Chapter 5.7: Noah and the Ark – The Storm Begins

Noah headed to the fishing surplus store and bought the place out. He bought a pole for each day it was suppose to rain. He sent two of his boys to go shopping for food and then sent Charlotte as well. This way the boys would get the good snack food that would only last about 4 days and Charlotte would get food that would actually last them the duration of the storm. Noah had never worked and prepared with such vigor in his entire life. He was a man with a mission, and the sooner they were packed and ready to go, the sooner his fishing trip would start.

It was about 6:30 that evening and Charlotte was preparing their final dinner in their over extensively mortgaged home when Noah realized one very important thing. He was fine when it came to wine, 87 kegs of wine seemed enough for the trip, but what he had overlooked was the green leaf elixir that was the best topping on any meal, or any occasion for that matter.

He had a little personal patch he had been growing about 3 miles away from the house and he’d be damned if he was going to leave all that behind to be droned out. So he told the family to eat slowly and he’d be back in a few hours. He then instructed them that once they got done eating they had better get on the boat just in case, and off he went. He hopped on the lama and headed out of town. As he turned up a trail about a mile out of town, he noticed that the storm clouds were beginning to form. Once he got to his crop, he carefully removed and potted 2 plants and then harvested the rest. To this day Noah is still unsure how much he had with him, but it was well over 50 kilograms, plus the 2 live plants. As he placed the last roped bushel on the lama and gave his empty crop field a final going over he felt the first drop of rain on his head.

Noah began his trek back home with a plan under each arm and a rope attached to the lama’s harness in his mouth, clinched with his teeth. He tried running once, but the plants were taking too much of a beating and his jaw started hurting too much. So at a walking pace just short of a medium jog he made the best time he could.

By the time he got back to the boat the drops had turned to a persistent drizzle. He avoided the house and went straight to the boat. He led the lama onto the ship and told the kids to unpack his greens and to keep them as far away from that “…damned animal…” as possible. It had managed to eat about half a plan on the way back. He ran back to the house, grabbed his pipe collection and threw them into a satchel and headed to the ark. This is how the pregnant rat got on the boat. It had slipped into the satchel looking for something to eat and managed into ingest a few leafs of Noah favorite seasoning. The rat had been passed out for the past nine hours (and would remain so for another five). Once it was finally discovered no one had the heart to kill an expecting mother, even if she was a rat. Instead they placed her in a little box so she and the babies would not get stepped on or separated in the event that a big wave or two tossed the ship around a bit.

It was about 11:37 pm when Noah sat down for supper. The ship was closed up tight and everything was loaded. Noah had taken 3 bites of his hummus salad when the light drizzle outside turned into a pissed off down pour. Pops had been waiting all night for Noah to get on the ark so he could start the flood. He thought things were going fine until that little last minute crop harvest. Pops had a poker game that night and liked to be early because he could call dibs on the comfy chair. But Noah’s little harvesting made it so he would be roughly seven minutes early and that meant that at least three gods were already there.

A little know fact about deities in general, most are always on time, and of them most try to get there early. I originally thought it had to do with impatience. Gods hate to wait, which is silly to me because if they hate to wait why do they try to get there early and end up waiting for people to be on time. But later on I learned that the main reason they are early is because the first one there gets the best seat, which is always in the middle, thus being surrounded by all the other gods. Vanity at its finest.

Because of the delay, the family had already finished their meal and had moved Noah’s supper into the boat. Everyone was in the boat once Noah got on board, so as Noah sat down to eat, the old man cut the storm loose and headed to the game as fast as He could. At the first lightning crackle Noah looked up and in between bites of his supper let out a sigh of satisfaction. He knew the Lord had started early, but he figured it was because he had delayed his own supper. On the up side, the rain had started while he was eating, meaning it would at least be a little closer to fishing time by the time he finished.

Since I did not go with Noah on the fishing trip I’m honestly not that filled with personal observation towards the actual events in the boat, but I can tell you how the flood went from an outside of the boat perspective. At first, the rain was warmly welcomed. It had been a warmer than average summer and the fire danger alert was set to “very high”. The farmers in the higher elevation were very pleased as well, and a whole slue of praise and thanks were directed to a number of Idols as a result.

Isn’t it odd that when someone prays for rain and it actually happens to do so, then, regardless of which god you believe in, you have divine proof that your god did, in fact, listen to your prayer and followed up by agreeing with your request. Honestly, every time it rains millions of people take that as proof that god listens to them and answers prayers. Nature be damned, rain has always been interpreted by humans as divine proof, well as long as there is a need for it. Works the opposite way as well though, if too much rain is falling, and if finally stops or the storm finally passes by, the gods are praised and it is only because the prayers of the faithful were answered. It was that way in the olden days, and it really has not changed much from then to now.

Pops flood plan did work, well, sort of. He accomplished his goal of killing a lot of people that no longer believed in him. But did He destroy all wickedness or all the his people that had stopped following Him? No, not really. Truth be told, it actually started a number of religions that completely disbanded peoples belief in the old man. The farmers in the highlands, after having watched and lived with their livestock for centuries (in the family for centuries I mean) had learned to pay attention to the way the livestock behaved to the weather. When the storm started, the sheep instinctually knew that the higher they got the safer they would be. And the farmers knew that if they followed the sheep, the safer they would be.

As the rain kept falling, the general feeling was one from sincere gratitude for the rain, to “Yeah, yeah it’s still raining, thank you gods.” to “For the love of all that is holy, stop praying for rain people!” to “What the hell is God’s problem, we don’t need any more rain.” to “Hey Almighty, you suck! Bugger off!” to the moment when the damn finally broke and water rushed towards the valley cities and all that was said was “Ah shit…umm…I beli…glub, glub…(and silence).” And that was pretty much the process and mindset of the masses that Pop’s drowned.

Chapter 5.6: Noah and the Ark – The Wind Before the Storm

The next morning Noah slept in, and deservedly so, but it was cut short due to another cameo appearance by the my old man who was intent to see how his little animal pep talk turned out and how well Noah did in the collection of animals. It was the trumpeted crescendo of Pops dissension to Noah’s front door that got Noah’s eyes to open. God noticed that there was an overwhelming lack of grazing critters around the house and know very well by the fresh wood smell of the boat that there were no animals aboard.

It was on the second barrage of ill-tempered door knocks that a very relaxed and perma-grinned Noah opened the front door. The big guy was taken back by this, because when the Lord Almighty beats on your door, twice, you better have the fear of his wrath in your eyes. Having Noah answer the door at his own leisure with a small grin on his face, and with eyes filled with utter satisfaction was a whole new experience.

“Hey God, beautiful morning don’t you think.”

“Noah, where are the animals?”

“You want some coffee? I had a bit of a late night and I’m sorry but your glory really isn’t doing it for me this morning, I’m going to go put a pot on.”

I can honestly say that in all of my years on this planet, I have never heard a line so brilliant that it left the great one completely speechless, “…and I’m sorry but your glory really isn’t doing it for me this morning…” I laughed till I cried. Pop’s just stood in the doorway as Noah walked back into the house to make some coffee.

Once the initial shock wore off and dad had decided he should probably get mad about the whole “glory” incident, Noah came out of the house with two cups of coffee and handed one to the Lord. He sat down in a chair on the front porch and invited the great one to sit in the vacant chair next to him.

It has been said that the old man won’t let anything tough his ass but silk or gold but I’ll be damned if he didn’t look down at Noah sitting in an old dirty, sand-worn wooden chair, with his feet up, smiling while sipping his coffee and plop right down next to him. There’s something very relaxing about watching a relaxed earthlings. Pops got caught up in the moment and actually sat quietly for a few minutes sipping coffee and taking deep breaths of mid morning air.

It was only when Noah pointed at a goat in the tied next to the house and asked if the Lord wanted any cream in his coffee that this moment of bliss came to a thundering halt. Quite literally I mean, the storm clouds were forming as Pops began to fume. Then began the animal discussion.

“Where are the animals Noah?”

“Well I have a lama right over there.”

“Where are ALL the animals NOAH?”

“Out there, enjoying life and freedom.”

“Did I send you to get 2 of every animal?”

“Well yeah, but…”

“Where are they?”

“The thing is Lord, that I tied, and no offense but animals deserve to be free, not locked in a cage or stuck on a boat. They are apart of nature and belong there.”

“But I COMMANDED you to…”

“Yeah I was thinking about that too and well…”

“YOU WILL NOT INTERRUPT THE LORD AGAIN!”

“How come a majority of everything you say begins with you will not?”

“YOU WILL NOT TELL ME WHAT I SAY! I’m the god here! You do what I say! YOU will NOT argue with me!”

“You know you really need to get over your little deity ego thing and calm down.”

“DEITY EGO?”

Pops was so pissed that he threw his cup of coffee at the ground. As the mug shattered Charlotte rounded the corner with her arms filled with groceries. Noah had actually been polite enough to use one of their best dishes for God’s coffee and seeing it be purposefully destroyed before her very eyes set her off.

This was actually a blessing in disguise because had my old man and Noah kept up their conversation at its present pace there was a very good chance that someone was going to get killed in the next three sentences, and since the old man is immortal I’ll give you three guesses who the dead one was going to be.

“Alright Mister, just what the HELL do you think you are DOING?”

Both God and Noah looked toward Charlotte a little startled. Pop’s was startled because he was caught being very un-god-like. Noah was surprised because it looked like she might actually be taking his side on something.

“I…err…well…”

“Do you treat your own home this way?”

“Umm…well no.”

“So because you are the LORD ALMIGHTY you think its ok to treat others home like this?”

“I didn’t mean…it’s not that…no Ma’am I don’t.”

“You’re damn right you don’t, not you calm down right now or I think the conversation you are having with my husband is over, do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“And you ARE playing for that cup.”

“Oh! Of…of course! I’ll get you a whole new set. I’m really very sorry. Really! I’ll behave ma’am I promise.”

Charlotte then walked into the house, stopped, turned around and said to Noah, “And you, wipe that damn smirk off your face.” She then turned around and walked into the house and out of site.
A much more cautious and polite God began the conversation with Noah again.

“Would you please tell me what happened to the animal collecting?”

“Sure.”

Noah was still smirking.

“I was doing quite well the first four days, but then something occurred to me, animals eat and shit a lot.” Noah did feel it was best to dismiss the fact that he was a touch inebriated when he came up with this.

