The newly renamed Abram found himself not terribly pleased with his new name, mainly because it was longer and it made writing checks a little more of a pain now. He was also the father of two children that he knew of, with the possibility of a few extra. The fact is that Abram had at least 27 bastard children, which is the number of his offspring that I was able to track down, but everyone I talked to said they had heard of two or three more that had moved away, making them impossible to find. My only purpose for doing this was because sometimes it pays to dig up a little dirt about the holy ones of old, it always felt good when you went to meet with them that with one simple sentence or sometimes just a word, you could spank these self important religiously titled people (usually men) in the brain and make them remember that they are and never will be any batter than anyone else. Honestly the only thing that makes the prophets in your bible different than you is the fact that you believe all the good stories they wrote about themselves. Besides, people have a tendency to embellish the good things they do in life and never talk about the bad things they’ve done.

It really wasn’t until the latter portion of the past millennium that people started catering to the notions that the evil things people did was often times much more interesting to read about than just the good things, case and point… the story of David. His story is full of all sorts of juicy bits of information about his failures as well as his accomplishments. It’s because it made for much more interesting reading and got people more interested in purchasing bible.

With all of this newly added responsibility, Abram did what anyone of the deity believing disposition would do, he passed off his situation to the all powerful claiming, “It’s what the Lord wanted.” Yep, Abram goes through a sexual awakening where he experiences a number of “one on one” spiritual discussions with a large population of fertile Egyptian women and in the end Abram ends up back in his home land telling everyone that god has chosen him to be His prophet, and the proof of this is that his name is now Abraham and not Abram. The only difference being that now instead of a vain wife that is put off by the idea of sex, he has a vain wife with stretch marks who is put off by the idea of having sex with him, because he was “that bastard that knocked her up.”

Sarah’s pregnancy was not the most pleasant of experiences for her. There were a lot of things that went along with pregnancy that no one had told her about, and, quite frankly, she was a little pissed about it. Of course you could not tell her it was hormones. The village doctor told her that once, and, let’s just say, he made sure he always wore a protective cup whenever he made house calls to Abraham’s home after that.

She did, however, promise to god, her family, and “that bastard that knocked her up,” that one pregnancy was enough for her. She even signed an affidavit that “that bastard that knocked her up,” aka Abraham, no mater what he was called, could spill his seed where ever he needed to propagate his lineage, just as long as it wasn’t her womb that did the work. The affidavit also stated that she did get dibs on “that bastard that knocked her up” on the nights that she was feeling frisky and wanted to “Hagar with her honey.” Yes, that’s what she chose to call it. I know it’s tacky, but what can you do, the slang for coitus had not evolved very far at that point and time in the world. And yes, she had learned all about birth control at the time that the affidavit was signed. And just between you and me, had there been a procedure to get her tubes tied at the time, she would have done it twice, just to be sure.

By the time I arrived to see how the years had treated Abraham and Sarah, Isaac was about 10, and let me just say, what a horrible monster of a child. He did have other siblings, but he was the oldest and only son of Sarah, which seemed to only add the kids professional snobbery and spoiled brat personality. My guess is that it was part ego and part genetics. I think this also had to do with the lack of discipline he received from his parents. The kid got it in his head very early on that his parents were important in the little microcosm he grew up in. From that he developed the attitude that he was important too.

Hey, do me a favor, if you happen to be a family that is personally blessed by your God, don’t tell your kids that. It only makes them arrogant little bastards. And to those of you that think or can trace your lineage back to Abram and Saria, and that you are special because of that, just remember that if you take the initials of your specially blessed ancestors they do make up 2/3’s of the word ass, and that’s all that needs to be said about that.

Having it expressed to Isaac, on a daily basis, that he was the result of a promise from god and he would be blessed forever became part of Isaac’s everyday embellishment on himself. Because of this, he thought everyone should follow and worship him. At first, he called his little game, “Playing God.” Then, as time progressed he called it, “Being Me.” When he was told to stop bossing the others around he would say, “I’m just being me.” He never did what he was told and would bad mouth everyone every chance he got, simply because they were not him. Abraham and Sarah called him their special challenge because of what happened in Egypt. Isaac was a reminder of that time, and why they should stay feverishly faithful to the Lord.

When I first arrived to visit Abe, there was a something a little different in his eyes, I think it was hopelessness. Instead of the usually banter I was expecting, he seemed genuinely happy to see me. I experienced the same reaction from Sarah. I was invited into the sitting room of Abraham’s home and there we sat, catching up and laughing about the old days. And then…in it came. It was my first time meeting Isaac, and based just on the feeling that entered the room with him, I hated that kid. No, not dislike, or annoyed by, or ambivalent to, I mean I hated that kid. And seeing how his parents responded when he said, “Mom, Dad, get me a new camel.” I knew there was a problem. When he actually entered the room and saw me the first thing he asked was, “What did you bring me?”

“Huh?”

“Huh. Duh. You’re not very blessed are you? You better have brought me something if you are going to be staying here, or I’ll make my parents throw you out. You look very common. It’s probably a very cheap gift.”

“This is Isaac?”

Both his parents shook their heads disappointingly.

“NOW! Where is it duh man?”

Abraham looked at me with apologetic eyes.

“Well…”

“You are a slow dumb man. Where is it or go and don’t come back until you have one.”

Now normally I’m better than this, but sometimes you just have to go with your first impulse, so I did. “It’s outside, behind my camel. It’s in a small box right behind the cam…” And he was gone. I started talking with Abe and Sarah again, “So…he’s quite a …”

“He has special needs.” Sarah attempted, not really sure why.

“Did you really get him something?” asked Abraham.

“Not really. Well I guess sort of. A lesson, I’m giving him a less…”

A scream pierced the dull mid morning air. Abraham and Sarah looked at each other and then me and jumped up. I just smiled. Then the scream became louder and louder, and into the room came Isaac, with a rather large smear of camel excremental release on the boys head. Abraham and Sarah tried not to laugh, and they were succeeding until Isaac yelled me, “You lied to me and liars go to hell.”

And I responded with, “Well, heaven is no place for shit heads, so I guess your out too.”

And that seemed to do it, Abe and Sarah fell down laughing. Isaac, shocked by their reaction grabbed some of the camel leftovers off his head, threw it at me, hitting my right shoulder and ran out of the room, knocking down everything that would fall over. Sarah ran after him, still giggling a bit, to get him cleaned up and Abe began picking things up and putting them back upright, commenting under his breath, “What a horrible child.”

“You know Abe, I’m usually inclined to disagree with you, but in this case, I’d have to say you nailed that one.”

“I am at my wits end; I don’t know what to do.”

“Are all of your kids that bad?” I asked.

“No, they are great, as far as kids go. But having all the little ones look up to him doesn’t help, and the fact he can command them to do what ever he asks them to, or commands them to. He gets them to revolt if we try to discipline him for misbehaving. He claims the Lord has blessed him and therefore the he does only the Lords will.”

“You tried talking to the old man about this?” I offered, “If I remember right, He’s not to keen on earthlings acting like him.”

“I’ve tried, for the past four years I’ve tried five to six times a day, but nothing. I mean we are well taken care of. We have plenty of rain for our crops and grain for our livestock. He just doesn’t seem to be in the mood for giving me instruction on raising ill behaved kids.”
And without even thinking I added, “Well, He does have a pretty poor batting average when it comes to that. It’s hard to give good advice about something you are personally a failure at.”
“What do you mean?”

I sighed, “Not a damn thing.”

Then the something happened. Something that I never really considered myself to be in a position to do. Abram asked me for help. “I know you might not be on the best of terms with the Lord right now…”

“Or ever.”

“…but I know the two of you know the same people…and I was wondering if you could possibly have one of your friends get a hold of Him and let him know of our situation. And possibly get Him to stop by so I can impart my pleas directly to Him. Could you? Please Roy, please.”

It was very important for Abraham not to fail at raising a family, especially because of his own upbringing. It was the one thing he promised he would not fail at. His greatest fear is that he would turn into the father his real father was, and he refused let that happen. The main reason Isaac was such a monster is that Abram gave the boy everything and requested nothing in return. The boy had never learned to respect his father. He only learned that his father would do anything to purchase the attention and love of his first born.

I’d never been in a position like that before. I mean I have always been good at offering to help when I’d see a situation get to be a bit more trouble than it should have been, or when there was some form of injustice that needed a little correcting, but to actually have someone, especially one of Pops personally selected prophets ask me for my assistance, well I just never expected it. So I did the only respectable thing I could think of, “Sure Ed, I’d be happy to…but you have to promise that He can never know about you asking me to help, ever.” I wasn’t so much worried about me getting in trouble as I was worried about him being destroyed and condemned for trying to help his family. The simple fact that Abe had humbled himself enough to ask me for help, well, I was impressed. He, who was Edmond, who became Abram, who was now Abraham, had grown up quite a bit, and I’ve always been one to help those in need.

Abraham laughed, “You don’t have to tell me that.”

And boom, just like that I was under consignment to help the prophet of the Lord get help from the Lord. The funny thing is that this was really not that hard of a thing to accomplish, it was just a matter of knowing your audience. All I had to do was set up the correct situation and let my old man respond the way He always does. If others like an idea and He thinks it’s His idea that they like, He’ll do it, it really is that simple. So first off, I needed to get a hold of an old friend. I needed to chat with Mike. Besides, he owed me a favor. I love Mike to pieces, and as much as I’d like to avoid this, I feel the truth is necessary to explain why Mike would help me out. The truth is that Mike had a thing for this Canaanite a prior. She was the cousin of a friend of mine. I knew her, and Mike wanted to know her, so I set up a little chance meeting. They were a cute couple, and to be honest, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. But eventually the whole archangel thing took its toll and they went their separate ways. In Mike’s favor, she really didn’t fully comprehend his work.

I went through my normal protocols to make sure that the necessary securities would be in place so that no one would be able to decode that I was trying to contact anyone in the kingdom of heaven. It usually took seven to ten business days to get a reply and a location that we could meet, but at least it was safe for all parties involved. It was on the ninth day that I got my reply and four days later Mike and I met up in a small pub in what would someday become Morocco. It was always important to meet in a portion of the world that was not part of Pops rule, you know, just in case.

“Mike! How the hell are you my friend?”

“Roy, it’s sure been a while. You look good.”

“Thanks, I feel good.”

“I’ll be honest, I was a little surprised to get your note, I haven’t noticed any major mishaps going on as of late.”

“This is probably going to sound a little strange, but it’s actually for Ed.”

“Who?”

“Abram…you know the new Abraham chap.”

“Oh yeah Abraham, the new proph… Really? How…what…you…” Mike stumbled.

“How’d I get involved?”

“Yeah.”

“He asked me.” I said.

“No!” questioned Mike.

“I shit you not.”

“But why?” Mike wanted to know.

“Parental issues.”

“And he wants help from Pops? That’s a little ironic. Did you tell him about you?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you hush up.” I then went on to explain why the issue was so important to Abe.

Mike understood, “So, knowing you, you’ve been giving this some thought before even contacting me, what’s the plan?” he asked.

“Well, its got to have all the holy ritual hooks on it so the old man will go along with it. I may need you to do a little motivating this time.” I started.

“Hmmm… Roy, you know my view on that.”

I’ve never really understood why the religious, angels for example, always have these odd lines that they draw that really seem to be based on some obscure moral. Mike told me years ago that he would be no part of anything that included any form of deception. Then he gets involved with a Canaanite and conveniently happens to forget to mention what he does for a living until their third month together. He never really lied, but what he did say was open to any kind of interpretation anyone wanted to give to it. But when I suggest a plan that would cause the old man to do something righteous that would make His prophet, followers, and friends look up to Him more, Mike has to have morals about not being deceptive. It made no sense at all, and I told him so.

“Well, if you put it like that, I do suppose I may be able to repeat myself a few times to make sure He hears what I say. Of course it all depends on what you had in mind.” Mike said.

“Ok fine, here’s the plan. First off, we need to put a little humility, humanity, and fear of god into this little shit.” I started.

“Don’t call Him a little shit.” ordered Mike.

“Not Him Him, but him, Abe’s little kid him.” I clarified. Mike relaxed. I went on, “He’s horrible Mike, and not the good kind of horrible, but that creepy, obnoxious horrible, like those poems we use to have to read is Mrs. Oswald’s emotional awareness class.” Mike shivered.

While in school Mike and I sat next to each other in a class called Your Emotions, taught by one Mrs. Laura Oswald. In the class old Laura felt the best way for us to experience our own emotions would be from experiencing the poetry of one Herman Potz, a renowned poet in at least 37 different universes, and considered a standard for all educational facilities in 14 of them. He was renowned not because his writing was particularly good, but because he had figured out and patented a writing skill that invokes pure emotions in the reader and listener alike. His poem, “Making out with Sylvia Platt” (just a coincidence, I swear) was one that left every person who ever read it with a feeling of the most shameful regret that you had to go home early and shower for three days straight before the feeling when away. Mothers threaten to read it to their children when they refuse bathe. I hear it works every time.

I went on, “Pops needs to be reminded that trials of faith are good ways to improve His standing with all His followers. Then even though doing a trial of faith on Abraham might be a little pointless, due to the promises He already made to Abraham, it might still inspire the faithful to, out of fear, since Pops seems to love that tactic best, would strive to follow Pops rules. But it also needs an element of surprise that would help hooks Pops interest long enough to follow though the trial to the end. It needs a kind of just kidding surprise at the end, something that Pops would find funny, but no one else in the entire existence of humanity would.”

“So, what is it?” asked Mike.

“Have Pops command Abraham to kill Isaac in His name, you know, as a sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice his son?” Mike questioned.

“I know it’s something that He’s already thought of, but with this one, He will tell Abraham to sacrifice his son and to let his son know about it, you know to freak the little bastard out. Then build up the tension and send Abe out to kill his son, thus showing his unwavering faith to his god to the world. Then as Abraham is about to kill Isaac, have Pops stop him, telling Abe that he has shown his faith and that there is no need kill his son, adding that the fact that Abe would have done it was sacrifice enough. That way Pops gets His woops, “just kidding ending” and Abraham gets enough reality slapped into his son that the kid mellows out and actually becomes a real boy. What do you think?”

“Honestly?” asked Mike.

“Yes.” I said.

“It sounds like a Potz poem.” Mike said.

“Harsh.”

“Well it does.”

“Look, everyone is going to win with this plan, especially your boss.” I insisted.

“But knowing your history, why would you do anything to make your old man look good?” Mike asked.

