The Story of God Page 11

  The eyeball-monsters did not all have equally great singing voices. The human-shaped one had a good voice, and the lion wasn’t too bad, but the cow was often off-key, and the eagle was horribly screechy. The song did not sound quite as perfect as it should have—but it still sounded very good. And God adored the lyrics. And the way the eyeball-monsters looked at him with their hundreds of eyes … honestly, it never ever got old.

  Overall, heaven was fantastic. Beautiful and elegant and classy. God looked forward to spending eternity there. But when Tanfoot Jesus looked around, he seemed unimpressed, disappointed even, as if he was thinking “You’re the creator of the universe, Father, why do you have the taste of an effeminate dictator?” Tanfoot Jesus never actually said anything like this, it was more the look in his eyes, but God felt it, and it pissed him off. He began to think that he might need to create a new version of Jesus—maybe several new versions—maybe including an animal Jesus. He began to imagine a version of Jesus who would have a sword that popped out of his mouth and killed people! “That’s the Jesus I should have created in the first place,” God muttered to himself. Tanfoot Jesus was too old, too soft; also, his super-high-pitched voice invariably put God in a bad mood.

  It was time to get started with the destruction of the earth. God rubbed his hands together. This was going to be fun. “Break out the seven seals,” he whispered to Tanfoot Jesus. The first “alternate Jesus” to arrive was a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. (Rev. 5:6) God was on a “seven” kick at this time. It had always been his favorite number, but he was kind of obsessed with it now. He liked three and a half too (Rev. 11:9); he was even looking for a spot to use one and three quarters. To be completely honest, the seven eyes didn’t quite work; they were meant to look intimidating, like “he sees all”—but honestly, they looked weird. They all rolled in different directions and that made the lamb look brain-damaged. Lamb Jesus broke open the first seal and now yet another Jesus, riding a horse, arrived. (Rev. 6:2) “Welcome, Swordmouth Jesus,” God murmured to himself. Swordmouth looked like a regular Jesus, but when one of the elders approached him with a garland of flowers—ziiing—his mouth opened and a sword shot out and, in a flash, there stood the elder’s body with a blood-spouting neck and a gaping-mouthed head on the ground next to him. As the body slowly toppled over, God clapped his hands together in delight. “Haha!” he laughed. “I love it!”

  The second seal was broken open and Satan emerged. (Rev. 6:4) Or, not Satan, exactly, but a very bad character who would be in league with Satan; he would be called the “anti-Christ.” (“Kind of yet another Jesus when you think about it,” God mused.)

  God’s original plan for Judgment Day had been simple: Go to earth, wipe out all the bad people (i.e., almost everyone) and reward the good people (i.e., almost no one). But as the moment of truth neared, God had begun to find that ending to the story a little bit … well, ordinary. This was the ending to everything after all and God wanted it to be bigger, more dramatic and exciting. That’s why he decided to put an Anti-Jesus into the story to work against his team of Jesuses. (Wait … he did decide that, right? Satan didn’t sneak into heaven and take over a few of the seals, did he? No—absurd.)

  More seals were broken, three, four, and five. The third one seemed to release—who the hell was that guy? He talked like some sort of salesman. (Rev. 6:5–6) “Where did he come from?” God demanded, but no one really knew. Another seal split open and—what the eff? Why was Death here in heaven, riding a horse around, clacking his jaws and pointing a bony finger at people? (Rev. 6:8)

  As the sixth seal broke open, God sent a bunch of stars crashing into earth. (Rev 6:13) (He was surprised in a way that they didn’t destroy the earth. They were apparently very small stars, he concluded.) God then rolled the sky up like a scroll, which looked incredible. (Rev. 6:14) He smiled thinly and announced loudly to his angels, elders, and eyeball-monsters: “Now things are going to get really interesting!” Some angels blew their trumpets (which sounded irritatingly like Tanfoot Jesus’ voice), the seventh seal was broken open and, in short order: God sent bloody rain (“Good thing I’ve been collecting blood for so long,” he murmured approvingly to himself), burned up half the earth, sent giant flaming mountains crashing into the ocean, turned a third of the oceans to blood, and extinguished a third of the sun, moon, and stars. (Rev. 8:7–12) (“Wait … can I ‘extinguish’ the moon? It’s a rock.”)

