerr…I came for…”

  “Have you got a number?” the Lord asked.

  “No. What for? There’s only me.”

  “And why do we keep them for? Decoration? Please! Take a number and get in line!” the committee said.

  “Yes sir” the angel agreed, slightly annoyed. He looked around and saw nothing. He looked back at the desk. The supreme mind looked busy enough without doing absolutely anything (an incredible talent). Discreetly, the angel faked pulling a non-existent numbered piece of paper from a non-existent dispenser. He moved on.

  “Good morning” he repeated with the minimum amount of courtesy applied.

  “Number?” asked god without looking at him.

  “Number one” offered the angel with a rapidly evaporating patience.

  The Lord raised his head and commandingly reached out a demanding hand.

  “Come on. What are you waiting for?”

  The angel was at a loss. He too reached out with his hand, took the offered one and hesitantly shook it.

  “What are you doing, o child?” he was asked by the surprised Lord.

  “Nothing. Nothing much really. You?”

  The creator stared at him filled with curiosity, not being able to decide if they were pulling his leg or if they were pulling his leg.

  “What do you want here?” he reformed the question.

  “I came to present my creation” the angel finally snapped out of it, feeling firm conversational ground beneath him.

  “Very nice… where is it?”

  “Here it is” and the creator was presented with an empty hand.

  “Did you built your arm?” asked the Lord.

  “No no. Ha-ha! Good one. Ha-ha! The thing on it” he explained smiling.

  “I can’t see anything” god admitted.

  “If you take a closer look you will be able to distinguish a tiny, little thingy, fluid of shape, which constantly physically doubles in the extraordinary way of dividing itself right in the middle. Every single time!” enthusiastically said the angel.

  “And where can we use it?” asked the practical thinking creator.

  “It can be the beginning of every life form” said the angel and his eyes lit up with joy.

  “Hmmm…” said the supreme mind, caressing his beard.

  “Very well. We are going to keep it” he finally decided.

  “Are you? Thank you very much!”

  “Name?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Name my child, name.”

  “Mine or its?” asked the angel pointing down in his nearly empty hand.

  “Its.”

  “Oh, jolly good! Because I haven’t thought mine, so far! Ha-ha!”

  The Lord slowly turned his head towards the reader’s mind’s eye camera and looked at it meaningfully. He turned back.

  “I call it -amoeba-”

  “Very good. A-mo-e-ba” said the Lord while writing down the patent’s number. He gave it to the angel and held the construction in the committee’s possession.

  “Thank you very much. Next p
lease.”

  “Good morning” the next one was heard.

  “Number?”

  “Two”

  “Have you signed up in the escrow’s office?” asked God with all the seriousness that he could muster.

  “Eeeerr…no. I didn’t know that I had to…” answered the unsuspected angel innocently.

  “It is written on the notification, by the door, before you enter!” said the angered committee.

  “What door?” loudly wondered the angel and turned to search for it. The only visible thing was a queue of angels reaching down towards the infinity of space.

  “Never mind” said a surprised Lord who, too, saw the queue and momentarily panicked.

  “Show me what you’ve got.”

  “There you go” said the angel and placed on the desk a being with four legs, an ugly, suicidal-ugly face and a hump on its back, made by a transparent material.

  “And what do we have here?”

  “It’s an animal adapted for a life in high temperature environment. I call it –camel- and it’s completely made of ice…in order to survive the heat, you know.”

  Water had already started dripping from the camel. She didn’t mind it at all though because time is not enough for you to feel upset when your vital organs are in plain sight and your life expectancy is slightly less than ten minutes.

  The creator calmly handed over a certificate to the angel waiting anxiously for the committee’s answer and took the imaginative construction. With his sleeve, he discreetly wiped the water gathered at the camel’s feet which was already a meter shorter. Without anyone noticing, he swirled a finger behind his chair. A black void appeared upon the black canvas of space. He carefully placed the camel above it and watched it being sucked into the hole and with a faint “gulp!” it disappeared from the face of this universe.

  And so, for endless hours god continued examining the creations of his angels. They had brought everything; quadruped animals, biped and monopod (the later easily finding their way towards the black hole of recycle), animals that could breathe in water and animals that could breathe in solid earth (which in turn were washed upon some other, more interesting universe). Plants of every colour and shape, plants for the water, for the earth and for the air (“gulp!” greedily swallowed the black hole). Trees bearing all kinds of fruit and also animals bearing some kinds of fruit (no one on this side of the universe ever bore witness to a penguin giving birth to bananas).

  Countless ideas, some smart and some hopelessly naive. Some beautiful and some ugly, some extraordinarily useful and others superlatively useless (glass nuts, sharks with teeth of sugar, empty pistachios to name just a few). The Lord sat there and perused them all, one by one. He made sure to leave no one complaining, except some that were stood up due to his lunch break during which they stoically waited in front of a little label politely announcing to the public; “I’ll be right back”.