“Mike, I honestly think my mother had an affair after giving birth to Carl and just never told the old man about it.” I smiled.

“That’s it I’m out of here.”

“Kidding! Mike, come on. Ha ha, you know, a bit of a giggle. I’ve heard its called comedy.”

Mike smiled, “Gotcha.”

“Bastard.”

“Apparently that’s you.” replied Mike.

“Oh, got me!” I laughed.

“Ok, so what do I need to do?” asked Mike.

I explained what was needed and how he should approach the old man. I knew I could count on Mike. He’s a bit of a perfectionist and when there is a plan involved he’ll follow it to the letter. He actually conceded that the plan just might help everyone out in the end, and it would have if the little monster hadn’t made things worse while I was away. That’s the problem with a really good plan. It only seems to go according to plan as long as everyone reacts and behaves according to plan. Throw a child into the mix and you can bet that the only way things can go according to plan is if the plan states that nothing will go according to plan.

Mom has plenty of things she does to keep busy, and when she goes on holiday with her friends, or on an extended business trip, or both, she really only has two expectations when she gets home. The first is that the dishes are clean and put away. Second is that the house is picked up. Since Pops had already made a mess of the place before He left and was already gone when Mom left, He did not get her note stating when she would getting back home. When she did get home, things were not up to her expectation.

So when Hagar made her request to me Pops was already back home. Getting a hold of Him was still a bit difficult because He was too busy cleaning every inch of the house and repainting all the walls to make amends for His failure to meet with Moms expectations. Note that painting the walls did not need to be done at all, but Mom made Him do it anyway mainly because she knew how much He hated painting. By the time He was done, He was so frazzled that He need a break from the house, so He went to check on the Earth, forgetting completely about Abram, Saria, His covenants to them, and His little plan that abandoned them in Egypt.

I was in the process of heading out to get a hold of some of my contacts to get them to see if they could round up Pops when Abram saw me, recognized me, and felt compelled to get all chatty, “Roy! Oh my goodness…what are you doing here?” Abram started off sincere, he seemed genuinely excited to see the old neighbor that helped him at the Pharaohs palace, but half way through the sentence his tone changed. It almost seemed that he recalled that he didn’t like me much and decided that being saved at the palace was all the Lords doing, which had nothing to do with me. He also got this worried look in his eyes as if he were afraid that I might tell the people bad stories about him once I got back home.

“Oh…um, hey Edmond, how are you?” I said.

“You kidder, you know my name is Abram.”

“I sure do.” I knew his real name too, and Abram hated that about me so did his best to stay clear of me. Once he turned to following god though, he felt a bit more compelled to smile and wave, but would always refrain from talking to me unless it was to preach to and inevitably damn me.

“What are you doing here?” asked Abram.

“Actually, I was just passing through to, um… on my way to …south I guess.”

“So you don’t still live by the farm anymore?”

“Well the house is still there but I’m not.” I said. Hearing that I was no longer living across the street from the family farm seemed to put him at ease some.

“And how was everyone when you left?”

“Sinning, as usual.” I smiled.

“Maybe I should head back up there then; I’m a prophet of the lord you know.” Abram retorted, smiling back.

“Oh yeah? Does it pay well?”

“I don’t do it for the money Roy, I do it because I was called of God.”

“So what does He call you?”

At this point in the conversation that the ground began to shake, and the skies became very dark and angry.

“ROY XAIVER! What are you doing here?” yelled Pops.

“Ahhhh shit…Really?! After years you decided to start a conversation with me by bellowing my middle name to all residence in a 30 mile radius. A stupid, stupid middle name might I add.” I yelled back. I didn’t mean to, but come on it had been decades since we last spoke and He starts a conversation with me by sneaking up on me and yelling. So yeah, I was a bit on the defensive when I started talking back to him.

“What are you doing here?” He demanded, but in a slightly lower tone.

“Well, you see…um…Hey Hagar, I found him.” I called out, but she didn’t hear me, the thundering was too loud. It didn’t really matter though she knew what was going on.She also knew about the temper of my old man, so she grabbed Carol and the child and the three of them headed away from the camp, you know, just in case.

“I’m still waiting.” insisted Pops.

Abram gave me an odd little look. He was still processing that the Lord had just shown up. Sadly, all he could come up with was, “Your middle name is Xavier?”

“Roy, what are you doing here? What have you done this time?”

“You shut up. At least my parents didn’t name me Edmond.” I said to Abram, which the old man did not get.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?” Pops yelled.

“I’m talking to Ed here. That was not directed at you.” I yelled back.

“Xavier, heh, that’s funny.” whispered Abram.

“Jack ass.” I whispered back.

“WHAT!”

“Jesus man, I’m talking to Ed, not you. You know ED! You’re beloved and screwed-over-by-his-own-god prophet Abram. Now ease up and wait your turn. God!” In looking back at that I can see how that may not have been the best approach at that time in handling the situation. But He did start yelling first and as previously stated I was still on the defensive. Oddly enough, it seemed to work.

Pops face flushed red with anger, the type of red that a cherry packet of Kool-Aid turns your tongue after you decide to pour a packet in your mouth instead of a pitcher of water. Fortunately for me His pride would not let me get the better of Him in front of His own prophet, who, according to His recollection was suppose to be dead. The “screwed-over-by-his-own-god prophet” bit that I yelled at Him is what helped Him figure out who I was talking to.

After the redness in His face subsided a bit, Pop managed in His best “I’m not going to yell, I’m not going to yell, I’m not going to yell” voice, “I sorry…Roy was it? Excuse my intrusion, but would you leave? I have some righteous business to discuss with my prophet here.”

With the skies now starting to clear Hagar was looking back at the camp making sure nothing had been destroyed. Seeing that only a heated conversation was underway, Hagar headed back to the camp with Carol and Abram’s child in her arms. It was time for her to finish her deal with Ra and collect her reward.

“Wait just a minute.” I said to Pops.

“Wait? I don’t wait. I’m God.”

“Look, this is my planet, you are the once visiting, and when you are on my planet you’ll abide by my rules.” Apparently I have inherited of my old man’s bloated ego genetic code.

“Roy, this is not your planet.” Pops attempted to correct me. “I made it. Technically it’s mine.”

“Oh no! When you tossed me and the others here, you made me lord and master of this land. At least I’m pretty sure you did…or did I just read that somewhere…I forget. It was something like that…” As I stopped and thought about where I had heard that little phrase before, Pops pulled Abram aside and started His little heart to heart conversation.

“Ok first off, don’t ever talk to that guy ever again. And don’t believe a word he says, ever. Never, ever. Secondly, what you are doing here?”

“I am fulfilling your word Lord. Jolly good to see you again.” assured Abram.

“Doing my work?”

“Well yeah, teaching the people about you and how you changed the heart of the Phil into rewarding us. And now we are touring the land trying to convert the people to you.”

“The heart of who?”

“Phil, you know the pharaoh of Egypt.”

“Oh yes, Phil.” Pops was trying to recall who this Phil person was, but something inside him was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

“I’ve also been helping you fulfill your commitment to me and my legacy.” added Abram.
“Good…That’s just what I was going…to…my what?”

Hagar arrived on the seen and was waiting for the right moment to present Abram’s case. “You’re promise to him and all his seed, that they shall be as numerous as the sands and cover the world, and they shall be blessed by you all their day, through all his generations.” announced Hagar.

“That’s the one.” Abram added.

“Ah…yes…that one. Wonderful. Um…who are you?” said Pops to Hagar.

Hagar ignored His question. “You can begin fulfilling your promise to Abram right now by blessing his first born. Here is Abrams son”

Both Abram and Pops were taken back by this, and as Hagar lifted up the child they did the only thing they could do, they relied on their male instincts and denied it. “No it’s not.” they both said in unison.

“Abram you know that little plague you’ve been suffering from? Mainly the part I educated you about to make it go away” said Hagar.

“Well…I wouldn’t…not really suffering…it’s a good cure…I mean…well…yeah.”

“Plague? What plague? My prophet has a plague?” asked Pops.

Hagar then proceeded to explain to both Abram and Pops exactly what the plague was, and how it really wasn’t a plague at all, but a very natural and healthy thing. Abram looked relieved but Pops was a little tense. Then Hagar explained to Abram that procreation can be a result of that act he had been doing and that the child she was holding was a result of that. This left a rather strained look on Abrams face. Seeing Abrams reaction and conveying that what was being said was true created an even greater strain on the old man’s face.

“Is this true?” asked Pops, already knowing it was.

Abram nodded his head. He then proceeded to give an account of the past 18 months and what he had been doing. He talked about all the people he converted. He talked about how his plague started as a result of seeing so many foreign women in so little clothes. He talked about how he had been taught to stop the plague from arising and how much he enjoyed getting rid of it, but that he didn’t think about doing with Saria in case she were to get the plague as well. He then confessed that he now realized why he and Saria had been childless for so many years do simply to the fact that they had not information as to what procreation actually was. He told the Lord that never imagined he would be responsible for birth of children that were not Saria’s. He then began apologizing for his lack of knowledge in the situation, but that all his requests to Pops went unanswered so he went to a source he thought he could trust to help him with his problems.

Pops was fighting the urge to start yelling. He was mad, but He wasn’t exactly sure who He was supposed to be mad at. Hagar began to speak and explain more if the situation, Pops just stood there glaring at everyone. As she continued, Pop listened to her voice and after a while found himself quite calm and content, and had no idea why. Hagar presented the old man a list of all the mothers-to-be in the land of Egypt that were entitled to the promise and blessing he made to Abram and his lineage.

Apparently every town that Abram stopped in, Hagar informed the available women of the town that any of them that conceived as a result of copulating with Abram would be blessed greatly by Ra and Abram’s god. Abram, having only recently learned about the act was very eager to try it on as many as were willing in hopes that it would permanently cure him.

She also informed Pops that these people even though they would be of the house of Abram would remain faithful follows to their god Ra. Explaining that any conversions in the land were false. The people only said they were converted to keep Abram in the land at the request of Hagar.

“Your penance for using your children for your own selfish endeavors will be your unwavering blessing on a lineage of people who will never believe in you, and this shall last as long as this earth is peopled. And dear sir, I do highly recommend that you never use your children in this way again. Do you understand me?”

Maybe it was Hagar’s presence and soothing voice or maybe Pops just knew He had been beat, and beat well. Regardless of the reason He calmly conceded, “Yes, I understand. I will keep my promise.”

“Then my job here is finished. My dear friends and I shall be leaving you now and returning home. Be well all of you.” said Hagar. Who then left, taking the child with her and started going around the camp and telling people that it was time for them to go. Hagar called to Saria to come out of her tent and talked with her for a little while. When she finished she gave Saria a hug. Saria began to cry and ran to Abram. As Hagar and the others began to head out, she walked back to Abram and Saria and told them, “You know that feeling the two of you have been experiencing every time you think of the other or touch the other?”

They both nodded.

“That is my gift to you. Use it and enjoy it, you have both earned it.” and with that she was gone from their lives forever (not mine mind you, just theirs). They did say this about Hagar as she was walking away, “She’s the…wow…amazing…thank you Hagar. Thank you.” They were right you know. They were right.

It was the perfect plan. Ra eternally bested Pops, because Pops would forever be blessing a people that would have nothing to do with Him. After this payback though, the gods mostly got over their insults phase. No one would ever be able to do one better than what Ra did to Pops. Additionally, the gods avoided talking about it because the plan was so perfect, but it was a human that thought of it and not a god, so their egos were hurt. Pops never talked about it for obvious reasons, and Ra kept pretty clear of it because even though he won it was very clear that it was only Hagar’s plan. As for Hagar’s reward, no one knows for sure, but there is not a god in all the universes that does not know who she is.

Oddly enough Pops had the urge to actually take His role as supervisor for His followers seriously and ensured that they would return to their own land safely. He also bestowed new names to Abram and Saria, righteous names, no, godly names. These new named would be a gift from Him to them as a sign of His promise to keep His promise to them. The new names He bestowed on them were, Abraham and Sarah. Yeah, Pops really does suck at giving people names. He just has no talent for it. I do feel in necessary to point out that for the record, the true reason Pops changed the names of those two was to help avoid any connection to the “sex starved foreigners that visited the pharaoh one summer and took Hagar on a summer holiday through out the land and got most of the single women pregnant.” story that was talked about for centuries throughout all of Egypt. Who knows, maybe in some rustic circles, it is still being talked about?

Due to Hagar being there I was able to walk out of that one pretty easy without any more additional confrontation with the old man. Although, after the event I did hear from a number of reliable sources that Pops did claim to His hosts in heaven that the befuddlement of that situation was entirely my fault. I have no idea how He tied it to me, but as far as most are concerned up there, that was mostly my fault.

I stayed clear of Abram and Saria, I mean Abraham and Sarah for a few years, but eventually curiosity got the best of me. I had to see how things were going for them and their first son Isaac. Let’s just say I was not expecting things unfold the way they did.

Hagar used the first few days to observe Abram and Saria. To see what angle she could use that would work best to her advantage. Hagar also had Abram teach her all about his god so she could spend more time with him and get a better understanding on what connection Abram had to this god fellow, and what kind of deals had been made. One thing she noticed was the lack of physical contact between Abram and Saria. She saw them kiss, but noticed that they always slept in separate beds, even if the beds were right next to each other. There was a reoccurring irritation of Lot that Hagar was also trying to deal with. As much as the boy tried to stay clear of his old artist days, there was something about Hagar that kept him thinking about nude paintings. He began to hover around Hagar, making it difficult for her to do her job. Finally, after about a month of dealing with Lot, Hagar suggested to Abram that if he were to send Lot in a different direction, then they could reach twice as many people as before, thus spreading the news of Abram’s god twice as fast. Abram thought this was a pretty good idea. With Hagar’s knowledge of the surrounding lands, she recommended that Lot head to Sodom and Gomorrah. It was one of the bigger cities in the area and she thought Lot could do a lot of good there. Abram took a few days to think it over, but eventually conceded to have Lot leave the party and travel with his wealth and entourage to Sodom and Gomorrah and to teach the people of their god.

Initially Lot was a touch hurt that he was no longer wanted, but after it was explained to him the amount of trust god had placed on him by letting Lot go and teach the people on his own, he felt a lot better. Three days later, Lot took his portion of the wealth he got from the pharaoh and headed off to Sodom and Gomorrah.

