Sean's Ark

It was a perfectly ordinary Sunday morning, apart from the world
ending.

After reading that sentence, a number of questions have probably sprung
to your mind, such as how the world ended, why the world ended and why
it ended on a Sunday morning.
In answer to the 'why Sunday morning?' question, this would seem like
an appropriate time for the end of the world. Quite a lot of people
feel like it already. Now the 'how'. Well, the world blew up. It's
quite hard to describe a world blowing up, but if you're one of those
people who likes descriptive imagery, I will describe it thus: it was
as if someone had lit a match in the vicinity of a large cow with a
very bad case of flatulence.
The 'why' is a longer story.

'Psssttt!'
It is annoying when someone says 'psssttt!' at 3.00 in the morning when
you are trying to sleep. Annoyance changes to puzzlement and anxiety
when you remember you live alone.
'I warn you, I am armed!' Sean shouted, scrabbling frantically for some
sort of weapon. He settled for his red slipper, the one with the fluff
on top.
'It's OK, I come in peace,' the stranger said. 'Impressive slipper, by
the way. You could do some serious damage with that fluff.'
'Thanks, it was a Christmas? Hey, how do you know I'm holding a
slipper? It's pitch black.'
'I am God.'
Great, thought Sean. I'm trapped in a flat, armed with a slipper
against some lunatic who claims he's God.
'You think Louise Fletcher has a cute bottom,' the stranger said, in
the same calm, unruffled tone.
'HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? I didn't tell anyone that. Who are you?' he
screamed, somewhat unsettled by now. 'You've got to admit, she does,
though.'
'Yeah,' the stranger agreed, a hint of wistfulness now detectable in
his voice. 'Especially in that red skirt.'
'Oh yes, the red skirt,' Sean said, voice dripping with lust. Then he
pulled himself back from the realms of fantasy. 'Hang on, am I
seriously having a conversation about my colleague's bottom with a
stranger I cannot see at 3.00 in the morning while holding a red fluffy
slipper?'
'Yep,' replied the stranger. 'Although I must say, it's not quite what
I had in mind either.'
'So what did you have in mind? Perhaps you thought you would just barge
into my flat and have a cup of tea and some biscuits.'
'No, not that either, although tea would be great. Milk, no sugar. No,
what I really came for was to tell you I'm going to blow up the world
and I want you to escape to a new on a spaceship.'
Sean's brain reeled. This conversation was to surreality what
Shakespeare is to a dyslexic orang-utan.
'OK, I'm choosing to ignore that. Can we just clarify who you
are?'
'I told you, I'm God.'
'Yeah, yeah and elephants can fly. Who are you?'
'Look, if you don't believe me, ask me any question about you and I
will know the answer. I should do anyway, occasionally the omniscience
doesn't work.'
'OK, what colour pyjamas am I wearing now?'
'You're not wearing any.'
'Hmmph. You could have guessed that. Who wears pyjamas in bed? All
right, what is my password for entering the spaceship construction site
at work?'
'LFBOTTOM.'
'So you've never met me before and you know all my personal details.
That doesn't prove much. You could just be a psychic.' For someone in
his situation, Sean was remarkably calm.
'Fine, fine. Me, it was so much easier in the old days when you just
put a star in the sky and they all believed it was a sign. Do you know
what colour the next pair of socks are in your sock draw?'
'No.'
'Well, if I tell you, and I'm right, then I won't be reading your mind,
because you don't know, so then will you believe me?'
'I'll believe you're a freak.'
'They're green with orange stripes. A tasteless choice, may I
add.'
Slowly, deliberately, Sean moved his hand towards the sock drawer. He
opened it. He pulled out the top pair of socks. He looked at
them.
They were green with orange stripes.
'OK, let's assume you are God. Why are you here?'
'Don't you listen at all? I'm going to blow up the world and I want you
to leave on a spaceship. It's like Noah's Ark all over again, but with
modern technology.'
'But with Noah's Ark, you didn't blow up the world, you just made it
rain a lot.'
'Yeah, that's true,' God assented. 'But I didn't really want to create
a new world and I thought it might work with the same world
