"What I've been up to for the last 4.6 billion years" God's unauthorised biography |
God sighed dejectedly as he pulled on his long grey beard and shifted his immense weight on the cloud he had settled on.
“Tsk, tsk.” His boredom and disappointment were evident as he gazed out on the world below him. He regarded his latest creation, the massive continent of Pangaea with more than a hint of contempt. It just wasn't living up to his expectations. Admittedly, he had introduced it to fill his long empty days and cold, lonely nights with a touch of excitement and entertainment, but it was ceasing to be a source of amusement.
“I think it's time to spice things up a bit!” God commented to no one in particular. He always thrived when he had a new project underway and this time was no exception. “Let’s get this show on the road!” He rubbed his hands together gleefully and without further ado, divided his great work into two continents which he named Laurasia and Gondwanaland. He surveyed the results appreciatively, particularly pleased with the latter. He admired its contours and diverse landscape and kept a soft spot for it in his heart. Observing and controlling these land masses kept God fairly content for quite a few million years, but being, a temperate, artistic fellow, he craved more excitement and meaning in his existence. He glanced downwards and thought that it would be interesting to divide his pride and joy and see what happened. This injected some enthusiasm into his life and he marked off the days till the execution of his plans on his complimentary Readers Digest calendar. On the morning he had allocated to the task, he awoke in a bad temper. The king size cloud on which he had been slumbering had failed to support his ailing back. He had been postponing his annual chiropractic appointment and was now paying the consequences for his procrastination. On this momentous morning, he abandoned his intricate designs for a perfectly symmetrical division, headed for the kitchen in search of a cake cutter and set to work. When he next glanced upwards, he was surprised to see that dusk was falling. He had already carved up South America, Africa and Antarctica and hastily finished Australia before dinnertime. He sat back on his haunches and surveyed his handiwork.
“Hmm,” he murmured reflectively.
“Not too bad. Not too bad at . . .”
“Hold on . . . That’s not quite . . .” He recovered his cake cutter from where he had tossed it beside the moon and rounded off the top of Africa.
“That’s better.” He nodded approvingly. He slept well at night for the next few thousand years, satisfied with a job well done. He awoke one morning several thousand years later and had a look at how Australia was faring. He had watched a Paul Hogan movie the previous evening on Heaven T.V. and that continent was the subject of his current fetish. He noted the dense, lush rain forest, thick scrub and smiled appreciatively at its fecundity. He was particularly fond of the abundant cassinia and cauarina. He watched with interest as a twenty foot tall kangaroo uprooted a firmly embedded, sixty year old tree from the loose, fertile soil. He nearly toppled off the edge of the cloud he was perched upon when he succumbed to his mirth when a ten foot long wombat slipped while hurdling a large body of water in the southern district of the continent. He marvelled at the frame of mind he had been in when he had programmed the thermostat for Australia.
“Alternating drought and floods in a bitterly cold climate say little for my mental health,” he reflected. He was fond of reflection and indulged in it often. In fact it kept him quite happily entertained for several million years. Yet there is only so much reflection one can sustain and God decided that he needed a new challenge. He glanced around the globe and acknowledged the evolution of the homo sapiens he had been toying with, a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. He noted their absence in what had become his favourite nook of the world, the impressive, fascinating continent of Australia. He remedied this by inviting some indigenous people from Asia over to inspect the land on an 'all expenses paid’ tour. This offer was too good to refuse so the Aborigines, as they called themselves, took him up on it. They arrived, had a look around, and decided that they liked it so much that they bought up and moved in.
“Those 'shrimp on the barbie’ ads sure paid off,” God thought, making a mental note to thank Paul for his effort. God was pleased with his new tenants. He saw that they were a responsible and intelligent lot. He observed their progress over the next forty thousand years with more that a passing interest. He was understandably peeved when they contributed to the extinction of the mega fauna whose antics kept him entertained for years at a time. He decided to look on the matter from a philosophical perspective.
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Copyright © 1992 Ilanit Tof, All Rights Reserved.