Short Story: The Beginning

Short Story: The Beginning

The alarm rang early. He reached out and switched it off without really waking up. However, an idea persisted this was the day, this was The Beginning.

God sat bolt upright. This was not a day for lazing about in bed. Today was the day to begin His new creation. He swung His legs out of bed and felt for His slippers. He stubbed His toe on the gazunder. There was no point in swearing as you can’t exactly take your own name in vain. It was very dark and cold in the mornings. He would have to do something about that, maybe make a big ball of fire to provide warmth and light for His creation. So He said LET THERE BE LIGHT, and there was light. He made His way down the stairs guided by the delicious odour of bacon and pork sausages. Gorgeous that, you could spend your life eating nothing else. It could become quite a vice. He frowned. He’d have to put a stop to that.

God’s wife was up betimes and bustling about in a hurry. He was always coming in with mud on His boots and she wanted Him out of the house so that she could wash the kitchen floor. She nagged Him as she served breakfast.

“I don’t know why we have to have a wooden floor in here, a nice stone one would be easier to keep clean. Or terracotta tiles; they’re made of fired clay and ever so hard wearing.”

God thought about this as He put on His boots. His creation would need a good, hard base to walk on, stone would be ideal. God was not above seeking advice or collaboration from some of the lesser gods, so He set off to see Pluto.

“I want a solid stone base for my creation,” explained God. “Flat but with wrinkly bits to make it more interesting.”

Pluto thought he could manage that. In fact, he was quite excited by the idea. It would give him an opportunity to try out some experiments he’d been working on with his friend Vulcan. “No problem. I should get that done in a couple of days, I’d think.”God smiled to Himself as He walked back to His workshop. Pluto could be trusted to turn out a good, firm basis for His creation. But first He would have to make a place for it, some kind of space. God thought up a blackboard and chalk. Looking at the piece of chalk, an idea struck Him. Wouldn’t it be fun to make chalk from the bodies and skeletons of long-dead creatures. That was for later though, He had to make somewhere for them to live first.

His place would have to be empty space but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t have something in it. It would have to be governed by laws. (God liked Laws.) There would have to be little laws for little things and big ones for bigger things but all would have to be related and depend on one universal law to bind them together. He would call it the Universal Law. He thought a little more and then decided to call it the Universal Law of Relativity. He liked that – a bit more subtle.God’s brain wasn’t quite as good as Einstein’s but His math was better. He soon had the blackboard covered in complex equations and obscure symbols. By dinner time He had a satisfactory collection of laws to cover every kind of matter that He chose to make. He stood back and contemplated the board. A little tweak here or there but basically He had as good a design for creation as you could make. He’d get it up and running in the morning and He could always make adjustments to the system later.

Next morning God was in a really bad mood. He hadn’t been able to sleep because of the brilliant light shining in His eyes. He’d been forced to turn it off and decided it should always go out at night. It wasn’t any better downstairs. His wife was complaining about the stone floor He’d installed in the kitchen. “It’s freezing cold to walk on. We need a carpet in here just like the one in the living room and, by the way, that needs renewing. It’s worn away to holes in the middle, a positive disgrace it is. Just as well we never get any visitors.”

God couldn’t wait to get out of the house and down to His workshop. The patterns and equations on the blackboard seemed to be swirling about, desperately seeking to become. He spent the morning checking a few calculations and tidying up a bit. “Why wait any longer. Might as well get it going.”

God stepped outside and THOUGHT.

Nothing happened. Well, you can’t see Space, but God could feel the sizzling of all those little laws coming into being. It felt like a whole lot of tiny pinpricks on the skin. God enjoyed the sensation as He ate His sandwiches in Space. His wife had refused to let Him back into the house for lunch in case He mudded her nice, clean floor.

The next day He went round to Pluto’s to see how he was getting on. Pluto had done himself proud. He had made a good, thick, rocky base whose flatness was interspersed by sinuous, wrinkly bits sticking up from the rest of the plain. “I’d like to call those mountains, if You don’t mind,” Pluto suggested.