“And to be honest, we did not plan for animal food or waste storage.”

Dad was quiet for a little while. He was hoping that Noah would take it as a sign to keep talking instead of a contemplative moment of, “Oops, someone screwed up.” So Noah kept going.

“Then it came to me that animals are instinctual and will naturally get to higher ground, and even if they didn’t you could always make new ones, since it only took you a day or two to make them in the first place. And to be quite honest, even though I’m a vegetarian, my wife and kids love meat. And even though we would have provisions for the flood, if they had some live animals near by I can promise a majority of the pairs I took on the boat would leave the ship as singles.”

Pops was actual actually impressed because Noah did have some very good points.

Noah went on, “I mean the creating thing might have a few problems with it since I remember something in Adam’s journal about your day being equal to around 1000 of our days, or was it years? Anyway, I figured that it took that long to create all of the animals, but remaking the few of them that did not survive the flood, well that would only take a few days.

“I see your point Noah. You better get your family to start moving your goods to the boat, you only have a few more days before its going to start raining.”

Noah was a little dumbfounded, he could not believe that God actually bought all that rubbish, but he sure wasn’t going to argue. When Noah told me about it I was a little surprised myself at the ease of Pops acceptance to Noah’s rational for not doing what was asked of him. I later discovered the true reason Pops gave in so easily.

Sven, one of the fallen masses who came with me to this planet, had been spending a lot of time with Aphrodite and her followers. This was mainly for aesthetic reasons, but they were a loving group and very accepting of others, and Sven enjoyed the company. Anyway, it was two days after the flood actually started that Sven met up with me and told me what Aphrodite had said about the old man at one of her naked and drunken afternoon gatherings. Apparently the old mans flood plan was running way behind schedule and all of the other gods were starting to give him a lot of guff about it.

The one reoccurring chink in the great ones armor is the fact that He is incorrigibly vain. Having others question or poke fun at His mistakes is something He does not handle very well. It seems that the week before, Pops told His drinking buddies Zeus, Ra, and Dharma that, “…Thursday next week is it. The flood is coming whether that damn hippy is ready or not.”

Another part of the problem was that Pops made the mistake of having Noah attempt prophesizing, which wasn’t really prophesizing as more just telling the truth. People kept asking Noah why he was building a big boat in the middle of the desert. Noah had decided that the best thing to do was to just tell the truth. He figured that if God caught wind that he was lying about the purpose of the boat and the existence of God then boat or not, God would become bothered enough by it that He would be looking for a new person to drive the boat because Noah would be a pile of smoldering ash. This resulted in a huge surge of deity directed ridicule form the very people Pops created. This only confirmed to the old man that He was right and that killing everyone and starting over was the correct decision.

Pops did know that He couldn’t start over completely, all the other gods would be too far ahead of Him as far as their evolution and technology. So if He wiped out everyone one but a few families that could start reproducing then the flood would be enough of a reminder to keep the parents faithful and they would make sure their off spring would be faithful. To him it seemed like a good plan. Yes, this does mean that there was more than just Noah’s family that survived the flood. The story of Noah just happened to be the one that was written down first and had dibs when it came to making it into the bible.

Finally, Pops has this planner and scheduler personality trait about Him and get incredibly anal about it. It annoys Him when someone’s personal schedule gets in the way or is in competition with His schedule. You would think that He would have taken a cue from the other gods at this point and stopped scheduling things, but He didn’t. And because His earthlings were building and collecting on their own time and not His time, He was a continually growing more and more impatient. You would thing that if 1000 of our years equaled 1 of Gods years then He would be incredibly patient, but He’s not. Just between you and me though, I think it’s because Pops has a really short attention span and if things don’t get done right away He looses interest. So because He was already running behind schedule and because He knew Noah had gotten some the night before and it had been almost 500 earth years since He had gotten any, well, by god, it was time to kill some people and make things wet.

I swear, my dad is such a drama queen, but… well, yeah that pretty much sums it up. So all those things included, this is why He so readily agreed with Noah and his reasoning for not collecting the animals. That and He didn’t want Charlotte to come back outside and yell at Him again.
Pops told Noah he better get the boat loaded because it was going to start raining that afternoon and wasn’t going to stop until He wanted it too.

“Um… don’t you think you better have a set amount of time? I mean I only collected enough food for everyone to survive for about 37 days, and we will need to eat after the flood too.”

“Fine! Go to the store and get some more food for at least another 30 days and I’ll start the storm after you have supper. Oh, and make sure you packed your fishing supplies.”

This was the only time Noah actually smiled of his own free accord since this whole flooding event was placed on his shoulders. He had never put together that the upcoming flood and his big ass boat equated to a minimum 2-month fishing trip. It suddenly appeared to Noah that he was getting one of the greatest rewards for going through this “boat from hell” project from God. Noah just sat there looking up at his creator with the most sincere smile Pops had ever received or would ever receive from Noah again. Then in a genuine and appreciative tone Noah said, “Thank you Lord, I will.”

Noah got up, shook Dad’s hand and walked into the house to get packed. He had a fishing trip to get ready for. Pops took this as His time to leave. He was tired and just wanted the “damn flood” (as He began to call it and still refers to it to this day) to be over and done with. Even as He was heading back home and He heard Noah say, “Kids get packed, we’re going on a fishing trip…” He chose to ignore it. It was going to start raining tonight, and that was all that really mattered. The trumpets played in muted crescendo as the Pops headed up into the heavens. He wasn’t going to say anything, but had a bugger of a headache and wanted a little time to lie down before He got the storm underway.

Chapter 5.5: Noah and the Ark – How Noah Collected the Animals

As promised Charlotte had all the contractors at the boat at 7 a.m. the next morning and working non-stop. With her new “God inspired” fervor the ark started coming along quite nicely. In fact Charlotte took over the entire overseeing of the construction of the ark, and because of this Noah was given the assignment of collecting animals. Noah really didn’t consider this too much of a task though, the way he thought of it, it was a four week camping trip away from the wife, his “good” children, and most of all the old man. It also gave him some time to reflect on all the dead trees and the coming of the end of the world, as he knew it.

So around 8:30 then morning after Charlotte took over the progression of the ark Noah loaded up the lama, which he bought from the zoo, and set off to collect animals. Interestingly enough, it turns out that 45% of Noah’s animal collecting gear included jugs of spirit tempered grape juice, which he had placed at the bottom of every bag. The general belief and expectation was that Noah was going out to collect animals, but the truth was that Noah was meeting me up in the woods where he and I could have a month long farewell to say goodbye to and mourn the awaiting extinction of all he loved and held dear. Sure it might have been my suggestion, but I had been a friend of Noah’s for years, he might have put on a good show to everyone, but he was angry and hurting and he deserved to have some time to say goodbye to the land he loved.

A month in the woods gives a man a lot of time to think, even a drunken man, and Noah had a lot to think about. I mostly listened to his rants, but when someone has a good point about something, I try to be supportive. There were times that we even attempted to fulfill some of his tasks of collecting animals, but even the best intentions after a few jugs of wine things proved to be a little more problematic than expected. Bunnies were the first and, sadly, only creature we attempted to catch. Noah had the ingenious idea that if he placed a few carrots in the middle of a rope trap that when the bunnies came to eat he could pull on the rope and capture the varmint. This might have worked, but by the time a rabbits showed up Noah had eaten most of the carrots and was passed out next to his trap.

Pops was still gloating at the fine job He had done with handling the Charlotte situation and was overly pleased by her determination to make Him happy.  He was so pleased that He decided to reward Himself with a little trip with just Him and the misses. With Charlotte in charge Pops knew everything would be just fine. By the time He and Mom got home three earth weeks had gone by, and with only one week to go, he figured it would be a good time to see how everything was wrapping up. Pops stopped by to talk to Charlotte and was pleased to see that the ark was almost done. He then learned that Noah had not returned yet and with the flood only a short time away she suggested to Pops that is might be a good idea for Him to go check on her husband.

I had headed back to town to restock some of our depleted wine supply when Dad got to the camp. The only animal anywhere near the place was Noah’s lama, whom after consuming Noah’s special mixture of oats and wine, was in a very stationary position and would not be moving anytime soon. During one of our many intoxicated discussions Noah became motivated to construct a barely functioning hammock, “In the shade!” he exclaimed, which I thought was brilliant thinking. And it was in that barely functioning hammock that Pops found a completely non-functional Noah.

Pops annoyance was advanced enough that He skipped over the whole clearing of the throat to get someone’s attention and went straight to the yelling part. And when a god yells, it is a force that can shake a universe, but Noah didn’t even budge. The man was out and no amount of godly yelling was going to help. So Pops did something that was rather unexpected, instead of waiting around to scream at a hung over Noah, He decided to offer a little help and direct the animals of the land to go to Noah and wait for the time of the storm when they would be placed on a God’s special safety boat. The animals agreed and with that Pops felt that things were back on track and left, taking pleasure in the fact the flood would be happening soon. He could start over and make things better, more like He wanted them to be instead of how they had become.

As sweet of a gesture as this was it was a little too late. In Noah’s passes of consciousness he would wake up and see all these animals that he was suppose to catch and place in cages, but being hung over and still quite soused, he was suspicious of this and would scare them away, thinking that they were after this wine. After driving away the animals, Noah was a little tired and went back to sleep. The animals once again gathered around Noah, waiting to be taken to the boat, like God said, but once I got back to the camp with more wine, I reacted in much the same way Noah did. Granted, I didn’t help that I had been drinking on my way back to the camp. Still, seeing all those animals huddled around Noah did freak me out a bit. It looked like a much of Hawaiians gathered around a pig that had been marinating in wine and herbs for four days and was now about to come out of the pit. It was unsettling and from that I had a surge to try to protect Noah from all those blood thirsty varmints. I think it was me screaming, running up and kicking an innocent squirrel away from Noah’s feet the motivated the entire camp to clear out in seconds. The scream of the squirrel is what made Noah wake up in a frightened motion that shot him out of the hammock and onto the ground, resulting in him starting to cry. The end was coming, and this depressed him. Seeing him get depressed made me want to see him happy, so I encouraged him to drink more, which resulted in him shooing all of the animals. He kept away telling them to be free and to head to higher ground, because the end was near. And this pretty much sums up the last week of Noah’s animal collecting. He took an extra three days of sleeping and drinking water to get rid of his hangover and travel back home and face a finished boat and a soon to be very upset wife. It was in his new found soberness, in conjunction with his very slow walking that he came up with a plan, a plan that just might keep him from getting the physically harmed and quite possibly a fooling around time with the misses…he just had to make sure he worded it right.