With Lot now gone, Hagar continued her observation of Abram and Saria. One key thing she noticed that just didn’t seem to sit right was their lack of physical interaction. She started mixing a little fermented fruit in with the occasional fruit salad or mango salsa, and it did seem to help Saria open up when Hagar started asking questions. The fact that Saria and Abram had never consummated their marriage is the most baffling thing Hagar had ever heard. It was from that information that Hagar knew what she had to do, and it was not just for the deal she made with RA, or the proverbial slap in the face of some ego mad god that would solidify her name into the history of the world. It was for her irrevocable belief in humanities right to partake and enjoy the self producing divinity of the orgasm. She now had a plan, a righteous and magnificent plan. With all the knowledge Hagar had acquired in her life, one of them was the wisdom of fragrance and how certain smells affect the chemistry of the body and mind. She spent a few days preparing and by the end of the weekend she was ready to go.

Abram and Saria were enjoying their new found popularity, and thanks to the pharaoh’s messengers who had gone on ahead of them, they were being welcomed at every door step. It was easy for Abram and company to stay in one small village for a week or two at a time due to all the dinner parties in their honor. The true joy of the people came from Hagar visiting their village. The dinner parties were all in her honor, but masked as an invite to Abram and Saria. The gratitude towards Abram and Saria was very genuine because it was they who brought Hagar to their town. Likewise was the sadness at seeing Abram and Saria go, because they were taking Hagar with them.

Interestingly enough, during this time Abram and Saria never once stopped to ask of guidance from their god. Not that it would have done any good. See, after the little “joke” He played on Ra, pops headed out of town, er, galaxy for what He claimed was a little r and r, but mainly it was to hide out and to trying to let Ra calm down so he wouldn’t to anything rash. Besides when you pull an asshole move like Pops did, the other gods are going to think of you as a bit of a prick for a while. Fortunately for Pops, since most gods in general suffer from A.D.D. by the time Pops had forgotten why He was away, most the other gods had forgotten what a shit He was. Ra was very aware of this and knew that Hagar had at least four months before Pops came back and noticed the guy He set up for instant death was alive and in the heart of Egypt. This was a very generous estimate considering Pops is overwhelmingly proficient at fluttering from one thing to the next. When Pops is out and about it could be years before He comes back, because something happened to catch His interest. It’s usually a message from Mom instructing Him to get he arse home that reminds Him it’s time to get home.

After a month of observation and lovely dinner parties Hagar decided it was time to begin her plot. It started on the fifth Sunday after they had left the pharaoh’s palace. Using some of the special herbs she brought with her, Hagar had everyone asleep by 9 p.m. She then went and lay next to Abram, whispering things into his ear for about two hours. After this she went to Saria’s bed and whispered things into Saria’s ear for an hour. Starting the next day, Hagar and her assistances began wearing cloths that were designed to taunt a male’s libido. Now add to this was the occasional, and purely accidental flash of extra skin where clothes should have been. It didn’t take long for Abram to starting noticing things about the women surrounding him that he had, for some reason, never noticed before. Saria even began to wear clothing that was a touch more revealing as well, at Hagar’s gentle suggestions telling her that they were the newest and most sought after styles that year.

Abram began waking up very early and spending a lot of time in the river before he would get his days going. Some days he would take some extra time to get out of bed, even though he was wide awake. Other days he would wear an extra robe even though it was sunny and warm. Hagar spent more and more time in the company of Abram and Saria, getting them to confide in her and developing a trusting relationship with her, where they would tell her things they felt they could not tell others.

Abram confided to Hagar that he was having these physical ailments that would randomly plague him and the most inopportune times. He was not sure what was causing it or what to do about it, but it seemed to come and go on a whim. Also, the longer it lasted the more painful it became. Soaking in cool water seemed to help out at times, but when it happened it was publically apparent that he had some sort of physical deformity. He asked if there was something she knew had heard of this type of curse before and if there was a remedy he could take to make it go away. Hagar told him, “I do know of a cure, but it will take a few days to get things ready.”

It was the next day that the perfect opportunity presented itself to push Abram over the edge. Saria was taking her Thursday bath with the assistance of some of Hagar’s helpers. Hagar was with Abram discussing his problem when she was notified by Carol, Hagar’s assistant, that things were ready. Hagar took the very unaware Abram by the hand and led him over to the river. It was timed beautifully, just as they came over a small embankment Saria rouse out of the water. Abram was so stupefied by what he saw that all he could do is stand and stare and become “plagued”. Saria a little shocked to see her husband standing before her froze for a second then turned around and jumped back into the water. The splash brought Abram back to his surroundings, turned bright red and ran back to his tent.

I don’t know exactly what happened next. Some things are meant to stay behind closed doors. I did to get some information from Hagar, but she was never one to discuss such events. What I do know is that Hagar took Carol, one of her assistants, to Hagar’s tent and then went to Abram’s tent to invite him to visit with her in his tent. Abram agreed and all three met in Hagar’s tent for some formal introductions and education. Hagar did not emerge from the tent until the young prophet of god had learned a few things about this “plague,” such as what caused it and what made it go away, and this is where things began to change. It was about three hours later that Carol left the tent. About an hour later Abram appeared at the evening fire to get some food and to drink a lot of water.

As a result Abram developed an urge to dress less and strut more. Saria noticed that when her husband had a tan, or in other words spent time without a shirt on, she had a tendency to look at him more and more. During this time Abram continued taking liberties on Carol and anyone else willing to be liberated. Hagar intentionally forgot to explain to Abram the one of the key possible outcomes of “plague” purging was end result of making babies. When Hagar asked Abram about he and Saria having a family he explained how they had tried for years, but with no success. Unfortunately he did not conceive what conceiving was during the years where he though they had been attempting to conceive. When Hagar talked to Saria about her and Abram having a family, she confided that she was not 100% sure of the actual process and assumed that they were doing something incorrectly, but had been afraid to admit that she didn’t know for sure.

It was during the fourth month of Abram’s “awakening” or “plague purging”… you know, we’re all adults here, let’s just call it what it was…four months into Abram’s sexual awakening Carol began to appear a bit larger in the belly. Abram found himself being a bit put off because Carol was his main source of exploration and she was recently putting on some weight and no longer “in the mood.”

Hagar kept Carol well concealed and took care of her during the pregnancy. She also had a number of conversations with Saria about children and having a family. Saria did confess that she’d like to try being a mom. “Oh I’d like to try it. I’ve always wanted to be a mom.” she told Hagar.

“Would you be willing to try it out?” asked Hagar.

“I would, it’s just, as you know, we’ve never been blessed with any?”

“But you did recently fulfill God’s request for you. I’m sure that you will soon be rewarded.” said Hagar. She then left Saria and went to find Abram.

She found him sitting at the evening fire. She needed to get Abram starting to think about the how he was to be a father of many nations, which mean he’d have to start fathering soon.

“Abram, if you are to fulfill the Lord’s promise to you, you are going to need to become a father, many, many times.” explained Hagar. “This also means that Saria will need to become a mother.”

“But we can’t, our lips have touched many times while we have been in darkness and she and never once, over many years, conceived.” said Abram. And there it was the innocent naïveté of a, until very recently, virgin explaining the process of conceiving children as it was explained to him many years ago.

Hagar took a few moments doing her best to avoid from giggling at him. Once recomposed she told Abram that she was sure that Saria could have children, but it had not been the right time before. “God has kept you both barren until you were both ready.”

“Your think so?”

“I do.” assured Hagar. “You could have never fulfilled His plan in Egypt had you any children.”

This made a lot of sense to Abram. Hagar then told him that she was sure their period of being barren would soon come to an end. “But in the mean time,” she instructed, “go to Saria and talk gently to her. Tell her you love her and how much you want to have a family with her. If you both want to kiss, then practice kissing. That way you will be ready when it the time comes that your blessings will begin.”

Ten minutes later he was in his tent talking to Saria about love and family and fulfilling the Lords promise to them. In the middle of professing his love to her Abram became aware that the only thing he could think about was the image of Saria coming out of the water. Abram stopped mid sentence, and then told her he need to go for a swim. But added that he looked forward to the day when they would start a family.

As Abram swam in the chilled water the image of his wife remained in the front of his mind. It frozen there and as the day and weeks proceeded anytime he would caress her arm or hold her close and kiss her, well he stopped holding her so close due to rising emotions. He stayed with her as long as he could stand it and then would excuse himself for a little while and then return.

The new surge of attention Saria was receiving from Abram along with the repetition of the words “our family” caused Saria to begin pursuing Hagar’s offer to experience child bearing. Hagar talked to Carol about her plan, wanting to know if it would be ok if Saria were to lead, only for a little while, in raising her child when it was born. Hagar promised Carol that if she did this, her child would be watched over and blessed by two different gods, Ra would do it out of gratitude and Abram’s god would do it out of godly obligation. Hagar also guaranteed that she would have the baby back in two months tops and would be Saria’s personal child care assistant, so she would always be with her child and would be in charge of feeding the child. Carol agreed to the plan and about three weeks later, she gave birth to a boy. In the bible this child is referred to as Hagar’s. The reason is because she was the one who set up the whole situation. Hagar kept telling Abram and Hagar that the child want her to protect Carol from any jealous misdeeds if it came to light that Abram was the little bastards real father. Two weeks after the child was born, both he and Carol had moved into Saria’s personal quarters so Saria could begin playing mom. When Abram heard that Saria was caring for a child he went to investigate. The little tike had a bit of an infectious personality and Abram and Saria fell in love with the boy and the experience there were having from playing house, er, family. This only made Saria more desirous to have her own child to share with her husband. Saria approached Hagar and shared her desire for a child of her own.

As a result, Hagar agreed to share the secret of children conception. She told Saria that the conception process was hit and miss and that it would take trying over and over again to make it happen.

“Whatever it takes,” said Saria, “I’ll do it. I want a family.”

Hagar smiled, and then as delicately as she could began to explain the act required for getting pregnant. As Saria was told about the process, she started out a little confused, which soon turned into horror once she got a clear visual of what needed to take place. Once Saria calmed down a bit Hagar started to describe the pleasure that could come from such and act, not to mention that if one chose to they could use the act as a very powerful tool of negotiation and influence. This helped Saria move from thoughts of horror to an intense curiosity about it. Saria was confused how such an act could be a pleasant experience, but even more so how such an odd act would give her greater influence over Abram. Hagar told her that she would learn as she went and that if she truly wanted children, she now knew what needed to be done.

After only 3 days of Saria’s own imagination coupled with the nightly whisperings Hagar gave her while she slept, she had made a firm decision that this was something she needed to find out about for herself, and that she did. In fact when she and Abram finally took the plunge the caravan stopped moving from town to town for two weeks. All of the repetitious tries resulted in the conception that would be known as Harry, but for aesthetic reasons was recorded as Isaac in your bible. Once Saria discovered she was pregnant, Carol’s child was returned to her.

Shortly after this Hagar sent for me. I didn’t even pack my bags. I was on the road in less than ten minutes. When I showed up Hagar told me that things were going well, but for the next part of her plan she needed a little help. She needed me to get my old man back to the vicinity of Earth so that He could see what was going on. I told her I’d do what I could, but turns out I didn’t need to do a thing. Mom had beaten me to it.

To fulfill Ra’s plan he needed a little help. Well more than a little help, he needed a devoted, faithful, independent, brilliant, cunning, vivacious, vindictive, impromptu, silver-tongued, individual would enjoyed toying with others and had a knack for consuming people and having them thank them for the consumption afterwards. Ra need the help of a female, no, he needed the help of a woman. Ra began inquiring about the females in the Pharaohs court. The surprising thing is that it didn’t take all that long to fill the position. Well, it didn’t take that long to come up with a name anyway.

“Phil*, in order to get even, make that past even, to the god of those two poor saps, I am going to need the help of a woman.”

*For some reason, Ra had called every Pharaoh he’s ever had Phil. When I eventually asked him about it, he said it was because he just really liked the way the name sounded. He included, “Besides, it’s always nice to call your number one follower a name that always makes you smile when you say it.”

“Ok.”

“And not just any woman, a very specific type of woman.”

“Ok.”

“I need a woman who is smart.”

“Ok.”

“Independent.”

“Ok.”

“Imaginative.”

“Ok.”

“Beautiful, clever, sneaky.”

“Ok.”

“Quick on her feet, gifted with words, able to get away with anything.”

“Ok.”

“A woman who is possessed with the skills of a coitus goddess and an appetite to use that skill.”

“Ahhh.”

“In all of my land, is there such a woman?”

“Oh yeah, she’s just down the street.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah…Mmmmmm…oh yes.”

“So just like that? You know a woman with all these skills?”

“And more…” answered Phil with an ever widening smile on his face.

“Is she a faithful follower? Will she do what she’s told so my revenge will come to pass?”

“Well, she’s not so much a faithful follower as she is…oh god she’s amazing! But I should have you know that everything is always on her terms. So, I imagine if you gave her the correct compensation, she’s do what she needed to make sure your revenge was enacted.”

“And who is this woman?” asked Ra.

“Hagar.”

“Hagar?”

“Yep, Hagar.”

“Just Hagar?”

“Just Hagar, that’s the way she wants it…mmmmm Hagar.” reminisced Phil. Just saying her name put the Phil into a state of euphoria. It took a little while to bring him back into a cohesive state. Ra and Phil talked a bit longer and eventually a messenger was sent to Hagar’s flat with a note reading, “Hagar, the Sun god of Egypt is in town and would very much like to meet you. If you could, would you please come to the palace at your soonest convenience, you know, if it’s not a problem. Love, Phil”

Phil explained that she had her own schedule, but she would stop by when she could. Demanding her come to the palace right away would only piss her off and would result in them waiting about two weeks for her soonest convenience to visit, with the possibility that she would not come at all. For some reason and because of Phil’s ongoing cooing and blushing at all his references about Hagar let Ra was starting to feel like a 6 year old on his first day of school, and quite frankly, he like it.

Word was given to the soldiers that no killing would be happening that day and to place the prisoners confined to a small room with some guards at door to eves drop and instill a level of constant anticipation and fear in Abram and Saria. Then, every fifteen minutes Phil would send a change of guards so they could get an update of what Abram and Saria were talking about. It was a nice way to pass the time while Ra and the Phil waited for Hagar. All the guards reported the same thing, Abram and Saria were bickering that there was no word from God and that they were going to die thanks to Him.