God was impressed but He wasn’t going to admit it. “Yes, mmm, that seems all right,” He conceded. “But what are those big lumps spouting fire and trickling hot, red stuff all over the place. I can’t have them in there. They’ll destroy all the rest of my creation.”

“Ah, I thought you’d notice them,” admitted Pluto. “They’re volcanoes. It’s an idea that my friend Vulcan has been working on. You could use them to impose a sense of Your power on everybody. You know ‘Fall down and worship Me, or you get obliterated’ kind of thing.”

God rather liked that idea but He wasn’t about to let Pluto get one over on Him. “No, no, no, I’m a god of forgiveness and compassion. Not like you lot of blood-thirsty warmongers. I don’t mind having the volcanoes but they have to be intermittent, not on all the time.” He was thinking of the problems continuous light had caused.

“OK,” said Pluto. “I’ll work on something and should have it ready by lunchtime. I’ll bring it round then.”

True to his word, Pluto arrived just before lunch with a big box tucked under his arm. He opened it up and laid the contents out on the workbench. “It’s much the same as before but I’ve put in something extra, completely free of charge,” he added quickly. “It’s water and that big bit there is the sea. I hope You like it. Relieves the mono.....the plainness, don’t you think?”

God knew exactly what Pluto was getting at but He chose to be critical. “OK, but I see the volcanoes aren’t working now. Is that permanent?”

“Oh, no!” Pluto grew quite excited. “I’ve installed an On, Off switch. You can turn them on and off whenever You like. Give people a fright, so to speak, or impress them with Your magnanimity by saving the faithful just before they’re overtaken by the flood of hot, molten dust – pyroclastic flow, my friend Vulcan tells me.”

God was pleased. Altogether it was much more imaginative than His basic idea. He also felt He could knock down the price by claiming that the added extras, the volcanoes and seas, were not part of the original commission. “Well, let’s get it outside and see how it looks in Space.”

It did look very good. Little rivers were weaving through the big mountains and, here and there, the volcanoes twinkled as He turned them on. But it was still stark and grey, hardly a work of art or even slightly hospitable. What could He do to make it more attractive? Then He remembered his wife’s carpet. He had ordered a new one for the living room and some brightly coloured rugs for the kitchen – easier to keep clean, He had assured her. Wouldn’t it be good if His place had a carpet, a pretty green one (green was God’s favourite colour) but with splashes of red and yellow and blue all over it. It would have to be one that didn’t wear out though. He couldn’t afford to replace it every millennia.

“Bugger that for a bunch of dahlias,” God said. Then He thought for a bit, “Better get rid of that too. Can’t have that going on, the buggering, not the dahlias, I mean.” God was beginning to realise that He’d have to get all His commandments down in a book before He forgot them. God thought about His problem for a long time after Pluto had left. His carpet would have to be self-replicating somehow, able to replace bits of itself as they wore out. He could make lots of different things but all would have a pattern which could be passed on to make copies of themselves. He worked on His idea for the rest of the afternoon until He was ready.

God THOUGHT and life began.

The stone base was now covered by a beautiful green carpet. Grasses swayed in the breeze, perfume wafted from banks of herbs, trees grew tall and stately by the rivers. God watched delightedly for some time as pods popped their seeds over the ground and wispy feathers carried their seeds away in the wind. “Beats having to buy a new carpet,” He thought as He walked home. His wife eyed Him suspiciously as He carefully wiped the mud off His boots on the doormat. Looking at the mud on the floor, He thought, “I think I’ll call my creation Earth. That’ll annoy her.”

On the fourth day God decided He had better get down to the light problem. He needed a big ball of fire to light the Earth but it shouldn’t shine all the time. Could He have an ONOFF switch like the volcanoes? Then He had a wonderful idea. His big ball of fire would travel across the sky during the day giving light and warmth evenly to everything below but, at night, it would return under the Earth to come up on the other side in the morning. (Of course everybody knows that the Earth is really, truly flat; any ideas to the contrary are fictional delusions perpetrated by fraudulent unbelievers.)