Charlotte was inside the ark putting up some last minute finishing touches when Noah arrived home. This played to Noah’s advantage and allowed him to take a shower and brush his teeth to help alleviate any suspicion that his month, while in the wilderness, had spend a majority of its time consuming liquid spirits. After getting cleaned up, Noah did get some flowers and then set foot into the boat with the goal to convince Charlotte that he was still allowed on the boat when it started to rain even though the animals he was suppose to get would not be joining them. When Noah approached Charlotte with a big smile and a handful of fresh flowers, she knew something was a miss.

I’m not sure how exactly this distrust got started, but it has one of the few things throughout the beginning of time that men have never figured out in regards to women. Men have acquired this set formula where, if they have done something that they deem the woman in their life would not approve of they change their social pattern and show up with smiles and flowers. And because this is such a large shift in the character of the man, the women automatically knows that the man has done something that they would not approve of.  But in order to find out what the man has done they smile back and graciously accept the flowers and abide the time when they can subtly inquire about what the man has been doing and ultimately discover the reason that they received the flowers and what the man did wrong. And this is exactly what Charlotte did to Noah, well to a degree.

Because Noah’s actions where a direct result of his task and why he was away for the past month, the warm smiles and appreciation of getting flowers only lasted about 3 minutes, until she asked, “So honey, where are the animals?” This was his cue, and without missing a beat he began relating his story about the animal collection.

“Well, honey the thing is, I realized something about 3 days ago, while I was getting all the animals ready to lead them back here, it was something I had never thought about. And to be honest I don’t think that our holy dictator that is making us do this realized exactly what I did.”

“What are you talking about Noah?” said Charlotte.

Noah noticed that bad mouthing deity always made is wife’s nostrils flare, and when the flaring would begin the explosion was soon to follow, he had to sum up and sum up fast. “Honey, it was the shit!”

“What?”

“Animals eat a lot of food and the need to get rid of the waste they produce, with the animals I got to fill that boat, in just a two weeks time there were piles and stench everywhere. I had to move camp every few days just to be able to breath. There are only three small holes for the stench to escape on that boat, and where are we supposed to put all of that waste? So I made a decision, my kids and especially my wife are not going to live in shit and filth while some chief executive of the cosmos destroys all his children because he planted a few bad seeds. He can strike me dead, I don’t care, but I will not make you live in animal waste no matter the circumstances.”

Noah noticed that the flaring was gone. He felt it was truly one of his more brilliant moments. Charlotte stepped up to him, put her arms around him and asked in an appreciative but thankful tone, “What about the animals when the flood comes?”

“That God fella says he made them, I figure he can make more. You know with him being all-powerful and all. We’ll make a few rafts too just in case, ok?”

Charlotte smiled, kissed Noah and said, “Honey, I’m glad your home. Let’s go in the house I want to give you something.”

Noah knew exactly what that meant. This was truly his greatest triumph. Not only did he not get in trouble with the misses, but also he got her appreciation and affection. Sure there was still that God bully to deal with, but tonight he had won.

Chapter 5.4: Noah and the Ark – The Wife

Noah, throughout this initial experience had failed to mention to his wife Charlotte that he was on a first name basis with the Supreme Creator, and that this chap had suggested that he put three mortgages on the house so he could build a boat in the middle of the desert that was three times the size of their house. The reason he didn’t tell her was not entirely his fault either. He knew this was going to be a problem and wasn’t sure what to do about it. Once he decided to act, he managed to make two key mistakes. First, he did the only thing he could think of and he asked the old guy what he should do.

Now asking God for advice on women is like asking the pope for advice on birth control, it’s something they can both talk about, but something that neither has a clue as to what they are saying about the subject. So Dad offered the first bit of advice He could think of, He told Noah not to say anything. “Does she really need to know?” was the first thing that came out of His mouth. He then proceeded to explain; “Now I don’t want you to lie to her if she asks, but if she doesn’t ask there’s really no need tell her. That way when the rain starts you can show her the boat and she will be pleased with your preparedness and be very proud of you.”

The second mistake Noah made was that he actually took the old mans. When there’s a big ass boat being built in the empty lot next to your house and the guy in charge of building the boat keeps talking to your husband about the specs, some questions are going to get asked. And when you get a bank notice scheduling the payments on three additional mortgages on your home, well, hell fire and damnation is a fun park compared to what is going to be inflicted upon you.

On the day that the supplies arrived, Noah was looking at the invoice to confirm that everything had arrived when he heard a scream come from the house next door. When he realized that it was his house that the scream came from, he started over to see what was happening. He was met at the front door by his wife with a bank statement in one hand and a frying pan in the other. Noah when with the first and only thing that came to mind, he fled the scene, and hid in a cave.

See, the bible never discusses the countless times that the old man put a perfectly happy relationship into turmoil and distress, and almost divorce. All because He expects everyone He personally talks to drop their entire life and do everything that He asks them too. Noah started by writing letters to Charlotte to explain the whole thing, and she sent replies that she was meeting with lawyers and if he didn’t quit smoking those damn weeds he kept bringing home from his nature walks and tell her what was really going on, he’d better never come home.

Through Noah’s perseverance and lack of creativity to do anything other than tell the truth, his wife, after the 30th letter in two days realized that there might be something to what he was saying. So she sent him an ultimatum, either she meets this God person or she and the kids are gone, and she’d make sure the lawyers got the boat too. In this bind Noah agreed to her terms and went looking for that troublemaker that referred to himself as God. The problem with looking for God is that you can never find him when you need him. I think it’s because He knows what you’re thinking and only wants to deal with humans when it’s convenient for Him, or when He wants something. After three days of looking and with no results, Noah told the misses about the set back. Truth be told, Pops probably would have never shown up if it hadn’t been for Charlotte stopping the construction on the boat.

Once Pops learned that Noah had fallen behind schedule He headed to earth to do a little more threatening to motivate Noah again. Pops found Noah laying on his favorite rock, taking a short nap. When the old man saw his servant sleeping on the job He started yelling Noah’s name in the tone of a parent getting ready to cuss out their kid. Noah opened his eyes and saw God standing there and before he could even think about what he was going to say, it just slipped out, “It’s about damn time.”

“What?”

“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been praying out here for about a week and a half trying to get you to show up due to a few problems I’m having with this whole boat building thing.”

Noah’s annoyed demeanor had thrown Pops off his game, so the threat He was planning on giving had lost most of its luster. Instead He just listened quietly about this situation Noah was in with his wife. After Noah finished Pops actually had the audacity to act surprised. Noah did explain to Pops that Charlotte was going to take him to court and he would loose the boat unless she got to personally talk God so He explain things to her. Pops attempted to side step Noah’s problem and tried to instill fear back into Noah to get back to work using the threat technique ending with, “Get back to building my boat or else.”

But it had no power over Noah this time. See the reality is, and it has always been this way, no matter how often God tries to get people to do His will, men have always been more afraid of their wives than they have ever been of God, and with God’s new attempt at threatening Noah, he had had enough.

“Or else what? Huh? My wife has already taken the house, the kids, my cooked meal privileges, and has stopped anyone in coming within 100 feet of your boat. She’s in the process of putting a case together against me where I come across as insane, because I talk to GOD and he told me to put three more mortgages on my house so I could build some huge ass boat in the middle of the desert. By proving I’m nuts she won’t have to pay off the mortgages, instead I will while I work off my debt in prison, and your so damned important boat rots in the sun! No, you listen to me, my life has been nothing but hell since you entered my life and quite frankly I wish you would have never talked to me in the first place. And I’m not sure if your all knowing ass realizes this or not but to reiterate on one point, but if she doesn’t meet and talk to you about this I go to JAIL! And I can’t bloody well build your ship in there can I? Now you be here tomorrow by 2:15 in the afternoon or your whole killing the world schedule is going to be dramatically delayed! You BE here tomorrow.” and Noah stormed off

The old man was speechless. It was the first time in history that one of Pops little creations snapped at Him and He didn’t kill them for it. You know what though? It worked. The next afternoon at 2:15 when Noah and Charlotte got to the top of the hill, there He was, waiting for them with a bottle of wine and some flowers as a peace offering. It was a good effort, but as he came to discover very quickly in the conversation, it was a little late for that.

The interesting thing about God arguing with a woman is that even though He’s mostly all powerful, the women are not all that impressed by that and will wait all day until He explains Himself. It’s odd, because every time my old man told some bloke to do His will, off they went was no questions asked, but when it came to women, they always wanted to know the specifics and demanded a written schedule and check list. Plus they always became immensely annoyed when the plan would change; especially by a man who was suppose to be all knowing. It’s because of this dad preferred to work with men more often than women, so including Noah’s wife in with the Ark building plan was not only unexpected but something He did not want to deal with.

God handed the flowers and wine to Charlotte who passed them directly to Noah lifted her left hand, fist clenched and shot out her index finger pointing at the old man, “I don’t know who you are, but what the hell have you been smoking with my husband and why does he keep calling you God?”

Dad looked around nervously trying to figure out what to say. When Pops finally opened His mouth to talk Charlotte cut him off, “And if you don’t explain that damn boat and why my house has three mortgages right now, so help my GOD you are going to get slapped!” And with that Noah dropped the flowers, opened the bottle of wine and poured himself a drink.

“Well, let me begin by introducing myself, I am… God, the creator of this world.”

Charlotte raised her hand, open palm, ready to swing, and demanded, “Try again!”

Noah, on the other hand, let out a slight laugh, the idea of his wife slapping God with Gods help struck him as a little funny. The glare from both his wife and his God ceased any humor Noah saw in the situation and receded back into his glass of wine.

Charlotte returned her glare back to God, who realized at that point that if He didn’t prove His divinity soon He was going to get smacked, and quite roughly at that. He started to explain, “Ma’am, if you would please sit down for a moment and I will explain this situation to you and who I am.” It was the “who I am” statement that seemed to remind the old fella of His divinity and restore his control of this situation, and ignite His angry pride. Pops became a little annoyed that He had let one of His creations talk to Him that way.

When Charlotte snapped, “You don’t tell me what to do. You answer my questions.”