  Unfortunately, with this mind blowing and body searing procedure that the creator put himself into, his headache returned. With a vengeance. In fact, he was never gone. He was hiding behind a cluster of nervous terminals, buried under piles of operational plans, battlefield maps and tactical information, patiently planning his next strike. Smirking maliciously, revealing an excellently honed canine, he walked through his cover and once again stepped on the innocent flag of truce with his iron-shod boots. Brandishing in one hand an industrial power drill, with “ACME” written on its side, and a bronze trumpet in the other, he stormed towards the unguarded brain of the supreme mind screaming its guttural war cry.

  The creator, unprepared, squinted for a moment and leaned back on his chair, obviously, extremely and profoundly exhausted. With great strain he managed to raise his head and see that it was almost over. In front of him stood only Michael and the First angel, each holding in their hands their creations with piety.

  “Well, my children, before we begin” the Lord began.

  “…since my head is killing me…” he continued without passing out.

  “…and since my eyes ache due to the awful lighting in this place, and considering that this doesn’t help with my headache at all…I would like some good, honest light in order to be able to continue” wearily whispered the creator, rubbing his eyes.

  “Consider it done!” shouted the First and left right away, leaving behind him an angel-shaped astral cloud.

  A very few moments later he came back, slowly pushing with gentle blows a bright star towards god’s desk. Each time he blew on it, it bathed the heavenly trio in soft light.

  “Better now, Lord?” he asked.

  “Much better. Thank you” replied the creator, blinking a couple of times in order to get used to the warm radiance.

  So, now is the most appropriate moment to baptize the First angel, who has so far shown literary patience, constantly answering to the native American improvisation-combination of noun-adjective (which in some cases can be quite inaccurate or even offensive; “the right-wing buffalo” does it mean its place in space? If so, by which point of reference? Of the one giving or the one receiving the name? If not, is it a name used in service of political expediency? Or again, “farting eagle” never made it to the caste of adult warrior-hunters because on one hand, the eagle is indeed a lordly and aggressive bird and stinks of testosterone, which are useful qualities when introducing yourself to the young tribes girls, but on the other hand, his intestinal particularity renders him useless in any other serious social group activity. During the hunt it will betray his position, in combat he will never be a respected leader and during winter he will freeze to death because it will be too dangerous for him to sit near the campfire. I hope you appreciate the trouble that poor Indians face from time to time).

  Anyway, in an exaltation of originality with small doses of parthenogenesis, we will call him “Lucifer” (in the background we hear a threatening music coming by an organ played by a demented scientist).

  “Let’s see what you’ve have created” god said.

  They looked at each other. Lucifer signaled at Michael, waving his head towards the Lord. Michael responded with the same signal. Lucifer moved his head again, a little more intensely and received the same bodily response. God pinched his nosebone and shut his eyes, not bearing to watch the two angels silently moving their heads, shoulders and upper body faster and faster, trying to convince one another to present their creation first.

  “Michael…” sighed the Lord “show me what you’ve made.”

  They both stopped at the same time. As Michael was about to present his creation, with the corner of his eye, he saw Lucifer sticking out his tongue, mocking him. He angrily turned towards him and responded accordingly.

  “Oh, Jesus…” whispered the creator and hearing the small “POOF!” sound by his desk he added “not again…”

  The youth’s back was turned to god, not having realised what had happened.

  “…who is going to bring the music?” he sounded saying to someone.

  “I beg your pardon?” asked god.

  “…oh, nice, awesome, exactly the thing to get us in the mood” he continued unwarily.

  “I am right here, who are you talking to?” his father wondered.

  “…what about the girls? Will they take a cab again? No? Smooth…” said the youth, turning towards the Lord, without noticing him.

  The creator observed that his son was talking to a rectangular object.

  “Hang up, I’ll get back to you…” he said to the object when he saw god.

  “Hold on, I know…” he said to his father, who was standing with his mouth open, and snapping his fingers, he disappeared.

  “Strange…” thought the supreme mind “I ought to know who he’s hanging out with.”

  Facing front again he saw Michael and Lucifer having their open palms attached to their ears, waving them stupidly and making silly faces to one another.

  “Oh, come on! Get a grip! By my name!” he said intensely and restored th
e order.

  “Michael, please, come.”

  Michael took a step forward and extended his arm while having his hand covered by a white cloth. Slowly, theatrically, he removed the fabric with his free hand revealing a flower painted blood red. Its many petals were placed in concentric groups of fives, getting smaller and smaller, up to the point where they formed a tiny cluster, out of which oozed the most intoxicating scent that the universe had ever known.

