 
JENESIS

Published by Chris Heliades at Smashwords

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.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to. Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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 dimensions 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 eyes 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 should 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 please."

"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 the 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 scratching 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.

ADAM AND LILITH

And so, the creator sat comfortably between two galaxies and gazed upon the universe and saw that it was good. He saw the stars and the planets, their harmonious moves into the space void. He enjoyed staring at the multicoloured nebulae that brightened the monotonous universe. He saw the multitude of his angels, their perfect proportions, their elegant features and he felt happy, knowing that He had created them.

In the end, his gaze stopped upon the two blue planets which held the whole of creation inside their protective oxygen sphere.

He froze.

"Wait a minute..." he thought.

"Everything on two those planets..." he continued his thought pulling his lips with his fingers.

"...has been created by the angels..." he realized.

"Therefore... I'm not the creator of everything... actually, not even of the majority of everything, " the train of his thoughts started speeding up.

"Am I at least the creator of half of it?" the train of thoughts now rolls downhill with its engineers shoving in its furnace charcoal soaked in a mixture of kerosene and gunpowder.

"...I guess, I could be named the creator of the universe..." he decided, slowly looking around.

"...and that's all..." the train derailed after having reached warp-speed on a u-turn, and plunged deep down into the abyss of despair, desperately searching for its bottom in order to stop, regroup and begin the dangerous ascend towards the bright world of ideas.

He took his cigarette, long forgotten behind his ear, and brought it to his mouth. He approached a supernova and lighted it up. He inhaled deeply. He removed the cigarette from his lips and looked at its burning tip. He blew smoke on it, making it smolder. He quietly sat down smoking, propping his jaw on a clenched fist. He had to do something about it before anyone realized the philosophical issue that had arisen.

He looked at his angels. Beautiful creatures.

A spectral light bulb shone momentarily over the ultimate mind's head.

He smiled with his eyes wide open.

He softly exhaled the smoke and licked two of his fingers. He put out the cigarette and placed it again behind his ear.

He got up full of determination.

"Michael!" he called out.

"Get over here for a moment!"

"What is it, o Lord?" Michael appeared, asking anxiously.

"Is there something wrong? Something that you don't like? Should we do it all over again?" he suggested.

"No, no child. Everything's great" replied the creator staring at the angel from tip to toe.

"Tell me please... how many fingers have you got on your hands?" he asked.

"Ten" he answered, raising them with palms open and facing towards the Lord.

"Five on one..." he said moving his palm towards the creator and as he was moving his other palm he added "...and five on the other one".

"Niiiice..." god replied turning the angel's palms to a different direction. From the folds of his robes he took out a small notebook and a pencil and wrote down; "Ten..."

"And how many have you got on your feet?" he asked Michael again.

"Ten, too" said he, raising his robe and looking at his sandaled feet.

"Ten..." god said again, writing in his notebook.

"OK, thank you. You may go now" he said and Michael winged away.

"I also have ten of those, o Lord!" shouted Lucifer who had silently approached the creator.

"AAAAH!" a scared god jumped up and dropped his notebook.

"Don't you ever do that again! Ever!" he yelled at him.

"I'm sorry" said the angel.

"What same of those?" he asked picking his notebook up.

"Of fingers" he said and displayed a pair of open palmed hands to the Lord.

"I see a certain trend here..." he whispered, lowering the angel's hands down.

"I've got as many as Michael does" Lucifer emphasized with a smile that was continents away from being spontaneous.

The Lord looked at his face. He had to admit that it was objectively gorgeous. He looked like a successful, bachelor actor just entering his fourth decade of life. He inspired a sense of safety and mystery, if that was in any way possible.

"Lucifer, close your eyes for a moment" asked god.

"Why?"

The creator gazed upon him very, very strictly.

"Because, I... say so" god said, pronouncing "I" as imposingly as a thousand-volt thunder imposes his will on a child's lollypop.

Lucifer closed his eyes.

"Is this ok like this?" he asked.

"It's fine...and don't peek. I'll tell you when to open them."

Immediately, out of thin air, the Lord summoned a pair of compasses and in a harmonious move opened them and placed them above the angel's skull. He put them down for a while and wrote something down. Then he placed them near Lucifer's eyes. He wrote down again. He measured the distance between mouth and jaw and noted the position of the nose. He also noted the existence of two ears.

"Ok, you may open your eyes now."

"What are you writing there?" asked Lucifer with a complete lack of discretion.

"Something that I'm working on" replied the Lord and immediately cursed, mentally, for not being able to keep his mouth shut.

"Can I help you?" suggested the First angel, leaning over the notebook.

"No" god answered sharply placing his notepad firmly over his chest.

"Why?" Lucifer insisted, wearing a naive face.

"Because if you haven't noticed, several lines before I pronounced "I" in capital, italic, bold letters. Do you understand?" the creator explained.

"I understand" the angel admitted with disappointment.

"Now, now. Let me finish" god suggested, gently pushing Lucifer away.

He left in silence.

As he was walking away, he stopped, glimpsed back and continued forward.

God opened up his notebook; Read the notes. He closed it shut and raised his head. He looked around searchingly. Placing the pencil behind his free ear and the notepad under his armpit, he set out to complete his research.

He approached an angel and after drawing his attention to a distant star, took out a ruler and placed him on his back. He took a note.

To another angel, he told an incredibly funny joke about an ammonite, a pterodactyl and a lichen entering a bar and while he was laughing, god examined his mouth cavity. He noted down, again.

And so, god passed through a lot of angels, taking scores of measurements and asking seemingly irrelevant questions, and he was writing down again and again until suddenly, he closed his notebook and with a fast and decisive step he set off towards a secluded star. When he got there, he looked around to confirm that he was alone and then leaned over the celestial body and dipped his hands inside it. He got up, rolled up his sleeves and took out the notepad. He quickly run through a couple of pages. He shut it and bent over the star again.

A few hours later, he placed his hands on his aching waist and got up. He was covered up to his elbows with a golden light that was dripping on the space floor (it will definitely make a stain). He removed some hair from his eyes but smeared his forehead with light too. With a smile of success he raised his palm in eye level.

A body made completely out of pure astral light hovered inside it softly. It had the same proportions as those of the angels but without the wings on its back. The creature was not moving at all and had its eyes closed.

God lovingly placed his other palm above the being. With the speed of thought of the supreme mind (waaaaay too fast!) he disappeared from the spot where he stood and materialized on the surface of one of the blue planets.

He looked around him again. Felt unsure for a moment. He shook away the feeling that he was being watched and walked towards a riverbank (guess what would happen if he had the feeling that everyone wanted to hurt him. Again, the evolution of life would be quite different – if there was, indeed, any life to evolve).

He knelt down and slowly opened his hand's protective shell, allowing the luminous body to touch the ground.

In that moment and by a sheer amount of bad luck, a mouse emerged from its comfortable hole which it painstakingly had dug in the earth. The body's light hit it straight in the eyes. It screamed (in its own language); "No, damn it! A pox on evolution and on universal throws of dice" and fell back into its hole, blind.

