Read The Last Testament: A Memoir Online
Authors: God,David Javerbaum
Tags: #General, #Humor, #Literary Criticism, #Religion, #American, #Topic
7
He did not return; and Noah presumed he had found dry land; and Noah loved Sparky; and I loved Noah; so I left it at that.
8
Then at last the waters receded, and the ordeal was over; and humanity emerged ready to move past its long global nightmare, known at the time as “Floodgate.”
9
The ark landed upon Mt. Ararat, which I chose because it had jutting from its summit a perpendicular ridge of sufficient width to double as a pier.
10
I remember as the ark approached, mirthing cunningly unto Noah and his family, “Behold, I see a pier appear up here!”
11
Long I waited for a response; but they kept silent, lost in grief for their tens of thousands of drowned kinsmen.
12
A righteous family, Noah’s; but a tough crowd.
13
Then I blessed him and his descendants, and bid them be fruitful and multiply; and as a sign of this blessing, I displayed unto them a glorious rainbow;
14
Which is why it is most ironic, that of the millions of people who today take the rainbow as their banner, not
one
of them can multiply without outside assistance.
15
And I made a covenant with Noah never again to destroy every living thing with a Flood, as it is written: “And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.”
16
That is Genesis 9:11; and lo, everything changed after Genesis 9:11.
17
For the survivors of this new, post–9:11 world had learned through bitter experience, that behind daily life’s peaceful façade there lurked always the potential for unimaginable horror, at the hands of a religious extremist with little regard for human life.
CHAPTER 10
1
A
nd so for a second time the earth was repopulated from a single family; and for a second time I will refrain from delving into thy prurient curiosity over whether or not this entailed the practice of “siblings with benefits.”
2
The only event of note over the next 400 years was the Tower of Babel, which caused me to confound all the languages of the earth.
3
That was a zoning dispute.
4
Thou seest, the Tower’s blueprints called for it to be 57 cubits high; yet municipal ordinances of the time allowed for the erection of no commercial structure over 50 cubits high, as per §[C26-801.1] of the Greater Babel Building Code.
5
(The reason was that a building higher than 50 cubits would significantly obstruct my view of earth, thus lowering the resale value of heaven.)
6
But the building’s owners countered that as the Tower would comprise partly single- and double-family dwellings, it should be granted a residential and/or special-use exemption under a little-used (and, to be candid, poorly-worded) secondary codicil of the Code of Hammurabi.
7
This prompted a hearing on the matter, featuring rambling testimony from idle senior citizens, and much bluster from the architect about “aesthetic integrity,” when verily from a purely visual standpoint the design lacked even the charm of a second-tier ziggurat;
8
And when the Babel Development Board ruled in my favor by a vote of 6 to 3 (with one abstention), an immediate motion to cease construction was filed with King Gungunum; which was clearly a tactical ploy on the part of the Chamber of Commerce to bide time until the reinstatement of the planning committee . . .
9
Anyway, long story short, I wound up confounding all the languages of the earth.
10
And from that day forward the peoples of the world no longer all spoke good old-fashioned English, but instead blathered incoherently in thousands of tongues; each more un-American than the next.
11
But other than Babel, I spent most of those four centuries doing something I should have done much sooner: assembling my staff.
12
I mean this in two senses: first, in the sense of finding a large piece of cedar wood, whittling it, varnishing it, and affixing unto it an ornate golden handle.
13
It came out nice.
14
It was shiny.
15
But secondly, I mean it in the sense of gathering unto me a team of agents, representatives, subordinates, messengers, interns, and temps to help me run all facets of my ever-expanding enterprise.
16
Perhaps thou art asking thyself why a supreme and self-sufficient God would need a celestial support system of any kind.
17
That is a fair question; one I myself mused upon often in the antediluvian period, always arriving at the conclusion that no such system was needed; for I am the L
ORD
thy God, King of the Universe; I never give myself anything I cannot handle.
18
Yet in looking back on the Flood, I realized there were several occasions when the deployment of an associate on my behalf would have been useful.
19
For example, informing Noah that all his friends and extended family were going to be destroyed forever due to my wrath . . . there was no reason
I
had to be the one to tell him that.