  By the time God was done doing all this, to assorted “ooohhs” and “aaahhhs” from his angels, earth was a charred, bloody mess. People were screaming in terror; it was wonderful. (His 144,000 followers on earth were also getting punished, but hey, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs now, can you? Something occurred to God: “After all this time, all the tens of billions of people who’ve walked the planet, after all my efforts, I only have 144,000 followers? Isn’t that kind of an embarrassingly low number?” A moment later, he bellowed, “No, it is excellent!” to no one.) God hadn’t let humans have it like this since … well, ever, really, but at least since the Flood. After that, he’d made that unfortunate promise to Noah not to kill everyone, and he had stuck to it … but damn, he had missed this. Humans had frustrated him for thousands of years, and now, finally, he was getting payback. “And in a delightfully eclectic variety of ways, if I do say so myself!” he crowed to his angels, who applauded him vigorously.

  “And guess what?” God proclaimed over their applause: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” God sent another star crashing into earth. This was not a regular star, however; this star was filled with insects that would sting his enemies for five straight months. (God later realized he should have made it either three and a half or seven months.) That was splendid, but the best thing about these insects was that they had little human faces and long hair and wore little gold crowns! (Rev. 9:7–8) “Any god could torment mankind with stinging insects!” God boasted to his angels. “Only I can send insects that have little faces and wear crowns!”

  Heaven was still buzzing about the crowned, tiny-faced insects when God, riding a wave of creativity, topped himself by sending two million angels down to earth on horseback to attack the humans. “Why do angels need flying horses?” he briefly wondered. The answer came quickly: These were not mere flying horses. No, these horses had lion-heads and breathed fire! Also, their tails were snakes that bit people! (Rev. 9:17–19) There were gasps of amazement and wonder from the elders and angels as God created them. “BRAVO, LORD!” an elder cried out. So what if some of the lion-heads attacked some of the horse-bodies and mauled them midair, causing them to plummet to earth? It looked fantastic!

  God sat back, basking in the adulation. This had been an incredible run for him—imaginative and inspired. He felt proud and pleased, and looked forward to seeing his human enemies, the nonbelievers, shriek in horror at his wrath, then renounce their beliefs and beg for his forgiveness. He would not give it to them, of course. It was far too late for that; they were going to suffer on earth before they suffered eternally in hell. But he did look forward to seeing them grovel. God loved to see people grovel, he made no apologies for that.

  But those fucking humans were enraging to the bitter end. Even at this moment, when it could not possibly have been more obvious that God was punishing them for their disbelief—even now!—unbelievable—what was wrong with these fools?—they still didn’t believe in him! (Rev. 9:20–21) No one pleaded for mercy or forgiveness. They just more or less ignored him. “Who do they think is doing all this?!” he thundered at his cowering elders. God found himself briefly discouraged by this turn of events. He sat and stared down at the devastated, smoking, blood-sticky earth and shook his head. “What do you people want from me?” he whispered to himself.

  Looking to one side, God saw Tanfoot Jesus gazing at him with a strange expression on his face. What was it? Dismay? Revulsion? Pity? God stared back at Tanfoot until his son looked away. Suddenly there was a ruckus among the angels and elders looking down
at earth.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The Antichrist had emerged from hell and was now killing God’s people. (Rev. 11:7) Enraged, God caused a huge earthquake. (Rev. 11:12) And at that moment, something utterly unexpected happened: For an instant, everyone on earth loved and respected God! (Rev. 11:13) He almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing: “What did I just do?” he wondered. “I’ve caused hundreds of earthquakes, why did that one work?” He didn’t know, but it was a glorious, albeit fleeting, moment. The elders threw themselves at his feet and proclaimed his greatness, which they did all the time, sure, but at that moment, it felt very good.