The creator sat down in thought. With his gaze he examined his creation. A creature of pure energy was, beyond doubt, an ingenious invention but apparently it missed something, well, more concrete. God, thought again.

"That's it!" he suddenly said.

"A body for a body! Amazing! I should have thought of it earlier."

Chaos who, many pages earlier had set out to leave from this universe, obviously irritated with the audacity of the great powers, stopped for a moment before turning the doorknob of a dimensional gate. It turned towards the reader and with a face full of disappointment said; "Now, that stupid thing that I told you about, is about to happen."

It turned the doorknob. It hadn't taken a single step when the dimensional gate opened fast on its side hitting it on the face.

"WATCH IT, YOU BLIND FOOL OF A TWIT!" it yelled through its pain.

"I'm thorry. I didn't notithe you" a voice was heard.

Chaos opened its eyes and looked upon a hideous creature with sickly, dark green coloured skin, a pair of feet and hands whose fingers were joined together by thin membranes and ended up in hooked nails, huge bat wings on its back and a gigantic head from which countless tentacles sprouted.

"It ith not nithe to thtare. No polite at all" said the creature.

"Oh, I'm sorry" Chaos replied.

"Bathically, it ith ok, I'm uthed to it. It ith the primary reactthion of all life formth, before all the thcreaming."

"Truth to be told, I've seen weirder stuff in my time."

"You are too kind."

"Have you got any problem with your articulation?" asked Chaos, without a hint of politeness.

"It ith ekthtremely difficult for me to thpeak with all thethe tentacleth on my fathe" the creature replied with thadnethth, eer...excuse me, sadness.

"I am sorry."

"Thank you. You can't find nowadayth underthtanding perthonificathionth of indefinite contheptionth."

"Bless you. You make me blush."

"I could make you thcream if you would like. Anyway. It wath nithe to meet you. I have to leave to get a good thpot before the otherth arrive."

"Goodbye then."

"Tho long" greeted the creature and left.

Back on the blue planet, the creator was mixing dirt and water with slow moves making a little pile of mud. With the tip of his tongue hanging full of curiosity out of his lips, he started lovingly spreading mud on the astral body, which started to bake and solidify upon contact with the concentrated energy.

On the other far side of the universe and in front of the open dimensional gate, Chaos shook its head in disappointment. It turned its back on creation, picked up its small suitcase and took a step forward.

"Excu-u-u-use me-e-e-e" a voice bleated.

"By all means" said Chaos and stood aside for a being to pass through, a being that was a wretched, ugly and sick mix of a woman and a goat.

"Co-o-o-me chi-i-i-ldre-e-e-en" it said, turning round to face the gate.

"What in someone's name is that?" Chaos wondered.

"Meh-eh-eh-eh" a little goat jumped through.

"Meh-eh-eh-eh" a second one hopped too.

Chaos began walking.

"Meh-eh-eh-eh" stated a third one while chewing on a tin can.

"The-e-e-ere a-a-are mo-o-o-re" the being told Chaos.

"How many exactly?" asked Chaos who was getting irritated.

"A thousa-a-a-and."

"It's going to take a while."

"Ye-e-e-es..."

"Cute little angles" Chaos lied.

"Tha-a-a-ank you."

"Do you mind if I ask something indiscreet?"

"All fro-o-o-om the sa-a-a-ame fa-a-a-ather" the being replied angrily.

"No, no! You misunderstood me!" Chaos rushed in to explain.

"Why are you here?"

"Much be-e-e-eter we-e-e-eather."

"Ah..."

"Ni-i-i-ine hu-u-undred ni-i-i-inety ni-i-i-ine... a thousa-a-a-and. Le-e-e-et's go chi-i-ildr-e-en. Good da-a-a-ay" said the being and set out towards the universe's interior, whistling shepherd-like.

"So, good riddance to bad universe" thought Chaos and carefully stepped through another dimension's threshold.

He forgot to close the door.

The screenshot changes again... the Lord was molding the mud with strong moves, giving it form; a head with dark curls, a mouth, nose, two ears and two closed eyes, two five-fingered hands, a muscular body supported by two five-fingered feet. God suppressed a giggle and put a little bit of extra mud below the pelvis, just between the legs.

"That'll be a good one!" he thought, smiling.

"Ready..." he told nature in general and no one in particular.

He cunningly looked around.

A mouse with apparent eyesight issues stumbled on a huge T-rex nail that was still attached on its living owner.

"Watch where you're going, imp!" said the mouse, without having visual contact with... basically anything.

The nail snapped forward shooting the rat a dozen feet away, towards the river.

"BLOOM!" said the water.

"The living room flooded" thought randomly the mouse.

"Womaaan! A bucket!" it shouted as the current dragged it away. God took a mental note regarding the way in which the elements of fauna interact with each other and then turned towards a cluster of small trees.

"Come now! Get out!" he smirked to the plants which, beyond any expectations, failed to move.

"Stop hiding!" ordered the Lord.

Some branches moved and shyly, beneath them appeared Lucifer with a face scarlet out of guilt.

"Come here!" god said in a fake strict voice.

"I'm sorry Lord..."

"What were you doing back there?"

"Nothing" he lied.

The creator lowered his head and looked the angel in the eyes.

"Really?" he asked.

"No" whispered Lucifer, avoiding god's gaze.

The Lord looked at the trees and they moved aside, revealing a small clearing upon which another human body laid.

"What have we here?" asked the Omniscient, already knowing the answer (what's the point in asking?).

"Eeeer, I... I would like to please you... because... I know that you really didn't like the guitar...and I thought that..."

"Did you make this on your own?" he was interrupted by the creator.

"Yes, Lord" the angel confirmed.

The Lord approached the second body. Same bodily proportions, some minor differences. The hair was longer and blond. Many, many curves, by the truth! More fragile, apparently. Some parts were missing.

"If you don't like it, I'll destroy it" Lucifer said quickly, as he was standing behind god's back.

"No, it's beautiful" replied the creator, who was kind and benevolent and didn't have any inspirations of the 'fire-and-brimstone-from-the-sky', pillars-of-nitric-potassium or 'motherdrowning floods' kind. Not just yet, anyway.

"Bring it over here."

"Yes Lord" the First angel happily obeyed and carefully carried his creation and placed it beside god's own.

"Before we proceed..." said god unto him "...we have to clear something out."

"Certainly" Lucifer agreed.

"Do you remember what we had discussed about taking initiative?"

The angel nodded positively and took a step backwards.

God left the threat hanging over them for a while (like the yet unconstructed sharp object of an unborn human hero) to give emphasis to his word and then continued.

"This is the last time that I allow something like this to happen. Are we clear?"

"Yes" Lucifer confirmed with controlled relief.

"Good. Now, stand beside me."

The angel obeyed.

"What do you see?" asked the creator pointing at the still bodies.

"That they're covered with ants?" Lucifer naively observed.

"What? No!" god yelled and turned towards where the First was pointing at.

"Shooo! Shoooo! Go play somewhere else!" the Lord ordered the insects that could identify a divine intervention when they saw one and decided to discreetly walk away.