God Raised His voice, and in an overly dramatic array of events, clouded the sky, caused lightning to strike a near by tree and called multitude of angels to His side and proclaimed, “I am the LORD, you God!” I mean sure it shut her up, but don’t you think it was a little excessive?

Charlotte, mouth wide open, sat down next to Noah and a half empty bottle of wine, took the glass from Noah and began to swallow. Noah, use to Gods special effects and a little overly relaxed from the wine, smirked satisfyingly and said, “See, I told you so.”

Charlotte handed the empty glass to Noah and politely retorted, “Top me off would you please?”

God then began to explain His brilliant plan of starting over and how blessed Noah and she were to be the chosen ones to fulfill His plan to create a more perfect world. I mean let’s face it, when it comes to kissing ass the old man is an artist in every sense of the term. When He started explaining that one of the main reasons God picked Noah was because of his graceful and beautiful wife, who knew the importance of doing the right thing and how she clearly passed that brilliant insight onto her children. And that’s all it took, Charlotte started to soften up. He then sealed the deal by telling her that she would be the mother of the truly righteous and chosen people of God.

Name one woman that is not going to agree to help God with that size of a smooch on the ass. And as the old mans silver tongue caused Charlotte’s vision to glaze over, Noah was on the sidelines getting hazy and saucy as he finshed off what he was always refer to as a mighty fine red wine. After witnessing this whole meeting, Noah smilingly slurred, “It seems that my truth serum is empty and I am full, very, very, very, very full of truth and all I have is one question before I’m asked to shut up. May I ask my question?”

The misses shushed him, but the old man concurred and Noah went on, “If you are saying that your chosen people are going to be the offspring of us, what quality of people are you after? Seriously? This beautiful, graceful teacher of good came up here to kick your ass remember? Geez! And I get yelled at for poor short term memory.”

“NOAH! Shut up and don’t you dare talk to God that way!”

“Thank you Charlotte, but it’s quite alright, the young man has been carrying a heavy load all by himself for a while.”

In hearing the old mans response I knew something was up, He never reacts to being told He is making a mistake so smoothly unless He is after something.

“You know I’m glad we were able to have this little chat Charlotte and now that you understand who your husband is helping and the importance of his work I take it he now has your support and even help in getting things back on track so that we can have the ship ready to sail the end of next month. That is when the storm is scheduled for… you know.”

I knew it. If there is one thing you can count on in life it’s the predictability of God.

“Oh of course Lord, commencement of the boats construction will begin tomorrow morning. Thank you so much for meeting with me and explaining this whole thing to me. Thank you again. Oh there is so much to do. Noah, come on God is very busy and we have to help him out.”

And with this she pulled up the now amply soused Noah off the dirt floor of the mountain, which he was now finding very comfortable and lead the swaying Noah home. “Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day” though Noah, “and now that Charlotte is on Gods side, things are only going to get worse.”

I did think Noah concern for he and his wife being the new Adam and Eve to repopulate Gods people was a very valid concern. I mean, you have a mother of the people whose initial reaction to her husbands claim that he was helping God build to save humankind was the utter lack of faith. She had to meet God to actually believe. Not to mention that it first impulse upon meeting the Almighty was to kick is holy ass. Then on top of that the all knowing Creator actually had the audacity to think that simply kissing a woman’s ass would make things all better… FOREVER! Let’s face it, sometimes that God fellow just isn’t all that bright.

Chapter 5.3: Noah and the Ark – The Collection of Animals

Noah went out after his friendly little chat with the Grand One and got the paper work done with one of the bigger contractors in town. First thing Monday, Jim and his crew showed up at Noah’s ready to build an ark. Noah ended up getting a forth mortgage so he could give the crew a little more incentive to work on only his project. He also started purchasing animals from the local zoo. I hope you don’t actually think he went out and collected two of each animal? I figure we better get this clarified right now.

One of the biggest problems with this story in your bible is that it gives so many specifics about how the boat was to be built, the size, the dimensions, what it was to be made out of. Then, to top it all off, this very specific sized boat was supposed to house two of every living animal on the planet. If you actually take the time to do the math you’ll easily begin to see that this story is the end result of what happens when monks get bored copying the entire bible by hand and start composing their own “I caught a fish this big” type renditions of the original stories to, “Keep things interesting.” I believe was the official explanation for this one. This is the case with all stories in your book, some truth accompanied by a lot of bored and/or drunk monk story telling.

For the record, Noah did not get two of each animal. It’s not possible, even if the old man was in charge of the project, it would not have made any sense for Noah to sail to Australia and pick up all the wallabies, kangaroos, Tasmanian devils (actually only found on the island of Tasmania) and then sail all over the world to the different regions that house all of the animals that are indigenous to only a specific place in the world, and have them back to the ark in time for the flood of Israel to begin. Seriously, this makes no sense at all. Noah was able to secure a few slots on the boat for his 2 dogs, his wife’s cat, 13 sheep, a cow for milk, 2 ducks, 1 pregnant rat (not on purpose), a colony of termites due to some infected wood, and 1 lama, which he got from the zoo. All of the rest of the animals made it to higher ground and were fine once the rain started. It really is not that difficult to realize, and that this story is more fiction than fact once you take the supposedly written facts in the bible and compare them with the reality of what this story entails. They just don’t fit.

But before the animals were placed on the boat, before the rain began, before the construction was far from complete, there are a few things that are never discussed or even talked about concerning Noah. During the creation of the boat Noah spent all of his days and all of his evenings hide from the sight of the public. This it true, Noah camped out in a cave located about a mile and a half due east from this house, surrounded by the trees and nature he loved so much. I want to say the only reason for this was because he could not stand to see all of those dead trees being used to fashion something that he was responsible for, but this is only partially true. Noah had a very serious problem throughout this entire event that is never talked about. And it was this reason that he had to stay out of sight until the boat was complete and the rainstorm was beginning. That reason was what he affectionately referred to as “honey”. Yep, the serious problem was, in fact, his wife.

Chapter 5.2: Noah and the Ark – The Request

Noah’s story opens with the explanation of the downfall of man, which was, and has always been, women. At this point in your bible the males are referred to as the “sons of God” and the females are called the “daughters of men.” I find it curious myself, and you know darn good and well that this is something that is kept from Mom, because if she were to know, a serious amendment concerning all of the stories in the bible where women are responsible for so many wrongs would change over night. The biggest problem is that it’s a little difficult to convince all you believers anything to the contrary, even if God were to come down and personally explain it to you.

I guess my main point is that in my experience men are not sons of God. Ok, sure, in the afterlife sense, we are all sons and daughters of God, some sort of God anyway, but in reference to this chapter of Genesis, they are not. What you have is a bunch of horny boys who want to get to know the women in the area. And when I say “know”, I do mean that in the biblical sense of the word. The daughters were into the idea as well, but they did have a little more religious grounding than the boys did, which is how it’s always been. The women demanded marriage before “knowledge” was given, and oddly enough that still seems to be the standard for most faithfully Christian people today.

During this whole time I found it incredibly interesting at the amount of annoyance that Pops was going through. He saw all of His little ones behaving so badly, and this really pissed the old codger off.  He began to discover that the agency policy that He set up in the beginning was going against Him. He wanted, expected, and demanded His earth dwellers to live by the guidelines that He had established, but they were not behaving according to plan. He even began to question His design for the veil of forgetfulness. Apparently He started thinking that the kids would behave better if they were allowed to remember everything that happened before hand. So what caused Him to stick to His plan? One of Dad’s biggest faults… his pride. Pops is, by far, the proudest individual I’ve ever seen.

The thing I love most about this whole Noah story is it shows that even God can fail once in a while. If you disagree, try looking at it like this: God had to start over. He kept the only righteous man He could find and then wiped out the rest of His people with a flood because they were not doing what they were told. When looking at it, it sounds like the all-powerful one failed and had to start over, doesn’t it? The best part is that He couldn’t do it the way he wanted, the flood I mean. Yes there was a flood, but it is nothing like the story in the bible. You want to know why Dad couldn’t flood the earth? All His god buddies vetoed him.

Honestly what choice did they have? For the most part their civilizations were going along just fine. Dad was the one having the most trouble at the moment. So the idea of them loosing all of their work and having to start over was something they were not interested in. And even though it’s not ever talked about, where was a lot of back talk concerning Pops and His “I’ll kill all who do not follow me” policy.  If you wonder where that “I am a jealous God” bit comes from, this is a pretty good indicator. But the old man still thought starting over would work, and a flood was the best way to do it. So He put His plan in motion, and called up Noah.

Noah was an interesting chap, very calm and passive. This was particularly helpful in Dad’s plan. He needed a man who would do as he was told and not give a lot of flack in the process. Noah was barely a holy man. At the core, he was a nature buff, and loved everything about it. Because of this he would pray a couple times a day offering thanks to the one who created all that he loved. It was when Dad actually approached him that Noah started getting weird about religion. I think it had to do with the conflict of interests, but Noah was the type to take life as it came and went with what it gave him. In the simplest explanation as to why Noah built the ark, it came down to him loving being alive more than being dead.

I imagine anyone would have done what Noah did if they were put in the same situation. You’re off on you’re daily hike, up in the mountains, and you just get done thanking the creator for this land you see before you. You are not expecting an answer because you’ve haven’t asked any questions, but as soon as you get up this huge billowing voice starts talking to you.

Want to know something that is never mentioned in your bible? Noah was so startled when Pops spoke to him, he actually wet himself. It took Dad a moment or two to gain His composure and avoid laughing out loud at Noah. Then came the first part of the most heart-wrenching thing Noah would ever hear and, along with that, agree to partake in.

Because Noah was such a nature buff, he was more than a little concerned when he was told that the world he knew was going to be drowned, washed away, and to be no more. For a man who loved his surroundings as much as he did wanted to know if he could do something to save the forests. The old man said there was. He needed Noah to collect seeds of all the plants in the area. This was a task that Noah could enjoy. He would spend hours walking around the wilderness with a smile on his face collecting seeds of all the plants and trees in the land. He had this confused notion that by collecting these seed’s he would be heading some agricultural event responsible for planting a new forest or something to that effect. But then came the part of Pops plan where he introduced the idea of building the ark. The poor boy was not ready for this. Pops didn’t even get to the flooding portion of the plan. All Noah knew was what trees would have to be killed to make the boat, and he was not ready to cut down trees.