  One of the elders looked up at God from the ground and encouraged him to destroy earth. (Rev. 11:18) God looked down at him, deeply irritated, thinking, “Have you been paying any attention, old man? I made stars crash into earth and turned the oceans to blood and sent stinging insects with human faces and crowns and you say to me, ‘Destroy it!’” God was so annoyed by the remark that he stomped this elder to death.

  Then … what was happening? Suddenly a pregnant woman—it was Mary, obviously—stood before God in heaven. (Rev. 12:2) A seven-headed dragon was there too; the dragon flung billions more stars into earth (Rev. 12:3–4) (which was proving to be surprisingly resilient!). The pregnant woman gave birth, then ran away. (Rev. 12:6) God grabbed the child and sat him on his lap; he was fairly sure this was yet another Jesus. But this was all head-spinningly strange, to be honest. What was the chronology here? Hadn’t Jesus already lived and died? Why was there a baby him? And what was this seven-headed dragon doing in heaven? If it was Satan—God instantly knew that it was, who else could it be?—this was deeply unsettling. Satan was taking the shape of a giant dragon and entering his home?!

  “Was this my plan?” God asked himself. And for the very first time, he knew that it wasn’t. He worked in mysterious ways, yes, but being assaulted in heaven? No. Satan was not his servant anymore, that was evident. He’d apparently been biding his time, getting ready for the end of the world, and now he was attacking.

  “Where is my security?” God bellowed, before remembering that he’d sent two million angels to earth to murder humans. (Rev. 8:15–16) There was no one left in heaven but the old men, the eyeball-monsters, Tanfoot Jesus, and Baby Jesus. God quickly recalled some angels to heaven and they sent the seven-headed dragon tumbling down to earth (Rev. 12:9), where he tried to kill the woman who’d given birth. God, looking down, Baby Jesus on his lap, was incensed. “How dare he try to kill the mother of my son!” he boomed. He handed Baby Jesus to Tanfoot Jesus, saying, “Here, he’s you as a baby, take care of him.”

  God was pleased, though somewhat surprised, when the woman sprouted wings and flew away. (Rev. 12:14) Then his jaw dropped as he saw a beast emerge from the ocean. God had to admit that this beast was a pretty inspired creation. It was a lion-leopard-bear with seven heads. (Rev. 13:2) God even briefly considered whether Satan’s monster was more impressive than his own flying horses, crowned insects, or singing, eyeball-covered monsters. He decided it was not—but it was damned good. (“It’s like we’re in a Godzilla movie,” God noted approvingly to himself.) Satan’s beast attacked God’s followers and defeated them, which was infuriating, but what was even more upsetting was the response of all those vile nonbelievers. God had hammered them, remember, and they hadn’t even believed in him. But now Satan shows up and gets to work and guess what? Instantly everybody likes him. (Rev. 13:4)

  Tanfoot Jesus tried to suggest that perhaps the nonbelievers liked Satan more because God had essentially made war on them, but God would have none of that. He was starting to loathe Tanfoot Jesus by this time. (As for Baby Jesus, he was cute, but he cried a lot and didn’t sleep very well.) God was not happy with how things were going: Satan was “off the reservation,” attacking him in heaven, then taking over earth and killing all God’s followers and then, most infuriatingly of all, getting the love and respect that God had always wanted from mankind in the process! God knew how all this must have looked to his angels, so he loudly proclaimed, “Everything is going exactly according to my plan!” But he knew it wasn’t true.

  Most of mankind despised God and loved the beast. It was horrible. It was the worst possible thing God could have imagined, honestly: To be hated by most of his creations, while his enemy was loved. Satan was obviously feeling confident, because he now created yet another beast, and this one compelled humans to not simply love, but to worship the first beast. (Rev. 13:11–12) “He deluded them!” God shrieked when they did so—but he knew it wasn’t true.

  This was bad, this was awful. God knew he had to hit back, and quickly. He thought things over for a long moment, then literally gasped as a brilliant idea hit him. “I will stop Satan and his beasts by sending Lamb Jesus against them, along with an army of male virgins who all have my name tattooed on their foreheads! That will show them!” (Rev. 14:4) God clapped his hands together, extremely pleased with this idea. Satan, his two beasts, and pretty much the entire population of earth didn’t stand a chance against God’s lamb-led army of male virgins!