"That was close" said the creator "thank you."

"You're welcome."

"So, now. What do you see?" god asked again, looking out for suspicious moves of the subjects of the flora and fauna kingdoms.

"Beats me" said the angel raising his shoulders in question.

"Are they asleep?" he added and looked at the Lord.

"Bravo!" said he and friendly slapped him on his back.

"We should wake them up, then" Lucifer willingly suggested and before god was even given a slight chance to stop him, he had already approached the bodies, knelt above them and shouted;

"WAKEY, WAKEY!!!"

The bodies remained still.

The creator, motionless too and with a dreamy look on his face, formed a little theory in his mind; one that included infinity as a numerical value, universe and stupidity.

"GO ON! GET UP! DON'T JUST LIE THERE!"

He reached the safe conclusion that the aforementioned attribute overflows from all universes and soaks every dimension.

"I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! WAKE UP!"

Complete lack of motion.

God wondered if it was possible for events such as this to occur right before his divine eyes. With a dose of self-doubt he asked himself if he really existed at all. "You think" he answered "therefore..."

"WA-KE-UUUUUP!!!"

He snapped out of his philosophical lethargy and quickly approached Lucifer who was leaning on his knees, scarlet red and out of breath from the effort.

"They do not wake up, do they?" he asked him.

"No Lord...*cough*" he replied through a sore throat.

"Maybe because when we say "they are asleep" we don't literally mean it. Do you understand?" god explained to the angel.

"No" he answered with clinical precision.

"I mean that there is no life in them" the Lord patiently re-explained.

"You see, when I say that they are asleep I mean that they are in a state marked out by the complete lack of motion. Do you understand now?"

Lucifer raised his head a bit, joined his eyebrows, analyzed the problem for a bit and then said;

"So, you have to give them life."

"Exactly!" god smiled at him, happy that the angel perceived the substantial difference between speaking literally and using metaphors.

"How are you going to do it?"

"I don't know yet" the creator honestly answered with the smile disappearing from his face.

He sat down, in front of the two bodies. He grasped his jaw. With his peripheral vision he noticed Lucifer sitting beside him, staring ahead, holding his jaw too. He sighed. Fractions of a second later a faint "aaaah..." was heard.

He took the cigarette from behind his ear and put it in his mouth. Lucifer passed a hand behind one ear first, then the other and then, without looking, he stretched out the other hand in a bush and pulled.

"Mmmm..." he suppressed his pain and spit the thorn out of his mouth.

God shook his head in disappointment.

He raised an eyebrow and the cigarette lit up.

He inhaled deep and manly.

He held the smoke in his lungs and closed his eyes.

He blew out a puff of smoke, containing his agonizing thoughts of how was he supposed to animate the bodies.

"*COUGH!*"

"I'm sorry Lucifer" god apologized.

"Hmm?"

"I said, I'm sorry for the smoke."

"Oh...no problem, it doesn't bother me."

"*COUGH!*"

The Lord slowly turned towards the cough's source. The two creations were propped up on their elbows and with closed eyes unable to hold their tears, coughed out loudly.

"*COUGH!* What's it going to be, friend? *COUGH!*" said the one with the deeper voice.

"Are you talking to me?" god asked.

"Yes, you... *COUGH!*".

"What is it going to be?" naively asked the creator. Even though omniscient he couldn't find an appropriate answer to such vague a question.

"Do you know that this planet... *COUGH!*...is for non-smokers only?" observed the other being, the one with the softer voice.

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry, I didn't know it" answered the Lord who really, did not know it. He looked at Lucifer and he raised his shoulders in a sign of ignorance.

"You're not going to get away with a simple sor..." started saying the first being, when it opened its eyes and looked at the creator. Immediately, it shut its mouth and turned his face towards the ground.

"Why did you stop? Tell him..." said the second being, when the first one violently grabbed it by its shoulders and forced it to kneel beside it.

"What are you doing?" it shouted and shoved its way up.

"Sit down woman!" said the kneeling being.

"And who told you, sir, that I am your woman?" it asked intensely with its arms planted on its hips.

"What's going to happen now? Are we going to have a fight in front of strangers?" wondered the role-imposing being, having a stretched out hand, pointing towards god and Lucifer.

God gazed upon the argument, waiting for the most proper and polite moment to interrupt.

Lucifer was probably enjoying it.

"Why should they care? They're strangers, anyway!"

"Stop shouting!" shouted the first body.

"Don't you raise your voice to me!" the second body made a point by raising its voice.

"Children..." the Lord said sheepishly.

"I will raise my voice as much as I like because, I am the man!"

"You don't say! Are all men like you?"

"Children..." god tried again.

"I would show you what's it like to be a man is but you are lucky enough because I have just been created and I don't know many things about the subject."

"When you learn, come and show me, you oaf!"

"CHILDREN!!!" screamed an angry god, making the tectonic plates clash violently, creating thus new landmasses and drowning others beneath the oceans.

They froze, scared.

Lucifer dragged himself out of the bush where he had fallen, pulling out with caution little, annoying thorns that were embedded in his skin, crying a faint "ouch" every once in a while.

"Is this possible?" the Lord asked less intensely. The headache gave a hug to the ultimate mind's brain and playfully said; "Hi there. Did you miss me?"

"You barely have written a page in life and you have managed to get on my nerves!"

"Even I haven't managed to do that" Lucifer leaned towards them, without knowing the utilitarian value of whisper.

"It's her fault!" said the male.

"How dare you put the blame on me you chauvinist piece of ham?" answered the female.

"You were created in order to love each other and enjoy creation, do you understand?" god explained to them.

"How can we enjoy it when she does not listen to anyone?" the man interrupted.

"What did I tell you about putting the blame on me, cute-breath?" said the woman.

"I said "to love one other" didn't I?" the Lord asked Lucifer.

"Indeed, you did" he confirmed.

"Pig!" was heard in the background.

"Hag!" the civilized argument continued.

"Why does nothing happens as it should?" god despaired.

"What can I say?" Lucifer attempted to help "distasteful universal sense of humor?"

"Ass!"

"Cow!"

"If I summon a little flood, will they take notice of me?"

The creator massaged his forehead. Somewhere deep inside his skull, the pain was playing a game of backgammon with himself using a wooden tabletop, bone dice that screamed out the indicated number and pawns made out of TNT.

On his mind's screen a scene was played; the whole planet was being bombarded by flaming meteors, the seas were boiling because of the infernal temperatures and the first human couple was running in panic to save their pitiful lives. They had stopped to catch their breath by a small pond when suddenly He emerged out of its waters. His long, wet hair was partially covered by a red strip of cloth and his astonishingly muscular arms held a huge, tubular object that spat out thunder and death.

"Lord?"

"DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA!!!" echoed inside god's mind.

"Lord?" Lucifer repeated obviously worried.

"Mmmm?" said the creator between a pair of lips that lined a smile of honest pleasure.

"Are you all right?"

"I got a little distracted" god answered.

"What about them?" asked the angel and pointed towards the firstborn "they don't stop fighting."

God looked at them in a feeling mixed with indifference and resignation.