Noah argued that they were innocent and did not deserve such treatment. It was here that Pops learned a very important lesson; never send a hippy to do a contractor’s job. Dad tried a number of ways to motivated Noah to do his will. There’s a procedure, a rhythm, no, a format that he follows. It a fascinating thing to watch unfold. To see the big man deteriorate to the point where all forms of professionalism are reduced to simple threats.

Pops always begins with laying down the guidelines that He expects others to do for Him. I guess you could describe it as a sort of parent / child relationship. But the problem with this is that kids rarely do what their parents ask them to do. Oddly enough, once humans learned this dynamic, parents have felt the need to continue this process giving their kids the opportunity to do as they ask. Even if the parents themselves would have never freely done the task what they are asking their kids when they were their own kids age.

After simply asking the kids to do something they don’t want to do (and in the end won’t do), guilt becomes the next motivational tactic. The “Do this because you love me.” motivation is very effective, which can be used at a number of different levels. After a week passed from Pops initial request that Noah build an ark He located Noah and had the “guilt” conversation with him. The exchange consisted of, “Noah, do you love this world?”
To which he replied, “Sure I do.”

“And you give thanks for all the trees and nature every day, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, did you know I’m responsible for this beautiful world that you love?”

“I remember hearing some thing about that when I was little.”

“Noah, because of your love to me and this world, which I have created, I need you to do something for me and for the world. I need you to build an ark, like I talked to you about last week. Don’t you want to help me and this world you love so much?”

And thus the guilt trip started. The problem with this strategy is that it gets people moving, but they have a tendency to move very slowly. The reason for this is that you know you’ve been guilted into doing something you really didn’t want to do, but if you stop you’ll get the whole guilt thing again. Completion through repetitious pestering is what I choose to call it. I’ve noticed that people who are at the receiving end of the guilt motivation have a tendency to whisper a good deal of profanity while they are working.

Well, being a man who doesn’t like to cause contention, Noah worked away, but at a very slow pace, and Pops was starting to get a touch annoyed by the time it was taking to get the ark built. For the record Noah was collecting and gathering supplies, but had still not cut down any trees yet, which brings us to the next step in the motivation sequence, the light threat.

The light threat is a sort of art form, which, if done correctly, gets people to work a touch faster than the guilt tactic, and can cause paranoia in the worker. It works like this, the threater, in this case God, approaches the threatie, i.e. Noah, and tells him that He has been noticing the amount of time its taking to begin building the arc. Then Pops asked, “What is taking so long? You don’t even have any wood yet.”

Noah, in a bit of a worried tone, explained, “Well, you see, it not that…I mean I have some wood. I found a few dead trees lying in the forest. Over there, see?”

Pops looked at trees and looked back at Noah, “Four old dried out trees? Four! You were supposed to start building two days ago and all you have is four trees that you can’t use!”

“I’ve been waiting for my carpenter friend to finish a kitchen job he’s doing. He said once he’s done I could borrow his tools which will make the who building process go a lot faster.”

“You don’t have your own tools?”

“Yeah, that would be idea, but I don’t have the money for all of that stuff. How do I get what I need when I have no means to get them myself, other than rely on friends?”

Pops has this habit of asking things of His followers without offering any helpful assistance. He has this mindset where if He simply talks to you then He is doing you a favor, and if He asks you to do something you are obligated to do what ever He asks with no questions, and to top it all off you are fiscally responsible for the whole cost of the project no matter the size or cost. Noah couldn’t afford to hire a building crew let alone a set of tools to cut down a tree to start building God’s boat all by himself. Still, the old man expected him to do it willingly, pick up the tab, and do it with a smile on his face, which, I’m sorry, just isn’t the human way. And here’s where the light threat comes into play. Pops told Noah that all he had to do was take out a 2nd and 3rd mortgage on his house to get the funds for everything he needed.

“Look at it this way, I know you house insurance so you can either get the mortgage or, since the flood will destroy it anyway, I can create a situation in which you can collect that insurance money very soon to use to start building my boat!” Then He added, “If you haven’t started purchasing any supplies to build the ark by the end of the week, your house is gone.”

An hour later Noah was in the bank, filling out the paper work for a second and third mortgage. I’m sure there are some people that think that taking a second and third mortgage on their house with the knowledge what the bank and the person giving them the loan would be destroyed before you even made your first payment would be a somewhat joyful experience, but Noah didn’t feel right about it. He felt that this “God” person was asking him to go against his principles and do something dishonest, so he went back home to think about the whole situation. It was the motivation that his house would be destroyed by the end of the week and his family would be homeless that got him to finally sign the forms. It was 3:47 PM on Thursday afternoon that Noah handed in the paperwork and got money for the ark. Directly after which he went out and bought two bottles of wine and a hammer, just to prove to God, when He showed up Friday morning that he had started to purchase supplies.

The next day when the old man showed up and found a hung over Noah, a hammer and a small sack of nails, He got a little pissed. This is where the serious threat comes into place. The true motivationer in any deity originated task. The final step in the sequence of divine motivation is, “Do what I tell you or I will kill you, your family, and your family’s family, and then I’ll get someone else to do it.” And you know what? That always seems to work…even if you have a hangover and are still a little tipsy. Noah didn’t even have time to get a cup of coffee before the Old Man laid into him. Phrases like, “Don’t you know who I am…”, and “I should just burn the whole damn lot of you…”, to “Worthless, no good, free loading kids…” were common throughout the two hour reprimand. The Pops ended with “Now you either have this ship started by Wednesday or you and you’re entire family are dead, and I’ll start with the children so you can watch them all die one at a time. Now get to work!” And with that, a very sober Noah was highly motivated to build an ark and fast as he could, no matter the cost.

Chapter 5.1: Noah and the Ark – Intro

I reviewed your bible a little to see what story came next in your book. I thought it best to try to stick to the order that your book chooses to tell things, making it easier to compare. As I was reviewing I was amazed at what you have to endure to get through the bible. Take Noah and the Ark for example there is an entire chapter devoted to explaining whom begat who, and how many years they lived. I mean I know what it is but I’m just surprised that it’s considered as holy writ. It does enable writers an easy way to introduce character in their story, but personally I think it’s a very poor way of introducing characters in the story. That’s right, story. If you think that my father flooded this entire world as a sort of spring-cleaning because of wickedness, then you are in for some eye opening realism. I mean, yes, there was a flood but it didn’t happen exactly like the bible says.

I feel now is a perfect time to explain something about the whole creation process, which I sort of failed to mention earlier. It was a post creation addition that Dad sanctioned after Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden. Some of the other Gods were a little interested with all the press the earth was getting and wanted a piece of the publicity.

It is important to realize that there is more than just one God. All you have to do is look at the earth and you can see just a small fraction of the gods that are out in the universe. You might wonder how so many gods ended up with a presents on the earth if Pops and his followers were the ones that made the earth. See what happened was that after Dad had the little problem with me, and then Adam and Eve, He started getting a lot of flack from some of His god buddies. All of them had plenty of advice for the old man, so He invited them to have a go at the whole thing. The one rule they has to follow was they had to stick to the blueprints for making humans, but they were invited to put their own people on earth and see how they fended based on a specific god’s specific belief system. The plan was to eventually compare notes and devise the best plan for then next time they create a world for human type creatures.

It started out as a good idea, but once the humans were left to their own devices things started getting ugly. Sure gods don’t like it when their people started converting to other religions, but rarely do they attempt to kill the insubordinates. Sure some gods kill their followers all the time and no one really bat’s an eye, but if one of your followers converts and then you kill them…well, that means you now have someone to answer to. Also, the way the whole system works is that whatever god you believe in when you die is where you end up going. The game of converting souls was the result of a friendly poker game that got a little to competitive.  Pop and all the other gods that had a presents on the earth got together to compare notes on how things were going and Loki showed up with a deck of cards. You add an excess of wine into the equation and eventually some god trying to be funny makes a suggestion that maybe they should starting betting followers. Then some other drunk god laughs, says what a brilliant idea it is, and about two poker hands later the entire lot start betting souls. The only hang up what that the only way a god could get another gods soul would be if that person converted. And that’s what happened, the second the first soul was bet the world became an open market for all the gods to peddle their existence to the people on the earth. Sometimes it worked and a god got the soul he won, but then again sometimes didn’t, you know the whole freedom of choice agency concept.

When Mom found out (bet you’ll never guess who told her) the weekly poker night and soul betting came to an abrupt stop, but the damage had been done. Faiths had been exposed to other faiths and humanity took over the conversion concept. So even after the gods quit betting souls, souls were still gained and lost on a daily basis, hell they still are. The humans took it to a whole new level though. Some followers have even tried to make genocide a practice in order to save the world from what they think are godless people or people who are following a false god. It’s sad, but some holy people have become immensely evil when they chose to believe they it is what their god would want instead of really finding out what their god wanted.

Some gods became sad with the state of humanity and how some “civilized” areas were more about death to non believes than life to believes, and if broke their hearts when it was their followers that were creating such suffering. Zeus and the gang quit playing after a while, they headed of to a new universe where they could start over and make things more to their style. Once the last of their followers die on earth and join Zeus in the afterlife, Zeus has stayed clear of the earth. They did have a good run while it lasted though, and in their time they did get quite a few souls. Others, because they didn’t want to loose any of their souls, just bagged the experiment and took all their souls elsewhere. The Aztecs are a prime example or this occurrence where entire civilizations just disappeared over night.

On a personal note, the ones I’m truly proud of are the souls that have made their own decisions to live their own lives without a god’s set of rules. These people are free after this life. They don’t have an afterlife to go to, but instead they have a life that keeps going. They get to go wherever they want and have no one to answer to but themselves. They can visit all their friends and make new ones as they continue on. I just hope that when you people wipe out the planet and cause your own extinction, that I’ll be able to get away like the few of you who already have. Noah on the other hand plays cribbage every Tuesday with Dad and loves every minute of it. To each there own I guess.

Before starting the story of Noah, I need to explain that the true story of this event is of great interest to me on a personal level. I am not really blamed directly in this story, but there is still some blame that is projected towards me in regards to the flood. The people were evil and needed to be destroyed. Yes, it is the classic bible plot there is and I think it might be the only plot the bible really has. The thing is, because I have been dubbed the father of all evil, the blame always seems to trickle down to me. This is how it usually breaks down:

1) The people were evil.

2) Why were the people evil?

3) Because the devil tempted them to do evil things.