After two hours, seventeen minutes and 32 seconds, Hagar arrived. Her entrance into the palace was very subtle and carried with it an electric enthusiasm from everyone that saw her. I have met Hagar a number of times, well, I met her once, but I have seen her a fair number of times. Actually, it’s more like…err…I mean…you know what, never mind. The point being that having been in this woman’s company I can honestly say that her existence is a conundrum that the universe never expected, never wanted to let go, never wanted to repeat, never really minded that they could not figure out how she happened, and honestly didn’t mind in the least. The only one to ever show any amount of annoyance was Aphrodite, but after she had actually met Hagar, she never offered another negative word, grunt, sigh, or eye roll towards any reference about her, all Aphrodite would do was genuinely smile and say, “Lovely, just lovely.”

One of Hagar’s greatest powers was her…everything I guess. She was gifted with the power of subtlety. Everything about her was subtle. Even in her looks, she had a very subtle beauty about her. She wasn’t of the “difficult to speak, sweaty hands, is it obvious I’m drooling” line of beautiful, but all it took was one look at her and ten minutes after and for about a year you were smitten at the thought of her. You couldn’t help but think of her and you were always happy thinking about her. It wasn’t a sexual thing either, it’s just…it was a Hagar thing. If you got to know her, you could spend days watching her every move, you would go sleep deprived because you didn’t want to miss a single movement. And never, and I mean never, was a pass made for her or acts demanded of her, it was always on her terms and if a pass was to be made it was always Hagar who made it. It didn’t matter if she made a pass at you or not, or chose someone else, you just didn’t cared. You were happy to be near her, and to get a chance to see her and have her see you. It was the weirdest damn thing, but no one cared, and that, my friends, was Hagar. However, if you did happen to get her to make a pass at you, she was …well…hmm…you know, it appears I have gotten a little off track. Not with out good reason, but a little off the main story regardless. It’s just personally, I don’t think Hagar has ever been given her fair due and I felt that giving you a little enlightenment as to who she was and what she was, was note worthy. Not to mention very delightfully reminiscent and gratifying for me. Well that and I sort of promised her that I’d do something to help immortalize her if ever given the opportunity. She never asked me to do this, I just wanted to.

Hagar was so much more than anything Ra could have hoped for, and truth be known, more than he could handle, but Ra didn’t really care, getting even took precedence. He did, however, within the first half hour of meeting with her offer to elope with her, if she would have him. Ra seemed to have a tiny amount of trouble forming congealed thoughts into coherent sentences once Hagar has nestled in his brain. So with all the composure he could muster Ra concentrated on the floor and asked Hagar to help him get even. To paraphrase what Ra said, “Hagar, I have been greatly wronged by two puppets of an insincere god and I humbly request your help to prove to him that he cannot use others to achieve his deceitful deeds. I will grant you anything you ask if you undertake this task. It may take a while but the rewards shall be well worth it.”

What he actually said, “Hagar, you are …I…help…need your. I want to even. (Ahem) I help need your. Please. I will give you…ask your anything. Mean god …bad…lesson needs…help…you…please?”

Hagar simply smiled and said, “Ok hun, how about you tell me what happened and well see if there’s anything I can do to help out.”

It took a little while, but eventually Hagar was brought up to par with everything that Phil, Ra, Abram and Saria had gone through because of my old man. I was even able to enlighten her as to a few of the trials I had to endure due to the meanderings of my Pops. If there was one thing that always seemed annoy Hagar was the abuse of power, and she saw the entire situation as nothing but a repetitious act of that abuse. Hagar took Ra into a private room for a private consultation and so she could explain what her payment would be. Two hours later Ra returned with Hagar all that was said was Hagar had agreed to help and Ra had agreed with all her requests once the payback was completed.

The next thing that happened threw pretty much everyone who was involved in the situation for a loop, everyone except Ra and Hagar. Ra told Phil to go in and personally release Abram and Saria. Phil was told to keep his word and to let them have the food they needed for their people, and to apologize for any mistreatment they may have suffered, and then as an act of apology to give them a chest of gold and silver, and to present Hagar to Abram and Saria as a gift.

“Oh HELL No!” I protested.

Hagar smiled and said, “Roy, it’s ok, this is my idea. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

Ra added, “I protested as well, but this is Hagar’s plan and she is in charge and has full control. It sounds a little odd but let’s please respect Hagar’s request. The sooner the revenge was bestowed, the sooner she will return to Egypt.”

“And to my reward.” added Hagar, smiling at Ra.

It was never talked about as to what Hagar’s reward would be. I did try talking to Ra about it once. All he told me is that he promised not to ever tell anyone. “Besides” he said, “she said that if I didn’t tell anyone then when she gets back, she would spend 2 full days with just me. Nothing could possibly get me to break that promise.” And that is all what was ever said on the subject. Mmm…Hagar, I told you that woman had power.

It was a few years after Hagar had completed her task that I got to spend a few hours talking with her, and she told me about her time with Abram and Saria and talked about some of her greater feats in regards to those two. She actually was able to do much more than was required of her, the little over achiever. I bring this up because a lot of what happened with Hagar and Abram and Saria I was personally not there for, but my record of these events does come from the key player in what transpired next.

When Abram and Saria were released and then presented with riches and then Hagar, they were in such a state of shock that Abram fainted twice. The reaction of the Egyptians did create the false reassurance in Abram that his God did provide a way, which he pointed out to Saria on more than one occasion for the rest of their lives. It was during this time that Lot showed up.

Lot was a sort of friend from the new settlement. He was a friend of one of Saria’s relatives and when the settlement sent Abram and Saria off to the pharaoh to get food, most never expected to see them again. Lot went along with it, ok actually he spend most of his time on the couch trying to get women to pose nude for him. He claimed to be an artist, but he really wasn’t. He just used it as an excuse to try to get women naked so he could look at them. It wasn’t until a week after Abram and Saria had left that he actually heard about what happened. Upon hearing about this he felt bad on two levels. First he felt bad because he really wanted to try to get Saria naked and thought he would never see her again thus eliminating his chances of this ever becoming a reality. Then after all his remorse, he actually took a little time to think about Abram and Saria both and about how they actually went to do something for the entire village, including him. The idea of them being in trouble, possibly even being killed to try to get him some food was something he just couldn’t understand. He felt really bad about the whole situation and it was then that he did something that would change the course of his life forever. He grabbed the few positions he had and set off after Abram and Saria to make sure they were ok. The drought was coming to an end as well, so he was hoping he could catch them before they got to the pharaoh and did something they might regret.

Yeah, so he was a little late getting there, but the fact that he actually showed up does say something about his character. When hearing Lot tell his story to Phil, Phil was moved by Lot’s change of heart and gave him some livestock, commended him on being such a good friend, and sent him away with Abram and Saria. Lot was amazed at the treatment Abram and Saria were receiving by the Egyptians and took that as his own proof that Abram was, in fact, a prophet of god. He even began to proclaim this to others, usually while in Abram’s company, which only inflated Abram’s prophet ego.

Prophet ego is the ego that fills a follower of any god who becomes the mouthpiece for that god. Eventually this ego fills the minds of these individuals with self importance and a feeling of being better than your fellow man. It is an inevitability that no human has ever been able to defeat. In short, every prophet who has ever lived or who will ever live will become a spiritual snob, and very possibly a bit of a jackass, although no one will ever admit thinking that about the mouthpiece of god, even through they actually do.

After Lot’s acceptance that Abram was a prophet, he thought about what Phil said about his character. Lot became enjoyed by the idea of being a good friend of God’s main man, and this is how Abram got his first true follower.

Hagar requested to Ra that Abram, Saria, and Lot be allowed to stay a few days so she could begin her work, and the first thing she needed was some time with Abram. Ra told Phil to make sure it happened. Phil told Abram and Saria that they had a special gift coming to town to send with them and that they needed two days for it to get there. He asked them to please stay and see the sights of the city before they left. Saria was being pampered from everyone she came in contact with, and ate up the attention. She was more than happy to stick around a few extra days. Phil asked if it would be alright if he escorted Saria around town to the shopping district while she was there. Abram thought it would be fine and Saria was more than happy to leave Abram behind while she went out conversing and shopping with some of their newly acquired wealth.

Even before Saria left, and even more so after she was gone, Abram started to catch himself staring at Hagar. When he stopped thinking about getting everything ready and the carts loaded up he would, without even thinking, find where Hagar was sitting and contently stare at her. He’d then get all flustered when she would catch him staring and would turn bright red. Hagar would stare back at Abram smiling until he looked up at her again and then look away as fast as he could. While Saria was out shopping, Hagar approached Abram and started to talk to him.

It was during this conversation that Abram discovered that at the beginning it was much more difficult to talk to Hagar than it was to talk to his god. However, as the conversation when on, Abram realized that talking to Hagar was as natural and freeing as swimming in one of the lakes near the farm back home.

“How is my lord this morning?”

“Oh, now I wouldn’t go so far as to call me your lord…I’m…um…just a man…”

“Who owns me,” smiled Hagar.

“Yeah, um yes, well, you are a very nice gift. I mean I’ve never gotten a gift like you before. I mean I got an ass for my birthday one year, and some oxen for a wedding gift, which were nice. I mean not that you’re a nice ass or nice oxen. Er, I mean, you’re much better than that. You talk too, which is good, nice…I mean of course you talk, you’re a person. I’ve never received a person as a gift before. It’s a little odd for me…So, how are you?

“Who?
“Yes, who. Well I said how, but who is good too. I mean I know you are Hagar, that’s what the pharaoh told me, but yes who, who is good. Who are you?”

“I’m very well, thank you.” Hagar was going to have fun with this one. Besides she’d never met a married virgin before. She’d never met a virgin that old either. She knew Ra’s revenge was going to be easy, she just didn’t think it was going to be that easy. “Abram, is it alright if I call you Abram?”

“If you like…I mean yes that would be nice. You have a nice sound to you. I mean you speak good, er…nice. Yes, you speak nicely…good.” This conversation was wearing out poor Abram, and it hadn’t even started yet.

“May I ask you a few questions Abram?” As she said this, she reached up and held Abrams left hand in both of hers. This had a very calming effect for Abram.

He nodded. This was because at that moment, he could not speak. He knew that if he were to try he’d only be able to squeak at her. Hagar was quite proficient in understanding squeak speech, since she experienced this phenomenon on a fairly regular basis, but she needed Abram to think he was the one in charge, so she made sure he was the one making the decisions.

“I have two handmaids in my possession, and since I am yours they are now yours as well. They are good helpers and will aid me to aid you better. Is it alright if we bring them with us?” Hagar knew that when you are outnumbered, sometimes it’s good to have some back up. Well that and she knew everyone would worry about her if she took off with Abram and company all by herself.

Abram nodded.

“I am looking forward to serve a man with such a powerful god.”

Abram smiled then nodded.

“I was wondering though, do we really need to head back to your homeland? It would seem that a prophet such as yourself and with such a powerful god would want others to know him. You could continue traveling south so that all may know the prophet of the great god.”

Abram was nodding along with everything Hagar was saying, letting her words become his thoughts.
“You did so well here. I would imagine that you would have just as good of success, if not better, in the south. It would be such a great gift to your god to teach those who do not know him about such a great god.”

Abram just kept smiling and nodding.

“I know we shall need to depart from this place soon Abram. As I prepare things for travel, where would you like us to go?” asked Hagar as she let go of Abram’s hands.

“Ahem…I have been thinking, and I think that the people do need to know about our god. I believe we shall head south, to make our way to a new home and to teach the world about my great god.”

“As you desire, I shall make the required preparations, excellent choice my lord.” said Hagar and then walked out of the room.

Abram felt good about his decision to travel south and teach about the lord. He then noticed that his hands were still out in front of him, in the position that Hagar was holding them, which struck him with a sense of loss. He realized that he missed her holding his hands.

Lot then entered the room, and Abram trying to dismiss his current feeling of loss, told Lot all about heading south and teaching the people. Lot thought it was a brilliant idea. Abram was a little concerned, not sure how Saria might take it, but when she showed up with Hagar beside her, she said, “Brilliant plan honey, just brilliant. When do we leave?” and gave him a kiss on the cheek. All things were in order. The payback had begun.

There was much remorse in Egypt on the day Abram left. All the people were going to miss their Hagar. Abram’s developing ego is caused him to think that all the people crying and waving good bye because he and Gods power were leaving their presence. After they had left the city limits Phil addressed the people and decreed that day a national day of mourning. The people were still sad, but all agreed that it was appropriate. He then told them, “Every year on this day, starting today, the people are not allowed to work. Instead we must eat, drink, and remember our Hagar.”
The people started to nod in agreement.

“And,” Phil added, “in celebration of the first Hagar Day, the drink are on the house!”

The people began to cheer. It wasn’t going to be that bad of a day after all.

Ra and I drank for three days strait to try to convince ourselves that letting her go with Abram was worth the getting even the old man. After the third day of wine, we were pretty sure it would be worth it.

Ra had about a .0256 second turn around to begin working on getting even with Pops and his little “joke”. While Abram and Saria were in custody, Ra took the Pharaoh into the next room and had a little talk. While the Pharaoh was in full plead mode trying to seek forgiveness for his error, Ra was trying to get him to shut up so he could explain his plan. It’s kind of funny how that works, if deity gets bettered by someone they can’t kill, namely other gods, then those who are involved in the situation are forgiven with no questions asked. But if you are a follower of that deity and you mess up, you get no warning, or pink slip allowing you to get your things together and to get out of the land. Instead you get flattened by the closest natural disaster that took about three minutes to form.

Abram and Saria were a little concerned about their situation, and with twenty-seven spears were being pointed at them and Saria decided that right then was an appropriate time to become a little testy about her husbands god, “What the hell do you mean He’s not answering? He’s the one who got us in this! Try Him again, and AGAIN!”

“Now Saria, the Lord does not abandon His chosen children. He will provide a way.”

“Yeah a way to join Him directly after screwing us over for God knows what!”

I hate to bring this up, but the truth is that sometimes gods really are that shallow. God had made all these promises to Abram in order to get Abram to do what He wanted so He could laugh at Ra. He had no intention of fulfilling His end of the bargain. He fully expected Ra to kill Abram and Saria so He wouldn’t have to fulfill His end of the agreement. The thing was that Ra knew the old codger well enough to know this was the case. Ra also knew that nothing would annoy my old man more than having to keep His word when He didn’t intend to.

After Ra finally got the Pharaoh to shut up, he started to explain the situation. Now when gods start explaining to their followers that there are multiple gods, well actually this was never a problem back then, it is only recently that the phenomenon of “only one god” has caught on. So Ra explaining to the Pharaoh that Abram’s god was responsible for the deception was a fairly easy situation to explain. Commonly, this excuse, when introduced to the followers thought process was greedily accepted, since, let’s face it, followers always hate to get in trouble with their god. Besides, if they could blame their blunder on another god and not get in trouble so much the better.