  “Very beautiful” softly admired god “what does it do exactly?”

  “Apart from the fact that it is a flower?” asked Michael.

  “Yes” honestly replied the Lord.

  “Nothing. It’s just a beautiful flower” repeated the angel.

  “Just that?”

  “Just that.”

  “So, it does not contain any well hidden secret waiting for someone willing to sacrifice something in order to discover it?” god insisted.

  “No. Just a simple flower…”

  “Anyway…let’s keep it” the Lord concluded, “How do you call it?”

  “Rose” Michael stated.

  “Nice… here’s the patent number and we’re done here with you” said the creator and turned towards the First.

  “What about you, Lucifer? What have you created?”

  The angel moved closer to god’s desk, placed his legs quite wide apart from each other and with a quick move revealed his construction.

  It was an object. Its two thirds were occupied by a long, straight stock and upon it were placed six metallic strings. They, in turn, were ending up in the lower section of the object which resembled a tilted symbol of infinity. A long, rubbery, tube-like attachment connected the object with an even bigger, rectangular one discreetly standing behind Lucifer.

  “What do we have here?”

  “It’s a musical instrument, o Lord” replied an excited First.

  “And what is its use?”

  “Translating the language of Mathematics to musical climaxes, with the appropriate education and practice, a user of such an instrument will be able to touch the soul of creation and bring everybody in contact with your presence” explained Lucifer in just one breath.

  “And how do you ca…” god began.

  “Electric guitar, o Lord” answered the angel.

  “Sounds promising…” honestly said the creator, “and how does it work?”

  The question mark on god’s sentence hadn’t yet managed to form when Lucifer powered down a hand towards the guitar, striking its metallic strings. A heavy, guttural sound emanated from the instrument, a sound like two stars colliding in the soundless void of space. With his closed eyes, the angel ran his fingers along the length of the strings, pausing low, letting them gracefully dance upon them, generating sparkles. Grimacing, he continued playing fully absorbed in the first cosmic song.

  “OK! I GET IT!” shouted god, who couldn’t even hear himself think.

  Lucifer riffed away, moving his hands and fingers at breakneck speeds. In one moment the instrument screamed and in the other it roared.

  “GOOD! THAT’S ENOUGH FOR NOW!” yelled the Lord, feeling the pain in his head dancing along with the song.

  The angel couldn’t listen. Caught in a feat of creative daze he had knelt in front of the desk, leaned back on the same level with his feet and with the guitar’s assistance made the stars of all the neighboring galaxies pulse faster and faster, changing through a multitude of colours.

  God could not take it anymore and in a gesture-statement of oppression of musical spontaneity he reached over his desk and grabbed the instrument through Lucifer’s hands.

  Silence.

  The angel opened his eyes. With heavy, exhausted breaths he stood up and with his sleeve wiped the artistic sweat formed on his face. The creator too, with heavy, headaching and agonizing breaths, sat down on his chair grasping the guitar firmly in his arms. Not of sudden and immediate love for her, but as a means of precaution.

  “VERY NICE! I WILL KEEP IT!” the Lord screamed in an attempt to isolate the buzz that overflowed through his ears.

  “HUH???!!!” asked loudly the First angel.

  “I’LL KEEP IT I SAY!!!”

  “IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO KEEP IT!!!” Lucifer indicated.

  “YES! I’LL DO THAT!!!” god confirmed.

  “I SAY THAT YOU KEEP IT!!!” the angel repeated more loudly.

  “YES! I TOLD YOU I’LL KEEP IT!!!”

  “I DON’T WANT TO SOUND TOO PRESSING, BUT IF YOU LIKED IT, YOU SHOULD KEEP IT!!!”

  The Lord and creator of most, felt exhausted. He clumsily grabbed a certificate and handed it over to Lucifer.

  “I’M GLAD THAT YOU HAVE DECIDED TO KEEP IT!!!” he yelled with a satisfying smile on his face. He presented god one of his thumbs and walked away happy.

  The supreme mind closed his eyes and gulped down a deep, soothing breath. He opened them. He looked at the guitar. Without moving his head at all he looked at Lucifer who was walking away. With a cunning and guilty move he placed the musical instrument above the black hole.

  “GULP…”

  He slowly stood up and weakly clapped his hands. The furniture disappeared. Massaging his forehead he started walking towards his angels who were feverishly talking about their creations.

  Behind him, the black hole “PLUGed…” and threw up the electric guitar back to the universe where it belonged.

  Seeing the creator approaching them, the angels stopped their conversations and turned towards him. “Thank you” they started saying, one by one in the beginning and then in crowds. Smiles of happiness accompanied their hearty handshakes while he was walking among them.

  “Bless you children…”

  “You’re welcome…”

  “My pleasure…” he answered them, content.

