Creativity

And God looked upon what he had wrought, and said, to no-one in
particular (for He was alone in the firmament, the Archangels being
respectfully absent as they usually were when He was creating stuff),
"This Bert and this Kylie don't strike Me as the brightest beasts in
the field. If I wasn't omnipotent, I might be wondering by now whether
I'd cocked up the software."

He was curious enough to watch a little longer, if only so that His
creations could show Him what jolly spiffing creations they were. He
didn't know exactly how they would do this, because although he was
omniscient (as well as omnipotent), He had not yet created time and
consequence. Things happened, or didn't happen, or happened and then
didn't happen, in accordance with His whim, and His whim at the present
(present in a non-time sense, naturally) was for the happening rather
than either the non-happening or the unhappening.

He would, in the end, be right. It was unavoidable. Unless He wanted to
be wrong, in which case He could go that way, but there was rarely a
good reason for it.

He wandered, as was occasionally His wont, into the theological maze
that was actually in itself Himself, but in another guise.

At just about that same time (which wasn't really a time but only God
knew that), Bert was in high dudgeon with Kylie, and Kylie was, as
usual, taking pleasure in provoking that dudgeon.

"Snakes", he pronounced, with the authority of someone who had resided
in the Garden at least a couple of days longer than his tormentor,
"don't talk. Language was a gift by God to me. As a mark of my
intelligence. And later He gave it to you, in a more limited manner, so
that I could tell you what I need from time to time. And don't I wish
that he hadn't bothered? Because you waste language on prattle, woman.
You should be silent, unless I have need of a song, or some polite
discourse, or maybe a drink of juice."

"You're a pompous tosser", Kylie replied happily. "But anyway, it's up
to you whether you listen. I'm only passing on the message. You want to
ignore it? Ignore it. It's no skin off my snout."

"What I want", Bert advised sniffily, "is my rib back."

Kylie tossed her long brown hair nervously. The only thing that ever
really bothered her in what was otherwise pretty much a life in
paradise was the possibility that she might be turned back into a rib
(she hadn't enjoyed being a rib at all - the other ribs had picked on
her, because she was prettier than they were.) However, only God could
do the rib thing, and she was always polite to God. Pissing off Bert,
on the other hand, was a safe enough game, because he wasn't God. Even
though on the surface he looked a bit the same, having no breasts, a
big beard, a big lump in the throat and a dangly thing between his legs
that looked like a fat red caterpillar, Bert was most definitely not
God.

So she carried on with her ribbing. "Well, tough", she told her fellow
garden dweller through a deliberate pout. "The rib's me now, and He's
already told you you're not getting it back. Live with it. Or without
it. Whatever."

"Ribs talking to snakes", Bert commented, in the pretence of an aside.
"This is much too surreal for a simple biped like me."

"If you do as snakey suggests", Kylie proposed sourly, "and chomp upon
the Apple of Knowledge, then you won't be a simple biped any more.
You'll actually know a few things. Which would be a very welcome
change."

"I know everything already", Bert stated haughtily. "Well, everything I
need to know."

"Everything He wants you to know is what you know", she sniped back,
then, looking around warily, added, "which, of course, is absolutely
fine. Obviously. Why wouldn't it be? I'm not criticising God here. I
want everybody to be clear on that."

Bert was baited. "I can too know things for myself", he argued. "I can
know things just because I know them. And anyway, I always know more
things than you."

"You didn't know about the Apple until I told you", she
challenged.

"That's not knowledge", Bert replied sniffily. "That's fantasy. Anybody
can make things up. Apple of Knowledge, eh? What about the Banana of
Confidence? Or the Pomegranate of The Biggest Secrets That Ever Ever
Were? See. It's not difficult."

"You're pathetic", Kylie judged reasonably. "And you're a coward, too.
The only reason that you won't go near that Apple is because He hasn't
told you to."

"And you", he responded with a quality of insight so unusual that it
surprised even him, "are only going to go near it if I do. So that we
both got into trouble at the same time. Oh, yeah. That's pretty
brave."

Kylie flushed. "At least I'm prepared to consider the odd risk here and
there", she sallied, more to keep her end up than with any conviction.
"At least I have a curious mind. At least I'm my own person as well as
His. At least...."

"Oh, enough with the at leasts", Bert interrupted in his best
long-suffering tone. "I give up already. Just show me the sodding
tree."

Kylie smiled the sly smile of the victor. "You're sure? You don't think
you need to ask Him first?"

Exhibiting the reckless and misplaced sense of impugned dignity the
capacity for which God in all His invention allocated only to those of
his creations with a penis, Bert declared, "I make my own decisions,
woman, and I fear nothing."

Of course, the decision was actually Bert's first decision of any
consequence, and he already knew, deep down, that it wasn't a very good
one.