It just so happens that this was the birth of the overly used excuse, “The devil made me do it.” It started with the Pharaoh and Ra. When the Pharaoh started sharing this story with others people were amazed that Ra forgave the Pharaoh because of the reasoning that another god made him do something he was not suppose to. People started using this excuse all the time to get out of getting in trouble for something they were caught doing that they knew they were not allowed to do. And, for the record, I can make people do anything. Humans do everything of their own volition, and shame on every single one of you little bastards that have tried to blame an innocent bystander, namely me, when you get the urge to do something your society disapproves of. Jerks.

Historically speaking, it was during this era that the first atheists started appearing. For some odd reason the god following classification of people has never been able to understand the non believers. I mean they don’t understand the “other believers” or those that believe in a deity other than the one you believe in, but the concept of not believing in any sort of deity commonly invokes fear, anger, befuddlement, or all three. Personally, it makes perfect sense as to why the atheists started appearing. You have all these gods getting mad at one another, or their followers, or someone else’s followers, and so on, and they start killing each other because they think differently or act differently than what someone else thinks is correct. Now with all this “ungodly and murderous” behavior, which is actually godly behavior because that is how the gods were behaving, one could, and actually quite a few did, look at it as a bunch of chemically imbalanced, power hungry people trying to figure things out for themselves. All the while appointing themselves as some all-knowing, all-powerful source of hoarding affection from a mass of people who could not do some of the same things they could do. This has resulted in a detachment of the gods from their followers. The gods have pretty much left us all to fend for ourselves, their existence and stories have fallen into a realm of fairytales and mythology. I think most gods associated with the whole Earth project suffer from A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder). They played with their followers on Earth for a while, but got bored and decided to go do something else that was more fun and entertaining. There are still a number of followers on the Earth today, but you can definitely see who has stuck it out on this whole Earth project and who got bored and moved on.

The Pharaoh’s initial reaction was to kill Abram and Saria. The problem with earthlings is that this has commonly been the first reaction to many of life’s conflicts, not the actual killing, but the concept of, “To fix this problem all I have to do is kill those responsible.” Good thing Ra was there to help the Pharaoh make some decisions. Ra sent for his “gutter dwellers”. This is a phrase not commonly associated with the gods, but it is a sort of slang the gods use when referring to this particular type of helper. Gutter dwellers are essentially spirit spies that spy on the other gods. When something falls through the cracks and misconduct occurs concerning the actions of a god, the gutter dwellers are there to collect that information, storing it for when they are called. Once the gutter dwellers arrived Ra learned about my old mans ploy and how He used Abram and Saria, and how they ended up in the land in the first place. Ok, and just maybe, I sort of, kind of, might of, happened to stop by around this point to pay Ra a little visit.

I knew the old man wasn’t going to show up. And then I head that Ra was pulling this gutter dwellers I knew it was time to act. Those kids had no idea who they had gotten involved in. I figured that I might be able to help the situation. It wasn’t fair to put Abram and Saria through that. Sure the kid was a pain in my ass once he found God, but overall he was a good kid and he deserved a little representation. I just wanted to make sure Ra knew and that his dwellers hadn’t missed anything. I asked if it would be ok to go talk to Abram and Saria and get their side of things.

“They know me from their old stomping grounds.” I told Ra. “I’m pretty sure they’ll open up and tell us exactly what you want to know.”

The two of them were so grateful to see me they both started crying.

“In order to get you out of this I need to know everything the Lord told you to do and what you would get in return.” I told them.

Between sobs Abram conveyed his side of what happened. Once he was finished I went back to Ra and told him about all the promises Pops made to Abram, Saria and their seed. I also might have let it slip out about Abram and Saria’s lack of marital liberties. Ra began to smile. He old Sun god was devising a plan, a payback that would last until the end of the earth and would be an eternal reminder that creative sneakiness was not one of Pops strong suits.

I guess you could say that being who I am does have a few advantages that don’t pertain to a commoner on earth, and I have no problem admitting that. Mike and I had kept in pretty good contact ever since he helped me out in that whole “Great Discussion” conflict that got me and the gang kicked out of heaven. Mike was the one who got me out of the old man’s sight before Pop’s could lose it and started beating the hell out of me. So I called Mike up and we chatted about what was going on in the old man department. Apparently the godly club was in a practical joke movement. Practical joke/insulting mischievousness that is. The gods called it joking around, so when they deliberately hurt the feelings of another god, they could say it was a joke. This was to avoid getting punched in the nose. The problem with this “insult war” is that the gods decided to start using their followers as tools to help with their insults to the other gods. I’m not sure why, but Ra and Pops always had this intense competition between them. Maybe it was because their followers were in a close geographical location, maybe it was because they both dated the same girl in high school at the same time, or maybe it was because they has similar personalities both egotistical and had to be the center of attention and when they got together this did nothing but clash, what ever the reason, it is clear to see this rivalry existed on earth as well between Pop’s followers and Ra’s followers. With the insults going back and forth, Pop’s decided to take it to a new level, but He needed some help and this was His motivation for actually starting to talk to Abram.

Abram and Saria ended up settling with Saria’s relatives near the land of Egypt. When the relatives saw how religious Abram was, they decided to make him the token religious guy of the community. Abram thought it an honor, but the relatives really did it so they could blame someone if something bad happened. Since the drought season would be starting soon, they knew that they could demand that Abram take responsibility to get them free food. With the new crops and livestock Abram brought with him the drought season would have been no problem as long as everyone kept working with what they had. The problem was that when his relatives saw his surplus they stopped worrying about working as hard, and let about half their crops burn in the sun while they drank in the shade. That along with the drought season lasted longer than usual led to 90% of Abrams surplus being used up once about 2/3rds through the drought season. People started to realize that starving to death might actually turn into a reality, and like a lot of earthlings in general, people don’t like to own up to things that they had done or decisions they had made that turned out to be lacking in all areas. Instead they did what commonly happens, they blamed someone else. Since Abram was the holy man of the community, it was obviously his fault they were not prepared for the extend drought. A man of god should have been warned by God of what was going to happen and it, because he didn’t he was the one doing something wrong and it was now his responsibility to get them more food before they started starving.

Abram was the type of chap that was always praying about something. He had to pray about every decision he needed to make. Now, due to the fact that he was now responsible for an entire community, who would be starving soon, his prayers to the big man did not stop. He would break from prayer so he could pray to bless his food though. With all this constant praying, Pops decided that Abram was the kind of person that would pretty much do whatever He asked without questioning Him, and He was right. Pop’s noticed how close Abram was to Egypt and knew that Abe was the perfect patsy for His new “joke/insult” to Ra. He was a little surprised that Abram was already expecting God to show up and talk to him since they had talked before. He put Abram on hold while he checked with His secretary to get the back story. Once caught up, He knew things would go just fine, especially since He had moved there based on what a human, pretending to be Him, had told Abram to do. So later that afternoon, while Abram was kneeling in is home in deep prayer Pops showed up.

“Abram.” started Pops.

“Yes…who’s there?”

“It is I, Po…the Lord thy god.”

“Lord! Thank god! You have finally heard my cries. Thank you. Praise, um, you. I need your help Lord.” began Abram.

“I know your situation Abram and I am here to guide you.”

“Yes. Please. What would you have me do Lord.”

Pops began unfold His plan to Abram, “You are very close to Egypt Abram. I think it would be wise for you and your wife to go into the land of Egypt and get conference with the pharaoh. Ask him for some food from his storehouses. I shall fill you with my power and from that you will be able to get food for your people, but you will also get the opportunity to share my gospel with a whole nation.”

Abram had no choice but to say he thought it was a brilliant plan. That’s the problem with the blindly devout, no matter how bad a plan truly is when it is presented to you by your deity all common sense and deductive observation disappears and only redundant babbling occurs stating that what was just told to them was the most brilliant and righteous thing they have ever heard.

Pops then reminded Abram, “Remember you must to take your wife Saria with you to the pharaoh.”

Abram eagerly agreed, and with that Pops left. The next morning Abram proclaimed his conversation with God to the people and told them God’s plan for Abram to save the people. As he began to recap some the plan a number of concerns began to form in Abram mind. The main problem was the Egyptians. They were a one of your typical male oppressive societies. The men, mainly the men in power, were renown for their very healthy, well, libido, and because of this, Abram feared for both his and Saria’s safety.

The Egyptian men where use to the visual aesthetics of Egyptian women, but with a woman of a new origin and appearance, like Saria, entering the land would result in wide spread attention and fascination towards her. Now add Saria’s constant devotion to making herself look nice, Abram began to think that this plan might result in a rather negative out come for him. The driving force of concern was based on the marriage laws in Egypt.

Of all the god’s I’ve ever met, which is a very healthy sum, one stereo-type that holds true with deity is vanity. Vanity in what they create and vanity in say. All gods’ hate to be contradicted or proven wrong due to something they have commanded or said and nothing makes other gods happier than seeing another god struggle with their followers because they disagree with the commandments given to them. This self indulgent way of making one happy from the struggles of others was the core motivation the gods had for starting the “joke/insult war”. The universal outcome that all the gods wanted was to be able to point and laugh at another god because they said something that their followers disagreed with, or made a commandment that would not be followed by their followers. Ra’s word was the law for his people and his pharaoh was the conduit for relaying that law to his people. Ra did play favorites, most gods do, and his favorite was always his pharaoh. When his would get too old or was about to die, or if a new bloke caught Ra’s fancy the role of pharaoh was altered as Ra felt was necessary. So in Pops plan to play a joke on Ra, He needed to get to Ra’s favorite, and this is why Abram was commanded to take Saria with him.

The Egyptians had a law concerning marriage. It is interesting to me that most patriarchal societies have this need to authorize men to have as many wives as wanted. I mean, when it comes to the growth of a race of people then yes the goal is to get as many women pregnant as possible. It’s the obvious process for keeping a culture alive. The gods don’t really care either because it just means more followers for them. Egypt shared in this practice. The men could have as many wives as they wanted, but a woman was only allowed to have one husband. So when a rich and powerful man saw a woman he wanted and she was not married, he would offer some of his wealth to the girl’s father and take her as a wife. The problem that would arise was if the woman was already taken. At that point conniving treachery ensued, and at some point one of two things would happen, either the man had a strong social standing and the admirer of the wife would move on, or the husband would mysteriously disappear or be found dead by “a freak accident” even if there was a sword found in the man. At that point it was no longer against the word of Ra to take the widow for a wife.

All of this was explained to Abram after his big announcement. So Abram felt it important to have one more time conversation with God before he headed into the land of Egypt. Abram started asking God about His plan and why he needed to take Saria. It was on third day of not leaving that Pops showed up all huffy about why Abram had not left yet.

“Umm…Lord…Master? I need to talk to you a minute about this whole traveling into Egypt with my wife thing. I’m not sure, that is to say, I think…I know it is thy will and all, but I am concerned that it may not be the safest course of action for Saria and m…”

“You dare to question your all knowing God and Creator?”

“Er… no it’s just…”

“After all I have given you? You insolent child!”

Since Abram had no idea what insolent meant he was not as shaken as Pop’s was hoping for, “Ok…well no then, I guess. It’s just that, well, you know, the Egyptians have this tendency to kill poor men for the purpose of taking and marrying their wives, and, if you haven’t noticed my wife is really hot. When the Egyptian men are told that she is my wife, I’m as good as dead.”

“Don’t you have faith in me Abram?”

“God knows I do, it’s just I don’t have any faith in the Egyptians.”

“Do you not know that I know all? I am the seerer of all things. Do you not believe in God’s infinite power?”

“I suppose so.”

“WHAT?”

“Yes, I mean yes Lord, of course I do.”

“Here’s the thing Abe, Saria needs to be the one to ask for the food when you get to the pharaoh. Being the all-knowing sort that you know I am, I know that the pharaoh’s weakness is for attractive women. The pharaoh will be so intoxicated by her beauty that he will gladly fill any requests she asks. This way you will be able to get more than enough food to get you though this drought.”

“Ok, I guess that makes sense. But there’s a good chance that we might not even make it to the pharaoh I might get dead and Saria might get forced to take a new Egyptian husband along the way.”

“Ok, ok, if you‘re so worried about your own well being, tell everyone you run into that Saria is your sister and not your wife, and if any Egyptians attempt any funny stuff, simply tell them that she is promised to the pharaoh. Ok. Oh, and tell them that he is expecting her. That should hinder all motivation to take her away from you.”

I found it interesting that Pops solution to His prophet’s concern constituted the Lord instructing him to tell a lie…or story…or to do something that most would consider as dishonest.

“Ohhh…clever! Good plan Lord. Thank you. Thank you Lord.”

This seemed to relieve Abrams initial concern, because no one was going to attempt anything if he was escorting the pharaohs promised bride to be. But then he started thinking of how they were supposed to get back home, “Um…Lord? O Lord? Hey! Got another question here?”

“Huh? What? Oh, look I’ve got another call, get to Egypt and I’ll talk to you when you get there. So…ok, so I’m going now. If you continue talking no one will be here to answer you, and you’ll look like an idiot, so, bye. Seriously, stop talking to me, we’re done now.” And Pops was gone. Pops didn’t want to deal with Abram’s question, and by saying that He’d be talking to Abram later, He knew Abram would rely on that trust. Abram and Saria would be embarking into Egypt by the end of the week, and if things went right, He really wouldn’t have to deal with Abrams question at all. Pops was hoping the pharaoh would take care of that question for Him.

The most difficult task Abram had before heading into Egypt was explaining to Saria what was going on and to convince her play the roll of his sister. As it turned out, the most difficult part was Abram getting up the nerve to tell her that God told him. Upon telling her he was surprised and readily she agreed to the plan without any objections or emotional insults directed at Abram. Saria knew about the reputation of the Egyptians. She was not very keen on the prospect of seeing here husband killed, but was even more against the afterwards, which would result in her getting ravaged relentlessly by some ill mannered slob that would not even have the common courteously to ensure she was comfortable during the process. Besides, the idea of having the male portion of Egyptian nation drool, stare, and lust after her beauty was the type of thing she felt she could endure the rest of her life.