  He reached the center of the gathering. He stopped.

  “Listen, this feat doesn’t exclusively belong to me but to all of you.”

  Sporadic applause.

  “You all did your best giving form to your greatest ideas…” the Lord continued constantly turning around to politely address his speech to all of his angels.

  Again, applause. Some of them, laughing and nudging their colleagues, were praising their constructions.

  “…a ten meter turtle made out of pure copper… a sea turtle to be precise…”

  “…I couldn’t make the gills stand on its leaves; that’s what troubled me…”

  “…it hunts in packs…the coolest thing is that when it is happy it playfully shakes its tail…you can’t tell that it’s a carnivore…”

  “But our work is not complete yet!” god raised his voice, silencing the angels and making them look at each other in a feeling mixed in question and worry.

  “We have to tidy this up…” he stated, directing their gaze towards a humongous mass of hovering constructions of all kinds that stood apathetically in the space void.

  Countless life forms, plants, mammals, bacteria, insects, serpents, fruit-bearing trees, corals, softly floated between precious metals, common rocks and homing pigeons with no sense of direction whatsoever (and no job, as it will later turn out), which despite their beauty and grandeur of conception and execution, as a whole, resembled a large space junk-yard.

  After allowing them a few moments, in order to understand the nature and extent of the problem at hand, he turned towards them and continued;

  “So, I have thought the following…” said he, drawing their attention.

  “…we need a beautiful showcase in order to place them all, neatly arranged, in a controlled environment, so as not only to be able to look and admire them anytime we want to, without having to search for them all around the known universe, but to also study the ways in which they will interact with each other” he concluded.

  Approving shakes of angelic heads and wings confirmed everybody’s agreement.

  “The question is where do we put them?...” god wondered, resting one hand on his waist and scr
atching with the other the back of his head.

  “Where do we put them?...” he thoughtfully repeated, looking around, closely examining the universe.

  The angels on their part, stood in a multitude of thinking stances looking everywhere on the multi-dimensional space.

  “Lord…” Michael suggested after a while.

  “What about that planet, down there?” he pointed to a descent nine-planet solar system.

  “Which one? The big one with the red dot?” asked god.

  “No, no. That little blue one.”

  “That one?”

  “Not that one. Hold on…one, two, three. The third counting from the star” pointed Michael.

  “Oh, I see. I thought you were pointing at the other blue one, next to it. The fourth one” explained the creator.

  “It looks beautiful. Boys. What do you think?”

  In general agreement and after a brief referendum it was decided that the blue planet would be the creation’s showcase.

  “OK now, put your backs into it and let’s move all this rumble over there, place it and be off for some rest” god suggested.

  And thus, in a single coordinated move the angels transferred the whole of creation from the blackness of space to a little, insignificant sphere which was orbiting around an insignificant sun.

  Some of them, wondering why their constructions were nowhere to be found, were forced to help the rest of their colleagues carry the heavier materials like the Apatosaurus and the Allosaurus and the famous Squirrelosaurus, which in fact didn’t hang around on the planet’s surface for long, because due to a planning error, a half kilo squirrel and a two ton and nine hundred ninety nine and a half kilo of a lizard were merged in a three-ton, four frontal-legged body, without, though, any reproduction organs (in her giddiness, the evaluation committee finally kept this extraordinarily interesting animal and threw away in the black hole of recycling a four thumbed monkey. The evolution of life would have been a whole lot different, believe me).

  Soon, they reached a point where the whole planet was filled up. Everything was placed in order and with decorative aesthetics but, still, there were a planet’s ecosystem worth of stuff remaining to be placed too.

  “What now?” Michael asked the creator.

  “If we place these ones too then it will be overcrowded. It will be repulsive”, god remarked.

  “Why don’t we put them on the fourth one from the star?” Lucifer suggested.

  “Very good idea” said the Lord, examining the planet.

  “As far as I can tell, they look alike” he added.

  “Boys! The rest of them, over here!” the creator shouted at the angels.

  They stood up and winged up to the remaining constructions, obviously exhausted.

  “…my wings are killing me from all this moving stuff around…”

  “…my hands are blistered. There goes their softness…”

  “…build, carry… get created they said, get created…”

  In the end, both planets were full. Laborers and foreman gathered just outside the solar system and looked upon it. Some were massaging their sore hands, others their strained backs, but they were all smiling. As was the creator.

  “I believe that congratulations are in order” he told them.

  “You have done a great job! Well done!”

  Applause and whistles were mixed with angelic smiles of satisfaction and god was smiling as well and he was happy for their happiness. Lucifer smiled at Michael kindly and pat him friendly on the back. Michael answered in a sincere smile and a strong handshake.

  “And now, time for some rest” thought the Lord.