The fallen archangel slithered along a branch to watch Bert and Kylie
approach. He slithered adeptly. slithering being something he was
starting to do very well. This didn't surprise him, of course, because
he was a quick learner. A facility which, amongst other things, had
contributed to his downfall.

"Yesssssss", he said aloud, then fell silent for a moment until he had
conceived a way to express his further thoughts in words that had no
letter "s" in them. He settled on, "My plan is nearing fruition."
Entirely "s" free, though a little tacky, this declaration not only
summed his progress up quite nicely, it also contained a passable pun.
Fruition, eh? Good one.

The targets of his scheming continued to argue as they walked. Well, no
surprise there. Bert obviously wasn't keen on the Apple thing, but
talking him into it, the snake was confident, would be a no brainer. In
the not so humble opinion of the fallen archangel, Bert was one fork
short of a trident. Gullible Bert would swallow the story, then he'd
swallow the Apple. This was as certain as the fact that night, now that
God had created night, followed day.

"You'll learn about your bitssssss, my friendsssss", the fallen
archangel predicted gleefully (whilst simultaneously hating plurals),
"and then you'll sssssstop arguing and find better entertainment.
You'll forget about Him, and He'll throw you out. On your
asssssesssss."

The fallen archangel realised that this was all plot exposition. Which
he hated. So he stopped.

And God, having been The Word for a little while and conceding to
Himself that He might have deliberately missed something, again looked
down upon what He had wrought, and He saw that He had missed nothing.
His creations were merely walking. Taking in the glorious sights He had
gracefully chucked in for them. Arguing.

Well, no surprise there.

"Oh, crap", said the talking snake. "Him. Looking at all that He'sssss
wrought again." And with that, the reptile scarpered, dropping from the
tree and meandering quickly off into the long grass. As he covered
ground, though, he reassured himself that there would be another time.
In fact, he thought of saying this out loud and adding a maniacal
laugh, but decided against it, preferring to experiment in
understatement.

And God turned his attention momentarily to the apple tree which He had
wrought, and saw the snake in the grass, and thought, "I see a snake in
the grass", and in his omnipotence decided not to know how right He was
in character description as well as species identification terms. He
noted too that Bert and Kylie were rather near to the apple tree, and
He decided to warn them away, but then He remembered that He had
already warned them away. "Don't go under the apple tree", He had
instructed, "with anyone else but me", thus delivering the warning and
teaching them the concept of singing in one brief but inspiring
message.

He had not of course delivered any such warning, but it suited Him to
believe that He had, because it was part of His divine plan that He
should. Confident therefore that His creations either would or would
not approach the tree, He decided to put His omnipresence on hold and
devote a little time to being The Rod and The Staff, not wanting The
Word to have the chance to lord it over them.

"Which apple?", Bert asked, his arms impatiently folded. In truth, he
wasn't impatient at all, because he rather enjoyed the rear view of
Kylie's buttocks, which were so much shapelier than his. If he was
entirely honest, he sometimes enjoyed the front view too, especially
the lumps, although the need for her to have hair between her legs when
there seemed nothing of importance to protect down there was something
which defeated logical analysis.

Impatience, though, was clearly the correct note to strike.
One-upmanship demanded it. He kept his arms appropriately locked across
his chest whilst Kylie surveyed the tree. Top to bottom. Side to side.
Bottom to top.

Finally, in a small voice, she admitted, "He didn't exactly say."

"He didn't exactly say", Bert mimicked. "And he's not exactly here to
say anything now, is he? Is that because, perhaps, he never exactly
existed? Because what he was, exactly, was either a figment of your
imagination or some silly joke?"

"He was here", Kylie insisted petulantly. "And it doesn't matter
whether he's still here or not. We'll eat all of the apples. We'll take
a bite each out of every one."

"All of the apples", Bert scoffed. "We'll eat all of the apples, will
we? Kylie, have you tried counting? Or haven't you learned how to do
that yet?"

"We'll eat them it over a few days", she negotiated. "Not all at
once."

"I think", he declared, "that we won't do it at all."

Kylie drew herself up to her full height, which on Bert was at about
the level of his missing rib. "This is the man", she taunted, "who
makes his own decisions and who fears nothing."

"No", he disagreed. "This is the man who doesn't really like apples."
But even as he spoke, he was already cursing the undoubtedly doomed
obsession he seemed to have with making her offer him some respect.
Delivering a sigh that he believed to be extremely expressive, he
walked past her and approached the tree.

Bert's stomach hurt. A lot.

On top of the hurting stomach lay a half-eaten apple. Next to the
hurting stomach, on the grass, lay five half-eaten apples. On the other
side of the five half-eaten apples, until mere moments ago, had lain
Kylie. But Kylie had disappeared, off to answer the call of nature
because her stomach hurt.