Then He thought about the night. It would be too dark all the time and people would always be stubbing their toes on gazunders. He would have to make a paler light which wouldn’t disturb everybody’s sleep. He also thought about Vulcan’s volcanoes twinkling; they looked very pretty in the darkness. It would be lovely to have lots of little sparkling lights in the sky at night.

So God THOUGHT.

The Sun sailed up out of a rosy pink sky while the Moon was slipping over the other horizon and the Stars were beginning to go out one by one. Everything looked exceedingly good, quite artistic even, and God was very pleased with Himself. “Michaelangelo eat your heart out!” He said.

The fifth day began with a minor disaster. God’s wife presented Him with a bowl of something very strange for breakfast. “Well, you’ve banned the bacon and sausages,” she said defensively. “So I thought I’d try some of Your grasses, herbs of the field and fruits of the trees and such like. I’m going to call it muesli.”

God stared at His breakfast. It looked like sick. He tried to eat it but it tasted of sawdust even when He mixed some of the new water with it to help it go down and it lay on His stomach like a lump of clay. He could see His wife had red rims round her eyes. He hated it when she cried. If she did then He would give up the whole enterprise and go back to being one of the lesser gods.

Thankfully she didn’t. She just sniffed and took the bowl away. “Well, if You don’t like being a vegetarian, You had better invent some kind of meat that is acceptable and not too delicious. Something a bit cold and slippery. With a strong smell,” she added as an afterthought.

During the day God thought about what His wife had said. A food that was nutritious but not too tasty. He drew lots of different designs on His blackboard. They were very basic and some looked like they’d been drawn by a child of four. Some were just blobs and mostly they only had bodies, no arms or legs. God had to admit to Himself that, although He was quite good at creation, He couldn’t draw like Michaelangelo. He would try them out anyway and by tomorrow He was confident He’d be ready for His Big Creation. He went down to the Earth and stood beside the sea. His new creatures would have to live there as they didn’t have any legs to walk on. Huge breakers were crashing on to the headland but little wavelets were soughing gently on the pebbles at His feet. This would make a very safe, cosy environment for His first creatures.

God THOUGHT.

Tiny fishes splashed happily in the surf. Jelly-like things bobbed lazily and trapped the little fishes in their weaving tentacles. Down in the deep, monstrous whales turned baleful eyes on their creator. How were they to tell Him that they were mammals and shouldn’t be here in the first place? God stayed and watched his sea creatures all afternoon. Quite a few of them kept jumping out of the water to get away from the snapping jaws and stinging tentacles. Some of them managed to evolve their forefins into sort-of wings. That gave God an idea.

He drew a few quick sketches in His notepad. They weren’t very sophisticated but God was sure that they would evolve themselves into something better. He looked very fixedly at some of the flying fish. Soon some of them were leaping into the air and flying properly. As it was generally colder in the air than the water they grew feathers to keep themselves warm. Birds had begun. By the evening the sea and sky were teeming with all manner of brightly coloured beasts. God was exceedingly well-satisfied.

Breakfast the next day was a great deal better. God’s wife had fried up some of the fish with birds’ eggs. But it was a bit smelly. He could see her wrinkling her nose and, to forestall what was coming, He said, “That was very good indeed. Tomorrow why don’t you try making an omelette with some eggs and I’ll see if I can invent something nice and creamy to go in it.”

God’s wife was happy with that idea but she wasn’t done nagging Him. “Before You go rushing off to that shed of Yours, it’s time You did some work in the garden. You can’t see the dahlias for weeds and the lawn is like a jungle.”

Grumpily God mowed the lawn and weeded the flower beds. Normally He enjoyed gardening but not when He was busy with the big project. Maybe He should try and get hold of a gardener. Ceres might like the extra cash. For the time being, though, He’d have to do it Himself to keep the wife happy. God whistled to Himself as He went off to work. His wife had been so pleased that she hadn’t mentioned mud on the floor or new curtains to go with the new carpet. It was Friday, so He might be in with a chance with her tonight. He decided to invent a vacuum cleaner for her next birthday present.