afterwards.'
'But this time you don't think it will?' Sean enquired.
'No. It didn't work after Noah, did it? Everyone still screwed
everything up. So I figured it could just be this world. Bad vibes, you
know?'
'So you're going to blow up this world and start again on a new one.
Why don't you just create people again, too? Start everything
afresh?'
'Yeah, I thought about that,' God said thoughtfully, 'but last time it
tired me out so much. I mean, six whole days of creation. And it's
bloody hard to make a man from a woman's rib.'
'Wait a minute, I thought Eve got made from Adam's rib?' Sean asked,
confused.
'No, but the men who wrote it down didn't want to appear inferior to
women, so they changed it. Quite a lot of the Bible is actually lies,
you know. That bit about me telling Abraham to kill his son, for
instance. That's really mean, I wouldn't do that.'
'There's another thing I'm not understanding here,' Sean said
tentatively. When God suddenly appears in your bedroom at 3.00, there
are quite a lot of things you won't understand.
'Fire away,' God said jovially.
'Well, you're not very?like God,' Sean said contradictorily.
'Like I said, the Bible is a load of rubbish in some places. I suppose
the truth wouldn't have made such good reading. I mean, "And the Lord
Said unto Noah, Psssttt!" doesn't have the same ring to it, you know?
And besides, most people never see me, so they don't know what I'm
really like. They just create images of what they would like me to be
like. Let's say a child makes a world out of Lego, and the Lego people
are alive. They can't see the child, so they invent some glorious
creator to believe in. They wouldn't like to think they'd actually been
created by a snotty little kid.'
'So what you're saying is you're a snotty little kid?'
'Metaphorically speaking, yes.'
Sean realised that he was still subconsciously holding the slipper. He
put it down. This? God, or whoever he was, didn't seem to be violently
inclined, and Sean decided even if he did suddenly choose to attack,
his slipper would probably not inflict much damage on his opponent. He
was however, still slightly worried that he could not see God. He
turned the light on.
Standing in front of him, recoiling slightly from the harshness of the
light and wearing a tartan dressing gown, was God.
If you'd seen him in a crowd, you would have dismissed him as an
ordinary man, mousy-haired and possibly gay. Sean almost started to
laugh.
'So this is the almighty one, lord of all creatures great and small?'
Sean said sarcastically.
'All right, I may not look very divine, but I didn't want to scare you.
I thought if I physically manifested myself as a huge macho man you
would be frightened. I thought if made myself appear less intimidating
you wouldn't be so worried.'
'Well, you were right,' Sean laughed. 'God in a tartan dressing gown.
This would be one hell of a story to tell down the pub. Not that I
touch alcohol,' he added quickly. 'I go for the peanuts.'
'I am omniscient, remember,' God said loftily. 'And I know you don't
believe in me, anyway.'
'Why did you come to me then?' Sean asked.
'Well, seeing as you don't believe in me I must be real and not just an
image. People who believe in me are seeing images of me all the time,
so if I really appeared it wouldn't make much difference, they'd still
take no notice of what I said.'
'And what exactly do you have to say? What do I have to do?'
'You work at the European Space Centre. It will be easy for you.
Comparatively. You just have to obtain a spaceship and fly it to the
new world I have created. Oh, and you have to take two of every kind of
animal with you.'
'Every kind?' Sean said disbelievingly.
'Well, not every single species. I have decided the new world would be
better off without cockroaches, for example. And cats.'
'No cats? Cats are adorable. You've got to have cats!'
'No, it was a mistake, creating them. They scratch too much and they're
always bringing dead birds in. I'm more of a dog deity myself.'
'And how exactly do I gather up all these animals?' Sean asked. He was
beginning to wonder if this wasn't all some colossal practical
joke.
'I will provide a little divine assistance,' God answered, and with
that he disappeared.
'You never got that tea, by the way,' a bodiless voice added.