"Do you have the faintest idea of how a man is like?" said the woman.

"No, you tell us!" said the man.

"There, that's a real man" she said pointing at an angel who, at that moment, was coming out of the river, holding an unconscious mouse in his hands. His wet robes were stack on his slab-like chest, accentuating his muscles.

"I beg your pardon?" he said.

"Look at that body! Look at the style! Not like you who resemble a monkey, with all these bodyhair!" the female continued undaunted.

The Lord and Lucifer sat a little further away, sharing the cigarette and watching creation having found its path.

"What's your name, babe?" the woman aggressively asked.

"Eeer, Samael" the angel answered weakly, who, poor he, had not realized what was happening and was still cradling the immobile rodent.

"Take me away from here, Samael! Take me away now!" she said with a heavy breath and theatrically fell in his arms.

The mouse fell on the ground and woke up.

"I have to place stairs inside the house, now that it's dried up, so I won't be falling from floor to floor" it thought and bumped into a python's open mouth.

"Honey! I'm home!" he said blindly.

"...ome...ome...ome" echoed a reply from the snake's stomach.

"Where can I take you to, madam?" the perplexed angel asked.

"Back to her mother's den would be nice" murmured the man.

"Let's go now!" she angrily insisted.

"Fine..." Samael surrendered and holding her in his arms, winged away towards the horizon.

"Good riddance..." said the male to himself, turned his back to the vanishing figures and by instinct tried to put his hands in his pockets. He only managed to rub his thighs.

"And what was that?" a curious Lucifer asked a disappointed god.

"Incompatibility of characters" he answered "it will be a trend" he added and approached the man who was pretending to look at the horizon indifferently without though any success.

"Don't worry" the creator said to him "he has no sex."

"What?"

"I said, he has no sex so, you don't have to be worried".

"What does it mean "he has no sex"?" asked the man.

"It means that Samael can't fu..." Lucifer began and his was interrupted by a loud cough from god's side.

"...eeer...Samael can't...eeer...funk...eeer...no one. Yes, that's it" the angel corrected, receiving a divine thumbs up and a discreet wink.

"Poor fellow..." said the male.

God stood in front of the being and looked at it severely.

"What's your name, my good man?" he asked.

"Adam" said he.

"And your woman, that left you?"

"Lilith."

"Nice" said the creator and immediately summoned a piece of paper and a pen.

"Sign here and here" he said to Adam, placing the pen in his hand.

Adam, caught by surprise, signed.

"Excellent!" exclaimed the Lord "one copy for me and the other one, there you go, it's yours."

"What is this o, Lord?" asked Adam.

"Divorce papers" he said.

"Good day, child..."

ADAM AND EVE

Loneliness proved not to be a heavy burden for History's first male divorced creature; on the contrary.

For a start, he had stopped feeling angry. He didn't need to shout anymore in explosive arguments that usually begin from misunderstandings, due to that stupid habit that couples maintain of not listening to each other and climax to a crisis that even the most Machiavellian diplomats avoid, whistling themselves away.

His calmness flirted with insensibility because he didn't have to deal anymore with someone who grudgingly denied agreement and obedience to his word.

On the other hand, he thought as a bachelor, he was free to live the smooth and carefree life which, if not always, at least in the last few hours had managed to dream of. He could go back home anytime he wanted...

...he had no home, he thought, but that didn't stop him. He might have been homeless but he would still call his friends straight away...

...he didn't have friends, reason struck him again with a Halloween club, releasing a mocking "squeeeeak...!" inside his mind...

...he didn't have a phone, either.

"Feces!" he bitterly thought. This can't be happening. There must be something a young bachelor can do to enjoy himself. Some bar, a cinema, even a remote, secluded kiosk filled with porn-magazines. Something, anything...

He slowly looked around him, like a puppy begging its owner not to sterilize it on the outbreak of its sexual prime. Savannas and jungles gorged by carefree rivers of lava. Giant lizards devouring other smaller ones but still giant (!) lizards, which were devouring savannas and jungles. Quadruped mammals, carnivorous and herbivorous, creatures of the deep seas and of the air, insects and bacteria, all of them interlocked in an unbreakable circle of hunting and becoming someone's main course. Oh, and a couple of weird plants that ate small, furry, unsuspected animals. And all around them a mass of water of gigantic proportions able to devour all them, whenever it fancied; plants, animals, land...everything.

"I must definitely speak with this god person" Adam suggested to himself and went looking for him.

God was laying in a vine-hammock which hung lazily between two huge plane-trees. He had decided that the only way to beat the headache was a descent nap. Therefore, he found a clearing carpeted with fresh grass and totally free from the tectonic plates' fury, clapped twice and created the two oversized trees that shed such a thick shade which one might slice up with a knife, plant a candle on top of a piece and take it as a gift to a birthday party. He joined his hands before his eyes and opening them slowly created the hammock between the trees. He climbed up. With a flick of his index finger, cool, crystal clear water welled up from a spring in the ground, enough for a small feng sui touch.

He closed his eyes and right after felt a tingle somewhere in his pelvic area. He moved the index again and the well disappeared along with the tingle. A few moments later, he recreated the well. An adult god, he thought, was capable enough to control his bodily functions. He leaned on the side and softly blew. The hammock started to move rhythmically, back and forth. Niiice...

"Lord..."

"I knew it" thought the creator.

"I'm sorry to bother you Lord..." the voice hesitated.

"What is it Adam?" asked god, without opening his eyes.

"I would like to ask you something."

"Go on" he said and stood to his feet.

"Did I interrupt?"

"I was trying to get some rest but I don't seem to have the knack for it, so..." god humored him, not trying to hide his annoyance for the indiscreet invasion on his little siesta.

"That's a shame" said Adam whose brain was not able to record meanings such as "spontaneous irony" or "wit".

The creator looked at him indifferently, surrendered in the simplicity of his creations.

"Is that what you wanted to ask me?"

"No, no" hurried the firstborn.

"Then, what?"

"See... basically... why did you create me now?"

The supreme mind, tuned and prepared for any question a child could ever address to his parent, quickly attempted to immediately and irrevocably end the horde of "why's" that would surely follow.

"Because now I felt ready and mature enough as a creator, due to the accumulated experience with said trait, to proceed and complete a life's work such as yourself" he answered, using his most serious voice tone, reserved only for formal occasions such as the command issuing for building a floating zoo.

"I didn't mean that" he was cut-off by Adam.

"Well?" asked a curious god.

"I mean, why did you create me at this time? There's nothing for me to do! I am alone and everything around me is incredibly boring. Couldn't you have made me in a more interesting era?"

The Lord was surprised with Adam's observation. Truth to be told, the firstborn was right. A lonely man, in this period of time, didn't have much to do. Unless, of course, he liked sleeping. He could do plenty of that if he wanted to.

"Listen, Adam" said god "since I am benevolent and I feel compassion for you and I am, generally, positively predisposed towards you – and do pass this information to the following generations, despite any misunderstandings that might crop-up between us – I have a way to help you...and help you I will!"

"Thank you very much, Lord" happily replied Adam.