I mean come on humanity, take a little credit for your own actions instead of always playing the victim. Seriously, the plethora of poorly thought out things humans have done and continue to do, I mean I could write a 7 volume set on just the evil doings that humans invented all by themselves during the 12th through 14th Centuries alone.

The main reason I’m writing about Noah and his little task is because he was a good friend of mine. We spent a lot of time hanging out, hiking, going to bars, and fishing. He was a genuine human being and the mythology surrounding his existence goes against the true man he was. I was not really involved in the story, it was mainly between Noah and my old man, but I was there keeping an eye on my friend and witnessed what really happened. I know Noah is quite disappointed about how his life and faith have been canonized. So as a favor to him and a supporter of truth, here is the story of Noah, what really happened.

Chapter 4: Cain and Abel

The whole story of Cain and Abel is your basic story of sibling rivalry with a bit of a “whoopsey” at the end. When compared to Cain and Abel, Carl and I had the best sibling relationship while growing up. For some reason, because Carl was the first-born, earthly logic follows the belief that the first son is the good one and the second is the… not as good son. But, in retrospect, if you look at the first earth born kids you would realize that it’s the other way around.

Cain was not the stronger of the two brothers, that’s why it came as such a shock then I found out he had killed Able. I personally don’t think he’s to blame either. I’m not condoning what he did mind you, because he really didn’t do anything wrong. However, I do think Able did deserve at least a little butt kicking to assist teaching the boy some humility. The whole death thing was mostly an “opps” and partially Abel’s fault.

To help you understand, let me explain the disposition of the two boys. Cain was a very easy going lad. Even as a child he always did what he was told to do. His biggest down fall was that he spent a lot of time thinking while he was working in the field. And along with that thinking, came questions. Cain thought it a little confusing, and wrong, to kill animals for no reason he could see. Sure it was explained to him by everyone in the family that it was to pay homage to “God”, but it didn’t make any sense to him. The not allowed to eat animals rule made sense to him because they were extremely useful for moving, hauling, clothing, mowing the lawn, etc. But the way the whole sacrifice rule seemed a bit of a contradiction. It was based on killing the very best, the strongest, the most helpful animals one had and Cain just didn’t see the point.

Another problem he ran into was that he didn’t see it as that much of a sacrifice. The animals were not that important to everyday life, sure they helped but the food is what they needed to survive, not the animals. So, when Cain came up with the idea of using food for the sacrifice, he thought he was truly doing something that was a sacrifice. I made sense to me, but no one else saw it that way, especially Abel.

Abel, that boy was a bit of a buggar and a suffix as well. The main thing I remember about able was that he spent a lot of time working out. He was one of those overly competitive personalities where he was always trying to out do everyone, especially Cain. He had heard stories about Carl and me and had to prove to everyone that he was the holy one, the Christ like one, and yes he was the second born. It wasn’t even as though he didn’t know any better, cause he did. His whole motive was to show everyone that he was better than they were. It’s the difference between simply being a good person and having to prove to everyone that you are a good person at every waking moment and it got to be incredibly annoying.

Now I’m not the type of person to start slanderous rumors about people, but I would like to state for the record that Abel did spend a great deal of time with his flock of sheep…a lot of time. Plus he was always overbearingly demanding that only male sheep be sacrificed. No I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just here to give the facts, if you choose to read something into information I just shared with you that is your choice… and shame on you…but it’s true.

The truth about this bible story is the fact that Abel’s demise was truly an accident. Everyone knew Abel could have kicked Cain’s butt with even breaking a sweat. It would be like watching an elephant stepping on a chicken egg, Abel being the elephant and Cain being the egg. Sure fluids would be lost, but the elephant wouldn’t really be phased. So how did it happen, and why is it called the first murder? Well, let me tell you.

As I stated before, Cain had a few of his own ideas about the whole sacrifice ordeal and decided to confide in Abel thinking that Abel might be receptive due to the prospect of all the sheep they would be saving. Abel didn’t even let Cain finish his presentation on the subject. He ran straight to Adam as ratted out Cain for his “radical” ideas paragraphs before Cain could even get to the save the sheep section. Abel’s ratting on Cain resulted in Adam chastising Cain and getting sent to bed with out any supper. Adam refused to even listen to Cain’s reasoning for the ideas he had. It was against God’s word and he would never do that again. Cain was condemned and rejected, but like a good, soft-spoken, honoring his father and mother lad, went to his room hungry and put a blanket over his head.

Ok, so may be I talked to him a little at this point, but I knew how he was feeling. An ultra righteous sibling always trying to be Father’s favorite and regardless how hard you try, dad has made up his mind has chosen whom his favorite shall always be. And don’t try to tell me God doesn’t play favorites, because he does, he always has.

Cain was in tears and emotionally crushed, because logically he thought he was doing the right thing, and following the law of sacrifice in a way that actually made it a sacrifice. I tried to comfort him, “Its ok Cain.”

“No it’s not, dad hates me.”

“Has he banished you from your home?”

“No.”

“Then trust me, he doesn’t hate you.”

“But he said my ideas were again the word of god. How can god make a commandment that doesn’t make any sense?”

“You’d be surprised.” I said.

But it didn’t help the little fella was too determined to guilt himself to water filled eyes and a snot leaking nose. It was clear that I needed to lighten the mood before he would listen to me, so, I put on a puppet show. I grabbed some cold charcoal from Cain’s little fire night light, made a fist, and drew lips on the edge of my thumb and index finger, and two eyes on the outside of my index finger just below the knuckle. Then I place a piece of leather over the top of my hand and put on a gothic-biker looking Mother Teresa hand-puppet show. Cain loved it, and because of how receptive Cain was to the hand puppet I just let the puppet comfort and console him. I, well the gothic Mother Teresa, told Cain about how important he was as a soul and as an individual. The puppet reminded him that God wasn’t going to answer his prayers to make Abel go away forever so that he would not be picked anymore, and that Adam would finally acknowledge him as a worthy son. The puppet also explained that what was most important was how he felt about himself. He need to realize the he had to be confidant in who he was before others would recognize the person he really was. And more than anything, the boy had to learn to stand up for himself and the ideas he had. Just because he looked at something differently, even if it was a commandment, that didn’t mean that it was invalid or wrong. He needed to stop being afraid of Abel as well. Yes, the gothic-biker looking Mother Teresa hand-puppet told Cain he need to make a stand and let everyone, mainly Abel, know that he wasn’t going to take it any longer.

The problem with taking advice from a puppet is that you feel a lot bigger and more powerful than you normally do because the puppets are so much smaller than you are. The reaction commonly ends with the kids walking away feeling a false sense of power. Cain was full filled with self worth and he was going to set the record straight, which turned out to be Abel’s great downfall… or more accurately, Cain’s little accident.

It was the next morning that Cain went walking up the hill to try to explain to Adam his view on the law of sacrifice. I tried to explain to him that in my experience once a father makes up his mind about something its final. I told him his best bet was to go to Eve first, but the gothic-biker looking Mother Teresa hand-puppet the night before convinced him that he need to stand up for his beliefs and try to explain them to his dad so that is what he was going to do. Because he was talking my advice, I figured the proper thing to do would be a good idea to follow him. As he was heading up the hill to Adam’s tent, he ran into Abel coming the other way.

“Going to apologize to Dad again?” was the first thing Abel said to Cain.

“Not really,” replied Cain.

Abel then started into Cain, “Of course you are, you always do, you’re the sorry one remember. And you know what? For the next sacrifice, you go catch your own sheep because one of my best sheep will not be killed for the likes of someone as sorry as you!”

Then it happened, without any notice or expectation, Cain did it. He planted one foot behind him and pushed Abel with all his might. It was one of those slow motion moments in life where everything slows down so that you can capture every detail of an event, and with that Abel’s sanctimonious ass hit the dirt. This was accompanied with Cain yelling, “At least I’m not a mutton sodomizer.”

Abel sat there for a moment in awed dismay. Once he realized that his ego had been bruised the dismay wore off and Abel’s pissed off emotions kicked in. Abel, never experiencing embarrassment before, over compensated for that with a fiery desire to destroy Cain. He even hinted towards that feeling when he screamed, “I’ll kill you!” With Abel’s scream Cain started think that his fearless reaction which his derived from a hand puppet may have been a little fleeting. Abel’s face, now almost purple due to the surmounting rage, grabbed the nearest thing he could get a hold of, which was a small broken stick, and advanced toward Cain.

As Abel charged toward Cain, Cain dropped to his knees and huddles over in a sort of fetal position, and started crying. The main problem that occurred was Abel’s lack of overall awareness and failed to notice that the branch he had a hold of was still attached to a vine that was attached to a tree. As he rushed towards Cain the attached vine snapped back ripping the branch out of his hand. The recoil from this threw Abel off balance and he began to stumble. As his upper body tried to catch up with his lower half his feet tried to slow down creating a small over compensation the sent his legs forward. His rushing legs slammed into the fetal positioned Cain and sent Abel flying forward, over Cain and down the mountain side.

At first I thought Abel would be able to pull out of the downhill roll he was in, or at least stop at the bottom of the hill with only a couple of bruises. Then I noticed all of the rocks at the bottom of the hill. The ironic thing is that Abel was the one who placed all the rocks there. The rocks were left over from the expansion he made for his house. Eve had been asking him to clean up that area for about a week and a half, but he kept saying it was women’s work to clean and a mans job to build. So since he was finished building it was now mom’s job to clean up the mess.

Abel continued to pick up speed as he rolled down the hill. As the hill started to level off just before the rocks Abel opened up out of his roll laying on his stomach arms and legs stretched out head first in an attempt to slow down. In retrospect he really should have flipped around so he was going feet first. But head first he went and the momentum was too much to slow him down in time. He landed head first on the rock pile, which did two things to poor Abel. First, it sliced his head open a bit, and second, his head got lodged under the rock he struck. His head getting stuck in place was the fatal of the two. With the momentum his body was still moving and no where else to go his body flipped up and snapped his neck in two. Thus was the end of Abel.

Cain, now noticing that his beating had stopped after only one kick to his side, got up and looked around a little confused why Abel was nowhere around. I was still in shock from the sound of Abel’s breaking neck that I didn’t notice Cain doing a victory dance. Cain figured that God protected him causing Abel had run away from the fight. It was about this same time that Adam and Eve showed up witnessing only the aftermath of the situation, one dead Abel at the bottom of the hill and one living Cain at the top of the hill, dancing a little jig.