When Sean woke up the following morning he was on the verge of
dismissing the whole incident as a dream. That was until he saw a
yellow sticky on the fridge saying: 'Hey Sean, what's up? If you need
any help, you can normally catch me on my mobile (07112155611). Or you
can e-mail me at god@hotmail.com Good luck! God'
The idea of God having a mobile phone was so ludicrous Sean phoned the
number out of curiosity. It rang for a while, and then there was a
message: 'Hi, you've reached God's phone. Unfortunately I am not
available at the moment, despite being omnipresent. I am probably
having a bath and can't be bothered to get out. I will try and get back
to you if you leave a message after the tone.'
Just as Sean was about to leave a message, although he was speechless,
God's voice sounded.
'Yo!'
'God?'
'Sean! Sorry I didn't answer. I was listening to Eminem and I didn't
hear the phone.'
'Eminem? Never mind, forget I asked. I phoned because I couldn't
believe you have a mobile phone, but actually I do have a few
questions.'
'Fire away.'
'Right. Erm? Firstly, do I have to take another human with me? Because
otherwise the human race will die out. And if I do, who exactly?
Because as you may have noticed I am single.'
'Yeah, do you think it has something to do with the red fluffy
slippers?' God teased. 'Anyway, that's beside the point. Yes, you do
have to take someone with you, and it can be anyone you want, although
obviously it has to be a woman. You're not gay, are you?'
'No!' Sean said indignantly. 'Anyway, I thought you were supposed to
know everything about me.'
'Yes, I know, but the red fluffy slippers made me wonder if I could
possibly be wrong,' God said.
'So between now and ? when is it exactly that you're going to destroy
the world?'
'10.00 a.m. Sunday the 12th November.'
'Right, I must write that in my diary sometime. So, between now and
10.00 a.m. Sunday the 12th November, I've got to obtain access to a
spaceship that I can fly to another world, gather up two of every
animal on Earth?'
'Apart from cockroaches.'
'Apart from cockroaches?'
'And cats.'
'And cats? So as well as all that, you're telling me I've got to get a
date? The rest of it may just about be feasible, but a date?'
'Yeah, thinking about it, I may have to help you on that score too,'
God said, looking dubiously at Sean's thick glasses, huge ears and
unruly hair.
'What, you mean, like, give me some advice?' Sean asked. 'Seeing as how
you're so experienced.'
'No, I'll persuade some poor sod that they're in love with you.'
'I don't like your use of the word persuade there,' Sean said sulkily.
'Or poor sod. Ooh, can it be Louise Fletcher?'
'Yes, I suppose if you're going to fly to a new world with someone
she's as good a choice as any. Anyway, must go, Pete's calling me. Got
some new arrivals, I think. And I've got a game of golf with the devil
this afternoon. Cheeky little devil cheated last time. Well, bye for
now, Sean.'
'Bye, God.'
Sean hung up, wondering if he'd taken magic mushrooms by
accident.

A month went by, with numerous phone calls and e-mails to God. Sean
somehow managed to persuade Louise Fletcher to come with him on a
spaceship to another world and somehow gathered two of every kind of
animal (apart from cockroaches and cats).
This may seem like a cop-out, but the Bible doesn't explain how Noah
got two of every kind of animal on to a big wooden boat and managed to
keep them all alive for 40 days and 40 nights, does it?
So it was that Sean, Louise and two of every kind of animal (apart from
cockroaches and cats) watched from a spaceship as the Earth erupted
into a huge ball of fire, and so it was they landed on a new planet,
very similar to Earth apart from the fact the sky was fluorescent pink
(Well, you would get bored with blue wallpaper after 6 billion years,
wouldn't you?).

A long time passed. The animals reproduced, including Sean and Louise
(it was lucky for the children Louise was attractive), spawning many
more generations and filling the planet with life. Then, one day, at
3.00 a.m. in the morning, a man was asleep in his bed when he was woken
by a voice.
'Psssttt!'