"Just wait here for a minute, ok?"

"Ok" Adam obeyed and watched god vanish in the jungle.

After a while the creator returned obviously excited.

"Well?" asked the firstborn.

"Close your eyes" said he and Adam closed them.

"Come this way...this way" god was heard whispering.

"You stay here...don't bite!"

"Don't! Not in his mouth!"

"Shall I open them now, Lord?" suggested an eager Adam.

"In a minute, in a minute... hey! You! Yes, you... spit him out, now!"

A few more moments passed with god issuing similar orders and with some distinct croaks and groans accompanying them in the background; like if there was a gathering of animals, Adam thought.

"Ok. You may open them now"

Indeed...

...there was a gathering of animals.

"Eh? What do you think?" the creator asked full of excitement, pointing with stretched-out arms and joyful, shining eyes towards hundreds of members of the animal kingdom, which all were standing, dangerously quiet, side by side.

"Too many animals" Adam managed to say, as he was observing a feline with yellowed tusks salivating just by looking at a fat, probably tasty, bird which in turn stared at, again a probably, tasty and juicy worm.

On its part, the worm having full knowledge of the present situation and the only eventual culinary outcome, was trying to dig in the earth, constantly repeating; "SHIT... SHIT... SHIT..."

"And what am I supposed to do with them?" he asked god.

"Look, you told me that you were alone and you were bored, so I thought that a first class idea was to bring all the animals here"

"Yes, I can see that. What am I supposed to do with them?" Adam asked again.

"How do I know? Play with them!"

"How can I play with them? Half of them are carnivores and the other half are either too fast to catch and play with or either too dumb to bother, in the first place!"

"Come now. Stop complaining all the time. You will find something to do with them, in the end" urged the creator.

"Yes, but what?' asked for the third and desperate time the firstborn, looking at a white feathered bird with an imposing, yellow crest and a black beak standing on a stone and moving quickly back and forth shouting; "BUTWHAT! BUTWHAT!"

The supreme mind reacted again with lightning reflexes, after realizing the way in which the brain functions of all lower life-forms... functioned, which in fact had the growing tendency to create problems with their naive questions. Problems that allowed the creator's headache to lay beside his brain and caress it, softly whispering to him; "I love you...I'll never leave you"

"Listen...Adam. Since I have to equally share my attention and energy in all corners of the universe and I cannot manage to do everything on my own, I would like you to help me" he said in a serious manner.

"Really, Lord?"

"Word" answered he.

"You mean you want me to help you in the work of creation?" asked Adam with tears of happiness forming in his eyes.

"Word" confirmed god.

"What do would you have me do?"

"Weeell...what remains is a job of the outmost importance, and when I say of the outmost importance I definitely mean it. It's giving a name to all living creatures. As I explained, I entrust you, and when I say I entrust I mean it, to complete the aforementioned task" stated the creator in a bombastic political tone, having his hands crossed behind his back and his chest swelled with the air of authority.

"I accept! I accept!" Adam joyfully shouted.

"Very, very good!" answered the creator, placing his hands on the firstborn's shoulders

"Don't let me down, ok?" he added.

"Count on me, Lord!" said Adam while god was walking away.

"It works every single time..." thought the ultimate mind.

"Something has to be done about it. Everything I create is imbued with specks of vanity. It's just not possible."

Momentarily he turned around and looked at Adam. He smiled and a small dose of sadness dripped on his heart.

"Anyway. Let's go somewhere for a bit of a rest and we'll solve that issue later" suggested to himself and vanished.

Back at the clearing, Adam was sitting in front of the animals, with his jaw propped up against a fist and with a stretched out arm, making his choices of names.

"You!" he suddenly said, pointing at an enormous four-legged pachyderm with two big tusks protruding from its mouth and a long trunk where its nose should normally be. The animal jumped up surprised by his sudden designation and took half a step back. Watching Adam's index finger pointing it, it guiltily and awkwardly glanced sideways.

"You, such a majestic and voluminous creature should be paired by a name worthy of your obvious strength. Something like...like...Gecko! Yes! We will call you Gecko!"

The elephant raised a puzzled eyebrow, sighed and turned to leave and announce the exceptional news to his wife. Beside him, a tiny, yellow lizard giggled in delight.

"You now!" he said again suddenly pointing at a koala, which being the creature with the weakest heart in all the animal kingdom, let out a small; "Eeek..." and dropped down, dead.

The little yellow lizard was laughing with its tiny tongue hanging out of its mouth.

"Eeer, yes, fine..." the firstborn said guiltily "I will baptize you when you wake up."

"You, now, my little fluffy friend" Adam addressed a small animal that, in theory at least, was looking towards him.

"Yes, my friend. You..."

The little animal scratched the lower part of his back with indifference.

"I'm talking to you..."

"Come on guys! Who's he talking to? Step forward already and let's be done with it!" it said with its tiny voice.

An irritated bovine shove the blind mouse forward.

"Stop pushing, you animals! Wait your turn!" it shouted.

"You, a creature so obviously noble and keen, I shall name...hawk!" Adam decided.

The yellow gecko burst out in hysterical laughter, rolled on its back without stopping laughing and with its tongue it licked one of its eyes.

"Best wishes!" said the mole "my love to the proud parents!"

And in this way, the hours passed by and Adam unsuccessfully baptized all the animals, which all left one by one, some disappointed, others rightfully pissed off.

All these events though didn't bother the Lord because he knew that every creature had already been named by the angels that had constructed them.

And that was the problem that required his immediate and unbroken attention. Because, the angels, whose creations had randomly been placed in the black hole and inevitably been transferred in some other, maybe more interesting dimension, had started realizing their absence from this universe.

For example, Yezebeth, despite his thorough research, was not able to find the stone flying seal he had so painstakingly carved and Astaroth seemed to have lost his crab made out of dirt. A mystery.

And so, all these angels thought of talking to the omniscient Lord and creator, who had just managed to relax inside the coolness of a small pond with blue-green waters he had created under a cluster of palm-trees.

"Lord..."a voice was heard behind him.

He took a slow, comforting sip through a straw dipped inside a pine-apple. On the fruit's lip stood a juicy slice of orange. Behind it you could see a small, pink paper umbrella.

"Lord..." repeated the voice.

"Yes...yes..." he answered, surrendered to the heartless fate that demanded from every higher being with divine abilities not to rest even for a moment.

"What's the point in being a god?" god wondered, getting out of the water dry as a dead summer leaf and making the oasis disappear with a blink of an eye.

"What's the matter Lucifer?" he calmly asked.

"Nothing special Lord" the angel began.

"So, you interrupt my siesta for nothing special?"

"Don't take it literally. I mean nothing special like...let's say...the end of the world."

"The world is ending without anyone informing me and especially without my permission?" ironically asked god.

"No. it's just that me and the boys here..." Lucifer said pointing back towards a throng of angels who expectantly awaited god's answer "...have a little problem."

"What sort of problem?"

"You see...we seem to have lost our creations" the First angel explained with disappointment.