By the time Cain had it explained to him that Abel was dead, Adam was already on the red phone calling “God” to come down for an emergency meeting. I should have know better than to stick around and try to help out Cain, the second I try to help anyone in Dad’s presence I’m bound to get screwed and the person I’m trying to help is definitely dealing with a pretty big bias.

Pop’s got there where a few angels to assist with the situation. Adam was the first to speak, telling Dad and the jury of angels what he witnessed, which, for the record, had nothing to do with the truth, but Adam was still one of Dad’s favorites, and therefore a reliable witness. Cain was still dumb founded about the whole thing. In truth he had a bit of a mental breakdown from the news of Abel’s death, and when questioned all he could really mutter is that the nice little lady told him to “make a stand”. The problem with this confession is that there were no nice little old ladies on the earth at that time. Adam and Eve were the oldest earth dwellers up to that point, so talk of an old lady only baffled everyone one but me.

One of my biggest downfalls is that I’m a firm believer in truth, and that people know the truth, even when I know that I should just shut up and leave it alone. This was the inner battle I was experiencing was Cain was being interrogated. So I raised my hand in hopes that I could bring some light to the situation. I really should have known better that to try to explain anything to my Dad, or Adam and Eve for that matter. They had been telling everyone that it was my fault that they were kicked out of the garden, and you want to know why, because no parent wants their kids to think that they screwed up, well in the major “going against Gods word” kind of way.

Going into a confession in the presence of God is already a somewhat intimidating thing, but to have him open with, “All right beguiler, what do you have to say,” really makes everyone question the value of what you are about to share. I didn’t care though, I was telling the truth.

I started by explaining what Cain had gone through due to the reprimand he had received from his father the night before without ever being able to explain himself. I talk about the sibling rivalry and abuse he had suffered from both his brother and his father. Then I talk about going to visit him last night to help him feel better, but because he wouldn’t listen to me I made a hand puppet to help lighten the mood and get Cain to open up. Adam, Eve, and the old Man were not really listening to me, but the bit about the puppet seemed to catch everyone’s attention. It was only through a visual example of what I had done with my hand in creating the puppet that they truly understood what I was talking about. Once I had created the hand puppet, Adam asked me to stand down so that he could question the nice old lady about what she has told Cain. I tried to explain to Adam that I could step down and left the nice old lady there to answer his questions. Then, I think for the first and only time ever Dad sided with me, and got Adam to concede that questioning me would be just as effective as questioning the puppet.

When I got through explaining how I went to visit Cain, and how I tried to make him feel more valuable as an individual. I suggested that he should confront those who were in constant opposition to him. When the jury learned that I was trying to get Cain to stand up for himself against a never yielding foe, they were a little less judgmental towards Cain. I think me using the hand puppet to explain all this helped a great deal. My biggest problem is that I focused on informing the angels and forgot whose company I was really in. After I finished Dad brought my confidence in a fair trial to a screeching halt.

All it took was for him so say, “So what you’re telling us it that you told Cain to kill Abel?” I was shocked at first. Honestly, I still am every time I think about it. But that’s Pop’s for you, always blaming me for things I had nothing to do with. I tried to explain about Cain’s state of mind to the day events and the day before. I told them about the empowerment delusions Cain went through from talking to my hand, and about me suggesting that he stand up for himself. Dad’s cross-examination of my explanation of the puppet empowerment issue Cain suffered from was laughable. The Big Man began by implying that I was using a degree of displacement by giving my hand a face and voice, and then started talking about how my hand suggested that Cain do certain things, which I normally wouldn’t have personally suggested. I displaced myself from my hand so that my subconscious inner thoughts and desires could be shared to an impressionable lad who would follow them out.

“Are you high?” was my first response. Not the best rebuttal, but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I tried to explain what truly happened that morning from the conversation on the hillside, to the push, to Abel tripping and rolling down the hill to his death. I even brought up that if Abel had honored his mother, and done what he was told there would have been no rocks at the bottom of the hill and Abel would have been fine. I tried to explain how Adam and Eve were responsible for ample amounts of psychological abuse due to their choosing a favorite child and making it obvious to everyone else, especially the other children that they are not as loved as the favorite.

Chapter 3.2: Adam and Eve and the Tree

I was still a touch concerned about the look she had gotten in her eyes so I decided to keep an eye on the tree for a few days. She would stop by every other day, just walking by with a few apples in her arms, waving and asking how my day was going. See a very polite girl. Well, after about a three weeks had gone by she came up to me in the early afternoon telling me that she had been talking to Adam about me and he had a few questions he’d like to discuss with me. She then asked if I had time then to go talk with him about them. I was more than happy to oblige, and without really giving it much thought I headed over to the pond where Adam liked to spend his afternoons.

Half way there I realized that it might actually be a good idea to ask Eve a few questions about some of the questions Adam had for me so I knew what to expect. I turned around and went back to the tree to ask Eve a few questions about Adams questions. When I got back to the tree, there she was sitting on the grass leaning her back against the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, munching on what appeared to be her second fruit of the tree.

I remained calm and cool and screamed at the top of my lungs, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”  Sure it startled her a bit and she threw the fruit she was eating behind her out of instinct. She just sat there for a second trying to decide if she should run or not. Then with the realization that she was busted, she relaxed a bit, tilted her head a little to the left and smiled. Then she spoke, “These are so good one might almost call them orgasmic.” As her statement left me speechless for a moment or two, it was obvious from her remark that she had eaten the fruit of the Tree and there was no going back.

It was an amazing and eerie transformation that took place, watching her begin to understand things that had been dormant for a long time. She then looked at me and gave me a smile that only a coy person with a plan has. It’s a scary and powerful smile and from its initial conception it has always put fear and uncertainty in hearts all humanity, mine included. Then she spoke in a way that I had never heard her speak before. Her voice was very calm, cool, and sensuous. I liked it a lot; well I did until she started talking crazy talk.

She remembered me much more clearly than before. Because of the veil or forgetfulness she and Adam knew I looked familiar, and was connected to Pops in some way but that was it. But the tone she used when she said, “I remember you.” left me feeling a little uncomfortable like may be it was not such a good thing to be me at that moment or at least for what was to come. She even remembered all about the little mess I had gotten myself into due to my refusal to follow “The Plan”, and that I and all those who agreed with me were on earth for a time out. The whole time she was talking I knew she was up to no good. I told her I was going to go tell Adam and Dad what she had done. This only seemed to help for a moment; helping her realize the situation she had gotten herself in. She then did something I wasn’t ready for; she began to cry, asking what she was going to do. Pleading that I not tell anyone. I didn’t know what to do, the poor thing, she was a mess. Her eyes kept leaking, and an unsightly mess leaked out of her nose from time to time as well, not to mention this horrible snorting and wailing. I did the only thing I could think of, I agreed to do what she asked. I told her that I would not say anything until we figured out what to do.

She smiled and seemed to gain her composure back very quickly. I was greatly impressed by her prompt recovery. She then said she had to go tell Adam what happened and that she would bring him back here to figure out what could be done. It sounded like a reasonable request, and I could really see no flaw in it, so I let her go. She asked me to turn around as she walked away from the tree because she was naked and was a little more conscious about that fact now that she had eaten the fruit.  A fair request, so I abided by it.

As I heard her leave, I began to pace. I didn’t know what to do. That little twit was greatly jeopardizing the group agreement that the others and I had come up with. I hated to admit it but I was afraid that Adam just might have to let her go, because I was pretty sure Dad was not going to let her stay in paradise after breaking one of His rules. And alone she would go, because if there was one thing I knew about Adam it was that he would not eat that fruit of his own free will. That thought stopped me dead in my tracks. I looked at the ground, two fruit cores. I looked at the tree three fruit were missing! The little trollop tricked me again! She took a fruit on her way to see Adam. I realized that that whole crying bit was nothing but a wicked little act she devised to get what she wanted. I ran full speed to the pool where Adam was, hoping he was able to avoid the trappings of this woman, and I prayed that she hadn’t used her crying power to get Adam to compromise his situation as the big man in Eden.

When I got there he was crying, and I knew that his tears were real. After I got him to calm down he told me what happened. Eve had come skipping up to him and wanted to know how his day was going. She seemed really playful and Adam always likes to play. She asked him, just for pretends, what would happen if she ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He said he would miss her, and feel bad she would be dead. Then she asked, just for pretend, would he eat some of the fruit if it meant that they could be together. In which he replied that there was no chance he would let Dad down. She smiled and then said she had something for him, but he had to open his mouth and close his eyes, and she would give him a big surprise. Adam had played this game with her before, so he thought nothing of it, all he knew was that he was going to be getting some food.  It was one of his favorite games for that reason alone. His part of the game was to guess what it was he was eating. Without hesitation at all he did exactly what he was asked.

Apparently what she did was take a bite out of the fruit, chew it up, and then put the fruit into Adam’s mouth so ensure there was no possible what of determining what it was. I’ll tell you the knowledge of good and evil can cause people to do some incredibly foul things. Looking back now it’s not that big of a deal, but with her being the first one to do something like that and to hear about it for the first time ever…what she did was pretty gross. It was on the fifth taste that Adam took a peek to figure out what it was he was tasting (as in cheating, see the fruit worked fast). In seeing the fruit he started yelling and screaming about what she had done. Then in mid sentence he stopped yelling and just started staring at her breasts. “I couldn’t help it,” he told me, “they where the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Eve got a little embarrassed because she found herself staring at a certain part of Adam as well. She then ran off to go find something to cover both of them up with. It was after she had left that Adam was able to realize about what had happened and that is then he began to cry. Shortly after is when I showed up. He told me everything as I have relayed it to you, and while reflecting on the whole thing we both agreed that we missed Lilith.

In your bible it says that Pop’s then showed up, which is pretty much true. The main thing to take into consideration is not the fact that your holy book actually got something right, the thing you should be asking yourself is where the old man was when all this was going on. Say what you will, but if the old man is as all knowing as all of you believe Him to be, then He should have known what that little hussy Eve was up to. Not to mention He should have shown up a lot sooner to cease this whole fiasco from ever happening, UNLESS? That’s right, unless He was planning on something like this to happen from the beginning. I personally think He fouled up. Know why? Because of all the shit I got into because of this whole situation. If He knew what was happening why didn’t He tell Eve to quit lying when she told Dad it was all my fault. That’s right she blamed me! I’m the one who is remembered for all time as the one responsible for going against Dad’s commandment! I told them no, but Dad wouldn’t listen.