He thought again about Kylie's buttocks. Being nicer than his. He
thought about them a lot. More than he had ever before.

A course of action occurred to him. It seemed an unworthy course of
action. But it was a course of action consistent with his behaviour on
this most unusual day, involving as it did and as the apple raid had
both subterfuge and the possibility of getting caught.

On hands and knees, ignoring his continuing discomfort, he started to
circumnavigate the tree. Five or six feet of this gave him precisely
the view that he was seeking.

He watched in astonishment for quite some time. Then he made his way
back.

He thought about what he had seen. And a very odd thing started to
happen to him.

He rubbed. He pulled. The resulting sensation spoke of a potential
conclusion. He wasn't sure how to get to that conclusion, although it
was suddenly very important that he did get to it. And he thought that
Kylie's absence allowed him the opportunity.

A course of action occurred to him. It seemed an unworthy course of
action. And it was a course of action entirely inconsistent with any of
his behaviour in his brief life thus far.

On hands and knees, ignoring his continuing discomfort to concentrate
on his growing excitement, he moved towards the tree. Once there, he
stood.

He looked for the biggest, reddest apple that he could find.

"What in the name of God are you doing?", Kylie asked, horrified, a
hand covering her mouth.
Bert merely continued what he was doing. Only once did he glance up at
her, and the glance didn't faze him. Instead, the sight of her rather
helped in his endeavours.

And then....

"What in His name are you doing?", asked a talking snake.

Talking snake, Bert thought. So what? Wasn't important. Not right
now.

"Where's the core of the apple?", the snake demanded to know. "What
have you done with the core of the apple? That's where all the
knowledge is. Where's the core, you moron?"

"I'll talk to you later", said Bert.

And God looked upon the entertainment which Bert had wrought, and
permitting Himself to be surprised, adopted in reaction His Big
Voice.

"What in the name of Me", he bellowed, "are you doing, Bert?"

A lot of things happened then. Kylie started to shake. The apple tree
started to shake. The ground started to shake. The snake, determined
not to become a scapesnake, meandered towards the nearest cover,
repeating, "Nothing odd about me at all, nothing here needing
sssssmiting", over and over again, in a low, shaking voice.

Bert was shaking too. But fear wasn't a factor in that.

"Yes", cried Bert. "Yes yes yes yes...."

"Oh no", God ejaculated in fury. "Not in this life."

There were no other ejaculations but God's in the Garden that
day.

"Dick and Maisie", suggested the Archangel Gabriel.

"Tom and Thomasina", contributed the Archangel Michael.

"Why not Bert and Kylie?", the Archangel Gabriel proposed, "like the
last two."

"Which last two?", said God.

"Adam and Eve are nice names", Michael interrupted, interpreting
correctly that Bert and Kylie had served their purpose and had passed
from both creation and divine interest.

"Ah", said God. "Very nice. Adam and Eve. Yes, why not? Thank you,
Michael."

"No apple tree", said God.

"I'm with that", said Adam.

"Absolutely no apple tree", said God.

"Unless you tell me specifically that I can eat an apple", Adam
recalled.

"In which case I'll tell you precisely which apple you can eat",
confirmed God, "but otherwise what?"

"Otherwise no apple tree", said Adam.

"I want to be clear on it this time", God advised.

"This time?", Adam queried.

"You don't need to understand Me", God said. "I just want to be clear
this time. The apple tree's a no-no."

"Gotcha", said Adam. "No apple tree."

And God looked upon what he had wrought, and said, to no-one in
particular (for He was alone in the firmament, the Archangels being
respectfully absent as they usually were when He was creating stuff),
"This Adam and this Eve may be just what I was after." Yes, indeed,
this soul thing had done the trick, just as He'd always known that it
would. Fear and conscience, the double whammy; the soul adding
conscience because fear wasn't always enough. He hadn't needed Bert and
Kylie to prove that. Indeed he hadn't used Bert and Kylie to prove
that. Who, now that He thought about it, were Bert and Kylie anyway? He
didn't know any Bert and Kylie.

He was curious enough to want to watch Adam and Eve a little longer,
but He decided not to. It was time to address His attention to doing
away with unhappening, and to the creation of time and consequence.
Naturally, He could have watched and done away with and created all at
the same time if He'd really felt like it, but it was nearing the
seventh day of the time before time, and He was starting to feel that
some rest was in order.

And so He wandered, as was occasionally His wont, into the building
blocks of causation, which were actually, in themselves, Him in another
guise.

He cast one glance back, and in doing so avoided giving notice to a
rather familiar snake.

Some things, after all, were simply as they should be.