"Hmmm..." the creator said without losing his cool, his arms akimbo and his hands stuck beneath his armpits which shed guilty sweat. His unerring memory was filled with images of him placing the creations of his creations in the black hole of recycling.

"Hmmm..." he repeated, trying to buy some time in order to make up an excuse that would calm the angels; to develop and offer them a different version of the truth. He nonchalantly looked up, raising an eyebrow. With his arms still on his chest, he started moving a hand in an explaining fashion while opening and closing his mouth as if talking to himself.

"Yes, well..." he began after a while.

Lucifer and the other angels looked at him in expectation.

"...your creations..." he carefully said, looking at them.

"...were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials!!!"

"Wow!!!" was heard from the crowd.

"Alas and woe!" somebody said, cradling his head in desperation.

"Extra-what?" inquired another one.

"I cannot believe it!" said an amazed Lucifer "Really?"

"Eeer, no" admitted god with disarming honesty.

"In fact..." he continued "they were victims of spontaneous combustion!" he suggested, leaning towards them.

"Heh? What do you think?" he added.

"Aaaaa!!!" said the most.

"Alas-alas-alas-alas-alas" repeated one, rocking constantly back and forth, flapping his wings in agony.

"That's terrible!" said the First " almost, unbelievable!"

"Yeees...you're right" said the Lord, feeling quite uncomfortable.

"Well, here's the truth" he sighed.

"The truth is that all of your creations were sucked in a black hole and were washed away in a, I know what, parallel universe."

The angels stopped their mourning and with frozen looks stared at the creator. They looked at each other. Then again, they slowly turned their heads to god. They burst out in roaring laughter.

"He's such a comedian!" said one.

"Would you listen? A black hole!" another said, giggling.

"First of all, their existence has not been proved apart from a scientific thesis! Ha-ha-ha!" added a third, holding his stomach tightly.

God looked at them amazed. He didn't know how to react. They didn't believe him, which was good considering the fact that he was saved from long faces and periods of grumbling, but the bottom line was that they didn't believe him!

Lucifer approached him, smiling and wiping a tear from his eye with his sleeve.

"Aha-ha-haaaaa... good one... good one..." he said and leaned on the creator's shoulder. He rapidly thought better, coughed and stood straight beside him.

"Really, huh?" the Lord wondered.

"Anyway. Thank you for your precious time o, Lord."

"You're welcome" he said weakly, watching them walk away, smiling.

"What are you going to do now?" the creator shouted at Lucifer.

"We're going to look for these extra-terrestrials you told us about, Lord" he answered.

"Ah, jolly good. Good luck with that" god wished him.

"And just in case, we'll carry some fire extinguishers" the First angel winked to him.

God scratched the back of his head in disbelief. He reached the conclusion that life and the universe were full of surprises. He just couldn't decide which had the worst sense of humor and which had the worst of the worst.

He was still standing there with his mind bombarded by doubt when he felt the light tag on his clothes. He absent-mindedly turned around and saw a worried Adam pulling his robe.

"Yes, Adam?" he said.

"Lord, I've been talking to you for the last five minutes and you didn't respond. For a moment I was afraid that something fatal had happened" the firstborn said relieved.

"What exactly? Were you afraid that I might be dead?" god asked and smiled at the thought that at least one of his creations cared about him.

"No" he said "I was afraid that I was struck dumb."

God crash-landed in reality due to strong turbulence caused by the simple-mind ego's of all lesser beings.

"What's the matter Adam?"

"I'm done with the animals, Lord, and I don't have anything else to do."

"Already? Well done...and now what do you want?"

"I thought again about this bachelor thing and I decided that I don't want to be single anymore..." Adam worried.

"Would you like me this time to get you all the plants to keep you company?" fatherly offered the creator.

"I want an other half" the firstborn decisively said, making his intention clear which is, that not only he demands, but he will not rest until he gets the object of his desires; most people in the world have participated, actively or passively, in a similar situation in which a young mammal of any sex, spots in a store's showcase a nice, shiny shotgun and from then floods its legally appointed guardian in a monsoon of: "I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I-WANT-IIIIIIIT!!!", driving the aforementioned episode to the same end, despite the path followed. The embarrassed parent, full of shame since the event takes place inside a crowded mall, gets in the store and buys the shotgun to the fruit of his loins (and a box of ammo) just to SHUT IT UP, already! So, we are left with a dead parent and several innocent bystanders. According to the second scenario, the same embarrassed parent thunders a slap upon his child just to SHUT IT UP, already! The child shuts up. The parent is pleased with his parental abilities. The child comes of age. To get it out of its system, it buys a brand new, shiny shotgun (and a box of ammo). A dead parent and several innocent bystanders.

Thus, the Lord thought and decided that from the moment the creation thinks and makes decisions for itself, it is a lost cause, so he might just offer it what it wanted and have a doomsday plan for minimizing losses on the "parent" department.

"Ok, then" he said in the end "I will make you a wife."

"Yippiiiiii!" shouted Adam.

"Now, go to sleep and tomorrow morning she will be by your side."

"But I don't feel sleepy yet, Lord" the firstborn complained.

God angrily sighed and passed an open hand in front of Adam's face, whose eyelids immediately slammed shut. He began falling towards the ground and he had already started snoring before he even touched it.

God put on a surgical mask and a pair of green, medical gloves.

"Let's see now what we can use..." he murmured and bent over the drugged firstborn.

"Yes... yes... of course, four lungs, yes..."

"Hmmm... I didn't remember the two livers..."

"Oi!... a lighter! Useful... yes..."

"Aha!... too many ribs... too many..."

Several difficult hours passed during which the creator sweated and whispered with medical authority and sew with academical severity. Just before sunrise, he got up, wiped his tired face, removed all the surgical paraphernalia and sat down waiting for Adam to wake up. He was about to light up his small cigarette but recalled the previous event with the firstborn and stopped. He sighed. He gazed at the sun that had just risen over the horizon and bathed creation in a golden light. Flora and fauna slowly woke up and their subjects began the endless game of survival.

"Good morning, Lord" a sleepy Adam was heard.

"Good morning, Adam. How do you feel?"

"Wonderful. Lighter to be honest" he said while he was stretching his arms to get the blood flowing. He yawned and scratched his hairy back (in that time, only the angels could be filed under the term "metrosexual"). He lazily blinked for a couple of times and saw the creator pointing at something next to him. Adam turned his head.

"Wow!" he exclaimed in a low voice.

The most beautiful woman was laying beside him. She had black, curly hair that extended down to her shoulders; definitely not like in those pseudo-puritanical movies and paintings where it covers up her bosoms.

On the contrary, her round breast was in plain sight for all of creation to admire and they softly moved with her every breath, making Adam's heart accelerate. The firm, harmonious curves of the rest of her body caused intense hand and facial sweating to the firstborn.

While he was staring at her full of admiration, she slowly opened her eyes revealing two lakes filled with starlight.

"Good morning, husband" she said to him with a voice dripping hot honey.

"Good morning, wife" he happily said and caressed her cheek.

She touched his hand and smiled.

"A-hem..." god coughed as politely as he could.