Ok, so here’s what happened, Eve got back with some leaves, and while she and Adam are trying to figure out how to put them together into something that would actually stay on, and I’m cussing them out and lecturing them as to how much trouble they were going to be in, the sound of Dad’s trumpeted entrance begins.  He always enjoys making a grand entrance, I think it’s because He’s a little vain, but there’s no telling Him that.

Adam and Eve dodge for the nearest shrub…and so did I. I’m not sure why I did, I knew I was not in the wrong and that I had nothing to hide. I guess I did it because in my experience there was always something that could happen that would leave me in trouble as well. I should have trusted my initial gut feeling and just ran as fast as I could from the scene.

Pops asked why the kids were hiding from him. I whispered to Adam to tell Him that they were playing hide and seek, but Adam had to feel compelled to try to clean his newly awaken conscience and said they were naked so they hid themselves.

The old man didn’t miss that little slip and in an overdramatic booming voice asked, “Who told thee, thou were naked?” And then… the bitch spoke up. She skipped all formal intros and just started off by yelling, “Roy did it! Roy did it! He’s a devil, it’s all his fault!”

I was stunned. I was not expecting to be dragged into this and due to my stunned stupor of Eve’s deranged accusations, I paused a touch too long, and by the time I yelled, “Objection, your Honor,” it was too late and I was overruled, and Eve was in tears.
I tried to tell Dad that she was faking it, but He had already decided that I was guilty. Then He started lecturing me! They were the wrong doers, why not chastise them? Oh, they got their turn, but it wasn’t until after I got my ass reamed for “deceiving” mister goody-goody and his hell spawn girlfriend.

I had to listen to a whole guilt trip consisting of rubbish like, “Why do you keep doing this to your Mother?” and “She’ll be crying for a millennia when She hears about this.” Things like that, and I was getting a little annoyed. All He said to Adam and Eve was, “I’m sorry that Roy destroyed your life in paradise, but rules are rules, at least now you will be able to do a greater good and populate the planet. Let’s get you two on your way so you can get to business.”

I mean what the hell! When I tried to point out that if they were able to do a greater good and the whole fiasco was my fault, then I actually did a greater good thing, Dad said no. He told me that I was deceitful and therefore was in the wrong. I said “Bullshit” and Pops… well, he asked if I wanted another time-out? So I figured now was a good a time as any to tell Him what the one-third, already in timeout, and I had decided to do. He had already judged me without any facts and I figured things really couldn’t really get worse.

“Dad, you know how you wanted the all of us down here in time-out to think about what you had said and to get back to you about the whole thing?” I said.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, we came to the unanimous decision that Carl being murdered is a bad plan and we want nothing to do with it. We’re protesting the planned murder of Carl and from here on out we shall do everything in our power to get humanity to behave, be good, and be righteous. We are going to stop the crucifixion of our brother.”
Oh man was He pissed at this. He started yelling about how dare I attempt to challenge Him, and why was I corrupting so many others, and what I monstrosity I was, and another slue of “Oh your poor mother” comments.

“Breath and count to ten, Dad.” I kept telling Him. But that only seemed to aggravate Him more.

“You are forever banished from Heaven as well as all your corrupted followers.”

“They are not followers they are family and they simply think there is a better plan available that you are refusing to look at.”

“I’m not wrong, YOU’RE WRONG!” bellowed the old man.

“Really…that’s really what you are going to say about that…really!?”

“This conversation is over! You are all banished from my home forever unless you change your decision right now!”

“Shouldn’t you run this by mom?”

“One…”

“Seriously, you’re counting?”

“Two…”

“We’re not 5, counting doesn’t work anymore remember? Why don’t you try talking to us about this?”

“Three…”

“You’re plan sucks, we’re not going.”

“BANISHED! ALL OF YOU! You are never welcome home again!” And off He went, pissed, flushed, flustered, and resound in His decision to banish us from Heaven. He yelled back at Adam and Eve to get out of the Garden and make babies, which they both seemed rather pleased about since it was damn near impossible to get those two to stopping touching each other. They took off with out even saying goodbye, they’d find food and shelter later, they had to get out of the garden so they could start replenishing.

I was proud though. We had all stood our ground. We did take some comfort learning that from Pops banning act he did have to spend a year and a half of sleeping on the couch. Mom was not impressed at all with the old man’s hotheaded banishment of Her kids.

As for me, well, I’m still here, and even though the old man’s plan “politically” prevailed, the third and myself are still trying to get people to do good. We are a lot like Holy (Ghost) and the job he performs. We are a little more hands on though. Once Adam and Eve left, the nature of spiritual dealings changed. We were rarely seen by people anymore, but our influence and suggestions are still being shared in hopes that we can still make the world a little better and a little more peaceful.

Chapter 3.1: Adam and Eve and the Tree

This is probably one of the poorest renditions of the actual truth I’ve found so far, which isn’t saying much because I’ve only just started. On a personal note I do find the whole thing is appalling and filled with conceit and lies. I, once again, find myself being described as a serpent. More confusing is that in the biblical account of the Adam and Eve story I’m described in two ways. One way is as a serpent, and the other being and I quote, “…more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”

Subtle huh? If I have made anything obvious at this point in my explanation of what really happened in the bible it should be that I’m really not subtle at all. In fact, in this entire work were to leave you with only one impression, it would be my hope that, “That Roy guy sure isn’t very subtle.” When you have conversations with your friend’s years from now and people ask you what you know about Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, or Roy, reply by saying, “Well the only thing I know for certain is that he sure wasn’t very subtle.” There, I hope my point has been made.
 
Right off I have a few concerns with this rendition. The interesting thing about the Tree of Good and Evil is that Pop’s made it obvious. He did not want Adam and Eve eating the fruit there of. In fact, your book says He did not even want them to touch it or they would die. But then He goes out of His way to show them exactly where the tree is. He also, although all referenced to this have been removed from the bible but repeatedly tells them how the fruit of the tree is the most delicious tasting fruit the universe has ever experienced. That just doesn’t seem right. It kind of makes you wonder if dear old dad had His own little plan that He wasn’t telling anyone about.

It all seemed a little too obvious, the tree so accessible, with this faint almost halo glow about it so you couldn’t help but see it. You would think that if it were such a no, no type of tree and fruit then He would have made it in a hard to reach spot.  Say in a cave, under a murky lake, surrounded by a magical locked gate, where a troll, living under a bridge next to the lake, was the only one with the key to the gate. You know something difficult to find and even more difficult to get within fruit picking range. But He didn’t! Instead He made a subtle little path that lead right up to it.

Well, while I and the other third of Heaven were down on earth in our time out, we got together and talked about our situation and Dad’s plan. From our discussion we came to a unifying decision, which eventually lead to our permanent ejection from Heaven and a permanent place here on earth. Another part of this discussion/decision lead to the keeping an eye on Adam and Eve to make sure they didn’t foul up.

Adam was much better at staying away from the tree than Eve was. Adam always was really good at obeying, but Eve had this look in her eye every time she would walk by the tree, always staring intently at the fruit. I think it had something to do with the fruit being pleasant to the eyes or maybe it was the big neon sign above it that said, “DO NOT EAT!” There is a stereotype that refers to women as shoppers. Like all stereotypes, in some cases it’s true and in other cases it’s the furthest thing from the truth. I could offer that it was from the beginning Eve had a shopping type of disposition. The fruit was the best looking fruit in the whole garden, therefore she wanted it. Like when some people go to the mall and see a pair of shoes that they already own but it’s in a new season color and they just have to have it because it looks so good. Same thing with the Good and Evil fruit, she had access to all the other fruit in the garden but the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil was new and she wanted it. The key thing is that this type of wanting or desire has nothing to do with what sex a person is, it’s a personality thing, just so happened that Eve had that type of personality.

She kept asking Adam about the tree and what was so terrible about it. All Adam could offer is that Dad said no. So, one day Eve turned her interest on me and started asking me questions about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the fruit there in. I thought I was being friendly and having an innocent little chat with her, but she had plans, the devious little thing. Dad said that they would be innocent like children, but let’s face it some kids just have a less than innocent side to them.

Eve wanted to know about the fruit and the properties of its power. I didn’t see any reason to lie to this girl, so I told her what I knew. I told her that the fruit’s power is that it gives one the understanding between good and evil. Meaning her innocents would go away and her understanding of life, the earth, even her body would grow and expand. She would begin to live as a human. I told her that she would be able to understand some of the things that Dad understands gaining a whole new world of thinking, experiencing and understanding. She started to get rather attentive at this point and then asked if it was true what Dad said about the fruit killing her. I told her the truth and said, “Yes and no.”

“Yes” in the sense that if she ate the fruit she would be kicked out of the garden and the state of perfection she is living in would end. Time, seasons, years would age her body, causing it to deteriorate and then eventually die. But “no” in the sense that the second she ate the fruit she would not fall over dead, it would be a time consuming process. I took it as a bad sign that she looked a little relieved at this point. So I reiterated the importance of her not eating it. That if she did so she would be remembered for all time as the one responsible for going against Dad’s commandment. Well, maybe the second one now that you know the real story about the war.

This is a good time to bring up that even though she would be going against Dad’s commandment, she would still not be going against Dad’s commandment for her and Adam to multiply and replenish the earth. Due to their current status of an over abundance of innocence they could not even begin to understand the physical mechanics involved when it came to reproduction. Look, if they were both naked and oblivious to that little fact, how would you expect them to even begin to understand the concept of getting to first base let alone sex itself. But I thought that it was better to not ever bring that up to Adam and Eve.

When she heard that she would be remembered I saw an unhealthy spark in her eyes. Apparently she didn’t understand that she was already in the Eternal Hall of Fame for being the first woman on the earth. Looking back I realize that I really should have brought that up. Still her little undeveloped mind was up to something and I was pretty darn sure it wasn’t good. So again I expressed the importance of her staying away from the tree. It was half way through the second hour of my lecturing her on why she should never eat the fruit of the tree she simply smiled and said “Ok.” Then she thanked me for explaining things to her, a very polite girl, and went on her way. I felt good about it, like I had done something truly righteous, something that would keep the world in a safe place and help keep Karl safe. Yeah, turns out the little shit lied to me.