  Or wait … Was this a good idea? Maybe he should soften earth up a little bit first?

  Yes, that’s what he would do. God sent his angels to fly around the earth with sickles and chop people to pieces. (Rev. 14:14–20) It was extremely bloody and horrible—exactly as God wished. “I hate mankind,” he murmured to himself as he watched people get beheaded, or lopped to pieces. “I always have hated them.” He felt happy watching this dark and beautiful vengeance on these creatures who had hurt him so many times over the past several thousand years. “Proud of yourselves now?” he jeered as the blood flowed. “Disbelieve in me now?!” he howled as the heads rolled. God found himself laughing loudly, nearly uncontrollably, tears rolling down his face, his whole body shaking, struggling to breathe, gasping, wheezing with laughter—and for a second the thought “I’m like a crazy villain” flitted across his mind.

  The only thing that would make this global massacre even more enjoyable was a song. God instructed some of his angels to sing to him as the carnage rolled over earth. “You great and wonderful God, fair and true,” they sang, while strumming harps. (Rev. 15:3–4) This was … sublime. Watching mankind get butchered while this song of praise was sung to him was one of the happiest moments in God’s eternal existence.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  It was irritating that even at this point, people still didn’t believe in God, but you know what, whatever. God was past that. Most of mankind was hopeless. It was good that so many didn’t believe in him, actually. More people to chop up and send plagues at! God turned the oceans to pure blood and made the sun explode. The earth was ravaged, brutalized, devastated—exactly as it had always deserved to be. (Rev. 16:1–12) God loved looking down at the misery and anguish of his long-time enemies, the nonbelievers.

  Only one thing bothered him.

  Where were Satan and his beasts? Why were they simply allowing God to attack them, and not raising a finger in self-defense? Was this another one of Satan’s diabolical tricks? “I’m going to take them out,” God suddenly decided. He’d had more than enough of Satan; it was time to remove him and his allies. God sent an angel flying over the beast’s throne. The angel poured some holy wrath down and … strange, very strange … the beast surrendered. (Rev. 16:17)

  “Why did he surrender?” God asked himself. Also: Where is the other beast? And, most importantly, where is Satan? Was this an ambush of some sort? God found himself chewing on a fingernail, nervous.

  He finished earth off with yet another giant earthquake and huge falling rocks, killing a lot more people (Rev. 16:18–21)—but that was beside the point now. Satan was up to something, and God knew what. “He’s wanted to run this thing from the beginning!” he thought to himself. “But there is no way I am going to allow that to happen. Think of all the awful things Satan’s done, like … well, like talking to that woman in the garden! … Or beating me in that bet about
Job! … Or creating the two beasts!” God was not going to put mankind in this guy’s clutches. “Absolutely not!” he murmured to himself as he watched his angels finish butchering some children.

  But how to handle Satan?—that was the question. He couldn’t just be “killed” for two reasons: (1) He seemed to be immortal and eternal, like God, and (2) God did need him to run hell. He wasn’t happy about this, but it was how it was. Hell had been Satan’s idea, and he was the only one who could run it. God thought the situation over for a long moment, then nodded decisively. He knew exactly what to do.

  The next day, God and Satan met in secret, in what had been a lush forest on earth, but was now a scorched, bloody wasteland. It was near dark.

  Satan gazed coolly at God, hesitated for a moment, then said, “So you’re suggesting that we share power then?”

  God shook his head firmly. “No, Satan, that is not what I said,” he instantly retorted. “What I am proposing is not a ‘power sharing agreement’ in any sense. What I said was that if you help me with punishing Babylon—”

  “Wait, you’re still hung up on Babylon?” (Rev. 16:19)

  “I vowed to destroy it and I intend to.”

  “And sending 30 billion suns into the earth wasn’t enough punishment?”

  “No, it was not, Babylon is a whore.” (Rev. 17:1) “Now will you please let me finish?”

  “Go on.”

  “If you help me with Babylon, then I will … ahem … assist you.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning … In the final battle between us, which we both know is inevitable, you—sometimes—will be allowed to win.”