The Last Testament: A Memoir (49 page)

⁴
I had spent the last four days in one of my other universes; I had tried for six hours to get a routine phressel to glax counter-clockwise, but it would not even yoip;

⁵
At which point I went on a transgalactic binge of other-destruction that made that entire cosmos look like Keith Moon’s hotel room; that is, had Keith Moon yet been alive, and if a cluster of galaxies can be equated to a bedside table.

⁶
I walked in; a few angels nodded; others turned away and whispered.

⁷
(Imbeciles; thou wouldst think one of these eons they would remember I can
hear
everything, too.)

⁸
I saw the boys and the angels conversing; everyone had their just-act-like-unto-everything-is-normal smiles on.

⁹
We began talking, and they filled me in on the latest: Uriel mentioned they had just lain the cornerstone for a new university in the Holy Land, devoted to technology; right away that put me in a bad mood.

¹⁰
Then Jesus mentioned that the
Titanic
’s maiden voyage was more than halfway done; and that she was making record time for the transatlantic crossing; and that its owners were not concerned about her safety, because they claimed she was unsinkable.

¹¹
I glared.

¹²
“Unsinkable,” I began.

¹³
“Un . . . sink . . . a . . . ble.

¹⁴
Verily, boys, that seemeth a bit . . . arrogant, doth it not?

¹⁵
To imply that there exists in this universe—or any universe—no power great enough to send such a trifling edifice of gross material plummeting to the depths, along with the entirety of her precious cargo of human lives?

¹⁶
Verily, doth that not seem . . . sassy?”

¹⁷
By now, all other conversation had ceased; and heaven—yea, the entire eleventh dimension—had grown deathly quiet.

¹⁸
“I am striving to remember—assist me, boys, for my omniscience is not what it used to be—the profligates and sinners who mocked Noah before the Flood; were they, too, unsinkable?

¹⁹
Lo, wait; never mind; now I remember; they sank.

²⁰
Or perhaps I am thinking of the Egyptians who chased Moses through the Red Sea?

²¹
No; never mind; sorry; my bad again; they sank.

²²
Sank like lead.

²³
Yea.

²⁴
I notice too, that unsinkable rhymes with ‘unthinkable.’

²⁵
Unthinkable; as in, ‘unthinkable tragedy on the Atlantic.’

²⁶
Is that not interesting?”

²⁷
Jesus and H. G. looked at each other nervously.

CHAPTER 16

¹
F
ather,” H. G. said, “perhaps we should withdraw to another mode of reality to continue this—”

²
“No, I’m fine right here, H. G.

³
Yea; I’m fine, Holy Ghost, thou trained Paraclete, thou.

⁴
And Jesus, my pride and joy; savior of the world; Jesus, Jesus, I mean
Jesus Christ
, Jesus, everybody loveth
thee
, Jesus.

⁵
Lo, didst thou know there is a new word in the earthly parlance; ‘bejesus’?

⁶
As in, ‘Once in a while it is mirthful to scare the bejesus out of people.’

⁷
I have done that a few times in my day, have I not?

⁸
Yea, I have done that a few times with those who have flaunted their wickedness at me.

⁹
‘Unsinkable.’

¹⁰
I have some naval experience, you will recall; for I slew Leviathan.

¹¹
Me.

¹²
I
did that.

¹³
‘Hast thou slain Leviathan? Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?’”

¹⁴
“Father, we have been through this,” interrupted Jesus; “there was no Leviathan; that was a story you made up to Job as thou went along. Now let us all calm ourselves and—”

¹⁵
“
He was this big
!” I shouted, stretching my metaphysical hands across half the North Atlantic;

¹⁶
“He was
this
big, and firebrands streamed forth from his mouth, and his back had rows of shields tightly sealed together, and smoke poured from his nostrils as from a . . .a . . . I forget ‘as from’ what . . .”

¹⁷
“A boiling pot over a fire of reeds?” said one of the interns.

¹⁸
“Yea! That is right, Seth! ‘A boiling pot over a fire of reeds’!

¹⁹
Leviathan was that big, and that terrifying, and when I slew him I—

²⁰
Lo, verily verily verily, what is this?

²¹
What is this frigid hunk of water that I feel off the coast of Newfoundland?”

²²
“Put the iceberg down, Father,” said Jesus.

²³
“Put the berg down, and let us converse of these things like civilized Godheads.

²⁴
Put... the berg... down.”

²⁵
We stared at each other for a moment; then I dropped the berg and made as if to go to my desk and read the Weekly Prayer Report.

²⁶
Then I quickly turned, rushed back, grabbed the berg, and shouted so that Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Michael—the four angels who had been there to witness that disastrous mirth so long ago on the Red Sea—could hear me:

²⁷
“It’s time to turn the North Atlantic... into the
Dead
Sea!

²⁸
I am the L
ORD
thy God, King of the Universe!

²⁹
I’m the King of the World!”

CHAPTER 17

¹
T
he worst part was “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

²
Yea: watching the ship’s band nobly stay at their posts as the doomed vessel sank, then close the final set of their lives with a hymn in my honor...

³
Verily, I was surprised my heart could go on.

⁴
My impetuous sinking of the
Titanic
served as final confirmation of a realization I had first made watching Abraham prepare to sacrifice Isaac; and again at the Red Sea; and again with Job; and again and again and again a million billion times since:

⁵
There
was
something seriously, seriously wrong with me.

⁶
By this time Ruth and Kathy had joined Jesus and H. G. in the office; I could see the four of them out of the corner of my all-seeing eye planning some kind of intervention, but I spared them the awkwardness.

⁷
Before the end of that day I had called it quits with all the other universes; I visited each one and induced therein a cosmic explosion annihilating all their constituent parts into nothingness; none of them took it well.

⁸
Then, with Ruth’s blessing—and verily, where (metaphorically) would I be without her?— I said good-bye to the family and went off into self-imposed exile inside a cosmic void that the kids found for me.

⁹
And so I took the last century off.

¹⁰
I wanted to exist once more as I had before the Creation; to reconnect with that young, innocent being who had hovered alone contemplating his own perfection; back when the future was limitless, and nothing seemed impossible.

¹¹
But I was no longer the same God I was during those carefree, heady pre-days of yore.

¹²
I had said too much and done too much; thought too much and felt too much; seen too much and heard too much; blessed too much and cursed too much;

¹³
Fuck, I’d cursed a
lot
.

¹⁴
I needed help; and when thou art God, there is only one entity capable of giving the kind of help thou needest.

¹⁵
And so, finally, after spending a few decades summoning up the necessary humility, I opened my heart and addressed him.

CHAPTER 18

¹
A
re you there, God?

²
It’s me; me.

³
Hope you don’t mind if I skip the ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ stuff; it feels a little too formal.

⁴
Forgive the interruption; I know I have bigger things to worry about than my own trifling concerns.

⁵
And let’s face it: I and I
both
know I have never been much of a praying God.

⁶
Yet these days I find myself struggling with thoughts and feelings so overwhelming, I have no choice but to turn my eyes me-ward.

⁷
For 6,000 years I have tried to be the kind of God people could believe in; but recently I have come to question the very nature of my divinity.

⁸
Well, no; not recently; I guess on some level I’ve been questioning it since the beginning of time, but I didn’t want to face it.