Pops had plans for the pharaoh to become the catalyst for the joke He wanted to play on Ra. Pops knew that by having Abram tell any Egyptians he encountered that Saria was promised to the pharaoh that Abram would be sure to be directed right to the front door of pharaoh, and that exactly where Abram ended up. After arriving at the front of the palace, Abram spent some time pondering how easy it had been to actually end up there and in pretty good time as well. When the first Egyptian man saw Saria and approached Abram about her, he was told the God-instructed-lie that Saria was his sister and promised to the pharaoh. This statement was what paved the way to the front door. See, if the pharaoh, for some befuddled reason decided not to take Saria as his next wife, then the pharaoh would either give her to whichever wealthy Egyptian was in the pharaoh’s grace, or, and most likely, Saria would be pawned off to the highest bidder. The slew of wealthy Egyptians knew this and accompanied Abram and Saria to make sure she got there unspoiled. They did this because even if the pharaoh took her as his wife he would probably reward those who made sure she arrived to him safely.

The real reason Pops wanted Saria to go was based on the motivation Ra set up to ensure the people followed this commandment. Ra had created a sort of STD type curse that happened before sex could take place and only infected the man. The curse was a genital outbreak on any man that broke Ra’s specific “you can’t marry a married woman” law, which left them coitus free for six months and left them sterile.

The idea of a sterile pharaoh was Pops key motivation. Ra favorite getting cursed and becoming devoid of offspring was the joke that Pops wanted to play on Ra. The plan started when Pops learned that instead of a world wide roster to check curse eligibility only a database of all the Egyptians was used. Because Saria was not an Egyptian, she was not in the database and therefore was the perfect puppet in Pops plan.

There was a small prep room in the pharaoh’s palace where Abram was desperately trying to get a hold of the big guy. His concerns about how they were supposed to get home had only seemed to worsen the longer they were in Egypt. Saria was getting bathed and outfitted for the special negotiations where she assumed that she would be pleading her cast to the pharaoh to get food for her and her relatives. It was only after Abram threatened to bail on the whole plan and declare that his sister was actually his wife that the old man showed up, for about one minute. He told Abram to continue with the charade. Pops told Abram the pharaoh would turn Saria down, needing to keep his bloodline pure, but in gratitude to them for offering Saria to be a new bride, the pharaoh would reward them with the food they needed for their people. So being the good follower he was Abram trusted everything Pops told him. Before presenting Saria to the pharaoh, Abram told her to continue to play the role of his sister and told her what the Lord had taken care of the rest.

When Saria was presented to the pharaoh, not only was the drool apparent, but the pharaoh insisted that a pillow be placed on his lap, so he could…have something soft to place his hands on. The pharaoh thanked Abram for delivering his sister to him. Saria then explain the situation of her people and requested the food and supplies they needed. The pharaoh conceded to her request and sent Abram out with some servants to go to the storehouses and fill their cart with as much food as it could hold. Abram was so gracious that he did not notice, Ra summoning for his clergy at the same time. As Abram was leaving the room he realized he was leaving something behind, “Pharaoh, um…my sister…”

“She will stay here as you go and collect the supplies for your people.”

“Thank you, thank you ever so much.” And with that, Abram headed to the pharaoh’s storehouse.

It wasn’t until after he had returned to collect Saria and begin the trek home that he noticed something was amiss. He wasn’t too concerned when he entered the palace and heard the music and cheering, but when the pharaoh greeted him at the door, hugged him, called him brother, and left with Saria, Abram was sure that things did not go according to plan. The shock that Gods plan failed left Abram dumbfounded. He grabbed a goblet of wine sat down in a corner and kept going over what God had told him concerning the whole Egypt scenario. He tried to figure out if maybe he had done something wrong, which has made everything go wrong. One thing was certain though he was not leaving until that God fellow showed up and explained a few things.

When entering the pharaoh’s bed chamber, Saria realized that maybe she should not have agreed to the marriage. She did do as her husband had instructed her. She played the roll of the sister. The mass of jewels her received and was now wearing did cause her to think that maybe God’s will was to have her marry the pharaoh that way she could always care for her people. As the pharaoh began to disrobe, she began wondering if God had tried to tell her something during the ceremony, but she had failed to hear it. She had never heard God speak before and she had no idea what He sounded like. Maybe He told her something and she didn’t know it was Him talking. She started to grow a little nervous.

Part of the marriage ceremony resulted in Saria becoming the property of the pharaoh and hence the property of Egypt. Only after this was she entered into Ra’s Egyptian database, and this is when her background check started. The background check was completed, and the error was reported right as the pharaoh opened his robe. To his surprise he was quickly shrinking away. Saria, seeing for the first time a man’s anatomy, which was covered in the Ra’s anti-coitus wrath, let out a horrified scream. The pharaoh was now clearly aware of what he was experiencing and more than anything needed to know how it had happened to him. Saria, now sobbing, could only mutter that she wanted her husband, Abram. The pharaoh called for his guard and ordered that Abram be placed in custody along with his new deceitful wife. No one was allowed to talk to them or to give them any food or water. Their sentence would be determined only after he communed with his creator, Ra.

It took Ra a little while to get to the pharaoh since he was busy cursing at a giggling sod of a god known as Pops. Yep, Pops went out of His way to call up Ra and start laughing at him for having a failure of a Prophet. Pointing out that his favorite earthling couldn’t even keep the simplest of Ra’s commandments. Suggesting that Ra was a lesser deity than Pops was.

Pops then let it slip out why He had done this to Ra. Apparently it was because Ra was the first god to point out to Pops, in front of most of the other gods, that Adam and Eve had chosen to not follow Pops rules in the garden and ate the fruit. Ra then suggested that if he were to do it he would have certain check and balances in place that would ensure that this would never happen to him. Being called out in front of His peers infuriated Pops. Pops had never forgotten or forgiven him for that, and let’s face it forgiveness really isn’t one of Gods strong suits. Pops wanted to show Ra that sometimes rules get broken no matter what kind of checks and balances you put in place. This really didn’t elevate Pops but it did officially place Ra on Pops level once again.

There are a few reasons I want to cover the story of Abraham next. The first reason is that it happens to be the next big story in your book, and second, it’s kind of scattered and confusing, and really doesn’t explain how things got started, and since I was there, well for some of it, I’d like to shed a little light on the subject. To begin with Abraham and his wife Sarah started out as Abram and Saria. For some reason my old man renamed them to Abraham and Sarah. Doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but not to worry, I’ll explain in due time.

One of the confusing parts of this whole story is the very beginning. Abram and Saria are married, with no insight on how they got together, and Abram is already having conversations with the big guy. This is one of the elusive aspects of your book. Pop’s is talking to all sorts of people with no real explanation of how that relationship was established.

I understand that there are a number of bible readers that read the bible for direction and to build a personal relationship with the old man, and very few to none(1) have ever had the big cheese show up and start having a personal chat with them in person. But in your book there are multiple people that have a face to face relationship with Pops. The thing missing is how they established this relationship in the first place, and with that in mind lets begin at the beginning, how and when Abram met God.

(1) The reference to none as a quantity is a mathematical derivative based on the total number of Pop’s followers from the creation to the present day. Because the number of people who have had personal chats with the big man has been zero for over 2000 years now and more and more follows are born/converted each year this fraction of a number has consistently dropped to the point that the number is much closer to zero than it is to 1 (this is based on a averaged percentage system).

Abram was born as Cecil and grew up as one of those kids that had standoffish parents. They were socialites that in an evening of drunken intimacy forgot to use protection and nine months later the little codger was born. Dealing with the pregnancy greatly impeded Cecil’s parent’s social life and by the time he was born their interest in having a child was gone and the desire to begin socializing again was in their foremost thoughts. From his birth Cecil always had a feeling of not being wanted by his parents, because honestly, he really wasn’t. He was watched by house keepers and passed around by relatives, until he ended up with a distantly related uncle who owned a farm and needed some help. Yes, I know it’s all a bit of a cliché, but clichés have to start somewhere and this is where this specific cliché started. It was really quite a new concept when it first happened.

I was not around for this part of Abram’s…er Cecil’s life, and the only reason I know about it is because I was drinking buddies with Cecil’s uncle and I happened to be there when Cecil got to the farm. Jimmy, Cecil’s uncle, and I knew a distant relative would be showing up, but had no other information other than that.

By the time Cecil reached Jimmy’s farm, he had been passed around so much that his parents were not really sure where the boy had ended up, and they were really not that concerned about it. Naturally, having this type of childhood left a rather bitter lump of resentment toward his parents and their lifestyle. When he got to Uncle Jimmy’s he had decided a new start was best and told us that his name was Abram, that way if his parents ever came calling, they would not be able to find their little Cecil.

It took a few weeks but I was able to get to know Abram a little bit. It was about a month later, during an evening of wine and cheese that, after Jimmy had gone to bed, Abram told me his story. Initially I kept the boys background to myself. Jimmy was just happy to have some extra help and didn’t really care where the help came from. But one night I suggested that the boy could probably use a little guidance or at least a father type figure to help ground the boy in some sort of foundation. Jimmy took that suggestion and decided to teach the boy about the Big Guy and His “father like attributes.” When I heard about this I had to ask, “What father like attributes are you referring to Jimmy?”

“Oh I dunno. The fatherly ones cause He had kids I think.”

“Wait…what?”

“He made those first people right and talked to them. I think I remember hearing that once. Ain’t that right?”

“I think I heard something like that, but how does that help the kid out?”

“Well I figure the kid can go ask Him if he has father type questions.” suggested Jimmy.

I mean I guess Pop’s has some fatherly attributes, but in my experience not very good ones. To be fair, I never did tell Jimmy any of my back ground. For some reason people at the time would always get weird when I’d explain exactly who I was. There was still a lot of negative emotion due to the scandalous and misrepresented stories about me. So as long as I found someone to exchange rants, conversation, ideas, or sometimes fart noises over a bottle of wine that’s all I could really ask for. “Just be careful there Jim, kids who have has as rough a start on life as Abram especially towards parents should probably be slowly introduced to the idea. No reason to cram all that info into his head just to “save the boy” you know?”

“You mean that kid ain’t been saved yet?”

“I don’t think he even knows what god is.”

“Well shit, we got some work to do. The boy needs savin.”

“I’ve never pictured you as the “saving” type Jim.”

“Well I ain’t…I mean I was and I did, just in case. Figure the kid deserves the same, you know, just in case.”

I saw no point in arguing and trying to detour Jimmy from his plan of godifying Abram. He meant well, and it was the closest thing people had to life insurance back then. If it was going to give Jimmy a feeling of well being like he had truly done something good to help another person, there was no way I would get in his way. I wasn’t going to help, but I sure wasn’t going to get in the way. So with that, Jimmy began his God educating for Abram.

The main point Abram focused on from all the God stories Jimmy told him was the idea that God loved everyone personally. It was from these stories that Abram chose to replace his biological father with God, which, let’s face it, when people tend to do this get a little weird. Abram was no exception, in fact due to his up bringing, you could say he got a little weirder than most. Abram became a deeply religious teen and an even more religious man, and sometimes he did seem to come off a little too religious. Ok, actually most times he came off a touch too religious, but it’s not like he tried to physically harm anyone, he just damned people a lot. At first, the whole thing was kind of cute, and people like to test the level in which they could achieve damnation in Abram’s eyes. Abram’s damnation covered a variety of things, such as damning someone for eating the wrong food on the wrong day, or damning someone for not getting married and making lots of babies. But like all fads of fleeting entertainment eventually the transference from cute to annoying as hell eventually comes, and usually it’s in the span of about one second from the 17 to 18 time you are damned by someone for the exact same thing he’s damned you for 17 times before.

When Jimmy first started to get annoyed by the boy, he gave him projects and had him build his own place on a small lot of the farm, which Jimmy gave to Abram. This kept Abram busy for a few years, mainly because he was the only one working on his place and he only had time to work on it during his free time away from his farm chores. Abram was still able to incessantly praise God and damn everyone he saw when Jimmy did spend time with him. After of about thirteen years of this, Uncle Jimmy was beginning to feel that perhaps he had made a mistake. The biggest problem that came about was what was happening at the market. Jimmy was loosing customers due to Abram trying to sell God along with the crops, and if a purchase was not made, thus began the damning of souls. After about thirteen years of Abram’s continuous damnation, the people went out of their way to avoid Jimmy food stand. In order for Jimmy to keep his sanity and to live a longer life, Jimmy knew that either he had to go or the boy did.

In the bible when Abram is introduced it says that he was living in his father’s house. This is mildly true. When Jimmy had decided something had to be done he let it slip out that he might be interested in getting rid of the farm, to see if anyone would bite. There were a few people that were interested, but when it was discovered that the kid went along with the farm, most potential buyers stopped asking questions and wished Jimmy a rather cynically sounding “Good luck.” But there was one buyer, a Mr. Johansson, from a neighboring village that liked the idea of getting a farm hand to help with the place. This was mainly due to Mr. Johansson not ever meeting Abram, or talking to someone who had.

When Uncle Jimmy and Mr. Johansson got together to discuss in more depth the sale of the farm it was discovered that Mr. Johansson had a daughter close to the age of Abram named Saria. Jimmy knew that in order to get this thing to stick he had to make it legal and binding. So this is what he worked out, that he would sell the farm to Mr. Johansson only if Abram was allowed to marry Saria. This way he became a family asset to the Johansson’s and they would get Abram’s section of the farm for free. Mr. Johansson, after a short meeting with Abram and observing him work, saw no flaws in the lad’s work ethic and agreed to Jimmy conditions. He even commented on how pleased he was to give his daughter to a man who, “…so openly praised the Lord.”

Yes, Abram and Saria were an arranged marriage, but most marriages were arranged back then. After the wedding Abram was taken into the Johansson family, where he continued to work on the farm and talk about God every chance he got. The morning after the wedding Jimmy had taken all his money and was gone. I’m not sure what happened to him, but I heard he opened a brothel in Gomorrah. I visited Gomorrah a few times and had heard of a new place called “Jimmy’s Love Shack.” I never stopped by. I figured that if it really was the Jimmy I’d known all those years that he had chose to start a new life and I didn’t want to remind him of that difficult and painful time in his life with Abram, but I like to think it was my old friend who opened the place. Jimmy did tell me on the night of Abram’s wedding, “That boy has damned God right out of me over these years. When I leave here, I’m leaving for good.”

So, yes, in a way the bible is correct when it says that Abram lived with his father. It’s just that it was his father-in-law father and not his actual or adopted father.

Jimmy did leave a note strongly encouraging Mr. Johansson to let his children work the market and keep Abram at home working the farm. Mrs. Johansson, Saria, and the rest of the kids helped at the market, while Abram stayed home. And by following that suggestion the farm started to do very well once again. Still, after ten years of Abram’s relentless God talk, Mr. Johansson was beginning to understand Jimmy’s deal to throw the boy in with the purchase of the farm, and never bothered to leave a forwarding address. Mr. Johansson was a thinker though, and he came up with a fairly ingenious idea to get rid of the boy. When it was first suggested that Abram set out to find his place in the world, he made it quite clear that his place in the world was right where he was, and no one was going to take his home away from him, no one except God of course.