The firstborn and his wife looked at him and stood up, holding hands.

"So, let's all have a small pause from this romance story and may I beg for your proper attention for the next few minutes, ok?" the Lord suggested.

"Yes, Lord" agreed Adam holding his wife in his arms.

"Well, Adam, this is Eve. Eve, Adam" god made the introductions.

"I know her name" Adam said, sinking in Eve's eyes.

"Oh yes? How can that be, pray?"

"I heard it in my heart" the firstborn answered without looking at god.

"Ok. Before I vomit, I will tell you a couple of things" began the ultimate mind and immediately realized he had lost his audience.

"I WILL TELL YOU A COUPLE OF THINGS... I say" he repeated more intensely, interrupting Eve's caress on Adam's chest.

"You will roam freely around here for as long as you like and go wherever you wish, without no one and nothing bothering you and without you bothering nothing and no one..."

The couple nodded their joined heads in agreement.

"You will do anything you want in order to pass time in beauty and happiness but without affecting in any bad way any other's lives"

Again, agreement.

"You will love each other and be in love with each other, you will talk out any eventual differences, in order to be able to enjoy creation, you being its crowning achievement..."

Yes, said the nodding heads.

"And to end this matter, under no circumstance, whatever happens, no matter how urgent it is, you WILL NOT eat from the Tree of Knowledge that stands a little further away from those bitter orange-trees, the one that you can discreetly see standing between the other trees' branches and usually, is not guarded so effectively during the night hours. Do you understand?" the creator concluded.

"Mmmm..." said Adam while softly kissing Eve's lips.

"Mmmm..." said Eve already surrendered in Adam's kiss.

"Mewing little buggers..." murmured god.

"So, my children, have a great time. So long" he told them and left in order to try, again, to have some rest.

"Mmmm..." they indifferently waved him goodbye, exploring each other's tonsils.

And so, the firstborns passed their time in love; with loving touches and kisses, sweet smiles and eyes full of love. Hand in hand they hopped on riverbanks, in woods and meadows. Adam fed her walnuts with affection and she, surrendering in their passion's flame, devoured them. Eve gave him green, crunchy bananas and he swallowed them with few, love-filled bites.

He offered her every kind of flower (and a couple of times, without him noticing, the feathers of an innocent peacock who, after the encounter resembled a plucked chicken) and she placed them on her wavy hair.

She caressed his hairy chest, her thin fingers caught in its curls, in a way that she didn't mind and with her other hand she covered her cute giggling.

Oh, how many animals, big and small, were trapped in their love's honey that freely poured on the ground with their every touch and kiss. Oh, how many still ran away in panic and disgust when they gazed upon Adam and Eve's cinematic love.

God, on the other hand, was enjoying the quietness of creation. He had created a soft, fat cloud and left it roam the globe on its winds, while he rested on it for endless hours, admiring the angelic beauty world.

He had managed to confine his headache in a small corner of his skull, dump and full of shadows, leaving him yelling for the wretched conditions of its capture.

All, finally, was well.

It was good to be a successful god, he thought.

The sound of a flock of wings erased the smile from his lips and allowed the headache to growl like a wounded, cornered animal. A carnivorous animal.

"Lord, you tricked us!" the First angel accused the creator.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked and mentally admitted that it was time for an early retirement.

"I said, you tricked us!" Lucifer repeated irritated.

"You tell him, you tell him!" screamed Pure holding a banner that stated with hasty, black letters; "LIES!"

"Get a hold of yourself, please. You're not addressing to someone insignificant" Reason pointed out.

"This time I will agree with our colleague" said Instinct who in turn raised a banner that said; "SAME ON YOU!" (he cannot be blamed. It's just a voice in a head, not an english literature professor...).

"What do you mean, I tricked you, Lucifer?" wondered the creator and sat up on the cloud, with his feet dangling on its lining.

"We searched the whole universe and ended up in one and only conclusion."

"Oh..." god thought and all the lost creations came back in his mind.

"There are no extra-terrestrials!!!" Lucifer stated in a bombastic way, moving his hands in a way that confirmed that that was the end.

"LIES! LIES! BOOO!" Madness screamed, raising a fist towards the exterior of the angel's skull.

"SAME ON YOU! SAME ON YOU!" Instinct shouted misspelling again.

"You are both idiots!" Logic remarked.

"Are you serious?" god expressed his question in a faultless acting manner.

"By your name!" Lucifer swore.

"We have searched everywhere; in planets, in solar systems, behind meteorites, inside nebulae and under galaxies! Nothing! Nowhere!" gaspingly explained the First.

"Lucifer, listen to me..." began the Lord, determined to reveal the truth and suffer all the eventual consequences, as all higher beings, who honor the robes they wear, do.

"One thing is for certain" the angel said.

"Yes...that's what I want to tell you about..."

"...that they're hiding damn well!" said Lucifer with his eyes half closed (or half open, as it pleases you) moving his head back and forth, declaring seriousness.

"Come again?" god missed the last one...

"With the boys..." the angel pointed again towards the squadron of his colleagues a few clouds behind (some waved at the creator and he waved back, weakly smiling) "we thought that as we go searching for these extra-terrestrials, all together in a crowd, we make an awful lot of noise so they hear us from afar and keep on hiding" Lucifer developed his theory.

"They're hiding" god repeated.

"Yes, they're hiding because they feel awful and are ashamed for stealing our creations and are afraid to face us."

"The extra-terrestrials?" the supreme mind tried to understand.

"Yes, the extra-terrestrials" confirmed the First angel.

God suspiciously looked at him straight in the eyes for traces of lying. Nothing. Absolute, pure, naive sincerity.

"Do these beings really exist?" he wondered and glimpsed at the sky.

"If they do exist, who created them? Not me, that's for sure..." he thought deeply concerned.

"And what are you planning to do now?" he asked Lucifer.

"Quiet" he said.

"I'm not loud" observed the Lord.

"We'll be quiet" Lucifer repeated.

"Why? Is anybody asleep?" god failed to follow the conversation and looked around trying to figure out whom they were disturbing.

"We will be quiet when we go out looking for the extra-terrestrials."

"Ah! Yes... very good idea... you do that" finally understood the creator, gazing around at the scenery, lost in the surreal fairy tale he was taking part in. He looked at the ground beneath him. He froze...

"NO!!!" he shouted and his eyes almost popped-out of their sockets.

"Freedom!!" headache screamed and flooded inside the creator's skull, causing havoc.

In a blink of an eye he was on the ground, in front of Adam and Eve who were giggling and chewing on a firm, shiny, red apple.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!" god screamed at them and seemed to grow in gigantic proportions. The sky above him darkened. Black clouds began swirling with increasing speed. Thousands of thunders were born and a menacing wind began whipping creation.

"What have we done, Lord?" Adam asked, dropping the fruit on the ground, protectively embracing Eve who was still chewing on a bite.

"WHY DID YOU EAT THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE?" said he in a voice so heavy that mountainsides broke off and rolled on the plains below, sowing destruction and death.

Eve looked at the apple, realized what had happened and discretely swallowed her mouthful. She tightened her grip on Adam.