20
The piteous cries of the wicked and their children as they fought in vain against the relentless surging of the waters . . . there was no reason
I
had to take that call.
21
The unremitting continuance of the torrential rains for 40 days and 40 nights . . . there was no reason that repetitive task could not have been delegated to an aide; a younger aide, perhaps, eager to work his way up in the
machina.
22
Moreover, my failure in the days before the Flood to appreciate the full scope of the growing wickedness had been partly a result of my over-reliance on my own omniscience; a fact that, in retrospect, I should have known.
23
But now I saw that, in the post–9:11 world, the vital job of gathering intelligence would be best served by an aggressive team of “wings on the ground,” charged with monitoring the goings-on in the region of my principal concern, the Middle East;
24
Thus making that area safe and stable in perpetuity.
CHAPTER 11
1
S
o I began assembling an elite group of subordinates—Genesistants, if thee will—to do my bidding, deliver my pronouncements, oversee the earth’s natural processes, and manage the inevitable papyruswork produced thereby.
2
I quickly decided it would not do to use transplanted humans; for few were worthy, and those few were needed on earth; where good men were, and remain, hard to find.
3
(Verily, ladies, am I right?)
4
No; the only thing for it was to create an entirely new class of creature; and this time not of the dust of the earth, or aught else terrestrial, but of immaterial chunks of pure spirit I would rend from the mystical heart of my own essence, and then futz around with for a while.
5
It went very smoothly; within a few days I had over 3,000 employees; I gave them halos to help them see better, and wings to make air travel less burdensome;
6
I called them “angels”; and collectively I called them The A-Team; or at least I did until 1983, when I dropped it for reasons thou mayest well imagine.
7
I wish not to speak in great depth of my angels; partly because much of their work is classified, and partly because I value their privacy.
8
Also, I assume thou already hast a basic understanding of the ninefold angelic hierarchy, and the Three Spheres, and the Three Orders within each Sphere, from having read Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s 5th century treatise
De Coelesti Hierarchia
in fifth grade;
9
Or, in more poorly-funded school districts, sixth grade.
10
Yet I would be remiss if I did not here acknowledge five angels, without whose dedication, hard work, and loyalty everything would still have happened, but not with the same
bonhomie.
11
The first of these is Uriel; he is the wisest of my angels; the patron of poets, the guardian of thunder, a repentance whiz, and a great wordsmith; his collaboration with the prophet Ezra on
The Second Book of Esdras
is the reason that work was such an improvement over
The First Book of Esdras,
which was a piece of shit.
12
It was also Uriel who devised the idea for Kabbalah; so Madonna, next time thou addest up the numerical values of letters in the Torah, and useth the sums thereof to schedule thy body waxing, forgetteth not to thank Uriel.
13
Offer him a prayer, Madonna; yea, or something like it.
14
The second angel is Raphael; a healer of mind, body, and spirit; he is considered the patron of travelers, and sojourners to this day call upon him to protect them during their journeys, although that is not an excuse to lie out without sunscreen.
15
Raphael is also endowed with a dry wit that has proven of great comfort in those moments when my disposition waxes saturnine.
16
As an instance, I remember the council to determine whether to send the Black Death to the world; it was a long and sober discussion, until I turned to him, in his capacity as chief medical consultant, and asked how long the disease would take to kill its victims.
17
He looked at me with a face void of levity, and said, “My L
ORD
, they will go from coughin’ to coffin in three days.”
18
And there was great tittering, for a weight of gloom had been lifted from the deliberations; and our spirits were much lightened, as we set about killing one in every three Europeans.
19
The third angel is Michael, chief of the archangels, the angel of mercy and sanctification, and the commander of the Army of God; he is present on every battlefield, granting victory to the side of the righteous; “victory” in this case betokening a wide range of outcomes, from triumph to triumph-by-martyrdom.
20
Michael is often portrayed in art as androgynous, but he has asked me to tell thee that he is in fact “all man”; and that if thou couldst see clear to painting his jawbone a little squarer, he would greatly appreciate it; because some of the other angels tease him about it sometimes, and even in heaven, words
do
hurt.