Abram was a very naive boy, and up to this point he had nothing but blind acceptance of God based on the stories that he was told. He did not have any clear working concept of God, or communication with Him, or anything of that sort. So to this point, Abram’s relationship with God was strictly a one sided relationship. Mr. Johansson took it upon himself to help rectify this uneven relationship. As for me, I usually kept clear of the kid due to the immense damnation he always interjected on me simply because I enjoyed a taste of wine from time to time. At this point in my life, time to time, loosely translates into a bottle or two a night…or more. Trust me, as lame as things were at this time of human development and civilization, getting drunk nightly was a survival necessity. Otherwise, if I stayed sober long enough I would have attempted killing myself out of a sheer lack of anything else to do, and pissing off the “God boy” nightly, helped pass the time.

After six days of planning and eighteen rehearsals, it was finally time for Mr. Johansson to put his plan in motion. I was sitting on my porch across the street watching the whole event unfold. Abram was walking to the main house when a bush was ignited. In a panic Abram ran up to the fire trying to figure out what to do. At that point that Mr. Johansson, who was hiding on top of the roof, talking to Abram.

“Abram, this is the Lord thy God.”

“Oh my god, God! You have finally answered me. I knew if I stayed true this day would come.” he started to cry. “I have so many more things to ask you.”

“I know you do my boy, but I need you to do something for me before I will answer any of your questions.”

“Of course my Lord, what will you have me do?”

“Well Abe, to put it bluntly, get out of this land, and out of your father-in-laws house. In fact, I want you to go to a new land that I will show you. This land is to the south, and there I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you, all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. Oh, and get some water and put out this burning bush, I only did that to get your attention. After the bush is put out, get your house in order and take you and your family away from this place. You have two weeks, so get busy. That is all, I’m going now.”

And that was all it took to get Abram motivated and off the farm. Mr. Johansson was pleased with the out come. The boy would be gone and would be taking the girl with him. It was not that he didn’t like his daughter, it was just that he wanted her out of the house, it was time she stopped mooching off all his hard work and learned how to get a real job. Besides she had produced no offspring since her and Abram were married, and he took that as a personal insult, since she knew how much he wanted grandchildren.

Here’s the thing about Saria, she, like most girls in this time, had this intense fear of losing her virginity. Sex and marriage, actually its marriage then sex, is a common teaching in most religions based on the old mans descendants. All church going girls in this era were taught that their virginity was their ultimate treasure, which no man should take. The part of this teaching that was usually left out was that it was ok once the girl got married. For some odd reason there is this teaching that a specific ceremony transforms a once evil and damning act, i.e. coitus, into a righteous and glorious act. I’ve always found that logic a little, well, stupid. But hey, that’s just me, and if you are one of those many followers that agree with the “evil act of sex turned righteous” because of marriage, good for you. Keep the faith brother, or sister, or … whatever. On a side note, I’d like to point out that there were a number of other gods that didn’t necessarily share this concept. But for some time, the sex before marriage has been an act of damnation according to almost all of Pops followers. The amusing thing is that even thought a majority of followers understand this teaching, not very many follow it.

So back to Saria, she had apparently missed the “sex is ok after marriage” lesson. This resulted in Saria becoming one of those rare exceptions that took the teaching about sex one step beyond the standardized teaching, which was, no sex before marriage = good, even less sex than that after marriage = better than good. She was also a very vain girl, which didn’t help the situation. She spent a lot of time prettying up herself, and she was very good at it. She had a way of turning heads, and that’s all she wanted. Sex was still a scary and evil thing and had remained that way the entire time she was married.

You may ask how it was possible that she retained her virginity in marriage up to this point. Easy, Abram was very naive. The boy had no concept at all about sex, where babies come from, how they are made or anything like that. He’d never had it explained to him. Sure he saw the animals doing it on the farm, but that was what animals did, not people. Saria took that naiveté and went with it. Sure they’d kiss, but that was the extent of it. Abram figured that if the Lord wanted them to have children then they would, but up to that point it was not the Lords will. Plus due to Saria’s vanity, she asked for that they use separate beds so she wouldn’t have to worry about tossing and turning causing her hair to get messed up. How do I know all this? Saria was quite a little chatter box after she’d had a couple. But then again, who isn’t. She appreciated a little nip now and again, and on days Abram was a bit to religious for her liking, she’d come over, help me finish off a jug or two, and complain about her husband. Only once did she get so inebriated that she started yelling profanities at him from across the street. Shortly after that, she wasn’t allowed to come over and visit anymore.

So a week later, under the direction of “the Lord” the journey south began. Why south? Mr. Johansson had family down south that could keep an eye on Abram and Saria while they were getting settled. He didn’t care much for these relatives. They were a mooching lot that had a tendency to take what ever they could get, without working for it, which is why he was sending Abram to live with them. But he also knew that they would take care of Saria if needed.

It was after Abram and Saria had arrived to their new location and set up their new home that something happened that no one ever expected, the old man actually got off the couch and returned one of Abram’s calls. I mean let’s be honest, in my years of keeping an on the old codger, he never starts talking to you earth dwelling folk unless there is something in it for him, and when he started to actually talk to Abram, I knew something was up, I just wasn’t sure what.

It was after the flood and I had been hanging out in what is now South America. I spent a lot of time down there eating chocolate. They were doing this great pagan worshiping thing for a variety of gods. The more gods they had the more festivals they had. The festivals were amazing. Everyone would wear these rainbow-colored feather costumes or nothing at all or somewhere in between. It was right after the “Damn we’re good, because our Gods didn’t flood us” celebration that I decided to head back to see how Noah and the kids were handling their life after the flood.

I came across the growing city of Babylon where Noah’s generations began to flourish and start a new civilization. It was here that I met Edmond, who was biblically known as Nimrod, which was actually Noah’s fault. The story behind Edmond’s nickname stems from when he was just a toddler. Noah had spent the afternoon in the mountains in a flurry of home grown induced meditation. I personally think it was purely accidental that Noah ended up at the house in that state. It was later conveyed that he was on his way to get some dried potato slices and remembered that Charlotte had made a fresh batch the night before. It was the desire to eat something crunchy and salty that motivated Noah to head home when normally he would not. Charlotte had been dealing with their newest little one for most of the day and in seeing Noah walking up that path that lead to the front door, she knew for certain is that it was time for her to take a break, and she wasn’t going to be home until had consumed at least two margaritas.

Noah was in the introductory stages of realizing that he has in front of his own house. He was at the point he felt he had seen everything he was looking at before, but he was not 100% sure why he had the feeling. When Charlotte walked out of the front door and handed Edmond to him, and walked off, well, it kind of freaked him out. Edmond was about 18 months at the time. Noah, being in the mental state he was in slowly started to realized that he was in charge of a small child that was currently dependent on him for everything. This made Noah nervous and to help him deal with his nervousness he began inhaling the smoke of certain medical remedies until the feeling went away. The problem was that while he did this he instinctively held on to Edmond so that the kid would not wander off and get hurt.

About an hour later both he and the kid were in a very relaxed state. As a result of this relaxed state a foul odor began from Edmond’s nether regions began mingling with the incense-like odor already in the house. The odor help Noah realize that a messed had happened and was pretty sure it was either him or the kid. After thoroughly checking himself he proceeded to investigate Edmond’s bottom wrappings. All it took was placing the little one over his knee and pulling back Edmond’s diaper with his index finger to discover an over abundance of the vile smell that had invaded his bonding time with Edmond. Noah knew what he was going to have to do. He was pretty sure he had done it before.

Noah removed Edmond’s dirty nappy and noticed that Edmond had…well…a small…ok to be fair the kid was only a year and a half old, and any kid a year and a half old is going to have a small…well, Noah sort of over looked this fact and made a little remark about it, “Well hey there nimrod, how you doing?” Now it really wasn’t that funny, but in his present state of mind, it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. When Charlotte finally got home, Noah was still laughing and Edmond has still not been changed. Noah retold his self proclaimed comedic genius to his wife to which she called him and idiot and to never call Edmond that again.

Noah refused and from that moment on, Edmond was deemed Nimrod. When Edmond got older he asked Charlotte where his name came from. Being the quick thinker that she was she told him that he had always been such a good boy and always followed the Lords instructions that he didn’t need a large guiding rod to keep him close to the Lord. He only needed a small one or a “nimrod” because he was so righteous. Well the kid bought it and from that time on requested that everyone he met call him Nimrod.

When I got to Babylon I found Noah and we started to catch up. After hearing about all the places I had visited and seen in the past years, he informed me that his boy Nimrod had been placed in charge of the growth of the city and asked me to go check on the boy and if possible to give him some pointers if you could see some areas in the city plan that could use my help. I promised him that I would and the next morning I headed to town to pay the lad a visit. Since Noah had always talked favorable about me Nimrod was more than happy to invite me to stay with him for a while. The second night I was there, Nimrod invited me to tag along to a social gala to honor their wealthy pettiness, meaning the wealthy felt the need to ignore the poor and starving and consume a ridiculous amount of over priced finger foods and alcoholic beverages.

The gala seemed to be celebrating how wonderful all the people were that were at the gala and to discuss the common people and how something needs to be do about them, or to help them. There always seems to be a fine line when that topic comes up. It’s always either, “Can’t we just find a ways to get rid of them?” or “Someone should do something to help them.” But it rarely (I believe the figures on this are 1 in 100,052) includes the wealthy who are saying someone should help them.

So where does the Tower of Babel come in to all of this? Not that my goal is to name names but…I mean in truth, I was only trying to help. I was surrounded around all these snobs down talking their fellow man and ingesting drink after drink, becoming louder and more pompous, which was really starting to annoy the hell out of me. It was clear that the main goal of the evening was to complain about the poor underclass and not discuss any ideas to help them out. If I was going to drink the wine that the poor folk had made for these rich snobs, I figured the least I could do is start some discussions in their favor, so started asking questions. I was winging it, and when I start winging it, let’s just say I don’t always come up with my best plans that way, and this was no different. The thing that kept me going was the thought of Carl, since he wasn’t here yet to steer these people right, I had to do my part help out.

“Nimrod, tell these people about the story about the flood.” was all I said to begin to change the tone of the party. Nimrod’s eyes started to sparkle as all eyes turned to him. He went through the story in slurred detail about the building of the ship and the wrath of God upon the people. Sure it was a bit embellished, but the basic story was there.

After he got done I started the discussion by saying, “Now in my experience in dealing with the great and mighty one I’ve noticed that His actions are not always based on rational thought. Sometimes He’s just being reactionary.”

This seemed to confuse a number of people at the party so I attempted to clarify myself, “Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom, and half way to the facilities you stub your toe on a rock, or chair, or step in a pile of donkey … you get my point, and you get very angry because of it.”

Everyone seemed to be nodding in agreement. “And then the next person you see gets the brunt of your anger simply because you’re mad for something you had no control over and something they had nothing to do with.”

“But how does that relate to God or the flood?”

“If you are made in His image and you experience this mishaps, which is purely random, wouldn’t it make sense that God could experience.”

This got a few more heads to begin nodding in agreement. “Everything is going fine and boom He stubs His toe, or has a bad hair day, or something random and unexpected that can alter His mood and boom you’re hit with a plague, or flood. Something happens to you because He’s mad and you are the first person He sees.”

A unified “Ohhh!” filled the room, “Don’t you think preparation for something like this might be a wise choice? Perhaps a place or building that will keep you all safe in a time of flooding. I mean it worked so well last time, why wouldn’t He try it again?”

That seemed to do the trick, the smugness had been wiped from everyone’s face and replaced with the “How can we make me safe.” look of concern. An active discussion started and the sole topic was keeping all of them safe from deity induced doom.

The problem with the wealthy is not a matter of group longevity, but with singular longevity and when surrounded by the rich and powerful that have been drinking too much, you hear a lot of babblings that include me, me, me, me, me. So I offered this solution, “What if you were to build a tower, a huge stone tower that will be on a hill and that can be filled with food and rooms to live in. It could be climbed incase a flood comes again, and will made so it is unable to be burned, and can withstand the elements. A place you can all help pay to build and all of you can be saved.”

It was quiet now with all eyes staring at me. I was close, I just need one last thing to pull them all in, “And this way we could hire all those commoners who need work and money. They can afford to buy more food from you, and rent places to live. You can help them and they in turn will be building you a save place. If they have money for food they will stop bothering you and at night the streets will be clear because they will have a place to sleep. And on top of it all you will be smiled on and admired even more than you are now for saving them from their poverty.”

I hadn’t fed that much crap to a crowded room of people in a long time, and all I can say is god bless the alcohol because they actually bought it. There was smiling and laughter and more drinking, and applauds to me. They started talking about hiring contractors to find the perfect location to build, the stone needed to build it, and the floor plan. The rich were of one unified goal, to protect them and their stuff. The Tower of Babel was now an idea and its construction was going to be a reality very soon.

I might have gotten a bit carried away, but I was trying to figure out a way to get these wealthy people to give some of their money to those that really needed it. I figured the best way to do it was to make them think it was in their best interested with something to show for it at the end. In my experience if the rich think they are doing something for themselves then they are much more apt to send some money.

During the following month contractors were hired and plans were drawn up and finally a location was selected. It was on top of the tallest hill that was closet to the city. That way there was less traveling required incase of a sudden disaster. People started working and Babylon really started to flourish. Because of the size of the job a number of outside contractors were brought in, they were what you would call cheap bastards, they brought along their own work force, all of which happened to be slaves. The purpose for this was to get more money in the personal pocket of these contractors. Because of this their costs were lower and happened to get more and more work as the building of the tower went on.

It was well into the third year of constant construction and the tower was coming along nicely. Babylon was a melting pot of different cultures and beliefs, due mainly to all the outside help coming in to help. Then in about mid April the unthinkable… ok so it was thinkable just unexpected and on a grandiose scale. I’m not saying the contractors should have known better, in that day and age there was really no way of testing for this type of thing. I guess if they really wanted too they could have gotten a fortune teller to give them a little additional insight, but I really don’t think anyone was to blame. The point being that on April 17th around 2:29 p.m. the hill that was the foundation for Babylon’s tower of safety experienced an abrasion of the earth’s plates and three years of construction turned in into a hill covered in dead builders, contractors, and a variety of different sized rubble.