Today was going to be the most important day of His career; the day of His super creation. He had been thinking of it for ages, several billennia in fact, so actually getting down to it was going to be easy. He had also learned from His past mistakes and noticed how the creatures He had invented were constantly improving on His designs. But first He’d have to attend to the addition to tomorrow’s breakfast.

He wanted some liquid which was much tastier and more nourishing than water. He needed some kind of production machine which could make it in large quantities. Why couldn’t it be a living creature? He drew several designs on his blackboard. Most of them were rubbish but eventually He had a nice large oblong animal with legs at the corners for walking on the Earth and a great, big bag underneath to hold the liquid. (He’d already decided to call it milk.) He was pretty pleased with Himself because He’d also worked out a way that the cow would chew grass, regurgitate it, chew it again and then turn it into milk.

He worked away for the rest of the afternoon perfecting all His other designs. There would be large beasts and tiny beasts, some would walk, some would crawl and some would slither about on their bellies. There would be vegetarians and meat-eaters so that the Earth didn’t get overpopulated or overburdened by the decaying bodies of dead animals. God realised that eternal life was not a sustainable option for everybody or the Earth would get seriously overcrowded. Death was an essential part of life.

At last He was ready. He went out to the Earth and THOUGHT.

Great beasts lumbered about in the deserts. Small, furry creatures scurried around in the grass or swung through the foliage. The air was filled with screeches, growls, hoots and even singing. He was delighted to see the cow munching away at the grass cleverly turning it into milk. Everywhere He looked animals were busying themselves mating, being born and dying. Sweet perfumes wafted from the flowers and occasionally an acrid tang of blood testified to somebody’s demise. God watched it all entranced but, at the same time, thinking about the Big One. How was He going to make the peak of His creation, His Super-animal.

He had been pondering this for a long time but without coming to any conclusion. Sometimes He thought it should be an enormous monster that would terrorise all the other creatures. Sometimes He thought it should be a kind of infinite energy that would stretch all over the Earth. Time was going by and, if He didn’t come up with something soon, He’d be late for dinner and that would probably put paid to any rumpy-pumpy tonight.

Thinking of His wife made Him think of her garden. His new Earth was very like a garden, what with all the flowers and water features and stuff. He would really need somebody to look after it, a gardener. Perhaps, the peak of His creation should be someone who could have charge of all the rest and look after it someone like Him but not so powerful. He went down to the bank of a river and started making mud pies. Then He began fashioning them into a creature which looked a bit like Him. His first attempts were pathetic. The mud kept collapsing and wouldn’t stay upright on two legs. For a while He thought He’d have to make humankind four-legged. At last, with the addition of a little straw into the mixture, He had something that was fairly solid and didn’t wobble about too much. He giggled to Himself as He thought about how the young of this creature would have to crawl around before they learned how to stand up and walk. Probably they would do quite a lot of falling over when they grew up. Thinking of progeny, made God think of His wife, and His chances for tonight. So He made another model that looked like her. It was actually rather good, if slightly over-endowed, and He knew she would be pleased.

For some reason or other God had this recurring image in His mind of Him stretching out a hand to confer life into the finger of the first human. The picture was much better than the models He had made out of mud. So He looked carefully at the mud and THOUGHT about the picture in His head.

The first human yawned, stretched and looked about. The other human put her hand into his and smiled. They didn’t seem terribly interested in what God had to say but He gave them strict instructions about their powers and duties, spanked them playfully on their bottoms, and sent them off to populate the Earth. God was tired after all this creation work but He thought His wife would like to see what He had been up to. After dinner He brought her down to the Earth. He showed her all the colourful flowers, the sparkling fishes and feathery birds. She admired the cows a lot and was especially delighted with His female human as He had hoped. They sat on the beach enjoying the warmth of the last rays of the setting sun. He put His arm round her and she rested her head on His shoulder. It was all very good.

God had a long lie-in next morning. He read the morning papers and thought how nice it was to have finished all His work and have a whole day off. “I think this should be a special day of rest for everybody,” He told His wife. “I shall call it the Sabbath and, forever after, all good people who follow me will have Saturday off.” (Let us make it quite clear, of course, that God is Jewish.)

And so it came to pass.