"DIDN'T I TELL YOU THAT IT IS FORBIDDEN?" he asked and giant waves rose in the oceans, swallowing everything in their path.

The firstborn trembled in sight of god's wrath.

"WELL?!!" the Lord demanded an immediate explanation.

Adam swallowed hard, wiped the sweat that rivered down his brow and took a deep breath.

"My beloved Eve and I were sitting, nice and quiet, and along with some animals we were playing "animals, plants and objects" and..."

"ANIMALS, PLANTS AND OBJECTS?!!" lightnings struck jungles and lit up monstrous fires.

"Eeer, it's a game..." Adam cowardly tried to explain.

"I KNOW WHAT IT BLOODY IS! WHAT I DON'T KNOW IS WHAT HAPPENED!"

"Eeer, while we were playing, we got hungry and we were wondering what to eat, and then a grey little being appeared, looking a bit like us..."

"What?" the creator asked, curiosity achieving an obliterating victory over his divine wrath.

"Yes, a grey being, with arms and legs, slightly taller than us and with a funny head, and two big almond-shaped eyes..."

"Yes? Yes?" the Lord said expectantly, without noticing the audience behind him – Lucifer and co. who were listening to Adam's description of recent event's in a constantly growing interest.

"...and it offered us the apples...and we... we took them..."

The creator covered his eyes with one hand and hung his head down in disappointment.

"...and then, it waved us goodbye, got into a silver egg and vanished high up in the sky" Adam continued with no sense of when to stop, whatsoever.

"Where did it go??" asked Lucifer excitedly.

"That way..." Eve shyly pointed up.

"Let's get it, esteemed colleagues!!!" the First angel shouted and unfolding his imposing wings took off towards the indicated direction.

"At it!!!" they all screamed in unison and took flight.

"Thieves! Rascals! " some added.

"Chaaaaarge!!!" Pure Madness yelled, running around in circles inside Lucifer's mind.

"Tar and feathers to thieves!" Instinct added.

"Somebody take me out of here. Have mercy..." Reason complained.

God bent forwards, took slow, deep breaths.

"Lord?" Adam said.

"What do you want?" replied he.

"I'm sorry for bringing this matter up on this particular moment but, could you do something about our nudeness?"

God slowly raised his head and gazed at the firstborn with red-rimmed eyes.

"OUT!!!" he ordered.

"We can't walk around butt-naked and having all nature staring at us like we are freaks or something..." Adam insisted.

"OUT!!!... ouch..." the creator cut off his booming command and grabbed at his chest.

"Is everything all right, Lord?" a worried Eve asked.

The supreme mind felt another sharp stab in his chest. He agonizingly rubbed it. Another stab, a stronger one. Rubbed again. Stab... He looked at Adam and Eve, bewilderment in his eyes. Then, everything went dark.

"LORD!"

"LORD!"

"LORD!"

AT THE BAR

"...sir..."

"...sir..."

"...sir..."

"...Hmmm..."

"Sir... wake up..."

"...Hmmm..."

"Wake up, please. I have to close."

"...Hmmm?"

"I say, I have to close."

"What's the time?"

"Too late, by far."

"Where am I?"

"In a bar, sir."

"In a bar?"

"Yes, sir."

"What am I doing here, me, a god, in a bar?"

"God no, pretty hammered yes."

"Does god drink alcohol?"

"I don't know about God, but you have had your fair share."

"I am god."

"I don't think so. If you were I would have known."

"Am I not god?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely. Although, if I understood correctly, you would like to be."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"And how, may I ask, did you come to that conclusion, my friend?"

"You were talking about it all night long, with your friend."

"What friend?"

"Elderly chap, long hair, white beard..."

"I... I don't seem to remember."

"It stands to reason. You downed two bottles of tequila."

"That's why I can hear mariachis in my head?"

"Most likely, yes."

"And what was I talking about? With my friend, I mean."

"I don't quite remember. Something about God not existing and if He does He has obviously messed things up and nothing works in the world the way it's supposed to or something like that, anyway."

"A philosophical debate, then."

"Theological, more likely. In fact, after the first bottle something got into you and you declared that if you were God you would start everything from scratch and make it much better than it is now."

"Really? Did I say so?"

"Yes. And you supported your opinion quite fervently."

"You don't say. And then what? What did I do?"

"You had some more tequila and gloriously passed out."

"Ah... you mean I made a fool of myself."

"Don't worry, I've seen much worse. At least, you didn't vomit."

"A true gentleman, eh?"

"Flawless."

"And what about my friend? What did he do?"

"Not much. He paid for your drinks and smiled at you while you were snoring..."

"I was?"

"Yes."

"A lot?"

"Yes."

"Sorry."

"That's ok. You're not the first or the last."

"Thank you...and my friend? Did he leave?"

"Yes... he touched you softly first on the head with his hand and then he left."

"Are you sure he was a friend of mine?"

"Yes, yes. Definitely."

"He wasn't any weirdo?"

"Yes, don't fret. I'm telling you, he paid for your drinks."

"Well, I guess he was a friend of mine then. Anyway."

"Would you like a cup of coffee before you leave?"

"No, thank you, thank you very much. I'd better go home and lay down for a while. My head is about to burst open."

"As you wish, sir."

"So, goodbye then."

"See you around, sir."

He dragged his feet all the way to the front door. He clumsily took hold of the doorknob and managed to figure out its operation. With his eyes staring down, he walked out of the bar. The door was shut behind him with a soft squeak. He raised his head and saw the bottomless blackness of the ultimate void.

He looked around him in disbelief. Made a slow turn around himself. He stopped and stood still for a moment to think, there in the middle of nowhere, he scratched his head absent-mindedly and grabbed the cigarette that was behind his ear. He placed it between his lips. Patted at his night-dress at first slowly and then with fast but futile moves. With a feeling of disappointment on his face he put the cigarette back behind his ear, and opened his mouth. Nothing. He froze. Again, he reopened and closed his mouth faster that time. Again, nothing. With his arms akimbo and his fists clenched, he tapped his foot on the void with increasing irritation, shaking, at the same time, his head left and right with a built-up fury. Suddenly, he raised his eyes and...

"WHAT IN THE DEVIL'S NAME IS GOING ON HERE??!!!"

The end

About the author :

Chris Heliades is a 33 year old resident of Thessaloniki, Greece. During daylight he's an officer of HAF (Hellenic Air Force) but after sundown...he is not fighting crime, in any form, organized or disorganized (although he once helped an old lady buy cigarettes). The only people privileged with the knowledge of his true identity are his wife, his daughter, his friends, his colleagues, his parents, his neighbors, his butler and a few others on facebook (GAINAISOIS HELIADES).

Devotee of Warhammer 40k, Terry Pratchett and heavy metal music, has a mind full of stuff that, to be honest, might not be interesting for some of you, just the way things are you know, stop forcing me, I'm not telling you anything...

"JENESIS" is just the beginning...

Connect with Me Online:

http://www.GAINAISOIS.gr

https://www.facebook.com/gainaisois.heliades