This level of mayhem offered a number of events to happen. First was the mass exodus from the area by all the slaves that were working for the contractors that were now embedded at the bottom of the rubble. This is the reason there is reference to this type of story throughout the Middle East region, as the slaves where returning to their homeland, they would tell everyone they came into contact with about the tower and it’s destruction, which was responsible for their freedom. For some reason this story was always laced with a great deal of deity connotation to it. People thought God was responsible for the destruction so that the people could be freed. Sure you can agree and say that God saw an injustice and wanted to free these people, but then you have to give the “all-powerful” credit to the god of the people that were freed and not the God that is talked about in the Bible. This concept is usually a difficult matter to get people to comprehend. I will say that in 99.99 to 100% of the time these types of stories have nothing to the “gods will” but more to do with “that’s just the way it happened”. Think what you will, but the fact remains that humans give their deity credit for things that their deity probably can’t even spell, let alone single out one individual to play miracle favorites on.

After the tower fell there were a few of the original architects still alive, mainly Jaffy. He was the key individual that recommended the location and was head over the entire project. All the wealth mongers were more than a little pissed that all the money they poured into this project only had I hill covered in debris to show for it. They wanted some retribution so a big meeting was called to publicly blame someone, and Jaffy’s head was the first on the chopping block. I was sitting in the back of the room as things started getting underway, and let me just say it was an amazing thing to watch.

This mass of people were yelling and pointing fingers and calling out for punishments most of which would result in death as some point. Jaffy just stood in the front of the room with a number of guards around him, to either keep him safe or keep him from escaping, I wasn’t sure which. As Nimrod attempted to get people to calm down, Jaffy pulled a brilliant maneuver in the art or working a crowd. He dropped to the floor almost like he passed out. This caught everyone off guard, and even got a few gasps of surprise from the mob. The room soon became silent.

Jaffy then began to shake a little, and in a sudden jerk, hopped up to his knees with his eyes wide open, and began speaking. “My friends, death and destruction have fallen on us today and the spirits have just told me the reason why.”

The entire room stared at Jaffy breathless. Finally Nimrod asked, “Why Jaffy?”

“Why did we start building this tower in the first place?” No one replied.

Jaffy went on, “To keep us safe from God’s wrath. We were building a structure to withstand His anger and ability to harm us, but all this did was anger Him. We thought we were as great as Him, or greater, greater to the point that we could make something that would protect us from His anger. Today He showed us that He is greater than we are and that no matter what we attempt to create for ourselves He can take it away if we don’t remember Him and give Him the reverence He deserves. Instead of trying to show Him we were better than Him, we should have dedicated the tower to Him, as a place to worship Him and give thanks. We have angered God and He has shown us that He is more powerful and we are.”

As Jaffy was saying all of this a few heads started nodding in agreement, followed by more and more. By the end of his little speech he had everyone agreeing with him. The first thing brought up at that point was that we needed to construct a building to dedicate to the Lord and they wanted Jaffy to get started on it right away. The people needed to make peace with the Lord.

My god that man was brilliant! Not only did he get out of being tortured and eventually killed, but he turned the entire congregation into thinking that God was punishing them for their pride and he was now being rushed out of the room with a new job that was going to keep him employed for another few years.

It all sounded correct and made sense to the common man, the only problem is that everything he said was a big lie, made up on the spot to save his own ass. Jaffy knew that the earthquake had nothing to do with God. And for the record earthquakes have never at anything to do with any god…ever. They are one of the experiences you get due to living on a faulty built planet. Built by a bunch of kids pretending they knew what they were doing. I will say this though Jaffy was the first silver tongued devil I’d ever seen in action, and to this day I admire him for his skill and impeccable showmanship.

It was because of Jaffy’s successful attempt to save his own skin that the story of the Tower of Babel was written down and canonized as holy writ, and how the crumbling of a pretty massive tower became an example of God teaching His followers about humility and about Gods greatness and power. When I stop and think about it, it still makes me smile to know that this great religious story actually had nothing to do with Pops or any poignant lessons. And yet, the old man still gets full credit for it. Pop’s I tip my hat to you, that is some good work, even if you had nothing to do with it.

The concept of the Tower of Babel still makes no sense to me to this day. The story is very clear and easy to understand, but the actual concept is something that I still struggle with. To recap the story in about three sentences:

The people of Babylon built the tower so they could get to heaven.

During this time everyone on earth spoke the same language.

God destroyed the tower due to the peoples pride and caused all the people to speak different languages, thus explaining where all the languages of the world came from.

Yep, three sentences. Very simple, direct, and to the point story, don’t you think?

The problem with the Tower of Babel is that it’s all rubbish. I will state for the record that yes, there was a Tower of Babel. But the biblical rendition of this tower and the events surrounding it, including the explanation of where all the languages came from, began back in the early 10th century by a monk named of Rex.

As Rex was scribing the book of Geneses he came across a few short verses about the Tower of Babel and how it was the pride of the people that lead to their destruction. This was one concept that Rex had scribed many times before and was very use too. Hell, anyone that has ever read the holy bible knows that the second a group of earthlings begin getting as proud as my old man He wipes them out faster than a lion could eat a goldfish. In my personal opinion, I think God hates the idea of people thinking they are as important as He thinks He is.

The existing bible story of the Tower of Babel started with Rex’s new neighbors. Like any good Christian at the time, he went over to give his new neighbors a loaf of bread. The main reason this was the Christian thing to do was it gave Christians the opportunity to make sure their neighbors were Christian. See if you were a professed Christian is was a simple life at that point where you lived in fear and spied on everyone waiting for the opportunity to witness an evil doing so you could sentence your neighbor to death by reporting to the church what you saw, and thus getting blessed in the process. And if it was discovered that you weren’t a Christian, then you had the fortunate pleasure of agreeing to become a Christian or accidentally getting murdered by “natural causes” in the near future.

In speaking with the new neighbors, Rex became a little curious and afraid as to why he couldn’t understand anything they were saying. He did note that they smiled a lot and appreciated the bread, but after he left the flat, Rex followed his first impulse and visited the head monk Sigmund requesting that he to perform an exorcizism on these new neighbors or give Rex the “Kill the new people to protect the Christians” ok. Sigmund explained that they were new converts from some southern desert land and were there on an exchange program to learn “Gods chosen language” so they could return to their home land to teach and convert their fellow countrymen. It was from this little sit down with Sigmund that Rex learned the world was full of people speaking different languages.

With this new information about the world, Rex wanted to know why, if God was the creator of all things, why there where so many different languages? Well, naturally the simplest explanation to these types of questions is that it’s a result of the people of the earth sinning. But what sin was responsible for such a worldwide flux in language? That’s right the tower of Babel.

Rex came to the conclusion that in order for a building of such magnitude to be built, outside contractors would need to be brought in to help complete the project. The key problem with contractors in those days is that they were strong supporters of slave labor. No literally, they invested in slaves to do the work. So with this mass collection of different people, building this tower set up the perfect situation where all these different languages could be created in one destructive afternoon, and that’s the angle Rex went with.

The following Thursday around 1:15 p.m., Rex added a few tangents of explanation where, during the building of the Tower of Babel, the Lord appeared, made everyone speak different languages, and during this process, destroyed the Tower and killed all the contractors. This way the newly freed slaves still had the weekend to get home and teach everyone of their racial nationality the new language that God had taught them during in the split second it took to destroy the tower. Thus the mixing of the tongues was designed to keep the earthlings humble and keep them from creating a worldwide support group where everyone could communicate freely and as a result become so proud that God would have to kill them again.

Through multiple editing processes, Rex ended with what is now the story of the Tower of Babel, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I was in Babel at the time the tower was being constructed and I can tell you exactly what happened, and no the tower was not my idea, well not entirely. Ok here’s what happened.

One thing that I found interesting was the end reaction of those who survived. Pops wanted reverence, respect, fear and total control over the people He created. He figured that killing almost all of His followers, well, most of the half-ass followers anyway, would reignite these traits back into His people and they would again pay homage and worship Him the way He felt they should worship Him, which was all the time. The problem was that during the first few millennia of having his followers on earth Pops has this character flaw that if someone was doing something He didn’t like He’d just kill them. It kind of takes away from the original plan of letting you learn for yourselves. And instead of scaring people into believing in Him and obeying His commandments, He’d end up killing them all, which resulted in having to start all over again. I mean think about it, Noah was on the boat and really couldn’t do any preaching about following the Lord. He really didn’t have time to preach beforehand because of the intense schedule my old man had put on him to get the boat made. I guess to break it down to its simplest form you really won’t have to many followers if you keep killing them all when they stop thinking about you all the time. That’s just piss poor management in my opinion.

Which brings me to the reaction of those that survived Pop’s little flood, which befuddled the old man more than anything up to that point in the earths history. As I had said, Pops thought that with the mass murder of His followers that those who survived it would be filled with the fear of god and faithfully worship Him the rest of their lives. But with this great destructive flood, the people saw a different power responsible for this slaughter. I give you Drippy the rain god. Yeah, well, back in those days there was not a lot of creativeness involved in naming gods. They originally named the old man Gus, but He made them legally change His name.

The point is that they made up a non-existing god and gave credit to it for this great power and “evil cleansing” that took place. You know, I’ve never understood that whole “evil cleansing” notion, but never in the existence of wrathful genocide has the outcome equated to all the “evil” people being killed and all the “good” people being saved. I guess if you do survive something like that then you might think or yourself as saved, but this is not in the righteous sense, more of the literal sense. I can see how a misconstrued notion of goodness comes from surviving something like a great flood, but the fact of the matter is that Pops received no credit for his little flood other than Noah and his family.

The Drippy movement actually lasted about 20 years after the flood, but never really caught on anywhere. Most of the hard core followers lost their lives in a trial of faith. I guess I can’t really blame them. I mean you survive a big ass storm that shows up during the driest summer in years and wipes out over nine tenths of your population, it might go to your head, and it did, mostly to the people who believed they were saved for some special reason and couldn’t really figure out why. In an attempt to witness to others of the power of their new god, which they believed brought the great flood and saved them, they headed to the deep desert to be saved by Drippy and to be renewed in Drippy’s power to sprinkle. Yeah, most of them died of thirst before they even tried thinking that perhaps it challenging the existence on their god might not be the best way to get saved. It was the five minutes before Drippy’s last follower passed when the epiphany struck them that maybe they got the wrong god. Sometimes you live and learn, and once in a great while you learn while dying. The church of Drippy ended almost as fast as it began.

This does however impose a rather interesting problem. What happens to those who die worshiping a man made god? I guess limbo is a pretty good facsimile of what happens. These people exist in the afterlife waiting for their god to show up. I mean they seem to be ok, friends are there, or at least fellow worshipers, and some really nice potlucks take place, but overall they are left waiting, forever. There is the occasional escape. This happens when a follower in the afterlife ventures out with the idea that maybe they were never was their god and they stop believing. Thus the atheist freedom comes and they are free to make the universe as their own.

This never happens in actual deity circles because there is actual proof of their god’s existence once they die, meaning, then actually get to meet their god. This is a continual solidification that they were correct in their beliefs and thus the option to disbelieve will never surface. Sure there is recollection that there were some people that did not agree with you about your god while you were alive, but they are not there and are, according to your religious interpretation, in hell. Because they are in hell there is no need to worry about them, so no one ever does. It’s kind of a universal among all the gods. The irony is that there is no hell, Pops follows think that all of Zeus’s followers are in hell, but in truth they are in their heaven with their god Zeus, and vise versa.

So you may be wondering, “How did Pops dealt with His flood experience with all His god buddies?” Once the flood finally got underway, there did seem to be some interest from the other gods of how things were going. Pops knew that He would need to get the paper work done so it could be reviewed by the others, but He was able to put everyone on hold while He was waiting for the flood to finish up and for Noah and the family to arrive back on land. In talking to Holy about the whole ordeal, Pops kept the rain falling two weeks longer than He was suppose to, just so He had more time to get the paper work started. That is one thing I always liked about talking to Holy Ghost, the bloke could not lie even if his life depended on it.

Pops did ask Carl to take a few notes about the flood, hopping it could be used for His report, but…after seeing Carl’s meticulousness to the events and outcome He knew He would be stuck doing the paper work for this one all by Himself. Deity competition always motivates the gods to do what is necessary to look good in the eyes of all the other gods, even if that means reinventing written records to make yourself look good. Pop’s release of His flood report had almost all of the numbers fudged in some way or another. On paper it looked like a grand success. The report actually said His approval rating went up 99%, granted it main reason was because He murdered all those that didn’t believe/approve of Him, and it didn’t include all of the Drippy followers because they believed in a new god altogether. The numbers only accounted for those who survived, who believed in Him. The fact is that His approval rating dropped by 30 points, but apparently there are some things that are better kept from the gods.

The surprising thing is how many of the other gods took Pops report as legit and actually tried a flood of their own. You need proof, look at all the other civilizations that claim to have a flood story in their history. There are quite a few. All of these are a direct result of the old mans flood report. And in almost every case approval ratings dropped. The only one that really came out on top was Poseidon. Wiping out Atlantis made his conversion rate triple over night.

After the rain had finally stopped and the ark had nestled on dry land again, I was able to catch up with Noah and check how life on the boat treated him. Turns out that it helped him appreciate my old man a lot more. Apparently any god who was good enough to offer him and his family a few month fishing trip free of cost while getting him out of debt by destroying all of the banks, well then that god did deserve a little gratitude and reverence, even if He had killed a couple of forests in the process.

It also just so happened that as a result of spending a few months on a boat, Charlotte and all of Noah’s son’s wives were expecting. It appeared that Pops had actually, sort of gotten one convert from the whole fiasco and there were offspring on the way that would be learning about Him and His laws for following Him.

The flood did set Him back a bit and it took a few millennia to finally catch up with the Egyptians again. It probably would have taken less time but then again, Pops was kind of a slow learner. As a result of the flood, Pops held strong to the mindset that killing your people who don’t believe in you is the best way to get people to believe in you, and sadly that mindset stayed as a theme of His for quite a while.

After Noah had returned to dry land and started setting up a new city for his people, I decided to take my leave of Noah. He had plenty to do and I knew that if I hung around and tried to help, that inevitably Pops would show up when things went wrong and once again it would all be my fault. I was going to do my best to avoid becoming Pops scapegoat again. Noah knew me as Roy, a friend, and not the devil, and I was going to keep it that way. I wished them all the best, gave Noah a hug, and went on my way, not sure if I’d see any of them again. I did end up visiting a few years later, but… well, you’ll see what happened.